| Author |
Message |
    
Mary Gibbs
Hunger Member
Post Number:
78
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 05:42 am: |   |
Okay, so there's a first novel contest coming up, in my genre. Does briefly being published by PA count as really being published? This isn't to start a big hoo-ha or anything. I just want to know for sure. Thanks, all. |
C. E. Winterland
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1218
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 06:13 am: | |
I think you should submit.
CEW |
Victoria (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 24.60.187.36
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 09:21 am: | |
Mary, what are the guidelines? Unfortunately, if your novel has been made available for sale to the public--even if it's only on your own website--it's technically considered published.
- Victoria
Writer Beware
http://www.writerbeware.com/ |
C. E. Winterland
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1220
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 05:16 pm: | |
As always, interesting information, Victoria.
Thanks, that answers a question that's been in the back of my mind for some time.
CEW |
Olen Armstrong
Hunger Member
Post Number:
100
Registered: 06-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 09:07 pm: | |
Not meaning to sound as "snarfy" as I know it does...
and with Victoria's well-wrought information in hand...
isn't it just a little disingenuous to proceed.
I mean first I hear "I'm a published author through PA."
But then, when that proves inconvenient, I hear,
"Am I really a published author? After all, it's only PA."
Ummmmmhh.. which is it?
Like I said, I know that sounds kinda bad. Sorry. Just thought SOMEone should say it out loud. Many are probably thinking it.
And I'm not one to walk around a dead elephant in the living room and pass on making an obvious comment.
Later,
>Olen A<
9-11-01
Never forget....Never forgive |
Tony (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 24.31.215.202
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 03, 2003 - 11:03 pm: | |
I think I feel just the opposite. If everyone that "matters" (publishing houses, agents, reviewers, etc.,) all consider POD, vanity, and sometimes even self-published work as no published work at all, then why should it suddenly be different for you now?
Regards, |
Mary Gibbs
Hunger Member
Post Number:
79
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 08:28 am: | |
Olen, you need to apologize to me. NOW. I haven't taken any part of anything you're suggesting, & I don't appreciate it. I just wanted to know what the "big boys" had to say about this. Victoria would know, & I trust her.
Do I, personally, consider myself a published author (even through PA)? Yes. And I've always said YES. But I could consider myself a LOT of things & not have it be the truth. That's all I wanted, not for you to make such accusations. I didn't come back here to be conveniently put back into the "PA Whiner" category that some like to put others into.
Thank you, Victoria, for the answer. The guidelines can be found here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/games/delacorte.html
I'm sorry to the OTHER people for my anger. I'm tired of the finger pointing & misjudging. Dealing with enough of it offline. |
Victoria (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 24.60.187.36
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 09:05 am: | |
Olen has a point, and I was thinking about that point when I posted before, but wanted to be brief.
Yes, it is a Catch-22. A PA author will generally not be considered "published" in the most widely accepted sense of the term (meaning a book screened, edited, and marketed to the book trade). But there's also a strictly technical sense of the term that simply means "made available to the public". It does seem arbitrary sometimes which meaning is used. If you approached an editor at Delacorte with the ms. of your second novel, she probably wouldn't consider you a published author if your first novel was put out by PA. But if you wanted to enter that PA book in a contest for unpublished manuscripts, it _would_ be considered published, in that strictly technical sense of the term, because it had previously been made available to the public.
This is a little weaselly...but since the contest is for "writers who have not previously published a YA novel" rather than for "previously unpublished manuscripts", I wonder if you might not assume that the first meaning of "published"--i.e., that a PA book wouldn't qualify you as a "published" author--would apply. This would only work, though, if you were submitting a ms. other than your PA book. And if you were chosen as a finalist, you would need to come clean, and be prepared to possibly be disqualified. I'd suggest that you write to the contest folks and pose this question, but there doesn't appear to be a contact e-mail.
Does that make any sense at all?
- Victoria
Writer Beware
http://www.writerbeware.com/ |
Frank P. Baron
Awareness Member
Post Number:
2
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 09:49 am: | |
Victoria asked: "Does that make any sense at all?"
It does to me, but then I've been reading your posts for quite a while. 
Author: What Fish Don't Want You to Know |
Olen Armstrong
Wandering Member
Post Number:
101
Registered: 06-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 09:49 am: | |
Ms. Gibbs,
I was making observations not accusations. To accuse is to say that one has violated some rule, law or protocol. I don't say that and to be honest don't care. I was simply making an observation. I never intended any slight against anyone. I don't enter into finger-pointing and such, and I don't give a rat's-patoot about PA or the never-ending PA complaints.
