The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

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Ed Williams

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Interesting, a spate of new, negative reviews...

...for "Atlanta Nights" have suddenly shown up today on Amazon.com. You can read them here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1411622987/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/104-1047568-3507148?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

A few thoughts:

1. Funny how all the "reviewers" showed up on the same day, and said basically the same thing.

2. Funny how just about all of them have reviewed no other Amazon product except for "Atlanta Nights."

3. Funny how all the reviewers needed to put down those that like the book in their reviews.

Moe-randa, Larry, and Curlem, can't y'all be a tad more creative? Can there ever be a such thing as a "bad" review of "Atlanta Nights?" Did you check out the sales ranking of the book, by chance?:ROFL:

P.S. The more attention you Stooges draw to AN, the better we like it...
 

DaveKuzminski

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If we were really insecure about our own writing and determined to reduce the competition, I think that the advocates would be recommending PA rather than recommending against it. Then we'd just sit back and let PA fill everyone's head with wrong information that they would pass around to mislead other uninformed authors. Within a year, the slush piles at the real top publishers would be significantly down in size, the publisher would find that he could fire a couple of readers and increase profitability, and we'd have no competition at all for that publisher's attention and backing.

Gosh, oh gosh, what could we have been thinking all that time? We've been going about it all wrong to maintain even a vestige of elitism. Now I'm sure to lose the right to wear my decoder ring!

Gee, I just went to Amazon to see what the new ratings were. I was surprised to find that the rating I gave it days ago was gone! No problem, I gave it a new one. Let's see what happens to it now.
 
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WhisperingBard

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Interesting, a spate of new, negative reviews...
...for "Atlanta Nights" have suddenly shown up today on Amazon.com.

What does it mean, if anything, when a book shows no Amazon ranking at all? A book that's been out for a while, I mean, not a new release.
 
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CaoPaux

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*digs toe into ground* Although I’ve never done it (I swear!), there've been times I've been sorely tempted to refer someone to PA. You know the kind: they ask a question, then argue with the answer because it's not what they want to hear. (Whadya mean I gotta work to get published?) Brings out my dark side real quick.
daz.gif
 

clintl

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roach said:
You know, I've thought about this before. I've been to one creative writing class* so my experience is limited, but it seems these would be the perfect places to discuss the business of writing. Along with lectures on purple prose, point of view and tense there should be classes on the myths of copyright, proper manuscript formatting, how to find markets and proper manuscript submission. Do these topics ever come up in writing classes or critique groups?


*Which I quit it after the teacher said that the only reason genre works are published is because it allows publishers to pay for the literary works they really want to publish.

It was covered both in the college creative writing course I took (which was taught by a professional SF writer), and at Clarion, which I attended a few years later. But whether those are typical of most classes and workshops, I'm not sure.
 

Ed Williams

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A book with no Amazon ranking...

....means that it has not sold any copies through Amazon.

P.S. Zaz, glad to see you got your avatar back, you're looking as dapper as ever.
 
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tab

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roach said:
You know, I've thought about this before. I've been to one creative writing class* so my experience is limited, but it seems these would be the perfect places to discuss the business of writing. Along with lectures on purple prose, point of view and tense there should be classes on the myths of copyright, proper manuscript formatting, how to find markets and proper manuscript submission. Do these topics ever come up in writing classes or critique groups?


*Which I quit it after the teacher said that the only reason genre works are published is because it allows publishers to pay for the literary works they really want to publish.

Those topics never explicitly came up in the program I was in, because it was much more focused on the craft of writing itself. However, I did learn a lot about those topics by asking lots of questions and observing a lot. This program was a somewhat different from a lot of others because I participated in it for 3 years while in college. My alma mater happens to be an ivy in Manhattan, so the quality of my writing instructors and their insights into the business were top notch. I learned lots of weird things about the business just by observation and conversation though. For example, I once spoke to a newly published author who told me that she only wrote the book at the urging of her friends in the literary world. She was mainly an artist and when she initially sent her book to publishers it was rejected outright, despite the fact that she had an "in." She sent it to a "book doctor" who reworked it considerably and it was published by a respected publisher. I read the book and it was pretty good. I took away two things from that conversation though, 1. its good to have inside contacts, but not dispositive and 2. its not unknown to pay to have outside individuals edit your manuscript (this was once an anathema to and I'm still a little wary of it). In some ways I came away from the program a little jaded, but at least I know a lot more then I used to.

