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The Publish America Sting

  • Jan. 25th, 2005 at 8:42 AM
lilith
PublishAmerica claims they are a traditional publisher. They also claim they reject eighty percent of the manuscripts they receive. (Ha! Ha! They make big funny!)

Ahem. So, just to check out that claim, a number of writers created a test novel. Jim Macdonald organized the whole thing. In his words, each writer did one chapter "-- without knowing what the other chapters were, whether the chapter was first, last, or somewhere else in the narrative, what time of year it was, or much of anything else."

Oh, and the names of the characters spelled out PUBLISH AMERICA IS A VANITY PRESS.

You guessed it -- PA offered to buy the book.

Here are the lovely details:

The manuscript

The acceptance letter

The sample contract

Jim announced the Sting on the AbsoluteWrite forum. Three hours later, PublishAmerica withdrew their offer, saying they had discovered numerous mistakes and some outright gibberish in the text. (No, really?)

I love it. Jim is my hero, even if the book did make my eyes bleed.

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Comments

( 14 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]quietspaces wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 09:19 am (UTC)
I keep in mind, however, that there are situations for which PublishAmerica is a good solution. I have in mind particularly an elderly woman--not a high profile figure--who had written her memoirs. The alternative, to which she had no particular objection other than cost and logistics, would have been thousands of dollars spent on a vanity press and a spare bedroom filled with books. I would be surprised if it ever sells over 500 copies, but her friends all over the world have been able to order it.
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[info]beth_bernobich wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 09:28 am (UTC)
I used to think so, but the more I read of PA's shady business operations, the more I question whether it's a good choice for anyone. With Cafe Press and Lulu.com, your elderly friend could accomplish the same thing, for no cost, with the same distribution but better prices and better quality control.
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[info]quietspaces wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 09:54 am (UTC)
Fortunately, the quality is excellent--at least, on the two copies that I got. I did check CafePress for her, but at that time they hadn't added the "perfect bound" binding.

The folks at PA did a lot of handholding, picture layout, and interacting with her, which was good. She'd gotten her first computer as a gift from one of her daughters, who is a friend of mine, when she was (I think) 76 and immediately set out on her writing project. Such enthusiasm! :)

I hadn't heard of Lulu.com, but will check that out. Thanks!
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[info]beth_bernobich wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 10:09 am (UTC)
I'm glad to hear that your friend had a good experience, especially with the hand-holding and quality. Quite a few authors reported that they could not get any help from the editors, and that their books appeared with icky covers, or with the wrong version of the books, or with new errors introduced by PA.
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[info]jenwrites wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 09:34 am (UTC)
He was telling me about this at Arisia. Oh, the joy that tickled my heart!
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[info]britzkrieg wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 09:40 am (UTC)
Heh. This isn't the first sting I've heard about, though.

You might enjoy this. :-D
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[info]beth_bernobich wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 10:06 am (UTC)
Yes, I saw that one a few months ago. iirc, that was a genuine submission, though.

But yes, there are several stings afoot. The "Atlanta Nights" project was the biggest, but I also heard that one writer submitted 30 pages, repeated over and over, which sold to PA. PA found out and withdrew the acceptance, but they were obviously ticked.

Another person reported on AbsoluteWrite that she too submitted a sting manuscript that PA accepted. PA apparently contacted her recently, asking if she still wanted to publish with them. Since Dee posted that on AW, PA must be frantically searching through their "accepted" pile to find the beast.

Such fun!
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[info]britzkrieg wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 10:10 am (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Elven Vampire was a sting. The first paragraph of my reply had nothing to do with the second. :-)

I also heard that one writer submitted 30 pages, repeated over and over, which sold to PA.

Yeah, that's the sting I was thinking about.
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[info]beth_bernobich wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 01:21 pm (UTC)
Doh!
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Elven Vampire was a sting.

Sorry. My reading comprehension is down today, methinks. (Did I mention that I need more coffee? Lots more?)

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[info]harmonyfb wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 01:03 pm (UTC)
Yes, I saw that one a few months ago. iirc, that was a genuine submission, though.

Yep, down to the photoshopped picture of Orlando Bloom on the front cover (which the author claimed she didn't know was illegal to use for her cover art.)
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[info]a_nightengale wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 01:18 pm (UTC)
(got here via [info]britzkrieg)

Oooh, a friend posted a link to that hideous thing. I couldn't read more than a sentence or two, and I never thought I'd see a bad picture of Orlando Bloom until I saw that one...
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[info]riemannia wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 10:22 am (UTC)
ROFL on the ms! Thanks for posting this, Beth.

Hell.
On wheels.
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[info]douglain wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 10:36 am (UTC)
That made me laugh.
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[info]madwriter wrote:
Jan. 25th, 2005 03:17 pm (UTC)
This reminds me of a poem about Poetry.com that Poetry.com once accepted from now-SFPA president Mike Allen (not the ones listed on the site now). It was titled "The Big Scam".

Gone now, but it was up on their website for several years. :)
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( 14 comments — Leave a comment )