The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

JimmyD1318 said:

I will keep working on my short story and then try to find a agent that will like it enough to work with me to get it published by company that really is a publishing company.

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Jimmy, you might want to do more about educating yourself on the business of publishing. Nobody's going to get an agent with a short story.

head for the library or sit here and start reading and educate yourself about the publishing industry... lots of educated peeps here and plenty of info - including how to avoid the SCAM that is PublishAmerica.

Sassenach said:

Jimmy, you might want to do more about educating yourself on the business of publishing. Nobody's going to get an agent with a short story.

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You are right that I have a LOT to learn if I want to try my hand at being a writer. Guess that's why I'm here. I want to learn more about it. And anything that I can learn, I will take to heart.

James D. Macdonald said:

... Some of them will be from first-timers who don't know any better.

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And some are by able, experienced writers (albeit maybe not previously BOOK writers) who were taken in by PA's superficially persuasive line and its cultish cheerleaders. I have mentioned one such book here. Fine book of its type, thoroughly good reading. I believe that the author may be noodling around to see if he can arrange for alternative (non-PA) publishing for it now. (I wish him luck, even if it takes the notorious gag clause to do the trick.)

Bad book. Good book. Plagiarized book. All the same to PA.

--Ken

3 Weird Emails this week about PA

Email one: From Publish America

From: Publish America Support
Subject: (my name): not feeling well
Ms. (my name),
Please re-read your contract, and this time read it carefully.

You, or any other PublishAmerica author, are not under any obligation or pressure whatsoever to purchase copies of your own book, for book signings or otherwise, at any time, under any circumstance. Nor are you under any special privilege to receive free copies beyond what your contract, signed and agreed to by you, dictates.

As for you talking to one fringe bookstore, this tells you nothing about all the other thousands of bookstores and/or their policies. The true fact is that PublishAmerica books are being ordered, stocked, and/or sold by hundreds of bookstores every day, lately once every two minutes, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. For you to insinuate otherwise, boggles the mind. Each day, bookstores schedule book signings for our authors, and they do the book ordering. So, if you choose to do book signings, and one bookstore balks, try the next!

Please show us where PublishAmerica claims or claimed that we "put authors' books in major bookstores". Publishers make no such claim, because they can't. Bookstores decide what they put on their shelves, publishers don't.

We are sorry that you are "burnt out and broke", quite obviously from causes beyond your publisher's control, and wish you a speedy recovery. Your healing process may be helped by the fact that you need to spend no more time on posting on our mesage board. Your access privileges have been revoked after you elected to advertise a fraudulent website that is aimed at undermining your book's sales chances.

Thank you,
Author Support Team
[email protected]

Email 2:

Please read this and follow a successful author's advice:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookar...ukintdec00.html

Channel your energy into doing something positive -- drink from a glass that's half-full and life may start to improve for you.

Name Witheld by me(ilovepensandpaper)

Email 3: Based on Email 2
Did you read the article about J K Rowling and learn nothing? Or did you just not read it? It took J K Rowling five years to outline the seven Potter novels before she wrote the first novel. Why are you looking for overnight success?

She received a grant for £8,000 to write the second novel. The first novel was good enough to attract the grant. Would your PA book be good enough?

If it is too much trouble to market your PA novel, then treat it as though it is still inside a drawer -- unpublished.

Do some research and find out how many authors became successful immediately after the publication of their first novel, and how many published several novels before they wrote a novel that achieved success.

Make better use of your time, write a novel that will be acceptable to a main-stream publisher.

J K Rowling has two unpublished novels sitting in a drawer; they haven't held her back. Learn from that.

Name Witheld by me (ilovepensandpaper)


Email on is just crude, mean, and unprofessional. I do not understand emails 2 and 3 period. My intention is not to become successful overnight but to voice my concerns with Publish America. I tried to look for the name of the person who wrote the last two emails, but he/she must be a lurker or something. I haven't found the name. Talk about missing the point.

Gasp! I wonder what site that was that you advertised? And I'm surprised at you not drinking the whole glass of koolaid.

