Indie Book Club discussion

For anyone out there even remotely considering using these people to publish your book. A word of advice:

DON'T!

I just now finally got them to agree to terminate my contract. I had 5.5 more years of them otherwise and I couldn't handle it. Why did I sign up with them, you ask? I still remember the logic I used to justify it. I figured they'd do more to market my book than I could on my own, so why not, right?

Wrong.

They are capable of doing all kinds of marketing, but want $$$ every step of the way. "Let us walk over to the booth next to us at this Expo in Greece and tell some obscure newspaper about your book. Only $49!"

Probably got around 20 emails a day trying to get me to purchase one of their "specials" or else trying to get me to purchase copies of my own book. Never once did they do anything to market the book without getting paid for it.

Now. Let's talk about the bottom line. Money. Yes, they say they don't charge anything to publish your book. And that part was true. What was the result? A drab cover, unremarkable interior layout, and a retail price so damn high that no one in their right mind would purchase it. Royalties? 8%. Only 8%! If by chance the book sold, then it worked out that I'd make about a buck. I make more than that for each copy of book II sold on Kindle. Speaking of e-books, they wanted me to "allow them" to convert my book to ebook. Already did that, so I ignored them. Their prices for ebooks? At least $9.95. No one pays that much $$$ for an unknown author. So I made certain they had no control over my book in any electronic format. I've heard from other authors that have their ebooks converted by PublishAmerica and then found out they were priced so high they were getting no sales. Pleas to lower the price fell on deaf ears.

Once the book was created I couldn't make any other changes. Even after I had the cover for book 1 professionally redone, I begged them to change the cover. They said it was possible, but I had to pay a fee of $199. Hell no.

Contracts. They get you for 7 years. If you don't let them know ASAP your contract is renewed automatically for another 7 years. I announced my intent to NOT renew within a month.

Bottom line is that I should have paid heed to the negative stories I read about them. My own fault there, but at least now I'm done with them and I now own all publishing rights to my books. CreateSpace, here I come!!

Moral of the story: don't use PublishAmerica. If you're contemplating using them 'cause you don't know anything about self-publishing, drop me a line. I'll be more than happy to help you out. My own way to give the finger back to PA by not letting someone else sign up with them.

Sorry to vent, but this has been brewing for a long time. Just as soon as I picked up my termination paperwork I came here to spread the word!!!!

Big J

I strongly agree! PublishAmerica is a horrible, horrible company. I've investigating them in past and read nothing but negative reviews about them. if they're any good ones, they're most likely written by PublishAmerica's people. Even Predators and Editors has an entire page against them. If you're going to sign a contract, it ought to be with a real publishing house, which PublishAmerica isn't by far. Stay away from them. SERIOUSLY!!! They're full of lies and deceit!

Here, here! I think I'm gonna have my termination letter framed and put on the wall with the caption reading, "Lesson Learned"!

Wow. Thanks for the heads-up, Jeffrey. That's crazy! Sounds like their business model is more about soaking the authors than selling books. Congrats for battling your way out of the contract!

You ought frame that! I can't believe they've been around for so long. They have one of the worst reputations. It's good to let authors know about those kinds of traps.

Definitely. The most I can do to give them the finger back by helping others not go through what I went through.

So spread the word! Avoid 'em like the plague!!

You could also fax them your finger, from a Kinko's. :)

Loll!! Now THAT is a good idea!!

I tried to go visit their website to see what kind of gingerbread house they're using to lure unsuspecting authors to. WOT stopped me with a huge warning sign that says "This Site Has a Poor Reputation Based On User Ratings. Trustworthiness = POOR. Vendor Reliability = VERY POOR. Privacy = VERY POOR."

http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/pub...

Yeah, I should have listened to all the reviews I saw about them, but I just kept saying to myself, why not! I just figured they'd do more marketing than I ever would.

That's where I was wrong. They don't do a damn thing. They try and sell your own book back to you. They try to snowball you into thinking all these chances of advertising your book is in your best interests. They just want $$$, with no promises of success. What a crock. What scared me the most is that these people clearly know what they're doing. They know how to get away with it. They know how much they can legally get away with. How do I know this? Easy. They're still in business.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask away. Please. Don't use these people.

