I have published two books through Publishamerica........?

Question

The two books I had published never made any money. PublishAmerica (PA) does no marketing. I am ready to write a sequel to one of the books. I am reading on here that PA is a "MUST AVOID" publisher. I have never paid one penny to them and have received two nicely bound books in both cases, free of charge. Is their a specific reason I should avoid PA?

If so, what are the unknown authors alternatives?

Answer 1

PA is considered a vanity press because it charges on the backend, not frontend like most publisher. Front-end, you pay upfront before your book is published. Back-end is what PA does. You haven't paid a penny? Good for you. Keep it like that and tell your friends and family NOT to buy your books. I'm sure you have gotten all of PA's special promotion emails telling you to buy a certain amount of books for a "cheap" price or if you buy X number of books then they'll send a copy to Random House, Oprah, Amazon.com, or some random actor-of-the-week. That's what I mean by back-end. You're pressured to pay AFTER the book is published and if you don't sell a lot of copies then they usually don't publish your next book. Which leads into my next line of thought: you have two books published. How? Were they published at the same time? I can't see PA offering to publish your next book if book 1 didn't sell any copies, which means if you and your family didn't buy any copies. If you bought copies of either book then, yes, you paid. That's how PA gets their money - by having the authors buy their own over-priced books. You paid through the back-end, instead of the front-end. Remember this: Real publishers do not ask you to buy your own book.



PA is NOT recommended for anything, not even to have a "nice printed copy of your book." This is because it's OVER-PRICED, poorly edited, and has a stock photo that hundreds of their other authors have. Why would anyone pay $30 for a 100 page book, even if it's just one copy?! Only the author and his/her friends. You can use a cheap printer like lulu.com and print as many copies as you want for a really cheap price. Lulu is recommended by many writers and I've heard from some people who use them to print copies of their books. You say you received "at least" $1 advance. I'm thinking you only received $1, not more. Is your book only worth $1 to you? This supposed "advance" is what PA uses to establish itself as a "traditional" publisher, because "traditional" publishers pay advances.



There are loads of reasons to avoid PA. Mainly because they're a vanity press. If you thought you were going with a commercial publisher then you're wrong, and have most likely been mislead. PA books are over-priced. They pressure their authors to buy their own books. No real publisher will do this. A real publisher does not expect you to be an author and your own salesman, but you have to be those things with PA. They're not trying to sell your book to strangers like me. They're selling your book to you. What can you do with it? You already know the story you've written and have read it many times. Are you going to sell it? You'd have to cut the price and take a financial hit to sell it competitively. If you're now your own salesman, how are you going to have time to start writing your next novel? PA offers not marketing and no bookstore placement. If you're lucky enough to convince a bookstore manager yourself to host a signing or put one copy on the stores shelf then you have to provide that copy yourself. Most PA author's books will never see the inside of a bookstore. I've seen some PA authors talk about how it's a waste of time and money to do bookstore signings and talk about how evil bookstores are. Well, it's not the bookstore that's the problem, it's the publisher. PA has a bad rep and most bookstores will not stock PA books because they're OVER-PRICED and badly edited, and PA does not offer a return policy for bookstores, which real publishers do. PA does not discount the book for bookstores, real publishers do this.



Forget about the sequel. See if you can write it into a completely different standalone book that does not depend on the one under PA contract...unless you plan on giving it to PA for 7 years? Your next bet is to write off PA. Maybe send them some polite messages telling them you can't afford to buy your books anymore and would like the publishing rights back. Once you get the publishing rights, completely rewrite it and see if another publisher will buy it under a different title. Don't mention PA as a publishing credit because you will be laughed at.



My advice: start a completely different book. You signed with a bad vanity press that has a bad rep throughout publishing and no one will take your PA books or its sequels seriously. Really, PA accepts ANYTHING. You're better off starting anew and waiting until your PA contract expires or keep asking them to return your publishing rights (ask nicely). Your alternative is write a darn good book, get a literary agent who will help you get a publisher. Publishing isn't easy. It's not that publishing is closed to new authors, but that most people trying to get published can't write to save their lives!

Answer 2

Gary, the writing site AbsoluteWrite has more than 60,000 posts (indexed, thank goodness) about PublishAmerica, many by former PA authors, others by people in the paying publisher industry, about why PA deserves the terrible reputation it has. Verified complaints include rights grabs and author exclusion from the PA site at the first whiff of criticism.



If you must use a vanity press, you'd do better at Lulu or CreateSpace.



Edit: Lulu is also a vanity press, but it has earned its reputation for being honest about what it offers the customer, and at what price. Unlike most vanity presses, they do not imply sales or suggest marketing packages for purchase. In fact, AbsoluteWrite's "Stories of Strength" anthology to raise funds for Hurricane Katrina victims was published by Lulu because they were fast and professional, able to produce a book while the story was still all over the news. Lulu donated its cut to the cause as well.

