Talk:PublishAmerica

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A list of sites about or referencing PublishAmerica (in no particular order)[edit]

Article is unbalanced[edit]

Okay, I'm not a fan of Publish America. But this article is waaaaayyyy unbalanced. It provides very little information on the company itself and instead devotes most of its time talking about controversies and criticisms.

I do recall this article being longer in the past. Possibly removing too much info caused it go go lopsided.

Anyway, this article needs attention from an expert or experts to make it more encyclopaedic and not just a rail again the company. Lighthope (talk) 19:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See, that's the annoying thing about certain companies: The bad stuff outweighs the good stuff - and that's not just because people find the critical side more interesting, it's solely because the company itself has done more bad stuff than good stuff, and all of the reliable documentation we have says as much. Even if you can say something good, it probably sounds pretty puny compared to other publishing houses, and you will find someone with authority saying as much. *sigh* However, I'm not saying expanding the un-bloody side is too hard: I'm sure PA has made statements that aren't too widely disputed. What's the acceptance process and royalties (even when they aren't exactly flattering when you put it in words)? How many PA authors and titles are there today? What's the deal with the printing? (Lightning Source vs. their own digital printer; I'm not sure what happens and where.) What was their involvement with the recent Amazon POD spat (where PA was actually the wronged party)? Etc, etc... --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 21:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The only information available about the company is what it posts on its website. Some of it has been substanciated, while most of it is weasel-worded (such as "traditional" publisher) in such a way as to be ambiguous. The company has little interest in maintaining a positive image. Hundreds of documented emails which requested current and verifiable information about the company and all the negative claims have gone unanswered while other emails have been replied to with false 'facts' surrounded by hateful personal attacks on the sender(s). They are always signed with a single name (no surnames) from the same AuthorSupport account. The recent edits I made are all backed up by actual emails as well as screencaps posted to the Absolute Write forum. What seems to get edited is some of the more personal accounts of writers who have been scammed by this company and are unable to provide documentation. I have yet to see (and I read this article every time it gets edited) any positive information be removed.-- 05:44, 27 October 2008 (CST) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.119.56.30 (talk)

Article is balanced, its just the company that is a lopsided fraud[edit]

I'm tired of JulesH reverting this article without cause. I don't babysit articles so their claims of "no one caring" are crap. This company is a scam. No one can find good information about them (other than the company website) because it doesn't exist! If JulesH is so sure they're a genuine publisher then let them present such evidence. And it better be verified by God Jimbo with triplicate articles from the AP, People & Time as well as being authenticated by the White House. This is a moveable information age. "JulesH doesn't like it" is not a good reason for removing legitimate information. -- 11:00, 14 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.119.56.30 (talk)

If it were up to me, the information would stay. I'm well aware of what PA are. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has rules about what we can and can't use as sources, so anything that is sourced to a message board or other self-published source is very unlikely to be an acceptable source. In this case, the link you've been using doesn't even go directly to a post from somebody stating what the paragraph you want to insert said, so I can't even see if the case at hand is one of the unusual situations where such posts are acceptable sources. JulesH (talk) 14:51, 14 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PA books on Amazon[edit]

There's been some reversion back and forth about whether PA books are sold by Amazon.com.

Try this:

  • Go to [http://www.amazon.com Amazon.com]
  • On the left-hand nav, choose Books
  • Underneath the search box on the top of the page, click the link that says "Advanced Search".
  • On the advanced search form:
  • Set Publisher to "PublishAmerica"
  • Set Condition to "New"
  • Set Format to "Printed Books"
  • click Search
  • On the search results page, look down the left-hand nav, and click:
  • Shipping Option: "Prime Eligible"
  • Shipping Option: "Can be shipped within one business day from Amazon.com"

The end result is several thousand books. Choose any one of them. Just underneath the price, you'll see that it says:

