My experience with Publish America.

CatSlave

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THANK YOU

Thank you for sharing your story. People need to know what a scam PublishAmerica really is, and the contempt they have for their authors and the real publishing industry.

PA censors the authors and controls its message board to remove anything that is detrimental to the illusion that they are a 'traditional publisher' as they like to call themselves.

Although your posts on the PAMB were deleted, your ongoing conflict with PA should be made public.

Perhaps your story will save another author from making the same mistake.
Perhaps your story will encourage other unhappy PA authors to speak up and share their experience.
 
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VickyH

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The standard royalty package with PA in December 05 was 8% on the first 2000; 10% on the next 8000 and 12.5% on anything in excess of 10,000. They weren't offering much an enticement to get you to stay!
 

Arkie

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They've changed a bit since 2003. My contract of Sep 4, 2003, offers 8 percent on the first 2000 copies sold; 10 percent on the next 8000 sold, and 12.5 percent on all copies sold in excess of 10,000.

Of course they never expect to pay royalties on more than a few dozen sales.

With PA, as with vanity publishing, everything is local when it comes to getting into brick and mortar stores. It is true that you may find PA books in chains across the country, but they will have been placed by local authors, or friends, in most cases.

I have had a PA book, placed in the wrong category, on a local B&N shelf since May, 2006, and it was still there this morning, even though my rights were returned 9-11-06. I have at least one book still on the regional author's shelf in my local Hastings, which at one time carried three regional PA authors, all living within 100 miles of the store.

So when PA states there are hundreds of PA books in bookstores across the country, they are technically correct. What they don't state to would-be authors is that they had no hand in the placing--all was done by the individual authors. And it doesn't matter how many books a PA author has in a given store, without in-store or some type ancillary advertising the book will not move off the shelf.

I have no idea how my book got into the local Barnes and Noble Store and no one at the store can tell me, and that it has been on the shelf for 15 months is another mystery. What I did find: the book was purchased through Ingrams and Ingrams gave B&N a 40% discount with no provisions for return.
 
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jamiehall

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In all honesty, I have achieved sales of about forty books since 2004. No author will ever get rich through PA sales. Not in my estimation; No matter how good the book is, because they are too highly priced to entice people to buy them, and the no marketing through book catalogues means that you might as well hide the book in a dark wardrobe for seven years. Just my opinion.

Plus, the few times when it seemed like non-author sales might take off for a book, PA has either canceled the contract or ignored the orders. PA's business model depends so heavily on selling to the author that it actually discourages retail sales.
 

jamiehall

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And then I got this from PA.

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Date:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Wednesday, July 18, 2007 8:53 AM [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]From:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]PublishAmerica Author Support <[email protected]> [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]To:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif][email protected] [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Subject:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Michael Burgenmeyer: Misconceptions remain refuted [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Size:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]3 KB [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dear Mr Burgenmeyer: [/FONT]

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]After we refuted the false information that you had been given, we [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]did not hear back from you. We assumed that you had seen that the [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]information that you sent us is false, as you apparently had nothing [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]to the contrary to say. We assumed that you had reconsidered, and we [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]were happy to see your positive comments on our message board. [/FONT]

They are total liars! They didn't refute anything, and they're wrongly claiming that you've been quiet on the subject since. They're just hoping to keep you entangled in word-play long enough to try to browbeat you into shutting up and letting the contract go through. Refuting their claims with evidence makes no difference in the replies they send to you. Keep asking for the contract to be canceled, and bravo for continuing to post facts on the PAMB.
 

Maddog

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Is it just me, or is this line just plain evil? Ooh I hate them!!!!

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]> We even posted your positive comments on PublishAmerica, on our web [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]> site Testimonials page. Thank you for your kind words. [/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
 

Saundra Julian

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Can't you tell they love this bickering. Stop trying to justify your reasons for wanting out and just send the same email requesting a release and say nothing more, unless you're enjoying this nonsense.
 

icerose

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Dang. I've been released for over 2 years now and they're still copying and pasting the exact same stuff. You think they would get tired of their own words by now.

Burgy, I've been there and done that. They are nothing but liars and they will sabotage any and all efforts you make to sell to the public. I have a long sad story with them and it's still not over. They are still illegally selling one of my books 2 years after contract termination.

It sounds like you haven't even given them a copy of your book. Just never give them one. Send them one final e-mail saying you won't accept any more e-mails from them, you want to be released from your contract and you will not provide your book.

Then file them away. Rename your book, change a few things about it since they have never gotten a copy of it, and send it to a real publisher when you are good and ready.
 

Marie Pacha

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Books CAN be removed from Bowkers listings:
http://www.bowkerlink.com/correction.../LearnMore.asp

"Q. How do I delete a title?
A. You cannot delete a title using BowkerLink. We also do not generally delete information from our file. If the title is out-of-print, you may indicate that by updating the Status field in the record. If you wish to delete a title for some other reason, please e-mail us at [email protected] or [email protected] and advise us why you would like to delete a certain title."