Aaaahhhhhh.... Sweet bliss. No more emails from PA!!

I remember looking into a few sites like Publish America when I was looking into publishing. The most I did was fill out of a form for info and the site kept calling me. I kept not answering and they stopped. Eventually, I learned that those sites would just drain my wallet so I never looked their way again.

Patricia wrote: "I remember looking into a few sites like Publish America when I was looking into publishing. The most I did was fill out of a form for info and the site kept calling me. I kept not answering and th..."

Yeah, I had the same experience when I requested info from them. That was an immediate red flag for me. It's sad that they are so dishonest.

I think this is the same with Dorrance who kept bugging me too. =P

Seriously. I'm gonna frame the contract termination letter...

The "third" edition to Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy has been created and a proof has been ordered. Should be here tomorrow!!

No more this: .

Now it'll be this: !

Wow, those covers are like night and day difference. Much better!!!

Thanks! The f-ugly gray one was created by PA, and they even had the gall to tell me that I wasn't allowed to use the cover they created. If I wanted to, they'd sell me a license for $500. I laughed in their face.

The new cover was done by Rachel Marks, aka falynevarger at DeviantArt. Same person who did the cover on book 2 and is already standing by for book 3's cover.

Wow, that second one is a million times better!

Jeffrey wrote: "Seriously. I'm gonna frame the contract termination letter...

The "third" edition to Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy has been created and a proof has been ordered. Should be here tomor..."

There is no comparison between the two. The second one is a different league all together. You have to wonder how many covers they crank out using the same stock art that look almost exactly like yours.

Jeff

Jeffrey wrote: "For anyone out there even remotely considering using these people to publish your book. A word of advice:

DON'T!

I just now finally got them to agree to terminate my contract. I had 5.5 more ye..."

Wow. I considered them for a time also. I saw the same bad reviews, but you never know what to think when you don't know the people writing the reviews.

Thanks to yours, I KNOW. I appreciate you getting the word out. They sound exactly like the predators and shuysters they were made out to be.

Glad you got out from under them.

Jeff

Patricia - Thanks! I really love Rachel's work. She is an amazing artist! Can't wait to start work on #3's cover, just not quite there yet. :)

Jeff - Yeah, I agree. I remember them (PA) asking if I had any preferences for the cover. I said that I'd love to have a castle on it with a dragon as well. Something "fantasy". What did I get? A dull, drab grey with a dark castle and a pencil sketch of a dragon!! Seriously, are you kidding me? I asked them to change it. They said nope, not unless I wanted to pay a $199 "new cover" fee. I said forget it. Right about then I knew I had made a mistake. I announced my intentions to not renew my contract and started looking for ways out. Literally, it took me that long to get out of it.

And trust me, I count myself as one of the lucky few. Or as my wife puts it, I'm just stubborn enough to keep poking at them until they got tired of me. LOL! They actually had the gall to tell me that they wouldn't consider terminating the contract ("we would prefer you remain under contract") unless I could prove it would be in both of our best interests to be released. Gave 'em about 10 reasons and I could keep going on, which I told them.

Here I am! PA free and LOVING it!!! Woohoo!!!!

Moral of the story? All those stories about them, the bad press, the shady business practices, it's all true! I'll back up each and every one of those stories.

Again, if anyone out there is even remotely considering them, drop me a line or ask away here. They are bad news. Self-publish is the way to go. Need help? Ask away! I'm a Microsoft certified computer tech with more years than I care to count under my belt. I'm very familiar with the process of self-publishing. Formatting for Kindle? Smashwords? You name it, I've done it. Anything I can do to save another person from getting sucked in to PublishAmerica's grip.

Big J

Speaking of covers I looked at your blog, but forgot my user id so can't log on to comment lol.

I think the cover for book II was right on the money. A good cover captures a unique scene in the book and draws people's interest in it. Another great example IMO is Flank Hawk with the two characters in the front with a dragon and a WWII era plane flying in the background. It really drew my eye.

That's a cool cover. Just added Flank Hawk to my TBR list!

With regards to your password, just hit the "forgot password" bit and it'll walk you through resetting it. Or else ask me and I can go in and just flat out delete it (I think - never had to yet!). There have been several that have forgotten their passwords and have reset it, so I know its possible.