Anyway, it looks like PA is back to using anonymous emails so no one knows who to blame.

To date:

1099 misc. for 2005 tax season re: royalties, from PA,= 19.31 cents from August 2004 up to today.

I supplied 80 names for them to send spam snail mail to. Of those 80, 10 bought books.

16.95 x 10 divided by 8% royalties = 13.50 PA, 156.00 dollars in the pocket.

The remiander of the balance, 5.81, was generated by my sending people to purchase the book online. So, PA had nothing, zilch, notta, to do with any sales of the book.

I purchased 150 copies at a cost of 1,574 bucks. Sold some, and lost about 500.00 dollars when I couldn't sell anymore because of price,and gave the rest away.

You've been had, just like me, current PA gang.

Enjoy your hamburger, or pack of cigarettes at royalty time, PA author, provider of the product that you sell, and PA makes all the money for doing little or nothing.

Enjoy your cruise, new car, trip to exotic points on the compass, PA hierarchy, provider of the formatting of books that LSI prints. People who do what you are doing go to hell when they die.

Yours truly,
One of the unhappy, 17,000.

I didn't know how to quote everybody that I'm answering. I know each one will know my answers.

Thanks Tillie, I have been reading to where PA isn’t making it possible to buy out of stores even if someone orders your book. I am just agreeing that they are misleading because that is exactly what I thought when I read it, that my book would be available in stores.

James, thanks for your advice. I am a long way from getting my third book published and trying to collect all info before I do now that I am a little wiser in some areas. By the way, what so you mean fold into NEPA? Just wondering.



Arkie, I didn’t remember and that is why I asked. I realize it was not PA were I seen it at, but it sounds good and it stuck in my mind.

Albedo, my book’ release date is April 3rd even though it can be published off the internet. I’m afraid from other PA author’s experience I will not know that until Sept 1st. And then just what they tell me. Thanks for visiting my website, I like Pink.

Berry, Thanks for your advice. Unless my book sells, I have no money for a lawyer. And from reading the MBs my dream of that happening isn't going to happen. I agree that PA is misleading and it was a way out for authors that no longer want to do business with PA. .

Ilovepensandpaper said:

Email one: From Publish America
Please show us where PublishAmerica claims or claimed that we "put authors' books in major bookstores". Publishers make no such claim, because they can't. Bookstores decide what they put on their shelves, publishers don't.

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My publisher makes that claim.

Canada James

Ilovepensandpaper said:

Email one: From Publish America

From: Publish America Support
Subject: (my name): not feeling well
Ms. (my name),
Please re-read your contract, and this time read it carefully.

You, or any other PublishAmerica author, are not under any obligation or pressure whatsoever to purchase copies of your own book, for book signings or otherwise, at any time, under any circumstance. Nor are you under any special privilege to receive free copies beyond what your contract, signed and agreed to by you, dictates.

As for you talking to one fringe bookstore, this tells you nothing about all the other thousands of bookstores and/or their policies. The true fact is that PublishAmerica books are being ordered, stocked, and/or sold by hundreds of bookstores every day, lately once every two minutes, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week. For you to insinuate otherwise, boggles the mind. Each day, bookstores schedule book signings for our authors, and they do the book ordering. So, if you choose to do book signings, and one bookstore balks, try the next!

Please show us where PublishAmerica claims or claimed that we "put authors' books in major bookstores". Publishers make no such claim, because they can't. Bookstores decide what they put on their shelves, publishers don't.

We are sorry that you are "burnt out and broke", quite obviously from causes beyond your publisher's control, and wish you a speedy recovery. Your healing process may be helped by the fact that you need to spend no more time on posting on our mesage board. Your access privileges have been revoked after you elected to advertise a fraudulent website that is aimed at undermining your book's sales chances.

Thank you,
Author Support Team
[email protected]

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That sounds like something PA would say, but for them to send a personalized email like that, you must have hit them pretty hard. I don't know what you did, but my wager is that you're causing them some concern.

