Now, I am in a quandary. The only thing left to do is disrespect you.
Or, you know, stop posting all together. Any obligation that you have to being here you impose on yourself. No one is imposing it on you. Just because no one's booted you doesn't mean it's an open invitation to hang yourself by insulting other members.
As a lurker, I've seen those that are opposed to PA being open and understanding about those that aren't (for the most part). From what I've read, those that are for PA are just plain unable to grasp the concept that many more people are turned off by the company than turned on. It's a fact of life. Deal with it. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're disrespecting you.
Your decision is yours and yours alone and everyone here has demonstrated that time and time again and yet is has been ignored. People are geniunely intrigued why someone, anyone, would published with PA considering their absolutely horrid reputation that a simple Google search could uncover instead of going by the means of Lulu.
Personally, I'm going to work to make my book publishable, and legitimately. I'm not going to jump at PA's abmismal bait because I'm so desperate to get my book published. I'd much rather have the respect from the broader writing and publishing community by publishing with a legitimate house instead of just wanted to see my name on a cover. I can easily do something like that with Lulu with little to no cost to myself.
Didn't the SFFG (Science Fiction and Fantasy Guild, is that what they're called?, you know who I'm talking about) actually prove that PA will pick up any trash on the street and publish it? They submitted a book with repeat chapters, nonsensical paragraphs and basically writing that a monkey with a function foot could do just to prove their point . . . and they did. PA snatched it up, giving it the "chance it deserves." They only retracted the contract when the Guild published an article on their sham, outright proving that PA doesn't read a damn thing that gets submitted to them, they don't edit anything and are more than willing to take in your money for it. After the article was released, another email was sent to the "author" claiming that "upon further review" there were major errors that needed to be fixed prior to print. Coincidence? Depends on your level of naivety.
It has been proven time and time and time and time and time and time again that it's quantity, not quality with PA. There are numerous documents all over the web, firsthand accounts and dozens upon dozens of threads on this board alone attesting to this information.
Knowing all of this information, yes, we genuinely want to you why you would do business with this company. It's akin to the housing market now. Lenders had money to spend. There were many people that wanted homes but rightly couldn't afford them. Instead of waiting, improving their credit and improving their financial situation, they knowingly took out loans under ARMs for am amoun that they couldn't afford in a million years because they couldn't wait to do it right. And where are they now? In foreclosure (yes, I understand much more than the consumer is at fault here but that's not to say the consumer was entirely ignorant of the fact they were buying a house they couldn't afford).
Impatience is what I see. It took JK Rowling 26 publishers before Bloomsbury took the bait for Harry Potter. 26. There are better ways to go about publishing than walking into a tiger pit covered in blood.
If they said to this person that the contract was invalid because of the changes, then why do it for someone else? Unless he did it the wrong way.
