All the good stuff is (still) someplace else.
Even more . . .
(6) Naomi Hirahara interviews Sue Ann Jaffarian, where she discusses her transition from POD (iUniverse) to getting a commercial deal (Midnight Ink). You get a good feel for her experiences with POD and her reasons for going down that dark alley in the first place.
(7) Daniel Scott Buck (author of POD-dy pick THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH) has a thought-provoking post over at the riotlit blog, a Frey vs. Lauck discourse with high entertainment value.
(8) Lastly, have some fun checking out PublishAmerica's twisted statistics. You can pretty much make everything sound good if you wrap numbers around it. For example:
"FACT #2: Each day, an average 125 new authors who are looking to find a book publishing company ask us to publish their book, more than 30,000 per year, an absolute record in the industry." You've got be kidding. Random House probably gets 125 requests a day from agents. Never mind the stuff falling over the transom. Sorry, PA. Not only is this nowhere near a record, it's not even in the ballpark.
Now, here's a real telling piece of info. Go back to FACT #1 and read: "PublishAmerica counts nearly 20,000 happy authors. Each day, an average 10 of them ask us to also accept their next work . . . ." Okay, so let's assume they sign 100 of the 125 aforementioned authors who come knocking on their door each day (we all know it's 125, though). This means only one out of ten PA authors wants them to publish their next book. What does that tell you? You think Simon & Schuster has that kind of retention problem?
"Bookstores appreciate that thousands of our titles are returnable." Because they usually get returned.
"All authors are treated equally here." That is, ignored.
"We assign a graphic designer who comes up with a unique cover design." And they must be prolific, coming up with about four covers a day.
And perhaps most inane: "FACT #9: Does the use of the digital on-demand printing technology make a publisher a POD house? No, it does not. Of course not. According to www.acronymfinder.com, there are 57 different meanings for POD, from Post Office Department to Point Of Departure to Proof Of Delivery. In our world, POD is vanity publishing, and PublishAmerica is no vanity publisher, by any stretch of the imagination." What, exactly, does that make them?
(6) Naomi Hirahara interviews Sue Ann Jaffarian, where she discusses her transition from POD (iUniverse) to getting a commercial deal (Midnight Ink). You get a good feel for her experiences with POD and her reasons for going down that dark alley in the first place.
(7) Daniel Scott Buck (author of POD-dy pick THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH) has a thought-provoking post over at the riotlit blog, a Frey vs. Lauck discourse with high entertainment value.
(8) Lastly, have some fun checking out PublishAmerica's twisted statistics. You can pretty much make everything sound good if you wrap numbers around it. For example:
"FACT #2: Each day, an average 125 new authors who are looking to find a book publishing company ask us to publish their book, more than 30,000 per year, an absolute record in the industry." You've got be kidding. Random House probably gets 125 requests a day from agents. Never mind the stuff falling over the transom. Sorry, PA. Not only is this nowhere near a record, it's not even in the ballpark.
Now, here's a real telling piece of info. Go back to FACT #1 and read: "PublishAmerica counts nearly 20,000 happy authors. Each day, an average 10 of them ask us to also accept their next work . . . ." Okay, so let's assume they sign 100 of the 125 aforementioned authors who come knocking on their door each day (we all know it's 125, though). This means only one out of ten PA authors wants them to publish their next book. What does that tell you? You think Simon & Schuster has that kind of retention problem?
"Bookstores appreciate that thousands of our titles are returnable." Because they usually get returned.
"All authors are treated equally here." That is, ignored.
"We assign a graphic designer who comes up with a unique cover design." And they must be prolific, coming up with about four covers a day.
And perhaps most inane: "FACT #9: Does the use of the digital on-demand printing technology make a publisher a POD house? No, it does not. Of course not. According to www.acronymfinder.com, there are 57 different meanings for POD, from Post Office Department to Point Of Departure to Proof Of Delivery. In our world, POD is vanity publishing, and PublishAmerica is no vanity publisher, by any stretch of the imagination." What, exactly, does that make them?
posted by yours truly: PODdy Mouth at 8:13 AM
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