I appreciate your reponse and value your imput. But I have in fact been talking with the CORPORATE offices at Barnes and Nobles and Walden books and they in fact have told me they stock PA books now. PA recently changed their direction and now allow their books to be returned, you can contact these companies yourself to hear it from the company spokesperson to say exactly what I'm talking about here.
PA offers a 5-10% discount to retail stores. They also charge a 10% restocking fee for returned books. Retail bookstores cannot make money by stocking PA books. This person is confusing the fact that his book will be available online through B&N with the book actually being on shelves in the brick and mortar stores.
Some members of PA have, on rare occasions, convinced their local stores to carry a few copies. Some of the stories I have read on PAMB were because the person knew the manager or the manager wanted to do it for them because they were a local author. National shelving in B&N? No way. The bookstore can’t make money on PA books, and that’s the bottom line.
Even if PA began offering 40-50% discounts, there are no legitimate reviews, and no catalogue or sales force at PA to go out and sell the books to the bookstores. Then there’s the matter of the quality and pricing of the books.
A good friend of mine last year wrote a horror novel, sent it to PA, they contacted him three months later telling him that they rejected it as it didn't fit their needs. He was shocked! I was shocked as I heard that PA does not care about content or spelling or whatever, but they still turned him down. So, the argument that they take anyone does not hold water with me. So how do YOU explain that?
PA had probably reached their quota for the month that this person sent in their MS. When PA next experiences a slow month, I bet that person receives a letter from PA advising them that PA changed its mind and wants to give their book the exposure it deserves.
I know my book is already being picked up by barnes and nobles, but let's be clear why, it has a hook
it's about sex, and porn. So obviously PA saw a marketing chance with me to use my name and history in the porn business. But regardless, I am confident of the books future earnings.
1) I hope this person writes better in their book than they do in their note to you.
2) B&N can’t make money by stocking this book. Getting a 5%-10% discount just isn’t going to cut it.
3) Am I missing something? If this were a famous porn star who wrote this book, perhaps a legitimate publisher might consider it if it were well written or could be rewritten to make it publishable. Did this person try to get it published through commercial publishers? If they said yes and they were rejected, then chances are this person is like the majority of PA members. He thinks his story is so great and so unusual that all it needs is publishing for the world to run out and buy the book.
No catalogue, no sales force, ridiculously low discounts, overly priced books, poorly edited, poorly printed books = no shelving.
You can talk until you are blue in the face with this person. He is one of those people who will have to come to his own conclusions about PA after the honeymoon period is over. Obviously, he knows little to nothing about the real world of publishing and I doubt a porn career makes for the basis of good writing. Although, it is more show than tell... sorry, I couldn't resist.
All that we can do is to keep getting the word out about PA. We aren’t missionaries out to change minds. If people still think PA is a good thing after they have read the warnings and talked to people like you, then frankly they are a perfect fit for PA. I don’t mean to be harsh, but seriously, some people just need to take the wrong road in order to learn from a bad experience. That’s life.
