The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)

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Don Davidson

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I've been away a few days, so let me first say "Welcome" to Mr. Stodghill. And I enjoyed your last post. Excellent advice. And now I will add my two cents worth.

I noticed early on in my dealings with PA that they tend to dismiss sites such as this one by saying, in effect, "You shouldn't believe what you read on the internet. Those people are just disgruntled liars." Angry posts simply reinforce this misconception and play into PA's hands. So I saved all of my correspondence with PA and posted it on a page on my web site (link below). The one thing PA cannot refute is facts, especially when those facts are set out in their own emails. I have posted emails from PA that concede that they do not market or promote the books that they "publish." (Their excuse is, of course, that the contract does not require them to do so, and thus they have not breached the contract--which is really beside the point.)

My problem with PA is, and has always been, that they are not up front about their business plan, which is to sell books to authors, not to the public. Everything on their web site, and in the contract, seems designed to convey the impression that they make their money by selling books to the public. (For example, "We want your book, not your money.") I consider that to be fraudulent, misleading, and deceptive.

I found AW too late to avoid signing the contract with PA, but at least I found you before I wasted any money on PA. For that, I will always be grateful.
 

Dick Stodghill

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I agree wholeheartedly. PA should be upfront about a number of things, but they are not. Sad to say, they are right in step with many businesses today. About all that can be done is being done by those on this board and some other sites. There is no way to know how many people pay attention to the message. Obviously, many do not. A high percentage of the books published by PA could never find a home elsewhere so a strong argument could be made that one of PA's worst offenses is cluttering up the marketplace. That's one downside of the Internet. It is wonderful in many ways, yet definitely is a mixed blessing.
 

Don Davidson

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I was out with my Mom recently when a colleague of hers gave us a flyer for his book signing at Borders. He invited us and was soooo excited about being published.

I thought it was great and offered congratulations. After he left, I looked at the flyer and, you guessed it, saw Publish America's logo at the bottom.

Because I have learned such a great deal from AW about other topics I trust what I've read here about PA.

My question is though, how did he manage to get a book signing at Borders? This isn't exactly a tiny area, and I imagine that there are other authors around here that are legitimately published.

What do you think his chances are of actually being successful with them?

Regardless of how the book signing turns out, you can be sure that PA had nothing to do with it. Per their email to me of 5/28/08: "PublishAmerica does not set up interviews, readings and/or signings, etc."
 

James D. Macdonald

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A high percentage of the books published by PA could never find a home elsewhere so a strong argument could be made that one of PA's worst offenses is cluttering up the marketplace.

I'm not sure that's correct. Mostly they aren't cluttering anything except their authors' basements.

The real sin of PA, in my mind, is that will publish a good book as fast as they'll publish a bad one, and that good book will get the same 75 sales to the author's friends-and-family as the bad book will, rather than the thousands of sales that it should have gotten.

Another sin is that they may break a new author's heart, put her off writing, so that the good author who might have developed is smothered in the cradle. The authors who think that this is commercial publishing and that all publishers are similar won't venture into the field again.
 

merrihiatt

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Regardless of how the book signing turns out, you can be sure that PA had nothing to do with it. Per their email to me of 5/28/08: "PublishAmerica does not set up interviews, readings and/or signings, etc."
PA has sent me several e-mail notices stating that they will set up book signings for me if I contact them. I have contacted them. They have never responded. I'm just saying that they do supposedly now have a "department" that helps with book signings. I received my first e-mail about this in December, 2008.
 

