The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

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Diana Hignutt

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What a freaking waste of time that was! About 45 minutes of my too busy life...gone. Oh well!

Still, I love being part of the Superfriends!

PA is an evil company profiting off the dreams of innocent authors, even people who don't know it yet.

Gosh, they sure suck!

diana
 

Jeff

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Ouch

Okay. This might not be popular, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Here goes.

It might be just me, but I do not think that writing scathing letters to the newspaper writers boss, or contacting him in a confrontational manner, or basically alienating him from listening to anything we might have to say about PA due to the fact that we piled on him as a group is something to crow about.

I am all for getting out the truth. I am all for engaging anyone with the facts and the issues regarding PA and their practices. I fully support the hard work people have done here to get this issue in front of the media.

But.

Maybe I'm wrong folks. Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I don't see how we did one bit of good in p*ssing off that author and confronting his boss in a manner that closed off calm and rational discourse.

Not our finest hour here, in my opinion.

YMMV.
 

SeanDSchaffer

Jeff said:
I think perhaps a more pertinent question would be is it morally right to support a publisher that one acknowledges has not played on the up and up with its authors in the past and where evidence exists that it continues to do so (see: PA's top-selling author complaining that he sold more books than he was paid for) just because one thinks one can take advantage of the model to pursue a dream to be sucessfully published? Does one decide to do business with them, give them money (by ordering ones own books to sell) and by doing so allow them to continue to perpetuate the problems that one has acknowledged are out there with PA?

Indeed, I think that is a question moral people need to ask themselves.

For what that is worth.


I can see where you're coming from, Jeff. I think that doing business with them when one knows they've done wrong by other authors in the past is downright morally unacceptable. But try to remember something you pointed out in an earlier post -- the reason people keep going back to PA is fear. They have been told (by PA, of course) that their books won't go anywhere unless PA publishes them. We both know this is a fallacy, but nevertheless to a newbie author, having a big company tell you that your book won't fly elsewhere, is kind of intimidating -- especially if you think that they are big experts on the publishing business, like many newbie authors do.

I personally think a lot of people are just flat-out afraid of what will happen to their careers if they move away from PA -- and that, I think, is exactly what PA wants them to be: afraid. Fear is a great motivator. Especially fear of failure. That can, in many instances, make people throw morality out the window.

Just my personal opinion on the subject.:eek:
 

SeanDSchaffer

Jeff said:
Okay. This might not be popular, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Here goes.

It might be just me, but I do not think that writing scathing letters to the newspaper writers boss, or contacting him in a confrontational manner, or basically alienating him from listening to anything we might have to say about PA due to the fact that we piled on him as a group is something to crow about.

I am all for getting out the truth. I am all for engaging anyone with the facts and the issues regarding PA and their practices. I fully support the hard work people have done here to get this issue in front of the media.

But.

Maybe I'm wrong folks. Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I don't see how we did one bit of good in p*ssing off that author and confronting his boss in a manner that closed off calm and rational discourse.

Not our finest hour here, in my opinion.

YMMV.


Agreed.
 

SeanDSchaffer

Don't be so sure of that, Diana...

Diana Hignutt said:
What a freaking waste of time that was! About 45 minutes of my too busy life...gone. Oh well!

Still, I love being part of the Superfriends!

PA is an evil company profiting off the dreams of innocent authors, even people who don't know it yet.

Gosh, they sure suck!

diana


I can name a couple of posters on PA's boards (I being one of them) that are not too fond of the gentleman's attitude who made the 'Superfriends' remark; and I think at least one of them let that gentleman know about it. (Gee, I wonder who that could be?)
:idea:
 

Susan Gable

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I want to apologize to this thread's entire community for losing my temper and getting snarky yesterday. Generally I try very hard not to let that happen. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed last night.

A dear writing friend of mine was having cancer surgery yesterday. First we were supposed to hear something by a little after noontime, then it should have been by four. As the hours dragged by and we heard nothing, my nerves kind of frayed. I offer that information not as an excuse for my behavior, but as an explanation of where *I* was when yesterday's "discussion" took place. I actually ended up going to bed without any news. <sigh>

I'm sorry.

Susan G.
 

Diana Hignutt

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Diana Hignutt said:
What a freaking waste of time that was! About 45 minutes of my too busy life...gone. Oh well!

Just to be clear...by this comment I was refering to the amount of time I spent reading the visit by the know-it-all newbie troll...

diana
 

Sher2

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Diana Hignutt said:
Just to be clear...by this comment I was refering to the amount of time I spent reading the visit by the know-it-all newbie troll...

diana
Don't worry about it; I got what you meant. I didn't even try to keep up with all that stuff -- it was making me dizzy.:)
 

SeanDSchaffer

That can't be right...?

MartyKay said:
On Lee Goldberg's Blog, there is this nice post (from a couple of days ago):
http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2005/04/bancroft_press_.html
that has a lovely list of Vanity Presses and Approach With Caution publishers...

