Peacock Lady Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 Come on then, Hellbender, post a link to your books so that we can have a good look at them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elora* Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 if you look at his personal profile, there's a link to his homepage on there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattricia Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 I just got my second non-fiction book published. It took a while to get another published, but I think this new publisher likes to have lots of books for sale. It is on Amizon. Blimey, you must be tremendously proud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peacock Lady Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 I just looked, and wish I hadn't. Hellbender's book is published by PublishAmerica, which is a notorious vanity press. That's not to say his book is bad--it actually sounds interesting. But PA will publish anything at all, good OR bad, and they have a horrible reputation for mistreating their writers in all sorts of ways. What a shame. Listen: I don't object to self-publishing, which can be an excellent route for some books. But I do object to publishers which scam, deceive or otherwise abuse the writers who they publish. If any of you is considering publishing your work, then for goodness' sake do your research and make sure the company you're considering is reputable. PM me if you like. I'm happy to advise. Or go to http://www.absolutewrite.com, and post on the "bewares and background checks" part of the forum there. You'll get good advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattricia Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 I just looked, and wish I hadn't. Hellbender's book is published by PublishAmerica, which is a notorious vanity press. That's not to say his book is bad--it actually sounds interesting. But PA will publish anything at all, good OR bad, and they have a horrible reputation for mistreating their writers in all sorts of ways. What a shame. Listen: I don't object to self-publishing, which can be an excellent route for some books. But I do object to publishers which scam, deceive or otherwise abuse the writers who they publish. If any of you is considering publishing your work, then for goodness' sake do your research and make sure the company you're considering is reputable. PM me if you like. I'm happy to advise. Or go to http://www.absolutewrite.com, and post on the "bewares and background checks" part of the forum there. You'll get good advice. Does that mean hes had to "pay" to have it published ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peacock Lady Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 PA argues not, although it's pretty much accepted that they are a "reverse vanity press", which means that they get their money at the back instead of the front--after publication. They pay a token $1 advance, but then make their money back by ensuring that the writer buys copies to sell on. They admitted in a recent-ish adjudication that they make their money from their writers, and not from the book-buying public (search for PublishAmerica and Phil Doolan and you're bound to find details). They do no marketing or promotion for their books; few bookshops will stock them, as the discounts and conditions are laughable; and PA has shown how low their standards are by offering contracts to several "sting" mss which were written to ridiculously low standards: Atlanta Nights was the first, followed more recently by Crack of Death which I had the pleasure to contribute to. They're not set up to deal with sales to bookshops and do all they can to discourage such sales. AbsoluteWrite has a whole sub-forum dedicated to PA, and is a good place to start if you want to find out more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattricia Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 PA argues not, although it's pretty much accepted that they are a "reverse vanity press", which means that they get their money at the back instead of the front--after publication. They pay a token $1 advance, but then make their money back by ensuring that the writer buys copies to sell on. They admitted in a recent-ish adjudication that they make their money from their writers, and not from the book-buying public (search for PublishAmerica and Phil Doolan and you're bound to find details). They do no marketing or promotion for their books; few bookshops will stock them, as the discounts and conditions are laughable; and PA has shown how low their standards are by offering contracts to several "sting" mss which were written to ridiculously low standards: Atlanta Nights was the first, followed more recently by Crack of Death which I had the pleasure to contribute to. They're not set up to deal with sales to bookshops and do all they can to discourage such sales. AbsoluteWrite has a whole sub-forum dedicated to PA, and is a good place to start if you want to find out more. Looks as though you know all the "ins & outs" which I guess you need to in publishing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peacock Lady Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 As writers, it's our duty to find out these things. Atlanta Nights is available as a free download, I'm sure: you should find it with a bit of Googling. It's well worth a read, just to show you what PA's standards are. One of the chapters was "written" by an automatic text generator and makes no sense whatsoever. Yet PA offered it a contract. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pattricia Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 As writers, it's our duty to find out these things. Atlanta Nights is available as a free download, I'm sure: you should find it with a bit of Googling. It's well worth a read, just to show you what PA's standards are. One of the chapters was "written" by an automatic text generator and makes no sense whatsoever. Yet PA offered it a contract. What is " an automatic text generator" ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeP Posted July 20, 2007 Share Posted July 20, 2007 What is " an automatic text generator" ? A computer program. You feed a program some text, and it analyses the frequency or words and where they are positioned iwth respect to each other, then it will generate pages of stuff of a similar type. We use them in IT sometimes for generating large volumes of 'realistic looking' test data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.