Dick Stodghill

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I agree, James. I should have been more specific by saying the online marketplace.
Perhaps you are right about discouraging a new writer. I'm sure that happens. Haven't you found, though, that most professional writers are hard-nosed and not easily discouraged? It almost seems you have to be that way to get very far. Even gracious ladies such as Sue Grafton and Mary Higgins Clark have a tough streak in them. Publishing has always been a business that provides a lot of kicks in the teeth and since its existance PA has added a great many more of them. When I posted on the PA board I tried to get the point across that rejection and disappointed are occupational hazards. I doubt that such posts did much good so I finally gave up. It would be good if PA would come right out and explain that its goal is to sell books to the people who wrote them rather than market them to the public. Unfortunately, there is no indication that will happen. The owners seem perfectly content in having built a large, built-in list of customers. If anything can be done other than trying to steer people in another direction it escapes me.
 

smsarber

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Now here's my two cents. I've read all my life, and always wanted to write. I tried, half-a**ed, a few times. Inebriation made writing an impossiblity for me. It may have been good enough for ol' Ernest, but I couldn't do it. I wrote a few poems that sparked some interest and admiration among family. Not because they were spectacular, but because I got "accepted" by PublishAmerica to have them "published" *cough*. I went to jail the next day and finished the required 50 poems beofre I transferred to prison. The first 25 were written during the end of my days as an alcoholic in active addiction. (I know that contradicts what I've said. But poems, being shorter, were something I could hold my attention focused to long enough to finish.) So while I sat incarcerated I dreamed of success. I got out of prison and almost immediately uncovered negative stuff on PA. But I wasn't going to be discouraged by that. It wasn't until some of my family ordered books that were never delivered. They weren't even charged for them. PA didn't care enough to bother printing out a couple more copies of my poetry book. Then I bought two copies of my book from B&N (I had talked them in to stocking a couple copies) and never saw them reflected in my royalty statement. That was what sent me here, to AW.

As a recovering alcoholic writing is therapy. It's one of many things in my routine to keep me sober. I dream of the day my books will be in stores, and I will have made a career of this thing I love to do. It would have been easy for me to become discouraged and turn away from writing, and I think if I hadn't advanced far enough in my recovery while I was in prison it could have happened that way. God had a reason for me to be away from my family. I had to be in prison to get my life in order, all aspects of my life. The strength to keep writing after the feeling of disappointment from my experience with PA was one of the possitive side-effects of incarceration.

PublishAmerica can suck the life from you, true... but only if you let it.
 

allenparker

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My take:

Haven't you found, though, that most professional writers are hard-nosed and not easily discouraged?

I can agree with this, but only with one caveat.

Writers who succeed with their craft become tough as nails through the vetting process. One can't become a writer without first feeling the sting of rejection, the sheer pain of lonely nights alone with a pen and paper, and the horrible world editing.

PA short circuits this process by removing the vetting and the rejection. It becomes that much harder for a writer to continue without the toughening process proper channels in writing provide.

It is like trying to run a marathon before you train properly.
 

Cyia

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PA short circuits this process by removing the vetting and the rejection. It becomes that much harder for a writer to continue without the toughening process proper channels in writing provide.

It is like trying to run a marathon before you train properly.

ITA.

I think it's safe to say that better than 90% of the books put out through self-publishing aren't ready to be published in their present form. That's not to say that with a bit of work they couldn't come up to market standards, but without the polish, they aren't ready.

When a person gets that email saying someone is willing to give their book a chance, or that they believe in the writer's material, there's a certain amount of implied quality that goes with it. An agent or publisher accepts only what they believe will be entertaining or informative enough to sell books and earn a profit. Acceptance of a manuscript implies that the manuscript meets that requirement.

When the almost 100% of self-pubbed books that don't sell fail to perform up to that expectation (on the writer's part) the writer is left with two choices. Either they can look at the business model and accept that it was geared toward making money off of them rather than the public, OR they can assume their book was awful and didn't sell because the public didn't like it.

In most people's minds, it can't be option A because "traditional" publishers must know what they're doing if they've been in business for years. Option B becomes the answer because it's nature to assume the newcomer is the one not up to snuff. The writer must have done something wrong to deserve dismal sales. (never mind that the bulk of EVERY client they print has the same level of "success")

Even if that writer is amazing and lifechanging in their prose, they'll never know it because no one's going to be able to read it. They'll file the "Failure" away as a life lesson, or one of those things they always wanted to say they tried, and go on to something else.

Dream dead. :cry:
 

Prozyan

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Haven't you found, though, that most professional writers are hard-nosed and not easily discouraged? It almost seems you have to be that way to get very far.

