Publish America - The best thing to EVER happen to unknown authors

DamaNegra · Jan 5, 2007

It was poetry.com, I believe.

WildScribe · Jan 5, 2007

I keep checking back to see if the OP has returned.

stormie · Jan 5, 2007

Tina said:
I looked at Barb's website and her credentials mention she's an "International Society of Poets" (or something similar) merit winner. A yahoo search seems to indicate this poetry contest could be a scam - does anyone else know anything about it? Is it related to any of the suspect poetry contests?

Yup. It's all poetry.com. Every year I send them a nonsense poem through the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest. The Wergle Flomp contest is to see who can send the worst poem to a vanity poetry site. Usually poetry.com sends me letters congratulating me on placing in their scam contest. This year, though, they either caught on or are getting more picky. (Yeah, right.) Poetry.com actually sent me a rejection! That means maybe I have a good chance of winning the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest, LOL!

Celia Cyanide · Jan 5, 2007

Do they have a contest like that for novels sent to PA as a joke? Atlanta Nights deserves that honor!

CatSlave · Jan 5, 2007

Celia Cyanide said:
Do they have a contest like that for novels sent to PA as a joke? Atlanta Nights deserves that honor!

Isn't there the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest for the worst opening sentence in a novel?
You know, It was a dark and stormy night...

The Atlanta Nights authors could walk away with all the prizes

Tina · Jan 5, 2007

The treatment it deserves!

CatSlave said:
Isn't there the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest for the worst opening sentence in a novel?
You know, It was a dark and stormy night...

The Atlanta Nights authors could walk away with all the prizes

There is, but Bulwer-Lytton is completely legit, run by a university (I forget which one and I'm too lazy to google it right now). The "winner" and even some of the runners up are often reported in the news all over NA and the UK. Some of those "bad" opening sentences are downright brilliant.

I entered in 2003. Didn't place and I was disappointed! I did receive a reply that said, if you can believe it, that my entry will be "given the treatment it deserves." It actually said that - I'm not kidding!!!!!

MadScientistMatt · Jan 6, 2007

Tina said:
I entered in 2003. Didn't place and I was disappointed! I did receive a reply that said, if you can believe it, that my entry will be "given the treatment it deserves." It actually said that - I'm not kidding!!!!!

Yep. When they told me that, I figured they'd tossed my entries in the garbage can as soon as they got them.

PVish · Jan 6, 2007

Christine N. said:
Oh yes, someone on here submitted a poem by their dog. Lo and behold! The dog was 'published' and won an award!

Uh, that would be my dog. He was a semi-finalist in the ILP. Got all kinds of emails to go to the conference and receive his award, etc., and invites to join other poetry online clubs. He is concentrating his efforts on another project now.

Tina said:
There is, but Bulwer-Lytton is completely legit, run by a university (I forget which one and I'm too lazy to google it right now). The "winner" and even some of the runners up are often reported in the news all over NA and the UK. Some of those "bad" opening sentences are downright brilliant.

Run by Scott Rice at San Jose State College. A new anthology of the various winners from the last several years is scheduled to be published by The Friday Project (Anybody know anything about that publisher?) in 2007. I gave permission a while back for my 1996 Worst Western to be in it. I think some other AWers will be in it, too.

I'm a nationally ranked bad writer! You can be too.
Go to http://www.bulwer-lytton.com and submit your crappy opening sentence for the dreadful novel that you haven't written.

James D. Macdonald · Jan 6, 2007

The Friday Project is an e-and-POD publisher operating under Creative Commons licenses. Entirely on the up-and-up.

tlblack · Jan 6, 2007

http://www.freewebs.com/pozkin/legalwatch.htm

You have to scroll down to the "hearing summary" to see this but if anyone who praises PA and reads these threads never believes a word former PA authors have to say, then perhaps you'll read what Wilhem Meiners, the Chief Exec at PA had to say in court in 2005.

• Meiners testified that he is the Chief Executive Officer of PublishAmerica, Inc., which owns PublishAmerica, LLP. PublishAmerica, LLP, is the organization which is the "publisher." Meiners testified that his only position is that of CEO of PA, Inc., a closely held Maryland corporation. It was his testimony that he has little involvement with PA management and rarely even visits the PA premises. He said that Miranda Prather is in charge of the day-to-day operations.

• Meiners did admit, albeit in a rather circuitous fashion, that PA is in business to sell books ... to authors. His explanation was that PA was originally started for purposes of, essentially, allowing anybody’s maiden aunt to "publish" her memoirs and that the business expanded beyond their expectations. Still, we note that that has not caused them to put the brakes on signing new authors every day of the week, or prompted them to tell the truth on their Web site about the true nature of their business.

If this doesn't make you think twice about what other writers have to say about PA being true, then what would?

T. Nielsen Hayden · Jan 7, 2007

stormie said:
Yup. It's all poetry.com. Every year I send them a nonsense poem through the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest. The Wergle Flomp contest is to see who can send the worst poem to a vanity poetry site. Usually poetry.com sends me letters congratulating me on placing in their scam contest. This year, though, they either caught on or are getting more picky. (Yeah, right.) Poetry.com actually sent me a rejection! That means maybe I have a good chance of winning the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest, LOL!