Email 2:

Please read this and follow a successful author's advice:
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookar...ukintdec00.html

Channel your energy into doing something positive -- drink from a glass that's half-full and life may start to improve for you.

Name Witheld by me(ilovepensandpaper)

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That email bothers me. It sounds like something PA might say, also, but they usually don't sign the email with a name. Very interesting.

Email 3: Based on Email 2
Did you read the article about J K Rowling and learn nothing? Or did you just not read it? It took J K Rowling five years to outline the seven Potter novels before she wrote the first novel. Why are you looking for overnight success?

She received a grant for £8,000 to write the second novel. The first novel was good enough to attract the grant. Would your PA book be good enough?

If it is too much trouble to market your PA novel, then treat it as though it is still inside a drawer -- unpublished.

Do some research and find out how many authors became successful immediately after the publication of their first novel, and how many published several novels before they wrote a novel that achieved success.

Make better use of your time, write a novel that will be acceptable to a main-stream publisher.

J K Rowling has two unpublished novels sitting in a drawer; they haven't held her back. Learn from that.

Name Witheld by me (ilovepensandpaper)


Email on is just crude, mean, and unprofessional. I do not understand emails 2 and 3 period. My intention is not to become successful overnight but to voice my concerns with Publish America. I tried to look for the name of the person who wrote the last two emails, but he/she must be a lurker or something. I haven't found the name. Talk about missing the point.

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Ten to one the name on the last two emails was faked....as I'd imagine was, if they gave one, their email address.

I've seen this kind of junk before, from a gentleman calling himself Larry. He was, to my estimation, a sicko who just wanted to torment those who had been ripped off by PA.

I'd keep the emails for evidence's sake--preferably, you should print them out so you have a hard copy in case your computer ever goes down. Then get a folder and put it away so that you'll be able to access it easily enough if this ever comes down to arbitration.

And I would agree with the first email to this one and only point: study your contract, carefully. Ask a publishing lawyer to study it too. If you and your lawyer know your contract, you'll have a better chance of standing up to the scam that is PublishAmerica.

The people over at PA are still people, and still quite capable of human mistakes. If you have a good publishing lawyer study the contract you have, you might be able to find a weakness within it, and exploit it to the fullest.

SeanDSchaffer said:

That sounds like something PA would say, but for them to send a personalized email like that, you must have hit them pretty hard. I don't know what you did, but my wager is that you're causing them some concern.

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What our dear, evil Ilovepenandpaper did? That: http://www.geocities.com/complexitypoet/

Gabriele said:

What our dear, evil Ilovepenandpaper did? That: http://www.geocities.com/complexitypoet/

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Ilovepensandpaper,

I can see why PA's ticked off. There are plenty of cold, hard facts on your site about PA, and PA doesn't like that too much.


All I can say is, good job, Ilovepensandpaper. The more that writers know about PublishAmerica, the more likely they'll be to steer clear of them. That's something that could be considered good about being a PublishAmerica author: we know first-hand how badly they treat us, and can therefore speak with authority when it comes to their poor attitude toward their authors.

Again, good job.

SeanDSchaffer said:

That sounds like something PA would say, but for them to send a personalized email like that, you must have hit them pretty hard. I don't know what you did, but my wager is that you're causing them some concern.



That email bothers me. It sounds like something PA might say, also, but they usually don't sign the email with a name. Very interesting.




Ten to one the name on the last two emails was faked....as I'd imagine was, if they gave one, their email address.

I've seen this kind of junk before, from a gentleman calling himself Larry. He was, to my estimation, a sicko who just wanted to torment those who had been ripped off by PA.

I'd keep the emails for evidence's sake--preferably, you should print them out so you have a hard copy in case your computer ever goes down. Then get a folder and put it away so that you'll be able to access it easily enough if this ever comes down to arbitration.

And I would agree with the first email to this one and only point: study your contract, carefully. Ask a publishing lawyer to study it too. If you and your lawyer know your contract, you'll have a better chance of standing up to the scam that is PublishAmerica.

