Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Postmodern Publishers

This is topic Postmodern Publishers in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by JBShearer (Member # 9434) on :

Being a writer but as of yet aspiring professional novelist, I understand the savage need to get my work in print. I have looked at the big publishers (of course), the smaller "pulp publishers" and publishing houses, but the lines are getting really gray as to what professional publishing truly is.

I have found that there is sort of a gray area between conventional publishing and the dreaded "vanity press". There are a few upstart companies that are trying a new approach. Basically, they sign authors and distribute their books exclusively online through online retailers, printing nearly all of their hard-copies "on demand". They claim that "mainstream" publishers print on demand as well, with respect to book demand. Some of them distribute through e-books as well, but I'm not talking about e-book exclusive publishers.

No, I am not talking about vanity press (or subsidiary press). I'll just repeate that. But I am talking about a strangely savage deal. One example, PublishAmerica, takes exclusive rights to your work for 7 years. I did a little research, and quite a few of their novels (if not all) are available for purchase online. Really, I've even found quite a number of reviews for the books published through them. Supposedly one of their authors hit #10 on the NYT Best Seller List.

From what I understand, with these kind of deals, the royalties aren't great. But there are successes/semi-successes. I am thinking of trying it as a last-resort, but I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be better to keep my work unpublished for now, while I plow on with my next book.

With these types of deals, unless you make out wildly successfully, I have a hard time finding that traditional publishers would take you seriously having been published in this manner. Sure, you've always got a shot, but I can't help feeling that its only a small step above vanity . . . at least you aren't paying them anything.

Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :

You've hit the main problem with PublishAmerica with their exclusive 7 year contract.

The other is that it is impossible to order books that they publish through a regular book shop, you have to buy them online. This is because they will not supply books on a sale-or-return basis.

There are, apparently, people out there who offer a similar service without these problems. Don't ask me who they are, though, 'cause I don't know.

Posted by Gen (Member # 1868) on :

Publish America is... well... there's problems beyond the seven year contract. There's vanity press, where everyone knows what's going on, and then there's scam, where people get taken for their money or their rights. Some sources about where PA falls:

They've got a number of links on Preditors and Editors-- scroll down to their listing.

Theresa Nielsen Hayden, an editor at Tor Books, discusses them as a new scam publishing format here -- while PA isn't explicitly named, it is their MO. (They also mention some honest POD publishers in the comments thread. Places like PA having their authors special-order non-returnable books in shops have seriously hurt the orders of non-scam POD publishers.)

And a discussion, again on TNH's weblog, of the contract issues with PA, here.