By the way, I think what your instructor said was fairly correct.
 
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Jaws

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roach said:
… it seems these would be the perfect places to discuss the business of writing. Along with lectures on purple prose, point of view and tense there should be classes on the myths of copyright, proper manuscript formatting, how to find markets and proper manuscript submission. Do these topics ever come up in writing classes or critique groups?

Seldom in writing classes. Keep in mind that most writing classes are taught, at least in the academic world, by people whose audience is strictly academics and artistes. The short-story writers frightfully try to divine the trend at such well-known fiction sources as the Kenyon Review, Salmagundi, etc.—and wouldn't know a submission package to a commercial publisher if it slid up their legs and bit them on the gonads. Too many of them think that the way one gets an agent is to develop a body of published short fiction in those magazines and have the agent come knocking on one's door.

And that's before getting into the inaccuracies and misleading advice in the "standard" market guides. But that's for another time, another rant, maybe even a book to itself ({insert favorite deity here} knows there's enough material).
 

pike bishop

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sadly last night in a hial of gun fire travis was cut down and is no longer with the living he lived hard and died hard he was given to the earth after a simple service while going thru his personal items we came across something that has changed our minds in this battle a book that has carsed us to change sides we was riding on ! as of this day there is no longer a travis army all actions on there part is over we will no longer make anti publishamerica statements of any kind we have sent both in hard copy and e mail to publishamerica the errors of our ways 2 the books that we attacked from publishamerica we will no longer attack and will make every effort to post this on there web sites and the publishamerica web sit which publishamerica management has so kindly allowed to do 3 the anti publishamerica group who hired us will be turned over to the feds tomarrow with full text of emails and battle plans as well as a list of spies within the publishamerica group 4 to hb marcus the arther of the book that changed our minds will post on all his books words of only prase and state who put us up to this action and how much they paid agin there names will be turned over to the feds along with bank records 5 the army has changed sides due to the reading of crispy which is one of the great books of all time after a long talk with publishamerica management we now see there plan to change the way books are sold thru we are now call " PAIPA" publishamerica is pro america will sing only good about there books and point out the errors of the anti publishamerica groups such as this 6 no more will be said about atlanta nights or travis tea we now see that this book should not have came out nor did it meet with publishamerica high standerds 7 if one can not make it as a publishamerica writer one should find something to do except be negitive be happy and live a little 8 still think jamie farr was never funny but his book is great
 

reph

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Susan Gable said:
>>>That is why the first people who will buy a book are the author's family and friends. To them, the author is already special. The real challenge, however, is to become also special to people who don't know the author yet.
>>>>What the...? Is there any basis in reality for this?
Maybe these statements were written to hook the narcissism of people who confuse their writing, and acceptance of it, with themselves, and acceptance of them, as in "If people like my book, that will prove I'm special." We have a couple of threads on related topics going on the Novels board.
 

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roach said:
You know, I've thought about this before. I've been to one creative writing class* so my experience is limited, but it seems these would be the perfect places to discuss the business of writing. Along with lectures on purple prose, point of view and tense there should be classes on the myths of copyright, proper manuscript formatting, how to find markets and proper manuscript submission. Do these topics ever come up in writing classes or critique groups?


*Which I quit it after the teacher said that the only reason genre works are published is because it allows publishers to pay for the literary works they really want to publish.

I had the good fortune when I was still in my teens of taking a course called "Writing for Publication" taught by a man who said his goal was not to teach one to write, but to market, and one of the things he was very ardent about was teaching us to steer clear of scams and vanity presses in general.

