Publish America's new pricing

PA just announced that all books are now listed at 50% off. That should really piss off anyone who fell for the special discounts of 30-40 & 50 % discounts for volume purchases.
Actually, at 50% off, it is now a realistic selling price.

I just saw that announcement, Abe, and someone has already asked if we will still get our volume discount off the new price. The offer is only good until April 28.

PA also said that in the past, Amazon had "made" them sell our books at full retail since that was their price. What's that about?

Added in edit: Just had the thought that maybe this "deal" is not meant for authors to buy in bulk, but for us to promote it to potential customers. One week is hardly long enough to get the word out. There are several comments on the PA message board aasking some really good guestions.

They are liars. This is no secret.

I received the same email today but the website is down.

Hi Abe,

Do you have any more information about this? I can't load the website. What's going on?

~Shelagh

Shelagh,
I don't know. Some things just hangup when I try to access them. Either they are doing some work on the website or they have closed certain areas. I tried the "Press Room" and that gave me nothing.

Abe

The bookstore has been down since sometime yesterday.

I still haven't received the email they promised about the price reduction. Could someone post the highlights of that for me?

Here was the email:
Dear author:

PublishAmerica is drastically reducing sales prices of all titles on its own website!

A little background: A few weeks ago we shared with you news about the pressure that many publishers were receiving from online vendor Amazon.com. As you know, PublishAmerica refused to budge. Today we can also report that this was not the first time that Amazon attempted to strong-arm PublishAmerica.

Roughly a year ago Amazon forced PublishAmerica to raise the pricing of our own books on our own website. They would not allow us to sell our almost 30,000 titles at sales prices lower than what Amazon chose to charge, and they threatened us with the very same retaliation that followed a year later after all. We complied at the time, and have been charging full list price in our own online store, because Amazon also charged full list price.

Staring down the bully: Now that Amazon has decided to punish PublishAmerica anyway for resisting further bullying, the time has come to reduce prices in our own online bookstore. And as an introductory step we will now slash our prices in half.

That's right: all book sales on PublishAmerica's website are at a 50 pct discount. Royalties are paid on all online sales. Go see for yourself at www.publishamerica.com.

The introductory offer will expire April 28, when discounts will go back to approximately where they were before Amazon first attempted to dictate the nation's vending terms.

Thank you!

PublishAmerica Author Support team

Thanks, Abe,
That's verbatim the same message they posted in the message board. I was hoping it would explain a bit more as to how this affects authors buying their own books in volume. One person on the board ordered some through the PA bookstore and they charged him $2.00 per book for shipping. Not such a deal after all for those who sell their own books.

I agree that there is more to this than meets the eye...

I had not been monitoring emails from PA-they go to a separate folder in my inbox. The link in your post did not work for me, but the link in the email I received worked, and the price is at a 50% discount.

What I am not clear about is 'discounts will go back to approximately where they were to after the 28th'. Were online customers who went to PA's store given discounts?

Maybe I am just too tired to make full sense of this.

If you are unhappy with PA...

You may opt-out of your contract still and retain your rights!

Many writers have been doing it and getting their book rights back to them. Let me know if you need more information? You can also got to Preditors & Editors, and they have a great deal of information regarding PA's non-traditional ways!

The PA website has been down for days. If anyone else has managed to visit the site within the last twenty-four hours, please let me know.

Shelagh,

I just visited the site and online bookstore... everything seems to be up and running.

They have removed my novel from their bookstore -- hoping this is the release I've written a letter for!

I am getting into the PA website now. Both by using a link I saved to their home page in my favorities, and a link from a message board email.

When I checked for my book on the store front, the original $24.95 price that was slashed to half price during their sale is now listed as $19.95.

I have not received an email from them about this, but from what I see, they are cutting the old prices by 25%. So if one is selling their own books, and bought at 50% off, they can still make a marginal profit if they sell them at the new price.

Maybe they are trying to make the books more attractive price wise so they can be the distributor. It would make sense, especially if they intend to do more direct sales to customers.

I did a little snooping around, and other sites do not reflect the lower prices on the PA books. Hmmm...

I'd personally like to know what the deal is with Publish American and Amazon. Does anyone know why Amazon is switching prices on books published by Publish America? That makes it really hard to sell books. Also how many people got a Press Release for publishing with Publish America? I never got my press release and even though I e-mailed PA a dozen times or more, they never responded to my e-mails.