Guess who's number three on the Vanity Press list? :roll:

:scared:
I thought PA was a traditional press? They've always said so themselves...

(Couldn't be they were being deceitful to their authors, could it? :eek: Naw!!! They'd never say anything deceitful, would they?)
:ROFL:
 

SeanDSchaffer

Oh...

Diana Hignutt said:
Just to be clear...by this comment I was refering to the amount of time I spent reading the visit by the know-it-all newbie troll...

diana


Oops! My mistake, Diana. My apologies for not seeing that.:eek:
 

Ed Williams

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You know, something hit me while reading this particular PA thread...

....and I'm going to use just a few quotes to illustrate my points:

I came to PublishAmerica for two main reasons. One, I did not want to spend five years submitting and being rejected, only to self-publish anyway.
I love to have fun as well, but, I do want to make writing a career. It's been a long time goal. I love the neighborhood, but, I'd like to expand my readership.
If tomorrow morning you woke up and found out that PA had been forced to shut down due to unsavory business practices.

Just where do you think that would leave you, me and the thousands of other authors who have books under contract with them?
But I can't respect anyone who makes it their life's work to shut down one publishing company especially since that company holds a contract with my name on it.
I will offer this:

1. I don't think there's anyone in this thread who, if PA announced tomorrow they were changing their method of operation in order to be fairer to their authors, wouldn't applaud them. Uncle Jim has stated here numerous times in the past that the goal is not to shut PA down, but to make them reform some of their practices. Of course, if they don't, they should go down. It's as simple as that.

2. If PA closed tomorrow, there are numerous avenues their authors could take to get their books out, and just about all of them would prove far more favorable to said authors than the current PA set-up.

3. I don't mind opposing viewpoints in the least, but I do mind having basically the same post shoved in my face over and over and over again. Say what you have/need to, make your points, but then either say something new or give it a rest. It's like watching the same episode of Gilligan's Island a hundred times in a row, except Gilligan was far more entertaining.

4. Re the newspaper column being mentioned, and people responding to it in a negative way, I can say this much - the day you put a column out with your name and email address on it in a public forum is the day you'd better expect responses. I do it every week. Newspapers provide email addresses for such responses, and any columnist promoting PA as a viable publishing choice is inviting multiple opposing responses. Writing to the guy's boss? The truth is that in most cases the boss is going to see the responses whether they come directly to him/her or not. Personally, my suggestion would be to either write the columnist directly, or use any other email addy suggested by the paper as an appropriate vehicle for response. The people who need to see it will, trust me.

And with that, I've got a hot, hot date with my lawnmower - later!
 

cwgranny

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JennaGlatzer said:
For goodness sake, quit buying into PA's hype about how we don't want new authors to succeed. If that were the case, we'd love PA and try to convince everyone to go with them... less competition in bookstores for us "elitists" that way.

The sad thing is that *I* have heard a multi-published author say she thought PA was a *good* thing for exactly that reason -- she thought it might be bleeding off some of the crap from the slush piles and getting clueless wannabees out of the way for "real" authors. She went on to say how clueless wannabees were also the ones who sent subs then called editors to bug them when it was rejected...yadda yadda yadda

I was disgusted by that attitude. Thankfully, it's rare -- but that's what elitist creeps who don't want "competition" REALLY think of PA. They don't hate PA, they LOVE PA because they erroneously believe everyone with PA would otherwise be out bothering editors with their childish crappy manuscripts. The fact that the woman could blindly assume that all PA authors wrote trash made me want to smack her...how creepy and elitist can a person get?

If more PA authors heard her rattle on, they'd like us better.

gran
 

astonwest

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gena140 said:
astonwest said:
Not making a judgement call either way, but that may help to explain...
So your claims about me are wrong.
Eh? :Wha:
*shakes head and sighs*

Superfriends, eh?
Can we pick out which ones we are?

On the flip side, still waiting around for folks to pick up these overstocked copies of my book sitting under my desk...can't beat free...well, unless I was paying out, which ain't gonna happen...:wag:
 

robeiae

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Jeff said:
I think perhaps a more pertinent question would be is it morally right to support a publisher that one acknowledges has not played on the up and up ... just because one thinks one can take advantage of the model to pursue a dream to be sucessfully published? Does one decide to do business with them, give them money (by ordering ones own books to sell) and by doing so allow them to continue to perpetuate the problems...that is a question moral people need to ask themselves.
While I agree with the sentiment and tone of your question, this can be a difficult position to maintain. Do you hold everyone/every company you do business with to these same standards? What about guilt by association? You could soon find yourself alone on island (maybe not such a bad option somedays). I think it's enough to work at convincing authors they are being taken advantage of personally, rather than approaching them by claiming their actions (bying their books) are morally wrong; I just don't think this will resonate with them. Of course, speaking the plain truth often does not work either; where does that leave us? Anyway, you raise a valid point, one worth thinking about. Thanks.

