Shamefulness Knows No Bounds

February 25th, 2010 § 6 comments

Hope for the Hopeless. Or Clueless.

Jim Macdonald posted a letter from Publish America over on the Making Light blog. According to this letter, authors “published” by Publish America can now have up to 5 copies of their book sent to Random House (for the mere cost of 10 copies of the author’s book).

For those who might actually think this sounds like a good idea, here’s another idea you can do at much lower cost: Finish your novel, order a copy from a POD (Print On Demand) company, and mail it to Random House yourself. A brief check tells me that it would cost $7 to print a 200 page book on Lulu. Add another $3 to mail it yourself, and another $3 to mail it to Random House for a total of $13.

The cheapest sci-fi book I see on Publish America is $12.95. If you order 10 books (the minimum order to get the extra copies sent to Random House) at 50% off (they provide a coupon code) + $1.99 shipping per book, that’s $64.75 + $19.90 = $84.65.

Do-it-yourselfers save about $70 and probably have the same chance to get their book published by Random House as the PA authors.

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  • tarastar

    I don't get this. So is the idea that if I send my book to random house in something of a bound form I have a better chance of them publishing it?

  • http://nelswadycki.com nelswadycki

    Not exactly. The idea is if you send your book to Random House in a bound form, you’ll have just as good as chance at getting it published as you would if you had Publish America send it for you at a much higher cost.

    The real idea is that Publish America is preying on writers/authors who don’t know that sending a copy of a book to a huge publishing house is not at all how the publishing industry works.

  • http://fanaticalpupil.com/ Fanatical Pupil

    No, the idea is if you send Random House a copy of your book that you get from a POD company, you'll have as good a chance of getting it published as you will if you have Publish America send them copies of your book.

    The real idea is that Publish America is preying on writers/authors who don't realize that just sending a copy of your book to a huge publishing company is not the way the publishing industry works.

  • http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight Patrick Nielsen Hayden

    The Making Light post in question was by Jim Macdonald, not me.

  • http://nelswadycki.com nelswadycki

    Sorry about that. Correction has been made.

  • http://fanaticalpupil.com/ Fanatical Pupil

    Sorry about that. Correction has been made.

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