I have heard concerns about PA [such as certain rights an author gives up] and that they do not help writers with promotion so I was interested in reading this piece but - alas - no matter how I tried, the page kept coming up as being unavailable.

yep... obviously PublishAmerica has no fear of being sued when they call a WP reporter a liar...

fwiw, I spoke to Ms Span and she told me she was forwarding the link to her editor.

methinks that the WP legal department may not be intimidated by PA's "rebuttal"...

Has it ever occured to you that most of the folks that are disgruntal and mad at PA are sci-fi authors and there is only about 110 of 11,000 authors that are complaining.? Just wondered if this was talked about as well, I am sure this is really quite a small amount of people that is grumbling.

PA only retracted their offer to "publish" Atlanta Nights when the sting operation was revealed on another board. They would have gone through and published the book and slapped it up on their website, along with offers to the author for great discounts, within the year.

I'd be embarassed to have anything to do with a "publisher" who would accept something like that without even reading it all the way through.

As it is, you can see the "quality" that PublishAmerica accepts - and it ain't pretty.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Corinne

I'm not surprise St. George. at you saying this as I recall your book did very little through PA.

Mine faired a lot better and I have a poetry book coming out with them in a month.. I have no complaint about PA and as to the novels presented to them, "Fakes" so to speak, they were rejected. Remember. that.




I'm glad that you think your book "faired" better - however, you're wrong about the facts as they pertain to "Atlanta Nights".

the book was ACCEPTED by PublishAmerica and the contract sent out to them - so much for their editing staff - it was only after James M. revealed the "sting" that they sent an email out cancelling their offer.

as for my book - I refused to purchase copies myself to try and sell out of my trunk or harass bookstore managers to carry them on consignment. PublishAmerica prides themselves on sales TO the authors, not to the public - thus the lack of a return policy, keeping their books out of the majority of bookstores unless the author begs his/her way in. I'd rather be writing.

because money flows TO the author, not FROM the author.

and certainly not to a vanity press like PublishAmerica.

more useful links:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05022/446283.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25187-2005Jan20.html
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/display_news.htm?storyid=39412
http://www.wnbc.com/askasa/4124957/detail.html

and the TRUTH about "Atlanta Nights" can be found at:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb202277.htm

go, read - be an informed consumer.

Friends don't let Friends be scammed by PublishAmerica.

[:D]

I didn't have to read the articles to believe they bought into a fake book.  I hate the stigma PA has left on my name as a writer.  They got me in 2003.  I wouldn't budge on them trying to pressure me into buying my own books though and I still sold close to 100.  I know it would have done better if they had actually help publicize it.  I don't want to sound like I have a big head, because believe me nothing brings you down to earth faster than realizing that you have gone with a publisher that has a bad rep and you didn't know anything about it.  If people hadn't told me (non family members and non friend type relationships) that it was a very good book with the exception of the editing, I probably would have given up writing.  They truely killed it in their so-called editing process.  They left out entire sentences and mispelled words that quite frankly were correct when they got it.  They wouldn't change it when I pointed out what they had done either.  An English teacher pointed out something that I really didn't need to be told.  They had changed nearly every form of the word "there"  as in there, their, and they're, and used it wrong.  It wasn't that way when they had me give final approval, (reluctantly-because they wouldn't fix the other mispells I told them about).  I never did figure out they took a manuscript of well over two hundred pages and turned it into a book of 186 pages.  I think I'm afraid to look.  I'm just glad that the people that read it liked it.  I did buy FIVE copies, only.  Two were promotional copies, and the other three were for someone who didn't have their computer up and running and had no access to the internet.  They paid me for them so I didn't loose anything.  But I must say AMEN!  to friends don't let friends send their work to PA.