My response
Instead of writing out my comments, it seems more logical to just paste the e-mail I sent back:
I appreciate that you wrote to me, and I do understand where you're coming from.
A few points I'd like to make--
I think the reason most of us are in this fight is that we DO believe there are intelligent, good authors among PA's ranks. If we didn't believe that, we'd have no incentive to fight... why ruin a delusion for people who would never have done any better? The thing that made me want to come out and speak against PA is that I read an excellent PA book and was heartbroken that the author would never have the audience she deserved. (She's now on our boards and still fighting to get back her rights.)
I don't particularly like the "PAvidian" title because I'm afraid it causes confusion about who it encompasses. I think the regulars at AW know who it encompasses, but PAers may think it's used to refer to them in general when it's not.
When one of our members talks about a PAvidian, he/she is talking about those who remain purposefully ignorant. People who don't bother to do any research and instead accept blindly everything PA says as fact, even when they have CRAZY amounts of evidence to the contrary. Then they go on to bully others into submission... "You should be thankful that PA took a chance on you! How dare you want them to be honest about distribution on top of that? Buy more of your own books and sell them out of your trunk and be grateful!"
I'm already sure that you would get a warm welcome at AW, but I'm not telling you to post there if it makes you uncomfortable. Maybe just stick around a while longer before you make up your mind.
What you'll see is that there's a large group of authors there with no agenda whatsoever except to help writers get fair deals. We've been working hard to ensure that PA doesn't continue to mislead authors. In the process, we've found that there's an awful lot of terrible advice being passed around the PA boards (about editing, publicity, how to make sales, etc.), and it would be kind of rotten of us if we DIDN'T try to correct all these misconceptions, considering that many of us have long publishing histories and know better. We can help PA authors learn what real publishing is about and how to make a career of writing books; it would be wrong of us to let the misinformation spread without comment.
Now, I understand that some of us aren't conscious enough of tone. Sometimes it's exasperating for us to read the jaw-droppingly-bad advice given on those boards, and the exasperation shows when we respond. It's something I've asked people to be aware of before, but I've put up your e-mail as a reminder. It really isn't meant to be personal-- it really isn't meant to convey that any of us believe PAers are, as a whole, stupid. But it's so damn frustrating for a lot of us to see the large number of PAers who continue to take poor advice from people with no publishing experience when we're *right here* trying to give them the truth. We can't post on those boards, and most of the people who now understand the truth from PA have been banned, so they can't chime in, either. It's frustrating to us that many choose to look no further than the PA boards, and choose to believe we're all "elitists" trying to keep them out of our "club." Or that we have some kind of conspiracy against them when the fact is that all we're trying to do is to HELP them by making their publisher stop misleading them.
Why would successful authors volunteer so much time trying to help inexperienced writers if we wanted to keep them OUT of the real publishing world? We'd just let them all stay at PA and sell 100 books and not compete with us.
That doesn't matter to a lot of PAers. Some will find any way they can to discredit those of us who are sticking our necks out to help. Those who've volunteered the most time to helping unhappy PA authors have been called plagiarists, "literary whores," pornographers, liars, etc. Some of your fellow authors lied to each other about me-- saying that I called all PA authors "stupid" (I never, ever said anything like that), that all of my books were self-published (despite how easy it is to find the silliness of that statement), that I got paid by NBC to say bad things about PA (?!), etc. One person stuck up for me and about 12 others believed it all without question and chimed in to laugh at me. Why? Because I tried to help them by wanting PA to quit misleading its authors about bookstore distribution, returns policies, overpricing, lack of editing, lack of editorial standards, etc. Therefore, I must be the devil and they must all know more about publishing than I do.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for the three principals behind PA. They're consistently lying to authors and they know it. They have been abusive to their own authors, they've done everything they can to line their own pockets while making life as difficult as possible for authors, and they've silenced anyone with a legitimate concern. Preying on writers' dreams is wrong. Getting rich off of lies is wrong. Calling them The Three Stooges is, in my mind, more than kind.
But I do not condone insulting or humiliating any PA author who's just trying to write and get read. It's a fine line to walk sometimes, trying to point out the misinformation they're giving each other without making fun of it. We have often, though, pointed out good posts as well. Typically, those posts are deleted by PA within hours. As you may notice, PA doesn't exactly like it when their authors begin to understand what real publishing is about. They become dangerous because if they spread their knowledge, PA will lose more customers (a.k.a. authors).
That was a very long way of saying I'm sorry you feel the way you do, most of us are doing our best and don't mean to take it out on any of PA's authors (just the publisher), and I hope you'll change your mind and join us on the boards when you feel ready.
Take care,
Jenna