The Newer Never-Ending PublishAmerica / America Star Books Thread

PA's latest book offer

Dear Author:

PublishAmerica will send your book to Oscar winner Sandra Bullock!

Sunday night's Best Actress won the award for her role in The Blind Side, a movie based on a book that she read before she agreed to play the role.

We will now submit your book to Sandra Bullock and ask her to read it.


Here's how we do it for authors who choose to have a few extra books on hand:


Go to www.publishamerica.net, find your book, click on it, then add to cart, indicate quantity, and use this coupon: SandraBullock25. Then click Recalculate and finish the transaction. Minimum volume is only 6 copies. You will receive your books at a 25 pct discount, and we will print an extra copy that we will send to Sandra Bullock at no cost to you, or more if she requests more, also at no cost to you.


In the Ordering Instructions field, you may write a note for Sandra if you want.
We will include your note when we ship your book to her. Note that PublishAmerica
will keep your note confidential, and that Sandra Bullock may treat your book and
your personal note in any way she chooses.


Full-color and hardcovers excluded. Offer expires this weekend on Sunday night.

Thank you,
PublishAmerica Author Support Team

Is it sad that I'm not surprised? I think it might be sad.

Same old boilerplate email they've been using for months. Eventually, though, they're going to run out of A-list folks to bandy about, and find themselves dredging up something like, "Hey, you know that one guy who was a grip on the last Indiana Jones movie? Yeah, just buy twelve copies of your book for yourself, and we'll send five to him! How about them apples, huh?"

And some starry-eyed newbie will whip out his Visa card as he dials the phone: "Hot damn! The grip on the last Indiana Jones movie! That'll work! I'm walking in tall cotton now, boy ..."

I'm sure the actress's agent will be thrilled to bits about this one.

I got an email today, if I buy 50 books at a deep discount of 60% I can have my contract back, Help, they are holding it for ransom! I told them I will not do this! I wrote back and told them if they paid 1 person $7.00 an hour, 1 hour per week to maintain my book,which is not much, compared to "REAL PUBLISHERS" mutiply that by 52 weeks in a year,that would be $364.00 a year, times that for 6 years[ the time left on my contract] that would be $2184.00, that they have paid to keep a book, for the sake of not letting me have it back. I told them I didn't understand their logic, it would be more cost effective to let me go. Well see what happens in the next email. Hope this plea for common sense works.

Well that's not good. I know nothing I say will bother them anyway, they are morally challenged.

Maybe you can annoy them into getting your rights back.

luv lit, DON'T engage them in any kind of interaction. It won't do any good. They've been at this for 10 years and they've heard everything. You're only amusing them, you want to bore them.

Just keep sending certified mails to Larry Clopper until he gets tired of signing them and tells Miranda to cut the "deadbeat" loose.

If you went to that Wiki page and read about her, you'll know she's a batshit insane wing nut. We've seen ample evidence that she enjoys torturing writers and keeping them dangling. She's a bully, abusive, unprofessional, and holds a grudge.

But they keep her on the payroll because she's their kind of boss for the job. (Ugh!)

DON'T argue with her or anyone else there, just stick to the topic of getting out of your contract. Any email you got was from her, no matter what the signature. Nothing goes out of there unless she sends it.

There's a scene in the movie, The Exorcist, where the older priest warns the young priest how to deal with the demon. It applies here for you dealing with PA!

Karras: We may ask what is relevant, but anything beyond that is dangerous. He is a liar, the demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien. And powerful. So don't listen, remember that, do not listen.

Don't listen to them, just keep repeating your request until they get bored and decide to shed you.

I love how they say the deal is for authors who 'choose' to have books on hand. Again, if I chose to send my book to Sandy Bullock (or her agent) I would look up the address and DO IT MYSELF. I would only be out the price of shipping (media mail is SO CHEAP) and maybe ONE copy.

But I wouldn't do that, because I know she wouldn't read it. Now, I have friends who have their own PRODUCTION company. That's a much better bet.

(currently they're shooting something in Atlanta. I have talked with them about my books, but making fantasy is amazingly expensive, and they're just starting out.)

They're bargaining on newbies believing the book will carry weight with Sandra Bullock if it comes directly from "the nation's #1 publisher".

I notice that this time it's just one book (which can't be sent to anyone except Bullock?) and the minimum number-to-buy is now 6. Though the discount on them is only 25% to make up for that.

And the line, "In the Ordering Instructions field, you may write a note for Sandra if you want"? For a moment I misread "Sandra" as "Santa".

I'm surprised PA hasn't set up its own production company under a name similar to a real production company so it can make book trailers. Also, they could produce one short film and give it a famous title (remember, titles can't be copyrighted) and then offer to send their authors' books to their production company. Solves a lot of problems for them. Heck, they even avoid postage so they get to keep all the money.

That's too much like real work, Dave.

The Stooges are the laziest gits on the planet, doing as little as possible for as much money as they can grab.

Witness their blinding efficiency at not answering phone calls from their own writers.

PA Lurkers--when I need to chat with any of my publishers they ALWAYS get back to my emails or calls within hours, often minutes.

They're way busy, far more busy than any of the PA Stooges, but that's what real business professionals DO.

Even if it were a legitimate deal, it still makes no sense as the author to do it. The whole premise is stupid. Could you imagine if PA really sent her, let's say 1,000 different books? Now that would be funny. Oh Sandra, pick me! Pick me! If she even got them and if she even went through them, the odds of her picking yours would be slim. The whole thing just sickens me.