Dick, I agree insofar as anyone wanting to be a professional writer has to develop persistence and thick skin.

However, I do believe there is a different psychology between being rejected and being taken advantage of.

Allow me to indulge in two examples:

Case A - I write a novel and send it out to some publishing houses and agents. It is rejected and I am discouraged. Maybe I quit, maybe I don't, but I am out nothing more than hurt feelings.

Case B - I write a novel and submit it to PA. I've seen the negative stuff written about PA, but don't believe it. They are going to give me the chance I deserve! They accept my novel, creating a wave of excitement in me. My novel is printed (note printed, not published) and I learn that all marketing is on my shoulders. I buy my own book in the hope of reselling it. Sales are sub-par for the amount of time and money I am putting in. Slowly I realize that my novel just won't sell. Maybe I've been scammed. Now I am not only discouraged, but I'm out money. This is more damaging because of the high I experienced when I first learned I was going to be given the chance I deserve. I flew up high and crashed down hard. If this is how the industry works, screw this.

Naturally, some people (such as yourself) get into PA knowing full well what the reality is. This is not the case with most. PA claims 30k + authors, but you only ever see a mere fraction of that number active. Where are all the others? The long trail of broken bank accounts and shattered dreams PA leaves in its wake is brutal beyond compare.

It is much more cruel and discouraging to make someone believe their work is up to publishable standard then take advantage of them than it is to tell someone their work needs improvement.

And the biggest crime? All the time the PA author spends doing promotion is time spent away from doing what they should be doing: honing their craft and getting their next book ready.
 

Christine N.

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The backlash of all this is that those who write the bad books are goaded into thinking their writing is good, and then can't take criticism, because PA published the book, it MUST be good, right?

So they either become defensive and don't improve, or they figure they're already good enough and make no effort to improve. While not indicative of all PA authors, there's surely a good percentage that fall into this category. They may have become terrific authors, developed a good thick skin through rounds of rejection and trying again, but PA arrests the development of those authors by making them feel like they've already achieved success.

And there are some great books that PA publishes that languish in anonymity, which is also a shame. There's just no way to tell the good from the bad.
 

smsarber

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How many of you remember when I first came here? I was ultra-defensive about everything I wrote. I thought it was all great, and people just didn't understand my genius. It took a long time for the understanding that I had a great deal to learn to set in. Of course some of that was because of the PA experience. Just like you said, Christine. But also partly because I'm used to being good at everything I do; art, guitar, fixing just about anything. But developing as a writer has been hard work. And I'm still in the infantile stages.
 

Don Davidson

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I think Prozyan has hit the nail on the head. If you don't know the truth about PA, then the acceptance letter generates a great deal of excitement and self-validation. I know this to be true from personal experience. Then when you learn the truth, it can be devastating to the psyche and self-confidence. It is like finding out your girlfriend was really only interested in you for your money. Writers who know they are good, or who are confident in their own abilities, will no doubt overcome the disappointment. But those who are more fragile may simply give up rather than risk another such emotional letdown. Once burned, twice shy.
 

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. . .I think it's safe to say that better than 90% of the books put out through self-publishing aren't ready to be published in their present form. That's not to say that with a bit of work they couldn't come up to market standards, but without the polish, they aren't ready. . . .
In fairness, many are not intended as general commercial books. I mean, you could make the same complaint about 90 (99.9?) percent of community theater productions (not up to Broadway or off-Broadway or even off-off-Broadway standards), or piano recitals or amateur league baseball games or fund-raising pancake breakfasts or countless other activites we do not normally compare to commercial standards.

Let me give a close-to-home example. I write a weekly column called "Ken's Corner" for Senior Spectrum. That is a modest local weekly. I am accumulating the columns, and a few other pieces, into a book that I will self-publish. I have no delusions that the book would have any potential for commercial publication or much of an audience outside of the Sacramento metro area, and would not waste my time or anyone else's in such a pursuit. But it will have a local audience. Sure, I suppose it is conceivable that I could bring it "up to market standards" somehow. But why? Some of my readers will want the book, as will some of the folks I talk to locally (it will be a nice back-of-the-room sales item). But the audience is too small and much the content too locally oriented to be of any interest to a commercial publisher. And I can have it in print within an hour or two via a POD (I use Lulu.com), and a hundred copies in hand within two weeks, after I have put the finishing touches on the text (I've already designed the cover).

