The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

orraloon said:

Isn't this the same Carl that used similarly selective arguments for the defence in the discussions at Publishers Weekly following Steven Zeitchik's anti-PA article last November?

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I doubt it's the same Carl. That one was functionally illiterate.

Mishmash

I have a few unrelated comments, so hold on to your hats and try to follow me here:

First of all, unless you are one of the front-running PA cheerleaders, your 3rd or 4th book won't probably won't be published because you've run through your friends and family. They may not be as willing to shell out twenty bucks for your book after the first two or three go rounds. Also, most PA authors haven't made enough money to support buying more stacks of overpriced books - so PA's business model stalls in their case.

Secondly, this White Raven guy...can someone find out what kind of drugs he's on? I'd love to slip away from reality once in a while. He's obviously found the mother of all hallucinogenics.

And last but not least... There is a reoccurring reference in the past several posts to "C.E." Is this White Raven? Could we do something a little different? I would hate for anyone to confuse C.E. Winterland from MindSight with a befuddled PA author. Normally, I wouldn't say anything, but the reference is so specific, I'm afraid it will cause some confusion.

Nancy

NancyMehl said:

And last but not least... There is a reoccurring reference in the past several posts to "C.E." Is this White Raven? Could we do something a little different? I would hate for anyone to confuse C.E. Winterland from MindSight with a befuddled PA author.

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Nor do we want people to confuse C. E. Petit, the lawyer, with C.E. Baxter, the PA shill.

Hmmmm

Aconite said:

Nor do we want people to confuse C. E. Petit, the lawyer, with C.E. Baxter, the PA shill.

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You're right! I hadn't even thought about Mr. Petit.

Here I thought calling someone C.E. was unique! LOL!

Nancy

Ok, Now I'm Pissed

I sent another e-mail to Punishamerica, trying to tell them, yet again, they haven't made anything off of me and please just give me my da** rights back and I won't bother them anymore.

They must be really stupid, because they sent me back this...

Dear Ms. Nielsen,


We appreciate your efforts, we understand your concerns, and we have a
solution that meets your objective.

You should shortly be receiving amendment paperwork that will make your
PublishAmerica contract non-exclusive.


Thank You,
Jessica
Author Support Team
[email protected]

Ok, they already sent me an amendment, last MARCH. I didn't sign it and won't. So, I emailed them and told them again I just wanted my rights back, because no other "legitimate" publisher was going to want to "share" my book with PA! How stupid are these people? Of course another publisher is going to want exclusive rights!

My question: I am getting a lawyer and fight them on this. Any advice?

PA BOARD:

Thank you...can't wait to be totally on board with my novel out in the stores.

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......20 years to be published.

I do hope this writer is aware of what lies ahead. Good luck, my friend

Bufty said:

PA BOARD:
......20 years to be published.

I do hope this writer is aware of what lies ahead. Good luck, my friend

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20 YEARS?? :faint: Oh, that is sooooooo sad.

Maybe 200 PA authors can be reached.

The PA board is closed to outsiders.
But this one isn't

http://s13.invisionfree.com/200authors/index.php?showforum=1

200 PA authors are collaborating on one book.

I doubt any of them knew about this forum.

They do now.

momwrites said:

Thanks a ton for these resources. They should help in my quest.

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There's also the Novel Writing section of AW. While it might be of limited use for finding publishers the people posting are all working on the same type of work.

To all PA authors lurking, I'd like to point your attention to Denise Little's article "The Profit Motive" in case you missed it when it was mentioned further up stream in this thread. Things to take away from the article:

1) Publishers expect to sell several thousand copies of each title they publish.
2) Publishers expect to lose money on an author's first novel. Remember that old lie that publishers aren't taking on first time authors? How could they expect to lose the money if they don't publish first time authors?
3) Even if a book doesn't earn out the advance paid the publisher still makes money and the author is not required to pay back any portion of her advance.
4) Notice how the first time author of a sf mass market paperback is paid an advance to the tune of $4,000. Yes, the advance will vary from publisher to publisher and author to author, but it's going to be much more than $1. That's taking a chance on an author.
5) Notice how publishers have a promotional budget for each title they publish and how promotion means much more than author signings and appearances, posters, etc.

