The Old Neverending PublishAmerica Thread (Publish America)

[James D. Macdonald]

There was a time in the late '90s when a whole lot of mall bookstores closed, as major chain bookstores moved to their own nearby dedicated superstores, and others found that they couldn't compete with the superstores.

The closing bookstores returned or stripped books in cartons that had never been opened. For a while, sell through really sucked. Publishing took a hit, but it's recovered.

=============

Now let's look at this silly Novel Idea plan. Let's say that it's true that 40% of book purchases are impluse buys. What does this say? That people came to the bookstore looking for the latest Grisham, but while they were there they saw something else on the shelf that looked interesting, picked it up, looked at the back cover, skimmed the first chapter, and decided to buy it.

That requires that the Grisham be on the shelf to get the customer in range of the other interesting book. Who is going to go into a POD/self/vanity bookstore for its own sake?

But let's leave that aside. Let's assume that, somehow, magically people will go into these bookstores.

Need To Sell Just One Book A Month
This is not a huge goal - but if you can manage to sell but just one of your books a month you will break even and this will cost you nothing.

According to Mr. Ferm, the authors need to sell one book per month to break even. (Let's assume, for the moment, that that's true, too). That's twelve books per store per year.

According to the Author's Guild, the average midlist title sells two to three copies per store per year.

In other words, even if these were normal commercial books, priced like normal commercial books, books that you've heard of by authors you've heard of, in bookstores readers were likely to enter -- you'd expect to sell only one fifth of the number of books Mr. Ferm tells us you'd have to sell in order to break even.

But ...

Let us assume that you only sell just 4 books a month at any store ...

Shoot, let us assume you win the lottery, too.

Now let's look at real-world costs.

Say you have a typical PublishAmerica book: $19.95 retail.

Say Novel Idea really does have 30 stores by the end of 2005, and say that the author wants to be in all of them, to be stocked in brick-and-mortar bookstores from sea to shining sea.

30 bookstores times five books equals 150 books. Let's say the author buys them at 50% off (initial author's purchase). Cost = $1,496.25 for books plus $77.50 shipping equals $1,573.75. Plus thirty bookstores times sixty dollars per bookstore: 30 * $60 = $1,800.

$1,800 plus $1,573.75 = $3,373.75, which is a pretty serious hit on anyone's MasterCard.

At the end of the year, if the author sold two books per store (which is the most you can reasonably expect), then income equals 2 * 30 * $19.95, for a total of $1,197, and a net loss of $2,176.75.

Novel Idea replaces those two books directly from PA, for a cost of $19.95 - 40% discount (bookseller's discount), or $23.94 * 30 stores = $718.20 (plus $32.50 shipping). Author earns royalties of $57.60. Author's total income = $1,254.60. Author's loss at the end of the year: -$2,119.15.

Novel Idea's gross at the end of the year (for that author): (30 * $60) - ((30 *$23.94 )+ $32.50) = $1,800 - $750.70 = $1,049.30

If they get 4,000 authors: Gross income = $4,197,200

Not too friggin' shabby.

Of course, if no books sell, the author loses the whole $3,373.75, while Novel Idea grosses $7,200,000.

That is to say: If no books sell at all, then Novel Idea earns $3,002,800 more.

Tell me why Novel Idea is going to try real hard to sell books?

Or did I misunderstand something?

[Ed Williams]

...from the Great and Mighty Land of Poz:

Please let us not talk about royalties. Not all of us have the same contract. It is the same concept as if you were talking about how much you make with the people you work with. It is a poor work ethic.

If I told you I have made $34,000 in royalties already, you would get excited while others here would get pissed.

Personally, if a PA author told me that they'd made $34,000 in royalties, I would be tempted to ask them who their agent is, Dorothy Deering?

And for ZaZ:

Otter:

Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons. But that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto: We're just the guys to do it.

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Ed Williams

Personally, if a PA author told me that they'd made $34,000 in royalties, I would be tempted to ask them who their agent is, Dorothy Deering?

I wonder if that bunch is on parole yet?

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Originally Posted by Moondancer

It all sounds like a thinly veiled MLM setup.

Mountain Lion Management?

Mushroom Linguini Marinara?

M_______ L________ M________?

[DeadlyAccurate]

multi-level marketing. Like Amway.

[Ed Williams]

Moe-randa

Likes

Money!!!

Bluto:

My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.
Otter: Better listen to him, Flounder. He's pre-med.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Thank you.

Both.

I am enlightened.

[Sheryl Nantus]

Originally Posted by Ed Williams

...from the Great and Mighty Land of Poz:

Personally, if a PA author told me that they'd made $34,000 in royalties, I would be tempted to ask them who their agent is, Dorothy Deering?

