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Go to www.am990.com. Our own Jim Macdonald is debating PublishAmerica’s champion on the radio this afternoon. As the show’s host Ed Horrell describes it:
Click where it says “Hear us now on the Internet!”, then click where it says “AM990 Family Values.”The debate is on for Sunday.
Jeff Miller, aka Alien Enigma, will debate Jim Macdonald. We are going to take on a few topics, but the basis will be Jeff’s reasons for declining other publsihers for PA.
Each is providing me quesitons to choose from. I will add my own. They will individually be asked the quesiton, given one minute to answer, and then the other will be given one minute to respond.
Though I am giving them most of the show, I don’t know if we will take calls or not. If so, the call in number will be state during the show.
You can listen live at www.am990.com. The show is Ed Horrell and Talk About Service. It will also be available for later listening via my podcast and archives if you miss it. It is broadcast live at noon CDT this Sunday.
These ads can finish up any sec ...
They did a brief setup.
What's all this about airline pirate pensions?
The host's yakking it up, but I don't object to his beliefs. (So far.)
Bloody hell! More ads!
Woo!
Halfway home!
(There will be a podcast archive version.)
Jim's doing great. I'm hoping that "Teresa" on hold is TNH. :-)
"Teresa is waiting." could that be....?
If the goal of debate is making your point, Jim is doing about 8 on a scale of 1:10. If it's make your opponant look like a complete moron, he's at least at 9,5.
Wow, the PA guy is full of it. It's interesting the way his sentences don't connect into coherent paragraphs--if he writes like this, he's got a problem. He just explained how bookstores stock his print-on-demand books. Say, what? What's to stock, if it's print on demand?
And they're giving him lots of airtime. I fear that this is, in the end, largely free publicity for PA; win or lose the "debate", a lot more people will have heard their name after this broadcast than before.
Randolph: And they're giving him lots of airtime. I fear that this is, in the end, largely free publicity for PA; win or lose the "debate", a lot more people will have heard their name after this broadcast than before.
It might well improve their business among other vanity publishers. I think it has a very good chance of keeping some real writers out of their clutches.
You can find contract analyses online.
Man, I could have gone on talking. Said as much as I could, fast.
Teresa rocked. Miller's response was, in essence, "They should have read the contract." Pfui.
I missed the first part. I want the guy to answer flat-out how many other publishers actually offered on his book and such. I hate "debaters" like him who just state their opinions as though they're fact.
Miller's the guy who posts on AW as "Alien Enigma". He's a lousy writer, but a talented liar.
Just heard your comments, Teresa. I think you made a good case--people who can be persuaded will be. Mr. Miller, given an opportunity to respond, immediately started blaming the PA authors for not reading their contracts carefully.
Good going, Teresa. Maybe I should call in and ask about where some of the details are in the contract!
I found it interesting that Mr. Miller turned immediately to personal attacks against Jim. IMHO, anyone who does that has a weak argument and has already lost the debate.
Jim Macdonald has been extremely generous with his help for newbie authors for as long as I've known him. He doesn't fear new authors will be competition.
I missed the first part. I want the guy to answer flat-out how many other publishers actually offered on his book and such. I hate "debaters" like him who just state their opinions as though they're fact.
Deanna,
I was wondering if Miller would ever answer that. Unsurprised that he slid right past it. Faugh. What, him admit that no one else wanted his book - no, never!
Jim and Teresa were great...
It's especially pleasing to me that coherency was not Miller's strong suit. That made Jim shine even more. :)
ASZ
He did answer the question about why he selected them... sort of. He said that he sent out submissions and PA was the first to get back to him. Simple as that.
Matt, I know PA's contract. There are analyses of it available online. It's genuinely Janus-faced: a work of art, in its heartless contemptible moneygrubbing way.
The analysis of it I came up with, some years back, is that it's a contract that can only be read correctly if you assume bad faith on PA's part. One of my first experiences of genuinely hating PA was seeing them respond to one unhappy author after another with "You should have read your contract more carefully."
For instance:
The contract says that the author won't earn royalties on review copies, or on copies used for advertising or promotional purposes. No amount of careful reading will tell you that the only reason those provisions are there is to create the false impression that PA will do any advertising, send out any review copies, or promote your book in any way.
Let me repeat: PA doesn't distribute, promote, or advertise their books. It's almost unheard of for them to send out review copies, and when they do so it's after multiple petitions by the author. The books can take months to arrive. No book can get reviewed on that basis.
Before you discover that this is how PA operates, it would never occur to you that a publishing company would bother to specify that the author doesn't get royalties on books used for reviews, advertising, and marketing, if they never use books for reviews, advertising, or marketing. Only afterward do you realize that the contract doesn't promise that any of those things will happen.
Further examples:
They specify royalty splits on book club editions and a range of subrights. PA doesn't submit its books to book clubs, and it doesn't market its subrights.
"The Publisher agrees to distribute, at his discretion, for purposes of publicity and/or review, promotional information pertaining to the said literary work, to publications throughout the United States and/or Canada, or elsewhere. Distribution of this promotional material shall be at the Publisher's own cost and expense and to media outlets of the Publisher's own choice. The Author agrees that excerpts of the said literary work may be included in this promotional information,..."PublishAmerica does exactly one press release per author. It goes out at the time the contract is signed, not when the book is published, and it only goes to four media outlets in the author's immediate neighborhood. I'd say it's the same press release in every case, but it isn't. There are actually two versions: one for first-time authors, one for repeat victims. All it says is that PA is going to be publishing the guy's book, and it says it in a semi-incoherent, barely literate way.