The people over at PA are still people, and still quite capable of human mistakes. If you have a good publishing lawyer study the contract you have, you might be able to find a weakness within it, and exploit it to the fullest.

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Sean,
Yeah I am looking into the publisher lawyer looking over the contract. I looked for one where I stay, but didn't find one. I emailed a guy in NY though. I guess I will see what happens this week...
Awwww, I was picking up where Lucia left off. Seeing her website inspired me to make mine. Give her some kudos too.

Ilovepensandpaper said:

Sean,
Yeah I am looking into the publisher lawyer looking over the contract. I looked for one where I stay, but didn't find one. I emailed a guy in NY though. I guess I will see what happens this week...
Awwww, I was picking up where Lucia left off. Seeing her website inspired me to make mine. Give her some kudos too.

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Yeah, Lucia's a cool lady. I like the site she's done; I believe she has my story on it, along with a lot of others.

A good place to find out about publishing lawyers is Starving Artists' Law. I used to have their URL, but when my computer crashed a few weeks ago, I lost it. Still, they're pretty good, and should be able to get you in touch with a lawyer closer to your area. If you google them, you should be able to find their site pretty easily.

I wish you the best of success in getting the information you're looking for. Good luck.

Author Support said:

The true fact is that PublishAmerica books are being ordered, stocked, and/or sold by hundreds of bookstores every day, lately once every two minutes, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week.

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Ohhhh, math time. I know we've done this one a hundred times before, but I think it's new for NEPAT Jr.

A book is ordered every two minutes, 24 hours a day.

Right now there are 13,033 PA books on Amazon.

There are 525,600 minutes in a year. Every two minutes means @263,000 books sold last year. Divide that by 13,000 click click click...

That averages 20 books a year.

So now let's fix PA's quote.

Author Support said:

The true fact is that the average PublishAmerica book can expect to sell about twenty books a year. That's 1.67 books a month!

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Ilovepensandpaper said:

Email 3: Based on Email 2
Did you read the article about J K Rowling and learn nothing? Or did you just not read it? It took J K Rowling five years to outline the seven Potter novels before she wrote the first novel. Why are you looking for overnight success?

She received a grant for £8,000 to write the second novel. The first novel was good enough to attract the grant. Would your PA book be good enough?




Name Witheld by me (ilovepensandpaper)


Email on is just crude, mean, and unprofessional. I do not understand emails 2 and 3 period. My intention is not to become successful overnight but to voice my concerns with Publish America. I tried to look for the name of the person who wrote the last two emails, but he/she must be a lurker or something. I haven't found the name. Talk about missing the point.

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One article I read on JK (a Scottish newspaper), she stated that after her first manuscript was accepted by the agent, a few months later she then received a call from said agent. She mentioned that she had to sit down, as he had received an offer of £90,000 advance for the novel. She also mentioned that her world changed from that point onwards. No more surviving on welfare benefits while struggling as a single mother. She immediately decided to move from her one room bedsit in Edinburgh, etc.

If that's so, I hardly think she would then apply for an £8000 grant for the second novel. In subsequent interviews she stated that she was having trouble with the plots of the follow-up books, couldn't decide who was to live or die in them.

So if your lurker is still lurking, perhaps he/she might care to name the source. I realise that not all info is accurate, especially in the press, but one of the sources is wrong.

As for a grant? Sounds like he/she might be from the UK, as there are certain grants available for second-time novelists, but I'm equally sure JK wasn't a recipient of one.

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Like that of her own character, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling's life has the luster of a fairy tale. Divorced, living on public assistance in a tiny Edinburgh flat with her infant daughter, it was Harry Potter that rescued her. First, the Scottish Arts Council gave Rowling a grant to finish the book. After its sale to Bloomsbury (UK) and Scholastic Books, the accolades began to pile up.

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http://www.jkrowling.info

Over on her official site, jkrowling.com, Ms. Rowling tells us that the second agent she queried accepted her, and that he only needed a year to place the book.