I must admit, the ramblings of that particular author do have me waiting for him to show up here in six months... right after he gets his mighty royalty check and he's the one asking around "how much did YOU make?"

the high and mighty position is always best from the far side of the fence, I fear...

[Sher2]

Originally Posted by Ed Williams

Moe-randa

Likes

Money!!!


[b]

Or it could be
M udslingin'
L yin'
M othas'

Originally Posted by Jeff

Shoot.

I'm not tryling to be a jerk about this, Jim, but consider something that you might be missing here.

The way I understand that PA works your situation should be close to this:

Unless you/your firends/your family has ordered and purchased copies of your book from PA, in all likelyhood there exists less than five printed copies of your work as of this moment. As you admit, your main source of reaching any customer, be they new or past fan, is through PA's web site, or the online listings of bookstores. Since PA offers you no distribution, no marketing help or traditional promotion and does not place your book in any actual bookstores, a potential customer would have to stumble across your listing, or the PA web site, to even know that this work you created exists.

How does this, at its core, differ from "getting your book published in cyberspace where it joins all the other white noise..."?

Jeff, like it or not, in order for a writer to be sucessfull and make a name for himself, the general public has to buy his books. People on the Internet (writers included) interbreed (sic) so much that they get to think that "everyone" is Internet saavy. But Joe Average isn't. Joe probably doesn't even have a clue what an ebook "is" much less how to "download" one or how to "download" Adobe Reader --- "What the heck is an Adobe Reader, some kind of Southwestern Travel book?" sez he.

And last but not least, there's: "Read a book on a computer screen? Hey I like to read in my LazyBoy with a bag of chips and a cold can of beer!"

I admit that a POD book for sale on a publishers' site is also lost in cyberspace, but if Joe comes across it by happenstance, he at least recognizes it as a "real" book with pages that turn and all. And he might be tempted to buy it if he simply just had to give PayPal his credit card number.
You may disagree with my thinking but take your own survey next time you're
in that long line at the Supermarket and perhaps you might learn this to be true. I did.

__ Jim

[Moondancer]

Originally Posted by NicoleJLeBoeuf

Mountain Lion Management?

Mushroom Linguini Marinara?

M_______ L________ M________?

MultiLevel Marketing, although Mushroom Linguini Marinara sounds interesting.

[Julian Black]

Originally Posted by NicoleJLeBoeuf

Mushroom Linguini Marinara?

M_______ L________ M________?

I like Many Lose Money, myself...

[JennaGlatzer]

if Joe comes across it by happenstance...

I think that was the point he was making, Jim.

Nobody comes across PA books by happenstance. The site is NOT set up to attract readers. The books are not in bookstores. There's no catalog. Etc.

And just to be obnoxious, I sold 2,000 copies of my first e-book.

To be honest, I think e-books and POD books have about the same chances of success.

The point (the non-subjective one) is that PA represents itself as a "traditional" publisher and repeatedly tells its authors that Barnes and Noble orders from them all the time, that their authors are invited to do signings all the time, etc. You know that's dishonest of them (or at least, you will soon). A lot of newer authors had no idea... they thought they could believe the info on PA's website, which has changed several times now. It used to be a lot worse, emphasizing that the books would be available in every bookstore "from sea to shining sea" and making it sound like their non-returns policy was a benefit.

I just could never patronize a company that I know is purposefully misleading authors and preying on their dreams.

[DaveKuzminski]

I even have a screen shot of a PA web page from their site where they stated that PA books were available on bookstore shelves.

[realitychuck]

Originally Posted by DaveKuzminski

I even have a screen shot of a PA web page from their site where they stated that PA books were available on bookstore shelves.

They certainly are: books that the bookstores were tricked into special ordering and which were never picked up.

But doesn't PA say that bookstores have no room on their shelves for new books?

I'm so confused.

[DaveKuzminski]

No, this screenshot states in one line that, "PublishAmerica's books are stocked for sale in hundreds of bookstores across North America (including Canada), this also includes (but is not limited to) larger chain retailers such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, Wal-Mart, etc." I think that's fairly explicit in what they meant even though it's clearly false. One had to look only in any Wal-Mart to prove that the entire statement was false.

[Jeff]

What Jenna said.


...
*ahem*

Dean Wormer: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son!"

and,
D-Day: "Ramming speeeeeed!!"

[NancyMehl]

Originally Posted by JennaGlatzer

I just could never patronize a company that I know is purposefully misleading authors and preying on their dreams.

Exactly. Or a publisher who threatens and bullies those who disagree with their policies. "The Powers That Be" at PA have gone way over the line - sending a pseudo policeman to an author's home to personally threaten them?