Does this one utterly useless press release go to media outlets throughout North America? No. It goes to the author's neighborhood papers, no matter where they live. Actual meaning: there's no part of North America where PA won't send this press release, as long as it's in the author's immediate area.
Is the press release sent out at the publisher's expense? It is. They use e-mail.
Why does this paragraph mention using excerpts from the work in the press release? Good question. PA never uses excerpts in its press releases, because they don't write press releases that are specific to the books. That only reason that provision is there is to give the impression that PA's press releases and other promotional materials are substantial and are tailored to the book.
...I could go on at length. I won't. You do get the picture, though? PA's contract can only be correctly interpreted in retrospect, once you understand that PA means you no good and won't do squat for your book. That is: it can only be read correctly if you assume that PA is acting in bad faith.
That bothered me. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I do know some contract law. It seemed to me that a contract that can only be read correctly if the other party is acting in bad faith doesn't meet the basic requirements for a valid contract.
I was thus delighted, earlier this year, to hear that an arbitration board had ruled that PA's contract (at least the version of it they ruled on) hadn't been valid to start with.
These guys are swine.
That bothered me. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I do know some contract law. It seemed to me that a contract that can only be read correctly if the other party is acting in bad faith doesn't meet the basic requirements for a valid contract.
The PublishAmerica contract specifies that authors cannot sue; they must go to arbitration. So far PublishAmerica has not prevailed at arbitration in any instance that I'm aware of. The fact that the contract is obviously written in bad faith is one of the reasons cited by the arbitrators for declaring it void and awarding money to the authors.
Since the "contract" is apparently designed to discourage the "meeting of the minds" that is one the elements of a contract, I suspect that the clause about arbitration, even, is unenforceable, and a sufficiently effective lawyer could drag the whole mess into court.
Yes, Macdonald is so terrified of being superceded by young authors that he spends hours helping them on and off-line, including a long running thread that's one of the best books I've ever read on how to write -- and I read over fifty books on writing a year, easily, as part of my professional service.
I'm sure that it's terror of the competition that has Macdonald teaching at Viable Paradise.
Miller is duplicitious in the extreme. And yeah, his prose is very much in the hazard pay pile.
Yep. When Shakespeare, Dickens, Twain, King, Grisham, Heinlein, Roberts, Rowling, et freakin' endless cetera are available in every bookstore in the country in attractive editions at competitive prices I'm supposed to worry about the works that come from a company whose total sales (every title, every author, over the whole of its history, combined) don't equal the print run of one major bestseller? I don't think so.
When I heard about Absolute Write going down earlier this year, the thing that really gutted me was the thought of losing Jim's writing course. The one he does for free. Jim afraid of competition? I don't think so...
Damn. Missed it. Is the podcast archive version up yet? How do we find it?
First time poster, long-time reader.
It's the same old denial line, same old argument, and same old same old. The koolaide still works.
He should have stayed home and fixed the mistakes on his website.
He's uneducated about the industry, and it shows.
I tried to call in as a former PA'er and tell the unhappy side, but couldn't get through.
I thought TNH did well in her short time, and wish she'd of had more time to talk.
I also think Jim could've made better points with more free time. Either way it was evident that one of the debaters knew what he was talking about, and one didn't, you pick.
I also wish TNH would talk to us more over at A.W.
The show's archives are at the Talk About Service site. Presumably the show will be posted soon. You can also search on "Talk About Service" with your favorite podcast thingie.
While we're on the topic: My boyfriend had his first PublishAmerica-in-the-wild spotting before I did. Seriously. I dragged him (willingly) to Comic-con, and he ended up at a panel about making your own RPGs. Anyway, either the moderator or one of the panelists made a schill for PublishAmerica. Basically the guy was advocating using them for publishing your game manuals.
Anyway, after having heard numerous rants from me on the subject, my bf wanted to stand up and challenge the guy, but he wasn't sure he could do the job justice, or that he had all the facts straight. J told me about it later, and I really regretted not being there, as I would have at least recommended going with a company (like Lulu, say) which doesn't snarl up your publishing rights for the next seven years.
Can't wait to hear Jim and Teresa on the subject. *waits for Talk About site to update*
"superceded"
Superseded.
(Ahem.)
Sorry Patrick; I really truly can't spell, (and have never, ever claimed to have any spelling ability at all) and the spell check did not object to superceded. The fact that I see Middle English superceden and French superceder more than I see the English or Latin spellings, both of which use S, the duplicitous swine, makes the c look right to me.
Another happy PublishAmerica author gets a letter from the Author Insult Team.
http://alisonsjourney.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_alisonsjourney_archive.html
(I'm told that the originals of those "we expect your apology" letters were drafted by Larry Clopper himself.)
we expect your apology
Holy crap. That's some cajones right there. Stupid, boiling in their own juices, cajones.
Has the audio shown up in the archives yet? Latecomers want to know!
Speaking of contracts. I really like that strip, btw.