The information IS out there. But one does have to learn to sift through all the muck and the scammers and the fake promises to find the real thing.

Common sense is the key.

Laura J. Underwood (A Little Bit of Travis Tea--My ATLANTA NIGHTS can poke out your EYE OF ARGON any day!)

DRAGON'S TONGUE forthcoming from Meisha Merlin in the Summer of 2006. Preview a copy at http://www.embiid.net.

 

victoriastrauss

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roach said:
You know, I've thought about this before. I've been to one creative writing class* so my experience is limited, but it seems these would be the perfect places to discuss the business of writing.
The creative writing class I took sounds a lot like the one you did, Roach. Along with the disdain for genre fiction, there was never a single thing said about the business of writing and the process of publication--even though all the writers there (this was a "serious" course, which you had to jump through hoops to get into) were presumably writing for publication.

Dunno if this is typical, but I've spoken with others who've had a similar experience.

- Victoria
 

Sheryl Nantus

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don't forget that there HAVE been PublishAmerica authors who have gotten jobs teaching these same creative writing classes...

I can think of a few examples off the top of my head where PA authors have been crowing about how they've "pointed" their students to PublishAmerica - and the students, figuring that if it's good enough for their instructor it MUST be good enough for them, rush over the cliff into the slimy embrace of the PA staff.

:Smack:

one of the first things I learnt in college - check the credentials of anyone offering their "expertise" to teach a course. I'm willing to bet that a LOT of the PA pyramid scheme includes victims who have been fleeced by their "teachers" under the impression that PublishAmerica is a valid option.

and heck, if the teacher says so...

:Headbang:
 

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Jaws said:
Seldom in writing classes. Keep in mind that most writing classes are taught, at least in the academic world, by people whose audience is strictly academics and artistes. The short-story writers frightfully try to divine the trend at such well-known fiction sources as the Kenyon Review, Salmagundi, etc.—and wouldn't know a submission package to a commercial publisher if it slid up their legs and bit them on the gonads. Too many of them think that the way one gets an agent is to develop a body of published short fiction in those magazines and have the agent come knocking on one's door.

And that's before getting into the inaccuracies and misleading advice in the "standard" market guides. But that's for another time, another rant, maybe even a book to itself ({insert favorite deity here} knows there's enough material).

I have to respectfully disagree with the picture you paint of academic writing programs.
 

DaveKuzminski

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How much will it cost me to join that group? It sounds interesting, especially if it's anti-PA.

Oh, by the way, are those bank records MP3 compatible? Yeah, I still have a turntable, but you can't play those in the car while you're driving.
 

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Sheryl Nantus said:
don't forget that there HAVE been PublishAmerica authors who have gotten jobs teaching these same creative writing classes...

I can think of a few examples off the top of my head where PA authors have been crowing about how they've "pointed" their students to PublishAmerica - and the students, figuring that if it's good enough for their instructor it MUST be good enough for them, rush over the cliff into the slimy embrace of the PA staff.

:Smack:

one of the first things I learnt in college - check the credentials of anyone offering their "expertise" to teach a course. I'm willing to bet that a LOT of the PA pyramid scheme includes victims who have been fleeced by their "teachers" under the impression that PublishAmerica is a valid option.

and heck, if the teacher says so...

:Headbang:

This is true, unfortunately, of any class that proposes to teach people how to gain fortune and fame quick, i.e. financial classes taught in Marriot hotels.
 

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NancyMehl said:
Isn't this the "revised" version? Wasn't there a nastier commentary published first that was removed after PA received complaints from their own fantasy/sci-fi writers?

I think there was an original, nastier version. But while they took out some of the nastiness, they added nastiness in other ways. For example, I'm pretty sure the original version didn't have that diatribe about e-book writers. I can imagine someone at PA shouting "You forgot to slander Dave Kuzminski, darn it!!! Now go back and rewrite it to say something snarky about e-books." ;)
 

DaveKuzminski

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Sure, PA had to avoid mentioning that one of my publishers had made two of my books available in POD versions. I guess that might not have looked so good for PA if they had pointed that out. Hard to rail against POD when you use POD exclusively, huh?