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

That is why I keep reverting the edits that say that Amazon doesn't stock and sell PA books. Dori (Talk • Contribs) 19:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, there are PA books that Amazon don't sell, e.g. [http://www.amazon.com/How-Upset-Goliath-Book-PublishAmerica/dp/1413790968/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234388750&sr=8-8]. So the issue isn't completely solved. JulesH (talk) 21:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, there are plenty of books (both PA and not-PA) that Amazon doesn't sell directly (such as—sob—[http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN/0201748649]). The issue here, though, is that some editors want to change the article to say that Amazon neither stocks nor sells PA books, and that's clearly not the case. I consider that particular issue to be solved. If you don't, why not? Dori (Talk • Contribs) 23:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The issue as I see it is that before the BookSurge thing, Amazon sold all PA books. Now they only sell a selection of them. I therefore consider it only partially resolved. I just wish we had some sources that talked about what's going on, but all the ones I can find are from the period when no PA books were available. JulesH (talk) 08:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Broken links[edit]

The following are three broken links. Anyone care to fix them or should they be deleted?

footnote-- a b "SF Authors Sting Publisher". Sci Fi Wire. February 16, 2005. http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=30389.

footnote-- "Publisher Defends Hoax Charges". Sci Fi Wire. February 17, 2005. http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=30435.

footnote-- Susan Paganini (2004-06-24). "Paperback writer". San Antonio Current. http://www.sacurrent.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12073075&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.

Skywriter (talk) 01:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed all three... but let's just say I have a very low opinion of publishers that change their link structure without redirects, and an even worse opinion of publishers that just throw their archives away. Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 04:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sourced but irrel content[edit]

I have removed the following from the article because even though there is a source, there has been nothing shown that this particular action taken by a different company (Amazon) and applied to all parties of the same class as PA and then later rescinded by the third party has ANYTHING worthwile to add to THIS article?

For a time in 2008, PublishAmerica books—while remaining listed on Amazon.com—were not sold by Amazon. Amazon was attempting to push print-on-demand publishers (not just PA) to use the Amazon-owned BookSurge printing service.[1][2]

Vanity Press claims[edit]

I've removed the claims that PublishAmerica is a vanity press, as on checking the sources I found that that wasn't the claim they were making. Three sources were used: Frederick News Post, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Washington Post. The closest the first gets is the claim:

"It's like a vanity press," said Lisa Maliga of Los Angeles. "They get you on the back end, rather than up front."
She claims PublishAmerica, while touting itself online as a "traditional" house, really makes its money from its authors, just as a typical vanity press does.

As far as I can interpret that, "like a" isn't the same as "is a", and that reference was the single support for the line "Critics charge that PA's contracts and practices prove the company is a vanity press", for which it is insufficient. The article also states that PublishAmerica lies "somewhere in the middle" between vanity presses and traditional publishers.

The other two references were in support of "Some writers and authors' advocates have accused the company of being a vanity press while representing itself as a 'traditional publisher'." In the Washington Post the same distinction is drawn between vanity presses and traditional publishers, and it states "PublishAmerica doesn't charge authors to produce their books, so authors wary of vanity presses feel reassured." The closest it has is "PublishAmerica [is] a new variant on the old vanity-press model", which once more doesn't state that it is a vanity press, but at least gets close. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gets the closest to providing support, but even there a distinction is being drawn between vanity press and author mill - two statements almost provide support, though:

"While many authors thank the company for championing their books, its claim to be a traditional publisher -- not a vanity press -- has been challenged by writers' organizations such as The Authors Guild and debated on author Web sites such as WritersNet and Absolute Write."

That's really close, but it isn't clear if the challengers are calling it a vanity press or not a traditional publisher. You also get:

"They're operating on a vanity press model," Writer Beware's Crispin said.

But again, that falls short of saying that they are one - especially when, elsewhere in the article, the same person says "'We call them an author mill, a publisher that claims to be a traditional publisher and is not,' said A.C. Crispin". If there are other, clearer, sources that would be great - otherwise describing them as an author mill will make more sense and be better supported by the sources. - Bilby (talk) 22:02, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think "vanity press" is fairly specific, and names when the author pays for the production of a print run, i.e., PA isn't that. But with print on demand, &c., there can be other mostly predatory models, & PA seems to be among them. "Author mill" sounds general enough -- like "puppy mill". ABS (talk) 00:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Carvajal, Doreen (16 June 2008). "Small Publishers Feel Power of Amazon's 'Buy' Button". New York Times.
  2. ^ Metz, Cade (31 March 2008). "Amazon smacks little people with BookSurge". The Register. Retrieved 2009-02-04.
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