Scratch that.

They just deleted my post on that website.

It wasn't rude or inflammatory, just a couple of links.

I guess they just don't want to know.

It was a forum for their little project so the post wasn't really relevent. I figure that in the era of google if they want to know they can find out on their own

veinglory said:

It was a forum for their little project so the post wasn't really relevent. I figure that in the era of google if they want to know they can find out on their own

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Most of them are already aware of this site and those who post here...from time on another board which is now defunct...

On another topic, I agree with Nancy's plea...

If you have a few minutes, you may want to read back in this thread a bit. They're a scam and they are criminals. They continue to sell books after contracts have been terminated.

Many of the writers on this forum are published authors w/ commercial houses. Therefore, they/we are not elitist.

Going a non-traditional route is one thing; to be lied to and deceived is quite another.

P.S. PA is a printer not to be confused w/ publishing. You could write a poem on T/P and they would accept it.

egem...start at page one of this thread. Take your shoes off and get comfortable; it's gonna take awhile. At the end of nearly 1,000 pages, you'll have a priceless education about the nightmare that is PA. You'll read comments from folks that started as their greatest cheerleaders, only to end up their greatest detractors. You'll read about calumny on a scale unseen before in the publishing world. If, at the end of those 1,000 pages, you have any shred of an idea that PA is a good way to go...then re-read those same pages.

John

James D. Macdonald said:

I don't say that they never reject a book. I do say that they accept anything.

I believe that rejections fall into three classes:

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Thank you for answering that. I was busy taking my wife to dinner for her birthday and then spending much money on her. She's a practical woman. I offered her a new car, but she wanted a new shed for her craft tools, so I bought a new shed.

egem said:

I'm trying to get a clear picture of the problems surrounding PA. Let me say upfront that I am not published by this company. I just don't seem to understand why people are attacking this company for non promotion of books. Most publishing companies do not promote their authors books in any way. I'm of course talking about small presses. Small presses may only give their authors a 600-1000 print run.



It seems to me that PA is a free POD. This means they publish author’s books for free where other PODs charge up to $3,000. Even when happy authors working this company come on this board people attack them. I'm not sure why. Most great authors, authors of the past I mean, have gone a non-traditional route with their books. People seem to be saying, I published with PA and I'm not famous and I'm mad about it, but the majority of traditional publishers would not make them famous either. Why are all of you so against these people and this company? Is it really because they make publishing for anyone possible and is there a certain amount of elitism here? Or are there really great problems with this company?

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If you have about an hour, I could go on and on about PA, but to save you and I the time and headache, I will mention my brief experience with them. I submitted my book to them in early 2003; I had never heard anything good or bad about them, but their promise that they would edit, promote, market my book was full of hot air. When I got my books back, they were so full of errors, I was embarassed to tell anyone about it. I tried to tell them, but they said there was nothing they could do about it, so I refused to market my book to ANYONE~ they have not made one red, black, copper, etc... dime off of me and they refuse to give me my rights back, because now I have a publisher who has accepted my young adult triology, of which my first book was published with PA.

Their contract is ambigious, to put it mildly, and full of legal jargon that makes you think its on the up and up, but it's not. They prey on writer's dreams and laugh all the way to the bank. They're crooks, plain and simple.

egem, it's more than just non-promotion. They tell lies to get authors to sign up, then it gets worse from there. In the past, they've tried to let authors out of their contracts by selling them the 49 copies they had in stock. However, you noticed it yourself. They're a POD. Therefore, there shouldn't be and there aren't any 49 copies in stock. We (meaning all of the watchdog sites) helped put an end to that. Some PA authors actually came close to getting their books distributed in chain stores. That's when PA terminated their contracts.

