How to get out of a Publish America contract by stooping to their level.
Once upon a time I was a PA author. I signed the 7 year contract. PA had just started listing their books through Ingram. Even though I kind of knew what PA was, I thought well at least I can get my books in bookstores. Believe it or not, I was able to get Barnes and Noble stores across the nation to carry my book (with no help from PA of course) and I did all of the foot work to do so, but only one Barnes & Noble said no. Of course the books were way overpriced, but for the most part I was pretty happy. I sold a quite a few copies. Then when my royalty check came, there was a line that said something to the effect that I had no returns so I did not owe PA anything at this time. Now, this did not really bother me. I was not selling enough books to really worry about having to pay for returns, but when I went on the PA site on the author's forum where the authors could post and chat with each other, I asked about this. I let it be known to other authors that this was not the norm for "traditional" publishers that the author did not have to pay for returns out of their pockets, that it was subtracted from the author's earnings. Well, next thing I knew, I was banned from the webpage forum with an explanation from PA that I would be able to return when my behavior imporved. What? I just asked a simple question and let my fellow authors know a few little things about real publishers. I sent an e-mail to PA to complain. They then removed my book listing from their webpage. "Good luck selling your books from our site," they said. Well, of course I wanted no part of PA anymore, but I had that darn 7 year contract with them. At this point I had been with them only 6 months. Then I thought, hey, I could be a thug like them. I brought myself down to their level and acted like a baby. So then I emailed them back and demanded that they list me back on their page. I told them that I had a contract with them and that they could not remove me from their page. And then I went for the throat. I asked, "What are you going to do next? Tell me I don't have a contract with you? Let me just see you try and do that." A few hours later they sent me an e-mail saying I no longer had a contract with them.
I love it when a plan comes together.