Which is all rather far afield from PA except: Suppose Ms. Rowling had submitted her book to PublishBritannica (as it was called). Would they have accepted it? Of course they would, straight off. How many copies would she have sold? Perhaps seventy ... depending on how many friends she had and how many she could buy herself. Would she have been happy to hold a bound copy of her book in her hands? Again, of course!

Would anyone else have ever heard of Harry Potter?

Nope.

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Yep, and she did recieve a grant, but it was to finish the first book. Then she won the Smarties Prize.

Just to prove that, once again, PA gets it wrong. All those "true facts" they have over there. As opposed to "fake facts". Idiots.

SeanDSchaffer said:

A good place to find out about publishing lawyers is Starving Artists' Law. I used to have their URL, but when my computer crashed a few weeks ago, I lost it.

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Here you go, Sean: http://www.starvingartistslaw.com/

The whole thing is just werid.........and their own message board is full of people that all talk like cult members. Like I said thank you guys for saving me the heart ache of getting involed with that bogus company.

Once again, if any PA author finds a Slimer message posted on his or her guestbook, find the IP number of the slimer and put it here.

If the slimer is an AW member ... he or she will be banned on the spot.

JimmyD1318 said:

The whole thing is just werid.........and their own message board is full of people that all talk like cult members.

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If they don't, they get banned. It makes the board a very weird read.

Like I said thank you guys for saving me the heart ache of getting involed with that bogus company.

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I'm very glad you found this information first.

This thread is one of the best resources I've found on the craft of writing either on or off line, and although it's primarily aimed at novel writing, I think it would be useful for short story writing as well:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710
The same thread condensed:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7987
And an index to the thread:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8754

This blog entry is wonderful in so many ways:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

And this thread is on publishing:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20586

ByGrace said:

I don’t know if this is significant, but Publish America is not a member of the Frederick Chamber of Commerce. I looked at their member list and PA is absent. On the FCC website is the following:

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It's not significant. Local CoCs vary in the utility that they provide businesses. They're primarily networking tools and they're only as good as the local director plus the number of Chamber members. The CoC is not a regulatory of quality-control body.

Oh My PA PA.

CONFITEOR Deo omnipotenti; forgive me Father for I have indeed sinned. It is years since my last confession, and in that time I have committed the dreadful sin of pride, and it has cost me dearly.

I wrote a book called The Newness of New and I submitted my manuscript to Publish America LLLP, of Frederick, in Maryland. I did not know when I sent my material in that nobody at PA would actually read my book. It would have been extremely difficult for the PA representative named Jessica, who was one of my contacts, to understand what I had written. Her e-mails to me seemed to indicate that she had not acquired a reading ability that was superior to that of an eight-year-old child, and that she was essentially functionally illiterate.

Instead of reading my ms, the PA representative simply subjected it to the spell and grammar checks of the Microsoft, or similar Word program tools, and formatted it into an hundred and ninety page book by using the formatting function of the word processor program. I believe that PA then copied the work onto either a floppy disc or a CD for easy storage.

As well as submitting my book, I was stupid enough, and vain enough to send PA a requested list of the names and addresses of twenty of my friends and fourteen members of my blood relatives.

It did not dawn on me that PA relied on my egoism to make a profit. PA relentlessly pestered my friends and relatives, cajoling them into buying my horrible book. My friends and relatives bought my book only out of coerced obligation, and not because my book had any merit whatsoever. And now when I meet or visit any of them, there is an air of forced awkwardness in the air. There is no longer the warmth and ease that any of us had before my despicable vanity drove me to believe that I was a writer.

It is futile to blame Publish America LLLP for its role in this matter. I was the vain prancing fraud who gleefully sold my integrity – not so that I could gain the world, but for the pittance of the emptiness of proclaiming myself to be an author.

Stan Jozwiak

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An unsavory man, Juiles Newberry, wants to take her home for what her father owes the bank and force her to marry him as part of the deal. Her only escape is to marry the captivating, compelling Jared Pendleton.

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That creeped me out. I never thought anyone would THINK of using the same last name as mine!
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