So what's the beef with self-publishing it? And in general, what's the beef with folks experimenting with a book just as they do with those amateur recitals, pancake breakfasts, or community theater productions?

(Yes, yes, this wanders from the PA focus of this thread. We already know what PA would do to such a book, as it has done to many others.)

--Ken
 

Scribhneoir

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In fairness, many are not intended as general commercial books. I mean, you could make the same complaint about 90 (99.9?) percent of community theater productions (not up to Broadway or off-Broadway or even off-off-Broadway standards), or piano recitals or amateur league baseball games or fund-raising pancake breakfasts or countless other activites we do not normally compare to commercial standards.

This is true. But the difference between the actors in a community theater or the fundraising pancake flipper and a PA author is that they know their play isn't a Broadway production and their pancake breakfast isn't cordon bleu. Most PA authors, though, do intend their book to be commercial and think their publisher is equivalent to Random House, only more open to new writers. That's why we can't and don't make the same complaint about community theater, fundraiser breakfasts and little league baseball games as we do about a scam vanity press like PA.

So what's the beef with self-publishing it?

No beef at all. You're using self-publishing in exactly the way it's meant to be used. And, of course, nobody has tricked you into it through misleading advertising.

And in general, what's the beef with folks experimenting with a book just as they do with those amateur recitals, pancake breakfasts, or community theater productions?

Again, no beef at all, when the folks experimenting are aware that that's what they're doing. That's not the case with the majority of PA authors. Most of them think their book has been chosen on merit and that it's been published by a legitimate commercial ... oh, excuse me, "traditional" publisher. As we can tell from those who've told their stories here, it's a devastating blow when they learn otherwise.
 

James D. Macdonald

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Most school plays don't charge Broadway prices.

Community theater actors aren't surprised when their production isn't reviewed by the New York Times.

The servers at the church pancake breakfast aren't planning to pay the rent with their tips.
 

smsarber

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Most school plays don't charge Broadway prices.

Community theater actors aren't surprised when their production isn't reviewed by the New York Times.

The servers at the church pancake breakfast aren't planning to pay the rent with their tips.
Abso-friggin-lutely!
 

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. . .Most PA authors,. . ..
PA is not self-publishing. It is vanity publishing. My comment had to do with self-publishing (author owns the ISBN and is in charge of the process).

Maybe I should have put my parenthetical closing comment in bold:

(Yes, yes, this wanders from the PA focus of this thread. We already know what PA would do to such a book, as it has done to many others.)

But my comments on that point will continue to be nit-picked to death.

--Ken
 

merrihiatt

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I'm not quite sure why you posted about self publishing in the PA threads if you didn't want to make the comparison between PA and self publishing. It might have served your purpose better if the post was in the self publishing section of AW. Just a thought.
 

Dick Stodghill

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A great many excellent points made since my computer's visit to the repair shop. Even a guy who loves to argue can't find a thing to disagree with except that word vanity. I have to repeat myself in saying that one word can make some people question the validity of points raised here because they have checked how much upfront money the vanity presses want and PA does not. There is so much good advice to give someone thinking of using PA without risking having that turn them away - little or no editing, writers being the target audience rather than the general public (first thing I found when my computer returned was a special offer containing those unbelievable shipping charges). If everything else about PA was great, which it isn't, charging $2.99 per book for shipping is outrageous. Everyone here has a long list of excellent reasons to avoid PA without using that word, no matter how convinced they are it is true.
Mr. Macdonald's remark about the bad effect of a poor copy-edit reminded me of the time in the late 1970s when an editor changed 1875 to 1975 in a story of mine. So in 1975 the Chicago detectives were speeding to the scene of the crime in a horse-drawn hansom cab. Embarrassing.
 
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