Answer 3

Lolligirl, Getting kid's books released isn't an effortless mission. It's even tougher than getting a singular released normally style. Most publishers seem for a celeb who needs to post a kid's ebook. Sad however precise. It could also be an uphill climb considering that you are a minor. You'll must have your mother and father consent or a dad or mum's consent to get into any binding contracts. By all method, do not allow this discourage you. Write your kid's ebook and purchase a duplicate of Writer's Market 2009. In there you're going to discover literary sellers who constitute quite a lot of varieties of genres. In case you do not know, a style is the sort of studies an writer writes. Westerns, Horror, Science Fiction. These are all genres. You'll must understand how to layout your manuscript as soon as it is performed. It might be shrewd to get a couple of books in this discipline. Good good fortune! PJ M

Answer 4

I'm a firm believer in not using any 'self-publication' at all.

It used to be called 'vanity press' and that's what it is.



You got two nice books. What will you do with them now?

If you got them to give to someone, that's great.



But obviously, you can't write your sequel through that company.

That's a big problem with self-publication. You can't do what you'd like to do.



I suggest you read the first section of a current "The Writer's Market" - "How to Publish." That section tells you all you need to know about how to publish properly.



It's an expensive book - if you can't afford it, suggest you study that section at your library. Make notes, copy pages on their free copier; know that section like the back of your hand.



In - "How to Publish" - you'll find tips on not only how to write a good query letter and how to find agents, editors and publishers, you'll find many tips by many people in the writing field - authors, agents, editors, publishers, screenwriters; many people. You'll also find "Predators and Editors" - a section to help you decide who is really a good editor or publisher and who is not.



Again, I strongly suggest you read that section first, follow the tips you find there and get published properly. Then use the book to find the correct agent, editor or publisher. You'll find your writing goes a lot farther and you're paid royalties (if accepted) as well.



Try it.

I have. It works.



Edit:

I don't know why Lulu is mentioned as a good vanity press. I've only read poor reports about Lulu. I usually read poor reports about most vanity presses. The only way a writer can make one work for them is if they have deep pockets (money to travel) and great associations with bookstore owners, book sellers, and if they're willing to wait quite some time for a 'real' publisher to take interest in what is written through vanity press and who will then buy copyrights of their own (through a contract).

Answer 5

If all you wanted was a nice printed copy of your book, then you probably didn't make a bad choice.



However, PA presents itself as suitable for people who want to sell their books in bookstores and online in as large quantities as possible.



It does depend on your definition of "vanity". If you use "requires money up front", PA isn't a vanity press. For most people, what they actually mean when they say "not a vanity press" is "sells books directly to readers rather than back to their authors".



Do go to absolutewrite.com and look at the forums. There's a _pile_ of information on PA, and also on every other publisher you've ever heard of and plenty you haven't :)



Edit: LK, I know of a fair few specialist software companies who use lulu to make paper copies of their manuals available to the few customers who want them (these days, almost all documentation is provided electronically by default). It seems to be a good solution for that situation - easily available single copies which aren't too expensive...and which can be printed on the same continent as the purchaser instead of flown across oceans. I agree that, like every other self-publication company, it's not a good choice for fiction which you'd like to be mass market.

Answer 6

It depends whether you want people to read and buy your books. If you just want to have a bound copy of your book, that's fine. But if you want people to read your books and take them seriously, then you must, of course, go to a legitimate publisher.



Go into Barnes & Noble and browse the books. If you can find any that are published by PublishAmerica I'd be surprised, but if you can find more than three I'd be amazed. Fiction books published by non-selective presses like PublishAmerica simply don't sell to the public, aren't carried in bookshops or libraries and are ignored by reviewers.



The issue with PublishAmerica is that its publicity materials are extremely misleading. They dupe writers into thinking that their book has been selected for publication on the grounds of quality, but in actual fact, they will publish anything (people have submitted dummy manuscripts to prove this). They also promote their services to writers very aggressively and misleadingly and raise writers' expectations unrealistically. They're known for their poor customer service and various scams. They're a print-on-demand publisher, which is essentially just a different kind of vanity press.



The alternative for an unknown author of fiction is essentially to write a book that's good enough to get picked up by a legitimate, selective publisher. Self-publishing works for certain types of non-fiction (for instance, a friend of mine is a TV scriptwriter who self-publishes small print runs of textbooks on screenwriting which he sells to students of his, as he runs screenwriting courses and workshops and a consultancy service - he publishes through Lulu and avoids their 'packages') but for a writer of fiction, it's generally a bit of a dead end if you actually want to sell books and be read by the public.



Bear in mind that all first time authors start out as 'unknown'. Being unknown doesn't mean you won't get a proper publishing deal - but your work will, of course, have to be good enough.

Answer 7

See the first link below for other people's experiences with Publishamerica.



While one publisher that I've heard some good things about is LuLu. there are some others mentioned in the article at the second link.