No.

PA isn't a good choice for anyone. For any reason.

Nancy

[Galoot]

Originally Posted by James D. Macdonald

So. You're saying something's fishy, right?

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by DaveKuzminski

No, this screenshot states in one line that, "PublishAmerica's books are stocked for sale in hundreds of bookstores across North America (including Canada), this also includes (but is not limited to) larger chain retailers such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, Wal-Mart, etc." I think that's fairly explicit in what they meant even though it's clearly false. One had to look only in any Wal-Mart to prove that the entire statement was false.

I've been wondering--would they have legal recourse to say that--by that statement they mean available at the online stores?

[Canada James]

Originally Posted by razzirazz

The thing is, it has cost me nothing so far to have the book published and the book is there and ready for whatever comes along be it nothing or something and if it's nothing <shrug> life will go on.

Did you pay for your copyright?

C. James

[James D. Macdonald]

Originally Posted by Galoot

So. You're saying something's fishy, right?

That would be one way of putting it, yeah.

I see that Mindsight had the news about this a year ago, and that (at that time) the first store was supposed to open in summer 2004. No mention of that store's address on these folks' website, so I'm guessing it didn't happen.

The thirty stores are supposed to be in place by the end of this spring, and I don't see that happening either -- if they were planning to have 30 stores open by June, you'd think a few of them would already be functioning, and you'd think there'd be more mention on the 'Web.

So ... this may not have been a Real Opportunity in the first place.

[Canada James]

Originally Posted by razzirazz

To jump to something else --- If PA makes their money up front by having the author and his friends and relatives buy his/her book, and thereafter does nothing to promote or help sell in the bookstores, I wonder why they want to keep the rights for seven years? Anybody care to opine?

Are you kidding? If I could force people into being my customer for seven years without them having any legal means to go elsewhere ... that's genius!

PA gets it's return and profit with the first 75 copies. The rest is gravy.

C. James

[Canada James]

Originally Posted by Ann

Barnes and Noble have a store in just about every major mall of Northern California. Borders runs a close second in the mini malls of smaller communities.

And that's the very reason why there are no indie bookstores in malls.

C. James

[AnneMarble]

Originally Posted by razzirazz

Jeff, like it or not, in order for a writer to be sucessfull and make a name for himself, the general public has to buy his books. People on the Internet (writers included) interbreed (sic) so much that they get to think that "everyone" is Internet saavy. But Joe Average isn't. Joe probably doesn't even have a clue what an ebook "is" much less how to "download" one or how to "download" Adobe Reader --- "What the heck is an Adobe Reader, some kind of Southwestern Travel book?" sez he.

Actually, that sounds like some of the people the major newspapers have hired to write articles on e-books. There was one who said in his article that it took him an hour to find any e-books on-line at all. I felt like writing back to him and telling him about this marvelous invention called a search engine. Still, everybody things iPods are the hot new things, yet Joe Average doesn't have one of those, either. (Anyway, I think you might soon be able to read e-books on iPods, if you can't already. And in some countries, e-books on cell phones are kinda popular.)

One major difference between e-books and POD is that you can get a lot of e-books for free. But free POD books? Nope. Sites such as Project Gutenberg and Baen Books have gotten people used to the idea of e-books because people will download stuff for free that they might not have paid money for, only to find out they liked it. But imagine going into a store and seeing a trade paperback priced several dollars higher than the equivalent books on the shelves. Many readers hate buying trade paperbacks to begin with. If they should happen to run across a POD trade paperback, they will be even less impressed because of the cover price.

Also, I think if you are a reader and you are on-line a lot, you are more likely to come across e-books than you are that many POD books. (Even the Wildside Press books tend to be sold only in larger stores or specialty stores.) I go into the local bookstores so often that some of the clerks at the B&N don't have to ask if I have a discount card. But other than Wildside Press, I have come across very few POD books there. Mostly just a smattering of iUniverse titles. In my life, I have bought maybe four or five POD books.

But I've bought so many e-books that the owners of Fictionwise.com recognize me by name when I post on their YahooGroup. In fact, the managers of one e-book site once posted a message about a new sale in their newgroup that sais something like "Anne Marble, this discount's for you."



On top of that, once they get on-line, readers in some fields are more likely to be exposed to e-books than others. There are a lot of romance readers on-line. Most lists have at least some e-book authors with a strong presence, and people often ask questions about which e-books to buy. So even readers who aren't interested are exposed, and eventually might "succumb." (I didn't really succumb until I got my Palm.) While other genres don't quite have that "e-exposure," that will probably change as the numbers and types of devices change, as more publishers join the fray, and as the sucky ones drop out of site.