Also, by then, they'd already been bitten by R.R. Bowker over the misuse of ISBNs when PA tried to use the same number for both their trade version and the ebook version. Since that meant spending more cash, PA dropped out of producing ebooks, so they felt safe in mentioning those. I would have liked seeing PA's explanation to their own authors after that had they continued ebook production.

All of this makes me wonder what they're planning on saying about each other when their house of cards tumbles down. I'll bet that they can't wait to get out of sight from each other so they can each write down their own version of their meetings in case they need to prove their innocence and the culpability of the others to a DA. Who knows? Maybe they do it with frequent bathroom breaks?
 
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WhisperingBard

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....means that it has not sold any copies through Amazon.

That's what I thought. I was just surprised to see that Frank Weaver's PA book doesn't have an Amazon ranking (at least, at the time I write this). Isn't he supposed to be one of their best sellers? You would think at least *one* person would have ordered his book through Amazon.

My dear fellow PA authors, doesn't that tell you anything?
 

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DeadlyAccurate said:
What the...? Is there any basis in reality for this? I've never picked out a first book based on the author's bio. Unless the author's titles were already recommended by a friend, I don't pay attention to who the author is until I've decided I want the book....

Didn't Moranda say something like this in that infamous article where she claimed that bookstore placement doesn't count, and most bookstore sales don't come from browsing? I think that article might be why they stopped letting her talk to reporters. :wag:

DeadlyAccurate said:
ETA: Ah, I see. My quote was from http://www.authorsmarket.net/experts.htm and the other quote was from http://www.authorsmarket.net/youreyes.htm. Boy, they're really angry about Atlanta Nights aren't they?

They were already angry about SF writers when those pages went up originally. :) IIRC Atlanta Nights came about in part because of those pages. I haven't checked them lately. Have they added anything about SFWA or Atlanta Nights recently?
 

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WhisperingBard said:
That's what I thought. I was just surprised to see that Frank Weaver's PA book doesn't have an Amazon ranking (at least, at the time I write this). Isn't he supposed to be one of their best sellers? You would think at least *one* person would have ordered his book through Amazon.

My dear fellow PA authors, doesn't that tell you anything?

Please don't forget though that it's possible that his book did have a rating for the first three or four months, but lost it, I had one under a different publishamerica name, when they changed it to PublishAmerica as publisher, the ranking did not come with it. I know, I know, if you call Ingrams they also may say 0 sold and I can't explain that, but it's a fact that there was a ranking and now there is none, so anything is possible with his books.
 

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You want to know something, Bard? I'd try one of Frank's books if it wasn't for the poor service from PA in filling orders. I've received too many complaints from PA authors that mentioned how individuals ordered their books only to never receive anything, yet they were charged in full for the books.
 

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Several items....

1. I guess guerrilla literary desperados use guerrilla spelling and punctuation.

2. Bonnie, nice seeing you here, hope you will post often.

3. Per Frank Weaver's book, I think Frank has definite writing talent, but I can never recall it having an Amazon ranking. Maybe it has, but I've never seen it, and periodically I will look at the most hyped PA books to see how they may be selling.
 

WhisperingBard

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You want to know something, Bard? I'd try one of Frank's books if it wasn't for the poor service from PA in filling orders.

I'm with you there, Dave. I've seen several PA books that, in other circumstances, I'd be tempted to read. I just won't give PA the business.
 

Sheryl Nantus

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Bonnie Gibson said:
Are you the James D. McDonald that is the author of Cape Fear, The Lonely Silver Rain, etc?

Just been reading all the post here and wondered.

Bonnie

here's his home page: http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/

as you can see, he got credentials. He good writer. He help us save world from PA.

:Thumbs:

and welcome, Bonnie - pull up a chair, stay awhile.

:Coffee:
 
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