The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

Another best seller? What was their first?

(Atlanta Nights has the advantage of selling for $17.96 new at Amazon -- a similar-length book from PA would go for $24.95. At that price I don't think we'd have anywhere near the sales. Also, while AN is selling well compared to PA books, compared to a book from a commercial publisher the number of units sold has just been ... well. Not so good.)

(PA authors! Please note that at $17.96 everyone involved -- Amazon, Lulu, and the Emergency Medical Fund -- is making a profit. And AN is being printed using the exact same technology as your PA book. Where's the extra money that PA charges going? Fuel for the Hellocopter? Miranda's race horses? Larry's SUVs? Think of how many more books you'd sell if your cover price was reasonable.)

Oops, meant it would be another of their top ten in sales.

Marie Pacha said:

They do seem to be rather sensitive over there, don't they?

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Just... you know... don't drink the Koolaid.

Knowuddamean?

Nah, Atlanta Nights isn't in the top ten among PA books. At Amazon, out of the 19,973 PublishAmerica titles listed, a whopping 105 have better sales ranks.

So, Atlanta Nights is in the top one-half of one percent, but it isn't in the top ten.

Interestingly enough, the top two PA books by Amazon sales ranking are books that PublishAmerica is no longer selling. Do you remember Marigold and the Feather of Hope, The Journey Begins (The Fairy Chronicles, Book 1)? It was in one of the ill-fated New York Times Book Review ads as a PA top-seller back in '04, when PA hit its peak. Well, if I'm reading Amazon correctly it's no longer in print from PA.

The #2 Amazon-ranked PA book is Dragonfly and the Web of Dreams (The Fairy Chronicles, Book 2) , same series. It too is no longer available from PA.

Both books are available now from Sourcebooks.

Same titles. New covers, new ISBNs, and cover prices that are around half what PA was charging.

Sourcebooks itself -- you need to do some searching to find their guidelines. In fiction, except romance, they're only taking agented subs these days.

Someone who's more interested than I am might find out why the author of The Fairy Chronicles jumped off the mighty pirate ship that's darfing legitimate publishing, and whether PA proved to be a foot in the door or an anchor around the neck.

James, good point. The Fairy girl jumped ship for some reason. Did her contract expire or did she win a release? Come to think of it 04 would not be sufficient expiration. She jumped. Good for her. It would be interesting to hear her side of the story and what went on.

Tri

The man who edits the series I'm currently writing for(with other authors) was contacted by Sourceboooks. They're top notch, even though not in the Big Six. They didn't like the idea of antholgies though, and wanted full-length books, though they liked the premise.

Good for her.

I went to a booksigning today for a PA author. I was at Barnes and Noble for an hour or so and she didn't sell a book. She did leave her table for a little bit for her to sing Christian music halfway across the store, so I flipped through the book and it was just like you'd expect. Cheap, bad cover, cheep paper, typos.

But the one thing I did notice was that in front of the store there was a B&N sign announcing the signing and it looked professional. I didn't know they did that for PAers.

Most of the authors go to shops and have signs made up. It's on the marketing threads here.

That thread is... interesting.

I believe all the free online classified ads in the world won't boost sales. If you have a website and online sources to order from, the next best thing might be to market via bookstores. Most online sources are not where I buy books (ex. classified ads), I'll use Amazon for the cheapest discount. I however, will not buy a PA book for the price they charge.

It appears that PA books are becoming higher and higher as the years pass. Inflation?

SouthernWriter1978 said:

I believe all the free online classified ads in the world won't boost sales. If you have a website and online sources to order from, the next best thing might be to market via bookstores. Most online sources are not where I buy books (ex. classified ads), I'll use Amazon for the cheapest discount. I however, will not buy a PA book for the price they charge.

It appears that PA books are becoming higher and higher as the years pass. Inflation?

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Uncle Jim had a graph a a few weeks ago showing a general trend down of PA sales. So I think greed is kicking in to make up for lost sales.

B&N makes signs for every author they have in the store. I still have the ones they made up for me when I went to one last fall to give a talk to teachers during Educator's week. Had my name and book cover on 'em an everything.

Same here. B&N made a sign for our book signing. Our PA book sold 14 copies at an outrageous price...it was embarrassing even then.

The great book that got away from PA

In the spring of 2005, it was nearly lost to PA.

See today's feature article by Sacramento Bee columnist Anita Creamer:

http://www.sacbee.com/creamer/story/235673.html

Excerpt:

http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/235669.html

--Ken

That's a nice article. I hope the book sells.

My first book (which was self-published through iUniverse) seems to sit around the 50,000 - 150,000 range on Amazon, depending on what day of the week it is (some days it gets as high as 27,000, and some as low as 400,000). That translates to roughly a book per day sold, sometimes two. Not record-breaking, but still better than 99.9% of PA (I think). Of course most PA authors seem to be completely lost as to how many copies they've actually sold. At least the iUniverse website gives you specific numbers each month as to how many copies have been sold, and by whom. Not sure if Lulu or other self-publishing companies do this or not, though I would assume so.

Out of morbid curiosity, I did an Amazon search for PA, and took the first twenty books that came up. Some quick math and I saw that their average sales rank was around 1,700,000. Meiner's own book about "upsetting the Goliath book biz" floats below the 2,300,000 mark. Sounds like the Biz is REALLY upset here. By the way, I loved Jenna's review of that particular work on Amazon!