The publisher is supposed to do it.
 

brianm

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Shortly after your title was sent to the printer, our Public
Relations Department created and issued a press release announcing
the publication of the book. These press releases are sent to the
author's local media, as well as media outlets that specialize in the
book's topic and have niche audiences. If you would like for us to
send more press releases concerning your book, please send us some
other outlets that may be interested.

Upon the official release date, PublishAmerica announced the
publication of your book to the industry
. Your book is listed with
Bowker's Books-In-Print and with wholesalers such as Ingram, Baker &
Taylor, and Brodart. All the book's information is also provided to
retailers across North America, including Internet retailers
Amazon.com, Borders.com, and BarnesandNoble.com. Bookstores may
order PublishAmerica books through the wholesalers or directly from
us at a generous retailer discount. Additionally, PublishAmerica made
your book's listing information available to Indigo/Chapters. Of
course, no publisher has any say as to which books a store or
distributor will elect to carry or list. We have done all we can to
see that Indigo/Chapters could consider carrying or listing your book.

Again, if we had done nothing, that would be fine. We could have
quite easily done nothing in the way of promoting and marketing your
book, yet look at all we have done.

How the hell have they been able to do all of this since Michael has only sent them three chapters of the book? The book has not been sent to a printer nor has it had an official release date. It can’t, because he hasn’t finished writing the book. Publish America has the first three chapters and a synopsis. That’s it.

It is obvious these are standard cut and paste clauses they pop into any email they get from a PA author who questions what they are doing to market their book. However, they forgot that Michael hasn’t submitted his completed manuscript. Nor have they sent him his extraordinary advance of one dollar ($1.00).
 
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jamiehall

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How the hell have they been able to do all of this since Michael has only sent them three chapters of the book? The book has not been sent to a printer nor has it had an official release date. It can’t, because he hasn’t finished writing the book. Publish America has the first three chapters and a synopsis. That’s it.

It is obvious these are standard cut and paste clauses they pop into any email they get from a PA author who questions what they are doing to market their book. However, they forgot that Michael hasn’t submitted his completed manuscript. Nor have they sent him his extraordinary advance of one dollar ($1.00).

They are indeed cut-and-paste responses, which is why the only reason you should ever argue points back and forth with PublishAmerica is so that you can post their lying answers so that everyone can see what liars they are.

It also seems as if these particular cut-and-paste responses may have been selected in order to give the impression that the book has already gone to print (of course it hasn't!) so that a reluctant author thinking of backing out will possibly be fooled into believing that they are now locked into the publication process and can no longer back out.

The responses are probably filed under a heading such as "send this when the author wants to cancel the contract" but if they'd been paying attention to how determined and well-informed he is, they should have either canceled his contract or sent him the super-angry "last potshot at an author who is almost certainly getting away" style of response.

Maybe we could develop a system, based on the canned responses, that shows PA's internal system for deciding what stage an author is at and its idea for how best to snag them at that stage.
 

JCT

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Still getting canned responses from Author Support? I'd say email Miranda Prather directly but she'll just get a flunky to send the email for her. She is a coward.
 

Susan Gable

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PA said:
You are under some very common misconceptions
sbout bookstore stocking. Actually, very few books are stocked on
shelves. Please read this, and our testimonial page.

Really? Very few books? Then what do I see, by the thousands, in my local B&N and Borders, on the shelves? They look like books to me. My books have actually been stocked on shelves.

PA said:

Barnes and Noble has quadrupled the number of books they
order from PublishAmerica during the past year, as can be seen by all
the stories and reports from authors whose books are stocked

Let’s play math. Let’s say B&N ordered 10 copies last year. This year, they ordered a whopping 40! Wow! – But, that WOULD be a quadrupled amount, right? Basically what I’m saying is, quadrupled still don’t mean squat. Even if it were 1,000 books nationwide last year, and this year, 4,000. Still not squat

PA said:

PublishAmerica books have the same chance of making it onto a
bookstore shelf as do the books of any publisher. It may be of
interest that less than one percent of all authors ever see their
books stocked by bookstores at all. For bookstores to stock all books
published would mean adding 15 feet of new shelf space each and every day.

Therefore bookstore managers must be selective, so they decide based
on what that they think will sell. If they do think it will sell,
they will stock it, and vice versa. So, if your book is romance and
the store's shelves are overflowing with romance novels, the odds are
they won't stock it.

PA books have FAR LESS of a chance of making it on the bookshelf of a brick& mortar bookstore for several reasons: #1 – the company already has a reputation for poor quality work within the chains themselves. #2 – PA doesn’t have sales people, out there, peddling PA authors’ books to the buyers of these chains. That’s how it works, people. I met the head Romance Buyer for several chains at RWA National this year. The publishers send SALES PEOPLE out to them – the publishers create catalogs of their upcoming books that these sales people take to MEETINGS with these chain buyers.

