The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

how's this?

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/9856.htm

Wooo! That one got pulled fast!

Did anyone keep a copy?

yep, it's all due to us...

we should get paid by PA for pointing out the threads that they should censor...

*laughs*

well, at least someone's doing something over there...

censored...nah, it's just pulled for editing.

well, seems that Dave K. and P&E are stoking the fires again under some PA authors...

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/9883.htm

(it's posted on all the PA boards, so you can't miss it...)

Down now! That was fast, guys!

Betcha Dee Powers' password doesn't work any more, either.

<hr>

Dave: Another question to ask PA authors: "Were you unable to get your books stocked in major bookstores?"

I'm glad I managed to catch that one before it went "poof."

I'm getting the impression that the leaks in the PA dam are beginning to spring faster than their fingers can plug. I like that.

Not taking that bet Jim. Maybe Dee will let us know.

Good idea, Jim. I'll add that real soon.

In the meantime, they must not have pulled whatever was said fast enough because I received a minor surge of emails from unhappy authors and one happy author. Mustn't forget that one since I actually do play fair. Doesn't mean I won't get insulting at times, but I do play fair.

Maybe someone has what was posted there in their Internet cache and can copy it to a regular directory. Once it's moved, it becomes possible to do a cut and paste or an attachment.

The fastest one of my posts ever got pulled on a PA board was 20 minutes. As of today, I'm banned at the board.

Dee Power
Co-author of
The Making of a Bestseller, March 2005, Dearborn Trade
Overtime, 2003
Attracting Capital From Angels, 2002 John Wiley & Sons
Inside Secrets To Venture Capital, 2001 John Wiley & Sons

was waiting for that one...

welcome!

*passes over "I was published by PA and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" shirt*

www.publishamerica.com/cg...n/9915.htm

I especially love the part where "for the price of a car payment" you can hire a publicist....

WHERE are these people getting this money from? Sure as heck not their book sales?

*shakes head*

better off to take it all to AuthorHouse if you wish to burn it on books, imo...

PA's last email told me that I could only communicate by emailing support@publishamerica.com and that any correspondence by postal mail would be thrown away unopened.

After my experiences with PublishAmerica I'm thinking about writing an article about POD publishers, including PA. I won't sugar coat, but it won't be a witch hunt either.

I think writers need to know what they're getting into.

What do you think?

Dee

Making of a Bestseller, 2005 Dearborn Trade
Overtime, 2003
Attracting Capital From Angels, 2002 John Wiley & Sons
Inside Secrets To Venture Capital, 2001 John Wiley & Sons

Go for it, Dee.

Lots of threads here at AW that you can look at.

Lots of other people you can interview.

here is a number question that I have:

if PA has 6000+ authors, how would it ever be able to stock stores with those books using POD technology?

As they increase the number of authors, they increase the number of small runs. Would their printer be able to handle constant requests like that? Ingrams needs two books pronto for a borders in Podunk, Alaska. Do they run those suckers off?

Just curious how this will function in the future. I was reading threads on PA and finding that people had trouble stocking (surprise!) and many stores wouldn't back order.

Actually PA touts that they have 8000 "very happy" authors. They are also up to releasing 100 to 150 books a week, at least that's what you get when you count the book covers on their 'this week's new releases' page.

It takes a week for Lightning Source to fill an order, whether it's for one book or fifty. I asked them so that's how I know. Oh, Lightning Source is the POD who prints PublishAmerica books.

Dee

Dee, you probably want to read <a href="http://p197.ezboard.com/fabsolutewritefrm11.showMessage?topicID=190.topic" target="_new">this thread</a>. (It isn't obvious from the thread title that it's a PA thread, but it has some of the best discussion.)

You'll also want to read most of the threads in the Take It Outside Board.

You'll probably want to make local copies of all of them.

...apparently H.B. has decided he wants to write for television, but has found out that there is more to it than trying to call the networks. Witness the below:

"I need a reference to William Morris agency. I can't get in otherwise. That means I can't get anything going without an agent. BUT, I've been ripped off. That's why The Joe Schmoe Show and Parasites took two years to release. I need big."

To which one of his PA brothers replied,

"I can't believe that Argylestox, suggested what he did. In the first place to join the Screen Actors Guild (of which I am a member for 14 years) requires acting in SAG sanctioned movies or productions. Nothing to do with writing. Second, in order to join the Writers Guild of America you need to have sold a script or story for either film or television for minimum of $50,000.These are not guilds that you join by simply calling them up. By God, what ignorance! And let us not speak of misinformation."

