Christopher Marshall: PublishAmerica

DUE TO LEGAL CONSTRAINTS I WAS FORCED TO EDIT THIS ARTICLE.

Welcome to my Monday Showcase. Today’s topic is PublishAmerica. Some love them, some don’t. Who is right and who is wrong?

If you are affiliated with the literary world you may have heard of PublishAmerica. If you blog, follow blogs, Twitter or a number of other resources you may have heard a great deal—both good and bad about PublishAmerica in the past few weeks.

This MONDAY SHOWCASE is first to present the news that has been spread, to provide links for you to read yourself, and an attempt to bring some of the facts and let you make a judgment call on what you believe. Are they a vanity press or are they not? Are they a scam or are they not?

First off, I would like to bring you back to a previous blog that I wrote, “Writer’s Be Aware!” The full story can be read here:

http://sites.google.com/site/cdmarshall101/free-story/writers-be-aware- A perquisite to clearly ascertain the information presented to you today. It will also help you to come up with a judgment based upon your own understanding and intellect. In the words of Lao Tzu, "Give a Man a Fish, Feed Him For a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, Feed Him For a Lifetime."

Vanity Press: This is the definition of Vanity Press according to the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts).

http://www.nea.gov/index.html

“For the purposes of this category, a vanity press is defined as one that does any of the following: requires individual writers to pay for part or all of the publication costs; asks writers to buy or sell copies of the publication; publishes the work of anyone who subscribes to the publication or joins the organization through membership fees; publishes the work of anyone who buys an advertisement in the publication; publishes work without competitive selection; or publishes work without professional editing."

If you would like to research this more, here is the link:

http://www.nea.gov/grants/APPLY/Lit/eligibility.html

DOG EAR PUBLISHING has a cut and dry, concise pros and cons of Vanity Press spelled out on their website:

http://www.dogearpublishing.net/insiders_vanity_press.aspx?gclid=CM-V3rTU8ZwCFQ7xDAod3Tqljw

I found the article informative and very well done and you may as well.

What is PublishAmerica? They claim that they are the Nation’s #1 publisher. If you want to read all about their claims you can find them here:

http://www.publishamerica.com/

Honestly, their website sounds pretty impressive. They make bold, dominant claims of publishing prowess. They DO NOT STATE THAT THEY ARE A VANITY PRESS. They claim that they earn income by selling books and not by charging fees. They claim that they pay their authors and give royalties on every book that they sell.

They boldly and blatantly claim that they DO NOT CHARGE FEES. So, in light of this it does seem they are not a vanity press…right?

So, what is the big deal that has been the buzz of the net? Well, for that we need to go to SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) just scroll down the page until you reach The Great PublishAmerica Hoax. They explain that 30 professional writers and editors created a deliberate non-publishable book and sent it in to Publish America…and they accepted it!

The entire article can be found here http://critters.critique.org/sting/

Now if you go back to the PublishAmerica site they have a statement towards editing. Now,I can’t say how long this has been on their web but it says something to the affect that they do not edit for content and other things and that is the responsibility of the author.

http://www.publishamerica.com/authorinfo.asp#editandcover

That statement can be found in the Author Information section. So let’s go back to the definition from NEA: “…or publishes work without professional editing."

How can you have professional editors who do not edit content? What exactly do they edit? That statement is not very clear.

They also have over 3,000 praises from authors on their site. As a matter of a fact the entire site looks like a giant poster board for promotions.

Since PublishAmerica lists all the reasons why you should go PublishAmerica (and they give many)I think it is only fair to list the ones who believe you should not. (They are many as well.)

The Reasons We Don't Recommend PublishAmerica
PublishAmerica on Wikipedia
Writer Beware
Preditors and Editors
Washington Post - Making Books
PublishAmerica is an Oyster
The Only Thing You Need To Know About PublishAmerica
The New Never-Ending PublishAmerica Thread (NEPAT)
PublishAmerica Is Really PrintAmerica
On PublishAmerica
Kevin Ahearn writes about Publish America
PublishAmerica Sting - Atlanta Nights
Aspiring Writers Trash PublishAmerica
Do your Homework on Publish America
The Rip-Off Report
Beware Publish Britannica