I'm going to brag about my sole poetic claim to fame: I believe I was the first reported case of the International Library of Poetry rejecting a poem for reasons other than obscenity. I tested to make sure I'd done it -- reproducible results, and all that -- by submitting a second poem of the same sort, at the same time that I submitted other poems that were bad in more conventional ways. The accompanying poems were declared to be works of great merit, in the usual ILP fashion, but my second carefully-crafted attack poem was again ignored. I got rejected!

How I did it:

It seemed evident to me that ILP has a fully automated system for handling submissions. Length and format are rigorously constrained. Formatting your submission for publication, and doing minor spellchecking on it, is an automatic part of their online submission system. Why handle submissions that way, unless the point is to make it possible to run ILP's operation without ever looking at the poems?

This posed a considerable challenge: how do you get an automated system to reject your content when it normally takes no notice of content? The answer is, by looking like another kind of unwelcome document. I took a Nigerian scam letter, formatted its opening section as a poem under ILP's submission rules, and sent it in. That's what got rejected.

You can read the whole story here. The comments are by far the best part.

CatSlave · Jan 9, 2007

another sad question from the PA board

J.S Greer said:
In summation Jeff, come here all you like. Defend PA, your work, or any other literary topic youd like. No one will ban you here, no one will hush you because you voice opposition. The PA boards would, but AW wont.

from the PA board:
Question, how should we handle it when our threads are pulled when we don't think we have done anything wrong?

Get a clue ?? You know, censorship, freedom of speech, all that stuff...
Come on over to the AW board. Your comments will be welcome here.

stormie · Jan 9, 2007

CatSlave said:
from the PA board:
Question, how should we handle it when our threads are pulled when we don't think we have done anything wrong?

Wonder how long 'til that post is pulled.

James D. Macdonald · Jan 11, 2007

bstevens said:
The official release will be January 15 but, already my friends who bought my book said they arrived beautifully packaged and within 5 days. PA just got their own printing press. They were contracting out before.

Not to whip this dead equine too much more, but PA's printing press (a fancy photocopier from Océ North America) won't be installed until February or March of this year.

PA imagines that they can print books more cheaply than Lightning Source can? Dream on, Larry. Reality has some surprises for you, too.

Or ... is the reason they got this POD machine so that no one will ever be able to find out how many copies of what book they printed on what date? An excuse in a box.

Authors, if your royalty statements have been science fiction up to this point, prepare for them to become fantasy.

CatSlave · Jan 12, 2007

new PA author: bet this post gets pulled FAST

aruna said:
People also overestimate the significance of being on Amazon. You might be on amazon but nobody is going to view your book unless they've heard of you, That's why bookshops are better.

I'm a new author and I was told by PA that my book would "hit stores" Jan 8. Of course, excited little [THE AUTHOR] tells everyone.

I was wondering if this had happened to anyone else. The stores don't stock the books, but allow you to order them. So I decided not to let that get me down and work on the stores in my local area.

Borders said PA was considered "self-published" and they aren't able to return the books so they don't typically buy PA books to put out on their shelves. That was very disappointing since a month ago I was told they would do that for me since I was a local author.

What is the process for getting one's book into a store? I think I've been set up for failure if I'm doing all the promotion and my publisher's not helping, and if people who frequent bookstores can't even see the book. They have to already have heard of it. I'm doing my best to promote it, but I'm a student and can't do it all myself. Please help!
**********
Emphasis mine.
This author caught on quick.
When the author's post is deleted from PA and or he/she is banned from posting there, I hope some kind soul will direct him/her to the AW forums.

SC Harrison · Jan 12, 2007

CatSlave said:
I was wondering if this had happened to anyone else. The stores don't stock the books, but allow you to order them. So I decided not to let that get me down and work on the stores in my local area.

As far as the Borders that I frequent, I had trouble even ordering my book from there. I could call it up on their Title Sleuth machines, where it showed the cover pic and blurb, and it even had a statement saying, "ships in seven days or less". But when I printed out the little ticket and took it to the customer service desk to have them order it, Ingrams had it listed as "unavailable". After calling over a more experienced clerk, they typed a few things in and told me they could order it straight from the publisher, which they did. A few weeks later, my son (I gave them his address) received a letter stating it was "on order" and should arrive in 7-10 days. A few weeks after that, he recevied a letter stating Borders could not locate a copy, and they were very sorry. This happened only a few months after release.

When I sent an e-mail to Author Support asking for help, they informed me that I was "mistaken", and since my book was Print On Demand, it would always be available. Right.

xhouseboy · Jan 13, 2007

CatSlave said:
Borders said PA was considered "self-published" and they aren't able to return the books so they don't typically buy PA books to put out on their shelves. That was very disappointing since a month ago I was told they would do that for me since I was a local author.