Life just keeps rollin' along on the old pirate ship...

Hey, Ed!

In that same thread, another pirate posts:

"As a new writer I've landed a small literary agency based in Boca Raton, New York and Los Angeles. If you can't land an agent, submit through an attorney, that will also work."

That could only be our pals the ST Literary Agency!

Lessee -- They offer contracts to anyone who submits and is foolish enough to send a check. $129 to sign up, submissions supposedly sent out at the rate of ten a month for $14 per submission (another $140 a month), and that agency hasn't made a sale in its short, miserable life. So he's looking at spending about eighteen hundred bucks in the first year alone, with about zilch chance of making a sale.

Submit through an attorney? Oh dearikins me. That isn't very good advice.

I wish the Pirates weren't so dead set against looking at Preditors & Editors. They might learn something.

...is exactly the point you just made in your last post. Why are the PAvidians so opposed to reading P&E and taking some of the advice? The writing industry as a whole recognizes it as one of the best resources there is for both established and new writers, and I cannot for the life of me figure out PA's opposition to it. Then again, maybe I can. P&E has PA pegged to a "T", and maybe that's the cruxt of the problem. The worst thing about it all is that the PAvidians are fated to forever go from one scam to the next in ill fated efforts to prove to P&E and the legitimate writing industry that they're wrong, and that the great and mighty pirate ship is right. You would think, in the end, that the PAvidians would just take a look at who's extolling PA's virtues - Dodgem James, H. B. Marcus, etc., examine their level of literary success, and then perhaps make the judgement that another route might be a better one...

"Keep in mind that my first agent did little more than send out memos to publishers that a twelve year-old (or me) could have written. Then they held The Joe Schmoe Show and Parasties hostage by contract for a year because they were claiming four grand in expenses. Yeah right! I can see how five badly written query letters can rack up the bucks. It must have been all that postage from another freakin' planet."

from another post by HB... looks like he tried to move away from PA after his first book and didn't learn much.

I wonder how long his foray into television comedy writing is going to last - it's a tough world there and I just don't see them falling to their knees like the PAvidians and worship his talent... I'm waiting for the post denouncing Hollywood as part of the Big Conspiracy To Hold You All Down.

:P

Oh, boy. Poor HB!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the help I've received. I just wish there was a company that said: "Now that we've seen what you can do for us, here's what we can do for you. AND if you don't make money, neither do we, so you know we'll give it our all."

HB, I'm telling you this as a friend. What you're wishing for describes every single legitimate agent on the planet.

Honest, guy, if you're reading this, pop up around here and ask. We'll all try to help. Use a fake name if you like. Or show up as yourself. We'll still try to help to the best of our ability.

I do believe it would be better in the future if any comments about topics on the PublishAmerica forum were passed around as private messages. Otherwise, we're making it easy for the management over there to restrict that information too quickly.

That would work to a degree Dave, but it would only lengthen the amount of time it stays on the PA site by a couple days at the most. I think the people they should have screening author submissions are all busy perusing their forum as happy authors sending their I.T. people posts/threads to kill. Quoting it and providing a link is still better because even if they kill the thread what was written is still viewable as an excerpt here (for educational purposes about the difficulties in the publishing industry of course which falls under the fair uses clause).

....even if we make no reference to the PA threads most will ultimately be pulled anyway, and extending their life in PA land for another day or two will likely not have that much effect. Also, if we don't have some newer posts here, the PA thought police will use that in brainwashing new recruits, as in, "Oh that, hey, that was posted months ago and was already dealt with/resolved. If they can only bash us with these old items, hey, what more proof do you need about our honesty and integrity?"

I suggested that before about posting those here. However, some of those who are posting URLs here aren't copying the text for educational display.

Still haven't decided whether to write the article about PA, but I have to tell you based on some of the horror stories I've found I am very much leaning toward it.

Now for some interesting news: Our company has performed research in the areas of venture capital, entrepreneurs and private investors for the last six years. Part of that research is the completion and analysis of surveys. We have experience with this. Our business website is www.capital-connection.com

I decided to do a quick survey of independent bookstores and ask them, as one of the questions, if they will stock publish on demand or self published books. Guess what the answer was? By a large majority, no, they won't because of the poor quality of POD books.

And since PublishAmerica is POD that means no to PublishAmerica.

The survey results aren't ready for publication but at least it is some documentation that PublishAmerica misrepresents what they say on their website about getting their books into bricks and mortar stores.


Dee
www.BrianHillAndDeePower.com