The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

Bookgirl2021

"If I had a heart, I'd give it to you."
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A world of pure imagination...
It's been a year or two since I last checked in on this section of the boards, but I was thinking about it and wanted to see what was going on with these despicable excuses for human beings. Of course, I suppose I should thank them for one thing: I never would have discovered AW if not for them. So in some ways PA/whatever else they've gone by saved my skin as a writer--I would've made some huge mistakes if I hadn't found this place. Not to mention there are really great people here.

All of that said, it's about time these guys sank. It just bugs me that they took so many authors down with them (at least until the contracts are up). ...Unless there are updates I haven't been able to find? Were authors able to get the publishing rights back?
 
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Jill Karg

So many WIPs which one to work on
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PA has had several lawsuits over the years of poor business practises. I was one of the lucky ones to join in on lawsuit several years back and got my rights back and they removed everything but Amazon still list it(arggggg). Also paperwork was exchanged which stated that I had in fact have my rights back. It was a very glorious day indeed. But I wish they would do 1 honorable thing and give the rights back to all that they swindled that are still under contract.
 

Miss Vicky

Getting the hang of it.
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Looks like I dodged a bullet.

Several years ago (probably around 2006 or 2007), I had looked into getting my novella published and I contacted PA because a classmate of mine had published a couple of books through them (though I suspect her motivations had more to do with being able to put "published author" on her resume than for anything to do with love of the art of writing). I contacted them and they seemed very interested and sent me the contract.

I read through the terms of the contract and noticed something to the effect that they reserved the right to make changes to the work before publishing it. I was not at all comfortable with that and asked them what changes they would be making to my work. Their response was that they would not be able to disclose specifics about necessary changes until after the contract was signed. Well, there was no way I was going to hand over that level of control so I refused to sign the contract and my work has remained unpublished.

I'd pretty much forgotten about that experience until I stumbled over this thread just now. So glad I went with my gut instinct and didn't become another one of their victims.