Savannah Blue said:
This is something that's been on my mind. It's very good that some people are just overjoyed at the service they have been given by PublishAmerica. I'm personally very happy for them and wish them much continued success. If their expectations were/are met, who am I to complain? What I don't understand is, how do they justify to themselves that they are supporting the financial gain of the powers that be at PublishAmerica? They are contributing to the success of people who wouldn't spit on them if they were on fire. Meiners, Clopper and Prather have proved themselves over and over to care not a thing for the well being of their authors. Once the dotted line is signed and the friends and family have made the obligatory purchases, the authors are no longer needed or supported in anyway. Yet, these PA supporters keep right on buying their own books and encouraging others to buy them as well.
If I was to ever be so fortunate as to be accepted by one of the big houses, I wouldn't expect to receive personal attention from the principals of that house, neither would I expect to be told not to take a tone with them.
Besides my book not being ready for the public, the thought of the Stooges profiting from it was enough to make me want to hide it away forever. I just cannot condone supporting such a company or its owners.
Sara, I think part of the reason people support PA so much is that they believe they're supporting their own writing careers by supporting PA.
Someone mentioned earlier in this thread about a 'Cult mentality.' Well, I went to a Baptist Church that had a cultish mentality. We were taught that in the entire metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon (Total a little more than a million people, all the cities therein combined) we were one of three or four churches that were right with God and if we went anywhere else God would not be pleased with us.
To a bit of an extent, I've seen that mentality among a lot of fellow PA'ers. They buy their own books; they market until the cows come home; they push PA -- and I mean they push
PA, not their own books -- because they think that if they don't, they'll never amount to anything in the writing business. This is one of the major deceptions PA perpetrates upon its authors, and that's why a lot of PA'ers still support their company.
Plus, there's the issue, Sara, of loyalty to the company that 'gave them their first break.' Again, partially due to the deception that they've been fed saying they wouldn't get anywhere in the writing business if they weren't with PA, they feel PA was their only hope of being published and therefore, feel a strong need to support that company no matter what.
Like I said before -- and one PA author on their boards recently lamented, that I know of -- it's a cult mentality, and a cult is one of the hardest things to break away from for any number of reasons. All the different reasons, though, can basically be summed up in one word:
fear. Fear for their writing careers; fear for their acceptance as writers; and fear of what they see as, if I may use this term, their savior's disapproval. (Many believe that PA saved their writing careers; that's why I used the term 'savior.') There's a reason I said several dozen pages back that PA is like a god to many of its authors. That reason is the cultish mentality that PA tries to force upon its authors.