RE: What stands out about the books

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/5/2010 8:34:37 PM

Cherylmazana

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I know what a vanity press is, you pay to be published, a fun idea I think for anyone who has ever written a novel, even if the public never sees it and you never know it may just make money if its good, and if it’s not you have the enjoyment of seeing your own book in print.

The punctuation marks were there as sarcasm on the vanity, after all is it vanity to publish books anywhere when you are a well known author who has sold millions of his books all across the world and who has even got forums discussing the worth of his words.

My question still stands though how many books have you published even if you have had to pay for them yourself.

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/6/2010 4:54:13 AM

Nephilim

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Starting new thread to respond, since this has nothing to do with what stands out in the books.

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/7/2010 12:29:36 PM

Moonhead

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nephilim

You really should look up "vanity" press. But anyway, I've hijacked this thread enough. I'm going to go argue with some people about how the illuminati are keeping them down.

Oddly the only thing I've published through a vanity press was a story in a charity anthology to raise money for Preditors and Editors when they were being sued by PublishAmerica. I found the fact that a small press notorious for its deeply unethical conduct (making false claims about distribution and failing to even read, let alone edit, anything they're sent are the least of the problems that have been pointed out) was trying to shut up a website that tries to steer wannabes* away from the rip-off merchants and pisstakers by suing them into bankruptcy horrifying. So did an awful lot of other people, most of them professional writers. The Help! collection was published through Lulu and has some pretty big names in it.

*(edited to add that this isn't a diss: all writers start as wannabes.)

< Message edited by Moonhead -- 3/7/2010 12:30:40 PM >

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/7/2010 1:03:19 PM

Nephilim

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Moonhead,
Not sure how any of that ties into the topic. (the original thread or the hijack)
Original thread was what stands out in the Chronicles of Gor. The hijack ended with the implication that John Norman now publishes through a micropublisher (and online publisher)/vanity press and if he were truly the oppressed great author that he and Cheryl believe, he should see huge sales. Unless you are John Norman, your statement doesn't seem to make sense. Was that just a random, off-off topic post about PublishAmerica?

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/7/2010 1:10:21 PM

Moonhead

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My point was that there's a role for even the mousemilk presses in the current state of publishing. Sorry that wasn't clear.

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/7/2010 1:42:40 PM

Nephilim

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Oh yeah, it has never been easier to start a company and market a concept to millions. Because of print on demand technology, there needs to be no investment at all by these small publishers to carry a book, so anyone can be published now.

I'm not sure of my opion of PublishAmerica in this new scheme. It seems that if they just stroke the ego a bit to have authors sign and don't edit well, but they do micropublish the book. Who cares? Authors should excercise due dilligance. It is easy to pick out a publishing house who will pay you and promote your book from a micropublisher who is basically just a print shop who may have a few more channels than an individual to get the book out there. Now, if that is PA's scheme, and another company makes money by convincing authors that there is something unethical about a micropublisher accepting anything and not spending much if anything on promoting their authors, then that is certainly the basis for a court case. Since the Objective of the company is to cause damages to PA, who they Think is unethical, the only question is whether you can prove they were successful. If they really did have an ethical problem with publish america, the place to air it is in civil court or find someone in enforcement who thinks they have violated some law. Perhaps you could even advocate a law if none could be found.

Curious how all of that turned out. Haven't read anything about publish america in years.

< Message edited by Nephilim -- 3/7/2010 1:44:13 PM >

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RE: What stands out about the books - 3/8/2010 4:09:23 AM

Moonhead

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The PublishAmerica thing is a whole other issue but they were doing a lot worse than failing to edit manuscripts. The Travis Tea book fiasco is pretty well documented, as are the lies about bookshop distribution (unlike John Norman, PA have been blacklisted by a bunch of distributors), and cases of authors being told that they've sold less copie of their book than they'd bought themselves. None of that is even remotely ethical, and a legal case could probably be made that some of it is out and out fraud.
The basic problem, though, was that PA took a writers' resource website that had exposed them as a load of rip-off merchants to court to try to stop them pointing out PA's failings by suing them into bankruptcy. That's hardly ethical behaviour, either.

Oddly, your other point also has a vague bearing on the "is he or isn't he blacklisted" thing. As you probably know, most of the small presses that publish genre fiction are an outgrowth of the fan communities which are, and probably always will be, dominated by those writers who do the convention circuit. For reasons that surely don't need explaining, these writers tend to do a lot better than those who aren't part of the clique.

< Message edited by Moonhead -- 3/8/2010 4:43:05 AM >

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