PublishAmerica is back in the news. The Washington Post wrote about the company, and this is author Lynn Viehl's take on it (she says it so much better than I can):
PublishAmerica is also an "advance-paying book publisher" with a company banner motto that reads We treat our authors the old-fashioned way -- we pay them. Except that the old-fashioned way it pays authors an advance is -- hold onto your hat -- a whopping total of $1. Now, I made twenty-five thousand times that as the advance for the last book I wrote, but hey, maybe I'm just ridiculously overpaid.
PublishAmerica states on its web site that its titles "are available through most major bookstores." Except for this one little thing: "Availability is not necessarily the same as bookstore shelf display." Translation: you can't get them in the store, but you can order them through the store's computer. Assuming you have psychic power and can envision the titles, because they're not on the shelf. Have I got this right?
The Post managed to get Larry Clopper, president and co-founder of PublishAmerica to speak on the record about his company's approach to publishing. He should have kept his mouth shut.
To Larry Clopper, the company, in relying on its authors to largely sell their own books, is "revolutionizing" an elitist industry. It has, he says, "always operated on the highest principles of honor and integrity." PublishAmerica's authors often knew "decades of failure, dozens of rejections and life-changing disappointment," adds Clopper, who twice failed to find publishers for his own books. "Now they hold their books in their hands, and they are sneering down at the publishing industry that shunned them."
It's not the industry they're sneering at Larry, it's you. The Post article goes on to discuss the pitfalls of Print-on-Demand publishing, the latest evolution of vanity press.
Because there have always been more would-be authors than mainstream publishers are willing to sign up, writers can turn to a variety of do-it-yourself alternatives. The major difference is that, one way or another, those writers wind up paying, instead of being paid, to be published.
POD companies like iUniverse and vanity presses in general don't appear to generate much public rancor, however, because they make it quite clear that the author bears the expense. Besides, such publishers do serve a purpose. The Authors Guild, for example, has an arrangement with iUniverse to keep its members' out-of-print books available. For a PTA planning to sell a cookbook, or a family elder passing her memoirs around to the grandchildren, a vanity or POD press makes sense. But it's very unlikely to lead to a career. Once in a great while, a highly entrepreneurial author gets lucky.
A few POD books have sold well enough to lead to a deal with a mainstream publisher. But if your book comes out through PublishAmerica, that's not going to happen to you. You sign over your publishing rights for seven years. So if Random House comes knocking, PublishAmerica negotiates your deal and keeps half the proceeds. Not a bad trade off for your $1 advance, is it? Larry Clopper says that his detractors represent a "miniscule faction" of the authors published by his company.
But the fact remains that his authors can't join the Authors Guild. Having heard complaints about PublishAmerica for years, the guild doesn't recognize its titles as membership criteria. "There's a long history of vanity presses and others taking advantage of the hopes of would-be authors," says executive director Aiken. "This might fall in that noble tradition." True, too, many major book review sections (including Book World) won't review POD books. "Some of our proudest moments come when authors are not allowed into certain exclusive clubs," Clopper retorts.
Those who petitioned the Maryland attorney general seeking "an investigation into this massive scam" had a different understanding, however. They weren't interested in sneering at the exclusive club; they thought that, at last, they were being invited into it.
Now that the mainstream press -- like Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post -- are picking up on the PublishAmerica scam, maybe people will finally stop falling for Cloppers clumsy con.
Recent Comments