Yeah, I love book II's cover. Rachel asked me what I wanted for book I, and I told her that I wanted it to look really cool and nice, but to not overshadow book II's cover. So we toned it down a bit and had the picture of the portal only (my wife's idea). Actually, book I's new cover is based off of a really cool picture we bought at Kirkland, called Evergreen Plantation. Love that pic, which got my wife thinking about redoing the cover.

Sorry, just fixed the link to the picture at Kirkland's.

$10.95! I have the third edition of book 1 created and approved through CreateSpace. It'll have a price tag of $10.95 vs $29.95 PublishAmerica wanted with a much worse cover and interior layout.

I already have a few people lined up for sales! While I'm not really expecting to sell many print copies, I'll take what I can get!! :)

This just totally made my day. A guy I had been corresponding with on the old Amazon Meet our Authors board left a message on my blog over the weekend stating how thankful he was for the advice I gave when his wife contemplated using PA for publishing.

I told him to prevent it at all costs and to entertain the idea of using CreateSpace. Told him what to look out for, what to do, etc. His message yesterday said he had just helped his wife release her book on CreateSpace and was saying thanks.

Take THAT, PublishAmerica! Another author spared the torment!!!

Wow. I ran into Publish America when I was looking for a means to publish my stuff, and I wasn't too impressed with what they had to offer.

. . .

Sadly, I didn't hear about Create Space until now. Wow. Their stuff looks really good. Wish I had gone to them first so the printed copies of my book were a lot cheaper. My first book was published through Xlibris, after doing some research.

They're okay, I guess. Their consultants are really great, and gave me a lot of good ideas on marketing. Still, Xlibris is very expensive. Especially their printed books. They have to go through a 3rd party to get their books printed where it seems Create Space does their own printing in shop. Needless to say, that saves a lot of money alone. I put in my first book's info on Create Space to see how much I would have been charged, and the book's retail price is over half a cheap as Xlibris. Oi. :(

Well, at least I know who to go through next time! :/ Thx for the info, Jeff

Hello Raphyel -

You're more than welcome. CreateSpace was a pleasure to work for. It was very easy to "build" my book, upload the cover, set pricing, distribution, etc. plus, I have a slew of reports at my disposal so I can see when any units are old and what my unpaid royalties are. PA literally didn't have any reporting in place. Sad.

Anyway, if you ever need help re-releasing your book on CreateSpace, let me know!

So, when will the new version of the first book in print be available? Any ETA? ^_^

Hi Mia -

The new version of the first book is presently out. I had it up and ready to go within a week of being released from PA.

To celebrate, I put a copy up on a giveaway. If you haven't done so already, enter for a chance to win!

Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy

I never win, you know, anything so I was looking for it on Amazon but only saw what looked to be the old version, hence why I was asking... *easily confuzzled, tho*

LOL! Hey, no problems!

I contacted Amazon and tried to get them to take down the old PA version of the book, but apparently, there's 1 copy left and until it sells, it'll stay put.

At over $20 for a paperback book, it'll be there a good long while. I've even considered buying it myself just so it'll be gone, but then PA wins and that'd piss me off even further. So it stays put.

So if you do a search for "bakkian" on Amazon, you'll see some choices. The paperback is sitting there for $12.95. I wanted to sell it for $10.95, but if I wanted to sell it in the European stores then it wouldn't be cost-effective. So I made it the same price as book II.

That's interesting. It did not come up under the search for just your author name... curious. ^_^

Really? Curiosity has been picqued...

Taking a look.

Try this search:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_nos...

That tells it to search for Bakkian Chronicles Jeffrey Poole.

It shows my two books in both print and Kindle editions. Shows that f-ugly gray cover from PA and then down a bit you'll see the new CreateSpace edition for $12.95. Keep going down and you'll even see the very first edition I ever released, with the green cover and shield on it. At least that one says its unavailable.

I found it when I just searched 'bakkian,' just not (so easily, at least) when it was just 'jeffrey poole.' But I found it now! So, s'all good. :)

I recently sent my manuscript to PublishAmerica. I did not sign any contract, because I decided to google this company. I was shocked about what I read.
any idea to get my manuscript back successfully without any legal trouble?