What is the process for getting one's book into a store? I think I've been set up for failure if I'm doing all the promotion and my publisher's not helping, and if people who frequent bookstores can't even see the book. They have to already have heard of it. I'm doing my best to promote it, but I'm a student and can't do it all myself. Please help!
**********

The 'help' asked for will most likely come in the form of the usual verbal scatterguns to cut the author down from all directions (that's if the Generals don't delete it before the regular troops turn up).

If the author survives the attack, s/he will come to realise that it's fruitless to rebel against such insurmountable odds and opt for an easy time of it by keeping schtum from here on in. Either that or plan their escape while recuperating.

Marian Perera · Jan 13, 2007

CatSlave said:
This author caught on quick.

Someone else seemed to be a tad disillusioned and replied, "Good luck, I haven't had any." But another author chimed in to say,

One of these day's you'll hit a stroke of luck and meet the right person, bookstore, coffee shop, flower shop...

PA authors try to sell their books in flower shops? I had no idea.

CatSlave · Jan 13, 2007

More authors should boycott PA

Queen of Swords said:
Someone else seemed to be a tad disillusioned and replied, "Good luck, I haven't had any." But another author chimed in to say,

PA authors try to sell their books in flower shops? I had no idea.

Also restaurants, gas stations and flea markets. Because bookstores don't sell books, you know.
I hope this particular author will bail out without buying a single book, and beg his/her mailing list not to buy one either. And post the boycott action loud and clear on the PA board with a link to the AW site, even though the post won't last long and the poster will be banned. Maybe another PA author will see it and be saved, and take the same action. I know it's asking a lot, but one can only hope. An uprising in the PA ranks would be a sight to behold.

A note to the author under discussion: You have our sympathy and best wishes. Check out the AW thread on how to break your contract with PA.

CatSlave · Jan 13, 2007

more disappointed PA authors

You mention ... that your book is not doing well ...
I actually do not know how many of my books have sold. My royalty check was for 16 dollars something but i didnt expect to sell many in my first year anyway.

*****
I submitted my second book to PA and they sent an E-mail that stated 'based on my first books sales performance they rejected my second book, so now I want to concetrate on promoting my first book. I understand why they rejected the second book and am not upset by their decission, they are a business after all and they have to think about the bottom line.

*****

These comments speak for themselves. Sad.

janetbellinger · Jan 13, 2007

Who's to say the dog wouldn't write a better poem?

spike · Jan 13, 2007

CatSlave said:
You mention ... that your book is not doing well ...
I actually do not know how many of my books have sold. My royalty check was for 16 dollars something but i didnt expect to sell many in my first year anyway.

*****
I submitted my second book to PA and they sent an E-mail that stated 'based on my first books sales performance they rejected my second book, so now I want to concetrate on promoting my first book. I understand why they rejected the second book and am not upset by their decission, they are a business after all and they have to think about the bottom line.

*****

These comments speak for themselves. Sad.

You know, that "sales performance" is just another way to say, if you want us to print your next book, make sure you buy a lot of your first one.

CatSlave · Jan 13, 2007

spike said:
You know, that "sales performance" is just another way to say, if you want us to print your next book, make sure you buy a lot of your first one.

BINGO!

Christine N. · Jan 14, 2007

This is our friend Jeff's reply to the poster who is asking why the bookstores won't carry her book, telling her it's self published...

Make them want to carry the book. Show them that your book isn't just another book on the shelf. It's all about "policy." The store managers apparently haven't read the memo about how Publish America books are returnable and Publish America authors haven't paid a dime to publish. They normally have agendas to push by the commercial presses. Money's involved along with other literary politics.

Bolding mine. Oh, Jeff, haven't you been here long enough to figure this out yet? It's NOT about anybody's agenda, it's about economics, pure and simple.

PA books are ONLY returnable if you buy them from Ingrams. Assuming you can get the order filled, PA ONLY gives the store a 5% discount. FIVE PERCENT. Industry standard is closer to 40%.

So that bookstore, once they've paid shipping, will not MAKE a dime (yanno, that same one you didn't pay to publish) on your book. AND, if they don't sell, the bookstore can send them back, but with at 10% restocking fee. TEN PERCENT. So, not only have they not made any money, but actually LOST it, because on top of having to pay that 5% over what they bought the books for, they have to pay to ship the books back.

The 'return policy' is a joke. It makes no sense for anyone. And if the store wants a better discount, they can order direct from PA... but the books AREN'T returnable. It's a Catch-22 and no bookstore in their right mind would do business this way. Or at least very few, because I know a couple of PA authors have convinced stores to order their books.

It's PA's way of forcing authors into a corner - if you want to sell your books, YOU have to buy them yourself and sell them from wherever.

JimmyD1318 · Jan 14, 2007

Christine N. said:
Oh, Jeff, haven't you been here long enough to figure this out yet?

Christine N, after going back and reading all of Jeff's old post, I think talking to a brick wall would be more productive. Besides the brick wall would learn something eventually.

Publish America - The best thing to EVER happen to unknown authors

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