There are numerous other documented instances that you can either read about in this lengthy topic or you can take our word. We're not selling you anything. We're merely working together to end a scam that is harming many writers. We have writers here who are unpublished, writers who have been scammed, writers who are published with little companies, writers who are published with big companies, and even some readers who see the problem and have chosen to help right a wrong. There's no elitism here. We don't put down writers because they are or aren't published. We don't put them down because they've only published short stories or novels. We don't put them down because they've published in print or ebook or POD or audiobook. Those are all legitimate forms of publication. Like I said, there's no elitism here. We don't honor only fiction authors and not non-fiction. We don't discriminate between comedy and thriller writers. We don't put down poets who face the hardest odds among all of us or those who face the easiest, either. Even vanity published authors (and I think there are one or two among us) are welcome to share in the battle against scams. Like I said, there's no elitism here. Join us if you want. You'll be welcome.

egem said:

I'm trying to get a clear picture of the problems surrounding PA. Let me say upfront that I am not published by this company. I just don't seem to understand why people are attacking this company for non promotion of books. Most publishing companies do not promote their authors books in any way. I'm of course talking about small presses. Small presses may only give their authors a 600-1000 print run.



It seems to me that PA is a free POD. This means they publish author’s books for free where other PODs charge up to $3,000. Even when happy authors working this company come on this board people attack them. I'm not sure why. Most great authors, authors of the past I mean, have gone a non-traditional route with their books. People seem to be saying, I published with PA and I'm not famous and I'm mad about it, but the majority of traditional publishers would not make them famous either. Why are all of you so against these people and this company? Is it really because they make publishing for anyone possible and is there a certain amount of elitism here? Or are there really great problems with this company?

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egem said:

Yes momwrites, but I'm saying you might have had the same problems with other companies, small companies. How did the mistakes make it into the book did you edit it? Many small presses do not edit those books either and if you would have gone POD you would have gotten back what you put in, but the book would have cost you 1000-3000 cash.

Did you understand at the time that PA was basically a POD? Please don't be offended. I'm really just asking. It seems many that are upset with the company might not have know a lot about publishing in the first place.

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I am not offended and no, I didn't know, because they said they were not. On their website, it says plain as day, they are a traditional publisher, which to me means they are NOT POD.

Yes, I did edit my book, professionally, and when they took it, they claimed they "edited" it and yet butchered it. I figured when they took my book, they would do their own formatting, line editing, that every publisher does, but they ruined it.

I had, or at least I thought I had done my research and had a number of people look at the contract. All of them thought it was legit. My beef with them is that they haven't made any money off of me and I am a dissatisfied author who wants her rights back. Most publishers have a clause that says if the author is not happy, they can void the contract, but every publisher I have worked with does not try to "sell" their publishing company to authors and all PA does is prey on gulliable and naive authors who just want the esteemed title of being "Published."

egem said:

Many small presses do not edit those books either...

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What legitimate small presses do not edit their books? This is news to me. Name them please, so I can avoid them.

Gravity said:

egem...start at page one of this thread. Take your shoes off and get comfortable; it's gonna take awhile. At the end of nearly 1,000 pages, you'll have a priceless education about the nightmare that is PA. You'll read comments from folks that started as their greatest cheerleaders, only to end up their greatest detractors. You'll read about calumny on a scale unseen before in the publishing world. If, at the end of those 1,000 pages, you have any shred of an idea that PA is a good way to go...then re-read those same pages.

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If you're being serious rather than rhetorical, that's just silly. At 26,000+ posts, this thread is far, far past the point where it's reasonable to expect anyone to read even a portion of it. Better, perhaps, would be to refer people to the "condensed reasons" thread.

I suggest, if anyone's got the time, that it would be useful to have a set of "best of" links for this thread--so that when questions about PA arise, rather than telling someone to read the entire thread, you could tell someone to read a dozen or two specific posts.