Queen of Swords said:

. And the line, "In the Ordering Instructions field, you may write a note for Sandra if you want"? For a moment I misread "Sandra" as "Santa".

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You probably have to buy at least 20 copies for 5 to be sent to the North Pole for Santa to distribute in random stockings at random houses next Christmas eve. . . .

My Publish America story/ warning
This is my story, and many other people have a very similar story.
1. Yes there are many discrepancies between the Publish America web site advertising and the actual contract.
2. Breaches of contract.
A. My official book date release was supposed to be August 22 2009, and was not made somewhat available until the end of September, and even now it is still not available where it should be (i.e. Amazon.com, chapters.com).
B. Was told that if I bought a certain amount of copies of my book then I would get the royalties from that sale. I wasn’t given any.
C. Publish America in their contract stated that they would issue a press release-that was never done.
D. I was also told that my book would be available for my local book store to order and as of today my local book store am still unable to order copies.
E. was also told that I would receive 8 % in royalties in February and August of each year for copies sold. I have receipts from family and friends who bought the book through the Publish America website, yet I just received a statement informing me that I have sold 0 copies of my book.
3. No my book did not make it to Barnes & Noble book stores.
4. No the shoddy editing was not accepted. I paid $50.00 to fix the errors that they made and the book still is full of them.
5. The overall presentation of my book wasn’t too bad, but I was asked what I would like to see the cover look like after I told them they gave me something totally different then what I wanted.
6. Yes customer / author services are extremely unsatisfactorily. I am still waiting almost a year for answers to questions.
7. My book is very over priced.
8. My book is very under marketed.
9/10. My royalties also have been extremely unreported. I know for a fact that my book has sold at least 50 copies to family and friends through there website, yet Publish America states that 0 copies have been sold.
11. Sales statistic’s on my book are not accessible to me, because the whole sellers of Baker & Taylor along with Ingram still don’t have copies of the book and there for are not being sold. All the books that were purchased by family and friends were done so through Publish America’s website.
12. As far as I know my book is not for sale or advertised under a different name.
13. The only e-mail’s I ever receive from Publish America are one’s in which they are trying to sell me copies of my own book. And yes I feel very pressured to by copies. If I buy (X) amount of copies then that same amount would be donated to my local schools, library’s, and book stores. The latest deal was they would send a copy to Stephen King.

14. Yes I was asked to provide Publish America with a list of people to announce the release of my book to, but they didn’t follow through and nobody received a single e-mail.

15. I am right now trying to break my contract with Publish America and to get my rights back.

16. I have not found the publishing credit’s to be attributed to anyone besides Publish America.

All I want is for my contract to be null and void and to get the rights back for my book along with monies owed to me. I just want to start over, am open to suggestion’s and or advice anyone might be able to give me.

My pen name is Kimberly MacEachern. My e-mail is [email protected], and the name of the book that I had published with Publish America is a children’s fantasy book called
Tales from Areallia: The Keeper’s.


find me on facebook become fans of wriitings done by Kimberly MacEachern
or at http://www.fanstory.com/kimmymac

Areallia said:

My pen name is Kimberly MacEachern. My e-mail is [email protected], and the name of the book that I had published with Publish America is a children’s fantasy book called
Tales from Areallia: The Keeper’[/url]

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I found your book on Amazon, but no where else. It will probably show up at other on-line stores in a day or two, whenever someone at PA decides to push the right buttons. You need to go back and read your contract carefully. If it is like mine, it alludes to placing the store in B&N, etc., but it does not mean the book will be shelved, it will be available for on-line order through the store and may be picked up at the store or delivered to address specified.

It takes a while for most PA authors to grasp what they've bought into. PA wants you, the author, to buy the book. When the author buys her own book, they don't usually pay royalties on that purchase unless it is part of a special deal that happens infrequently. They don't like bookkeeping and paying royalties. But they want you to buy your book and resell it, give it away, or whatever.

They like to play on the author's vanity, put the book on-line with no promotion where it won't sell, but most of us with our egos and vanity unchecked, when we see our book on-line, think we're running with the big dogs. And PA plays to our vanity as well as anyone.

TLBlack, that one is just takes the cake! Sandra Bullock? Oh yeah, she stared in a movie that was based on a BOOK, well there you have it, makes of sense to me now

I've been contributing to a PA thread here....

http://authorenablers.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/the-pros-and-cons-of-publish-america/#comment-618

I'm not that knowledgeble and am trying to be "gentle" so as not to rial (not my usual style sadly and if anyone else feels like adding something to it feel free.

I AM going to probably mention this newest scam/sales pitch in a next post. It's just toooo good to pass up!

If PA can't even get books into their authors' hands, what in the #$@^ makes them think they can get something passed Sandra Bullock's "people" and into her hands?

Maybe she and Tom Hanks can compare notes.

ctripp said:

I've been contributing to a PA thread here....

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I glanced through that thread but stopped reading when I came to this comment by a PA loyalist:

I saw a comment by one writer who scoffed at PA and boasted that she got $25,000. for her advance with a different publisher. My immediate thought was, “If you are an established writer and are with a publisher who pays substantial advances and you only got $25,000. they must not think much of your work."

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Perhaps that author's next royalty check will buy some sugar to sweeten those grapes.

Queen of Swords said:

Perhaps that author's next royalty check will buy some sugar to sweeten those grapes.

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Considering PA, she might want to snatch some packets from the restaurant table just in case.

Well, why make $25 G's when you can spend only half that and own enough boxes of your own books to make a couch, chairs, dinning table, end tables and a bed, lawn furniture, the possibilities are endless