Another difference is that I have been able to get my books in actual bookstores. Just a few here and there, but then again I knew when I self-published that I was on my own (no promises made of being carried "from sea to shining sea"). The biggest drawback of course is the price, which unfortunatley I cannot control. My books should realistically sell for $12 - $14, but instead go for $18.95. Granted that's still about $6 cheaper than the PA equivelent. And yes most stores are reluctant to carry my books because they are self-published, however I have never been given the overwhelming "NO," like PA authors, who seem to be blacklisted by association. Most stores that do carry my book get a copy or two to see how it does. At least it is a good quality product (I'm talking about the work the publisher did, not the story itself) that doesn't look cheaply thrown together.

In the end it is still best to find an agent and a big house to go through, which I am still pursuing. I'm close to having my second book done, and would like to get both picked up by an agent. If not, I'll probably self-publish again. At least there I know what I'll be getting into.

PAMB said:

I sent my list of 100 names and addresses to PA.

My book is out.

Nobody got the Pre-Pub note.

I emailed PA and didn't get a response.

Anybody have any insight?

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I do. PA does not want anyone but the authors to buy the books.

This is the second person on PAMB who says PA didn't send out those notices.

JulieB said:

That's a nice article. I hope the book sells.

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Thank you. Apparently something is happening, as this morning the B&N dot com sales rank has dropped to 771 (it was 61,000-something yesterday and 161,000-something a couple of days before that) AND B&N dot com has increased the discount to 30% (with an additional 10% for B&N discount card holders). That makes the 412-page hardback as low as $18.86 with the discount card, and $20.96 without. [EDIT: the extra discount disappeared once the book lost its momentum and moved above 1,000 ranking. But it is still a good buy at 20% off list, plus the member-card 10%.]

Remember: this is the book diverted from PublishAmerica a little over two years ago, thanks in part to the awareness of the PA scam gained from reading the original NEPAT.

--Ken

I just discovered a special section on the PA website about books that have received some kind of prize. There are actually quite a few. Does anybody know if any of these prizes actually mean anything? For example, I checked the AllBooks Review website (because quite a few authors were mentioning it) and it turns that anybody who pays can get the words "featured book" added to their work. Obviously that's not a valid point. But what about the guy who says he was a finalist in the Independent Publisher awards?

I remember a thread from a few days ago (not a PA thread) about writing awards that don't mean much. Are all these awards cited there in that category or is there anything valuable in the list?

http://www.publishamerica.com/awards/awards.htm

VeggieChick said:

I just discovered a special section on the PA website about books that have received some kind of prize. There are actually quite a few. Does anybody know if any of these prizes actually mean anything? For example, I checked the AllBooks Review website (because quite a few authors were mentioning it) and it turns that anybody who pays can get the words "featured book" added to their work. Obviously that's not a valid point. But what about the guy who says he was a finalist in the Independent Publisher awards?

I remember a thread from a few days ago (not a PA thread) about writing awards that don't mean much. Are all these awards cited there in that category or is there anything valuable in the list?

http://www.publishamerica.com/awards/awards.htm

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The Lambda Literary Foundation is a pretty big deal among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender authors. The American Authors Association, cited in several of the "awards", looks like nothing more than a cheap attempt for self-pubbed authors to sell each other marketing tips; their website is a little sloppy. The Writers Digest contest makes me wrinkle my forehead because part of the grand prize is a package from a vanity publisher. Other than that, just about everything else looks to be regional or niche markets (save the CNN citation).

The awards cited are of the meaningless kind, and sometimes less than that -- "nominated' means "the author sent in a copy." You know they're reaching when you notice that they list the authors who has also had a short included in one of the Chicken Soup anthologies. Good for those authors! But what's that got to do with PA?

A couple of those are mere inclusions of the author's name on lists of Every Writer In the State.

In every case you know that it's the author who submitted the book at his/her own expense. PA didn't lift a finger.

The CNN thing: I checked at CNN's website, and discovered that the book wasn't mentioned.

So -- off to the web, where I found on the author's webpage:

CNN Atlanta Coverage

J. P. is happy to announce that "Over the River and Through the Woods-A Journey with Harriet Tubman" will be featured on the Intranet site for CNN in Atlanta. Her feature will include an excerpt of the book, a review, and photo. The site can only be accessed by CNN personnel and affiliates.

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Only accessed by CNN personnel and affiliates? Well, okay.

what Jim said...

James D. Macdonald said:

The awards cited are of the meaningless kind, and sometimes less than that -- "nominated' means "the author sent in a copy."

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Some of the awards themselves are legit. The Library of Virginia awards are a big deal in Virginia. Cornwell, Robbins and other authors from the best sellers lists appear as winners. As for being nominated, anyone can nominate a book. It simply takes a couple of copies of the book and filling out the paperwork.

Same goes for the IPPY awards. A check and a couple copies of the book.


It is not the same to be nominated as to be a winner. Even I have been "nominated." Ask me who many times I have won. (got close once.)



I would dance naked on the table here at AW so much that Mac would have banned me by now.

One of the sorrows of my life is that Atlanta Nights wasn't a Library of Virginia Award nominee. (One of the Traves lives in Virginia and could have sent it in. Alas! I learned of the contest too late.)

In that case, it's time for a sequel. Then submit it for award consideration.