PublishAmerica: Legitimate, or a hoax?

Question

My mom is a teacher, and a couple years back, she taught a boy whose mother had gotten published. The mother of the child gave my mom a copy of her book, and when my mom showed me, I said, "Oh cool, she got her book published? I'll read it."

I'm 15, have been writing stories since I was around 7, and I edit things for my family all the time. I'm pretty good at catching mistakes in other people's work.

Well, I opened the book the lady had published (with PublishAmerica) and right off the bat caught numerous errors. Throughout the book, the kind of mistakes varied from incorrect punctuation, different spellings of words (for example, "there" instead of "their"), to SPELLING HER MAIN CHARACTER'S NAME WRONG! At the beginning of the book till about the 10th chapter, she spelled it "Megan." After that, it was "Meagan."

My question is: What kind of publisher would willingly publish a book verbatim, with no editorial input whatsoever? Not only does this looks like the author can't write legibly, it looks bad on the publisher's part because they let the book go into printing in such a horrid state!

So, is PublishAmerica one to stay away from? I'm guessing so. :P Feel free to share stories about other publishing companies, or your opinion. Thanks for the input! :)

Answer 1

I went to their website, they had this on it:

Welcome to PublishAmerica!

We are the Nation's number one book publisher!!



1. We publish more new titles than any other traditional book publisher. PublishAmerica has a history of regularly putting thousands of its titles on the market in hardcover.

2. We accept more new and unpublished authors than any other traditional book publisher in the nation.

3. We receive more queries from new authors than any other book publisher in the nation.

4. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, we hold the record for the largest booksigning in history. (by the way, however made the website didn't realize book signing is two words)

5. We are the first traditional publisher in modern times to reverse the trend of outsourcing book printing, by building our own printing facility



Also, on wikipedia:

PublishAmerica is a Maryland-based print-on-demand book publisher



It also says most books don't end up in book stories, minimum editing, and they published a hoax manuscript called Alanta Nights (badly written specifically to see if PublishAmerica would take it, it did) and that "PublishAmerica also accepted another author's manuscript that featured the same 30 pages repeated ten times"



So in other words, it's either self-publishing or a step above.

Answer 2

No, not a hoax. Just the BIGGEST scam in the industry. ;)



No offense to your mom's friend, but she really can't write that well. Think about it. If PA is publishing books without editing them then what does that say about the author? They can't write and can't edit themselves. These are things all authors need to know how to do if they want to be published. No legit publisher will accept her work with all those errors. None. Which is why she needs to learn how to properly edit her own work. That's just downright sloppy and is why I don't buy self-published and vanity published books. Believe me, I'm not going anywhere near any of the self-published stuff on Kindle and other ereaders for exactly this reason.



Also, they might edit, but they don't do the kind of editing a regular publisher will do. PA runs the grammar and spell check and that's about it. Some authors have noticed that PA adds errors into their work! How stupid is that. That's from not manually editing but from depending on a program for the editing.



Sorry, but that author can't write legibly. She sent it to them with all those errors. An author who can actually write well wouldn't do that. Publishers don't accept books that need tons of editing. The less editing a book needs, the better chances of a publisher buying it (assuming it's well-written, original, and marketable).



Obviously the publisher isn't something you'd want to be published with if they're publishing books like that. Also, I"m wondering how much money your mom paid for that book. PA over-prices it's books. You'll end up paying $30 for a 120 page badly written, unedited book. Just sayin!



PA makes money by selling the author's book back to the author. PA isn't interested in selling books to the general reading public like you and me. This is because no one in their right mind will buy those books. Most bookstores don't even stock PA books because they're known to be of bad quality. So, it's no surprise that your mom got this book from the author and not from a retailer or bookstore...

Answer 3

Hoax run as fast as you can!



hoax publishers don't care about your editing or the quality of your book. They care about the money you send to them. "Money flows to the author not from the author" is a big quote in the publishing business.



Writing to be published is a VERY trying thing to do. There is soo much that goes into it that even people who are "great" writers need to reedit multiple. Its not normal for an author to go over their work at least 8 times before even submitting to an Agent. Mistakes with "their, there" would get the manuscript thrown out.

Answer 4

Sadly, it isn't a hoax - it's very real. It is, however, a scam.



http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10211



Have a browse around there. They have threads on dozens (probably hundreds) of publishers, both the ripoffs and the professional ones.



"What kind of publisher would willingly publish a book verbatim, with no editorial input whatsoever?"



One which makes its money from selling books back to their authors - i.e. a vanity press. They already _know_ the author thought it was ready to be published like that - because they are the one who submitted it!

Answer 5

I published my book with this company and asked for more time to edit. The woman told me that she felt the book should be published as is. Didn't bother to have editors to edit it. Then two weeks later they sent me an email stating that if I paid them money they would take care of editing. Hum. Now my book that went to New York Times first publishing is out there without any editing. Wow.

Answer 6

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