Rob
 

Jeff

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Re the newspaper column being mentioned, and people responding to it in a negative way, I can say this much - the day you put a column out with your name and email address on it in a public forum is the day you'd better expect responses.

Ed,

I certainly did not begrudge anyone the right to write to the author/columnist. I simply pointed out that the confrontational/aggressive manner in which I saw it was done does not seem to me to be helpful to advancing our position or getting people to listen to our facts.

But then again, what do I know? Maybe I am pretty much a pussycat in real life? ;)
 

Jeff

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I just want to point out that one more post will be my 50th and then I will be able to change my avatar and...

oh.

Nevermind.
 

Jeff

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While I agree with the sentiment and tone of your question, this can be a difficult position to maintain.

I agree Rob. That is why I think it is best framed as a question of morality, rather than as one of black or white truth. Everyone has to make up their own mind about it and judge/deal with others accordingly.
 

Richard

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It's probably worth noting that the Superfriends' big rivals included a huge talking monkey, an idiot who ultimately killed the Legion of Doom's attempt to take over the world by not being able to keep his mouth shut, a walking corpse (Shemp!) and a scarecrow.

Oh. And the only place the Superfriends' enemies could ever triumph was Bizarro Land.

There are better insults, unless they specifically mean the Wonder Twins, Gleek and Aquaman, in which case a libel suit may be called for.
 

SeanDSchaffer

Richard said:
It's probably worth noting that the Superfriends' big rivals included a huge talking monkey, an idiot who ultimately killed the Legion of Doom's attempt to take over the world by not being able to keep his mouth shut, a walking corpse (Shemp!) and a scarecrow.

Oh. And the only place the Superfriends' enemies could ever triumph was Bizarro Land.

There are better insults, unless they specifically mean the Wonder Twins, Gleek and Aquaman, in which case a libel suit may be called for.


:ROFL:
 

Ed Williams

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Jeff, I agree with you...

Jeff said:
Ed,

I certainly did not begrudge anyone the right to write to the author/columnist. I simply pointed out that the confrontational/aggressive manner in which I saw it was done does not seem to me to be helpful to advancing our position or getting people to listen to our facts.

But then again, what do I know? Maybe I am pretty much a pussycat in real life? ;)
...I think you make your viewpoints known in a professional manner, focusing on the opinions themselves, and not hurl invective at the person with whom you disagree. Whatever their opinion is, they have a right to it.
 

Sparhawk

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robeiae said:
While I agree with the sentiment and tone of your question, this can be a difficult position to maintain. Do you hold everyone/every company you do business with to these same standards? What about guilt by association? You could soon find yourself alone on island (maybe not such a bad option somedays). I think it's enough to work at convincing authors they are being taken advantage of personally, rather than approaching them by claiming their actions (bying their books) are morally wrong; I just don't think this will resonate with them. Of course, speaking the plain truth often does not work either; where does that leave us? Anyway, you raise a valid point, one worth thinking about. Thanks.

Rob

I think that at the point when a writer signs on with PA and orders their books and begins feeding their business model that writer is unaware of what he/she is iinvoled in. Agian I'm genrealizing and basing it on my experience and several other ex PA'ers that are here. IT's only after several months of self promotion and rejections that the reality of what's occured begins to set in, and at that particular point in the journey, it's usially too late. PA has reccouped it's business investment in teh writers book via the family and friends list and are pocketiing thier 92% on th ebacks of the authors marketing skills and sweat equity.

Hopefully places like this board can serve an an educational tool and make more writers aware of that business model and the pitfalls associated with it. Again as was evident in the prior pages, some writers like PA and accept the business model and beleive that they can make a go of it. While some sign on the dotted line unaware of what thier getting into.

Good Morning everyone. : )
 

Kevin Yarbrough

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gena140 said:
Black books are a totally different market, one I'm sure you don't understand at all. They don't care about PA.

They may not care about PA Gena, but you should. Here is why.

One of the ladies on this thread, Nancy Mehl, sold, I think, almost 2K books. Had a chance to get her book stocked with Krogers(?). What did PA do? Dropped her like a bad habit before she reached the next advance in her royalties.

So, do you think a publisher will pick you up on only 2K sales? That is all you will have with PA before they invoke their right to cancel your contract because of low books sales.
 

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Richard said:
It's probably worth noting that the Superfriends' big rivals included a huge talking monkey, an idiot who ultimately killed the Legion of Doom's attempt to take over the world by not being able to keep his mouth shut, a walking corpse (Shemp!) and a scarecrow.

Oh. And the only place the Superfriends' enemies could ever triumph was Bizarro Land.
Oh! Was one of them a shiny-domed Dutch gnome? I had some fever dreams last night and I'm pretty sure I saw that motley crew. :roll:
 
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