PA books

The subject of PA dies and then comes back to life like those birthday candles that can’t be blown out. Those published by PA know the downside; accept it for what it is, and move on.
Many of us have moved on and look at PA as an important stepping-stone. Only those published by PA have a right to criticize it, provided the criticism deals with the present. If we have a book that is priced too high, we can say it. If we are harassed by emails wanting us to buy more of our own books, we can say it. Will it change anything? I doubt it. Sharing our frustration with friends is a form of release. Comments by an outsider, someone hiding behind a false identity or no identity, are unacceptable. It’s like some foreigner telling us that we are stupid.

Our system of education is slightly different to the US but I'm sure there's a parallel. Teenagers in secondary school do not want to be defined by their primary school performance (especially if they are what is categorised as "late developers"). University and college students want to be judged on their work not on the high school qualifications that allowed them into higher education. Graduates do not want to be assessed on their diplomas and degrees when they are part of the workforce. Whatever they did in the past got them to the point they want to be, and they want to be judged on how they perform at work irrespective of how they got there.

Some PA bashers want to stick a label on PA authors that defines them for the rest of their lives. At the same time, these bashers claim to be compassionate people. Where's the compassion? I just don't see it.

Abe and Shelagh had some good points. (Others also, but I think those two put it together.)

What bothers me the most, and I hope this discussion ends soon, is when they say the printing is bad, errors are rampant, covers are horrible, etc., etc.

I doubt they have read PA books. I have read many, and found the covers beautiful, printing excellent, and writing exceptional.

The rest regarding PA, much of what Abe has said, we have a right to complain about, but I do not think anyone here who has read the books of the others would ever, ever, complain about the writing etc. And I think we have pretty much covered our complaints and moved on.

We have many books in this house, from best sellers, to classics. My PA books are on the shelves among them. We are cleaning out books for my daughter to sell at her apartment sale, or take to the library, but none are PA books. They will stay in their places of honor, for the writing, the presentation.

Love, Carol

Apparently, I'm not labelled, I'm ignorant. What a relief! Just imagine, if everyone thought I was intelligent -- how would I live up to it?

3/4/2010

" BRAVO," Everyone....I have many PA author
books and they were all we'll done. Many of
the authors have great stories to tell, to me
that's what mattered....


Cheers..Joe

I don't see how calling me ignorant and dispassionate will get them what they want. Why would I want to prove them wrong? They don't want to be proved wrong about anything. Let them think what they like. They will do anyway.

Don't allow them to diminish us.
We wrote what we wrote.
If people can afford our books--fine.
I do not recall anyone here saying that one had to have PA for a publisher.
That is just an opening for their condescension and assertions that the books are no good.
Some PA books are no good some are vey good.

They diminish themselves, Alice, not us. Not all bestsellers are great works of literature, but the ones that are not do not pull down the ones that are. The bashers imply that badly written books infect all books around them like a virus. In fact, they serve to make the good books shine even more brightly.

I found this [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - a self-publish free software (free until you buy a book). Sort of puts a realistic eye on POD book prices when you consider their prices as "wholesale" self-publishing prices.....

dkchristi wrote:

I found this [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] - a self-publish free software (free until you buy a book). Sort of puts a realistic eye on POD book prices when you consider their prices as "wholesale" self-publishing prices.....

In the PA vs, LSI lawsuit, PA revealed in court papers that it costs them $1.98, including labor, to print a book through LSI. It was probably even less when they had their own machine.

Add the $3 a book shipping charge to the $12.95 and up retail price and you get a staggering markup.

Some people get strange on the internet. I have read the stuff on AW about PA. It's like a sickness. I remember they went after Dick when he said he had a book published with PA. 50,000,000 members of AW went after him...you know Dick...he never started a fight, nor run from one.
With class, he told them to piss off.

domenic Pappalardo wrote:

Some people get strange on the internet. I have read the stuff on AW about PA. It's like a sickness. I remember they went after Dick when he said he had a book published with PA. 50,000,000 members of AW went after him...you know Dick...he never started a fight, nor run from one.
With class, he told them to piss off.

By the way, all the docs on the PA vs. LSI case are available via PACER, in case anyone was curious.

I never really read the PA stuff on AW. I tend to read about the agents and publishers in the Bewares section.

3/5/2010


DK....

Thanks for the tip on Book Blurb, I
plan on doing a wedding book for my niece
for Christmas , she got married last Nov.

Cheers..Joe

In other words, the claims that PA books are a satanically-instigated infection that menaces the purity of our youth is exaggerated?

No, Lin. That's spot on.

Well, I don't know about all PA books, but I think the two of mine they published fall into that category.

E.Don

Your books are great. Shelagh yours too.

I think the problem is some PA authors are unhappy when their books are over-priced and under-marketed. PA cannot do
eveything for nothing.

I think the problem might be that the books end up being published with more errors in them than when they were sent to PA and the covers often have nothing to do with what the book is actually written about. Then when you add things like not getting paid royalties until your royalties have reached $49, having to pay to fix errors in your book (errors that PA put into the book when it was formatted and spell-checked), and how difficult it is to get print-on-demand books on bookstore shelves, it just doesn't seem like the best plan out there for a lot of people.

[quote="new writ"]I think the problem might be that the books end up being published with more errors in them than when they were sent to PA and the covers often have nothing to do with what the book is actually written about. Then when you add things like not getting paid royalties until your royalties have reached $49, having to pay to fix errors in your book (errors that PA put into the book when it was formatted and spell-checked), and how difficult it is to get print-on-demand books on bookstore shelves, it just doesn't seem like the best plan out there for a lot of people.[/quote

RUBBISH! BALDERDASH! What do you know about it? It is the only way for a lot of folks.

I published with them and am now seeking a traditional, commercial publisher. It remains to be seen what will happen. In the meantime, I love my book cover.

They introduced no errors into my book.

In Alice's defense, the introduction of errors (and charging authors to fix them) is new. It started about 4-6 months ago, along with the fee to get the book to press faster.

You mean you no longer get paid a dollar?

How much is the fee?

alice wrote:

You mean you no longer get paid a dollar?

How much is the fee?

You get paid a dollar.

I think the corrections are $99
and to move up the print queue is$99

The posts about it on the PAMB get moved to the private forums or deleted pretty fast.

Thank you.