PA doesn’t do that.

Those chain buyers can actually have some influence on the actual book – for example, if they don’t like the cover, the publisher may redesign the cover to woo sales from the buyers. The WalMart buyers have actually influenced editorial for books. Yes, those buyers do look at your book, decide if they think it will sell, and base their orders from your publisher accordingly. But you’ve already got a chance – your publisher’s sales people are actually MEETING with these buyers. The buyers already know that your book (as opposed to a book published by PA – sorry PA authors! No disrespect intended – this is truth time. Fact is fact.) has had some quality control applied to it – it’s had a REAL editing, not just a spell-check run across it. It was the cream of the crop of the unpublished mss that the publisher received. It’s not just whatever they could publish in a given day. (See Atlanta Nights for further illustration.)

Sorry, but it's PA who doesn't understand how "real" publishing works.

Good luck, Mike! I think it's hysterical that they don't even have the actual full ms yet. I wonder what they'll do about that? Think they'll take you to court if you don't deliver the ms? I sort of doubt it.

Susan G.
 
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Jersey Chick

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Mike - I give you credit - I'm seeing red reading PA's snarky, nasty replies. Makes me want to set their hair on fire.

I don't know who they think they're fooling - my royalties have always come from the cover price. Always. I don't know anyone whose haven't.

Keep it up - persistence will pay off :D
 

CatSlave

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Still getting canned responses from Author Support? I'd say email Miranda Prather directly but she'll just get a flunky to send the email for her. She is a coward.
Actually, these emails *are* from either Miranda or Larry. None of the PA flunkies are allowed to compose their own correspondence. When a dissatisfied author questions PA, the email MUST be sent to Miranda and Larry, who then compose the answer. If the cut-and-paste template answers aren't enough to make the author back down, then Miranda or Larry takes the wheel and writes the ludicrous answers you are seeing here.

They both are cowards in the fact that they hide behind the "Author Support" signature. Or they force the 'editors' to sign correspondence which is actually written by themselves, not written by the 'editor'.

Bottom line: ALL insulting correspondence is from Miranda or Larry, every word of it.
 

Jersey Chick

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Alright Jersey, Hand over the lighters before you get in trouble.:D


Never! Someone already took my matches and that little torch thingy you use to light a grill or candles or whatever. I'll never surrender my lighters! Never! I tried rubbing two sticks together, but all I get is smoke. I won't, I tell you, I won't! :D
 

Toothpaste

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But are they posting that email as if you are complimenting their operation? Could be quite funny if they were twisting your words like that! And by funny I mean, really really frustrating!
 

JCT

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Sorry, but it's PA who doesn't understand how "real" publishing works.

They have no clue. Let's look at the top three:

Willem: Willem has experience with vanity publishing only: Erica House. This was a sleazy yet up front vanity press. (I think he charged writers in the thousands).

Larry: No publishing experience.

Miranda: Ditto. Is a known scammer and liar.

So that says it all.

I don't know where Alice fits in this circle jerk.
 

Tina

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[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Here is the email I got from the authors guild [/FONT]

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Date:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] Wednesday, July 18, 2007 11:27 AM [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]From:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] AuthorsGuild Staff <[email protected]> [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]To:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] [email protected] [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Subject:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] Re: PublishAmerica Publishing [/FONT][FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Size:[/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] 4 KB [/FONT] [FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif] [SIZE=+0]Dear Mr. Burgenmeyer,

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]To date, publication by PublishAmerica has not qualified authors for membership in the Authors Guild. The main reason is the lack of a significant advance payment in PublishAmerica contracts. Advances are standard among established American publishers, and represent part of the investment the publisher makes in a book.


[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sincerely,[/FONT]

[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]Terry King (Mr.), Membership Dept.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Authors Guild[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]31 East 32nd St., 7th Floor[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif]New York, NY 10016[/FONT]
[/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT]

Aha, PA! How do you intend to discredit the Author's Guild? Are they jealous or wanting to keep you from succeeding? Are they just one more cog in the big New York publishing scheme that wants to keep PA down?

What they are is an organization that proivides membership, support and advice to published authors. They are there to help, yet they will not recognize writers whose books have your imprint.

Answer that one, PA.
 

CatSlave

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They have no clue. Let's look at the top three:

Willem: Willem has experience with vanity publishing only: Erica House. This was a sleazy yet up front vanity press. (I think he charged writers in the thousands).

Larry: No publishing experience.

Miranda: Ditto. Is a known scammer and liar.

So that says it all.

I don't know where Alice fits in this circle jerk.
Alice King is the head of Human Resources, a confidante of Willem and gunslinger in defense of PA as required, for court appearances and such.