I was thinking more at a high-level on the subject and meant no direct insult to anyone. If the lady is offended at my words, then I've used the wrong words in the wrong way and I am sorry for that. It would appear to be "my bad" entirely. When a gentleman has erred, it's incumbent upon him to admit his failing, and take whatever whippin' he has coming.
Ma'am, I do apologize sincerely. I meant no insult or accusation.
It seems I took your personal query and thought about it at a 20,000 foot level, forgetting that to you it was personal. In the process I've obviously stomped on some toes. I'm deeply sorry for that. I don't stomp on toes often, and when I do I try to leave no doubt that the stomping was intentional.
I'm always amazed that anyone takes what I say to heart. I'm so fulla crap my oughta be brown (no slam intended to those whose eyes ARE brown). I know that, my wife knows that, I erroneously assume that everyone does. And the web is so anonymous that I'm still more amazed that ANYONE gets fired up over words offered by a faceless nobody out in the ozone. Occasionally even I get fired up.
I meant no personal insult. I'm a rookie at all of this despite my age. I make observations to get responses so I can learn. This seemed to be an obvious disparity to the notion that a POD author is a legitimate author. If that's true, as so many here believe, then the original question answers itself.
Don't waste any time being mad over my thoughts. Who the hell am I?
But if I MEAN to be insulting, you'll have no doubt whatsoever. I can DO it very well, even without four-letter words. But it takes a HUGE amount of provocation for me to MEAN to be insulting to anyone. Few on this board provoke such a response (trolls excluded). And you have the added advantage that I'm a raging and unrepentent philogynist.
Insults and accusations were not my intention here.
Again I'm sorry for my poorly worded observations. I apologize for my ham-handed effort at discussion. I'll try to do better in the future.
Good luck with your endeavours.
Later,
>Olen A<
9-11-01
Never forget....Never forgive |
Olen Armstrong
Wandering Member
Post Number:
102
Registered: 06-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 09:59 am: | |
Man!!
He's a wordy SOB, ain't he?
Sorry folks. I get diahrea of the fingers sometimes.
Later,
>Olen A<
9-11-01
Never forget....Never forgive |
Mary Gibbs
Hunger Member
Post Number:
80
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 10:40 am: | |
Victoria,
I'll have to check it out. It wouldn't have been the one I published with PA. That one is currently being hacked up & stitched back together. Besides, the PA book wouldn't have qualified anyway...it's not contemporary. |
C. E. Winterland
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1222
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 04, 2003 - 03:39 pm: | |
Mary,
For what it's worth, Olen's been around a while and he seems to be a good guy. I didn't take his message to be suggesting any impropriety on your part.
Oh, and my first message was as relates to Victoria's latest response... and I intended it in the same manner as well (namely that if the 'industry' would consider you an unpublished author, certainly you could submit, provided you let them know the facts along the way).
ANyhow...
CEW |
F.E. Mazur (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 171.75.101.100
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 08:20 am: | |
In the late 80s and early 90s, I worked at Cornell University as a staff writer and general coordinator for a multmedia computing lab, recipient of huge grants in dollars and equipment to research the "convergence of media." The significant prominence of our group put us into frequent contact with higher-ups, and I remember being a part of one discussion which included the head of the University’s information technology department. The topic was the burgeoning Internet and the effect that could be expected on the presentation of research to others, laymen and scholars alike. But in particular, the discussion focused on the countless peer-reviewed, professional research journals which are an integral part of the academy and its members. One view was that the growing Internet will allow everything to be published, peer-reviewed or not, and this IS a good thing. The other view was that the Internet will allow everything to be published, peer-reviewed or not, and this IS NOT a good thing. The crux of the argument was 1) whether the gatekeepers, whose time-worn job has been to selectively give approval to what will gain wider dissemination and what will not, is, in the end, beneficial or detrimental; and 2) that each of us will become our own gatekeeper out of sheer necessity.
This last item should be central when talking about PA, for it publishes, at this time, without the traditional gatekeepers. Moreover, it does so only because of the opportunity presented by the Internet. I don’t believe anyone here or elsewhere is foolish enough to think that the vanity press Erica House, which charged hundred and thousands of dollars to authors to publish their work, would have transitioned itself to PublishAmerica where the author now pays nothing and the company collects its revenues overwhelmingly from the sale of its books, if the Internet did not exist. Those who insist on dubbing PA as a vanity are distorting the language and refusing to accept some of the change in our new technology-driven world.
Mary Gibbs, you are a published author, whether you like it or not. And you have not been published by a vanity press. Let the others suffer in ignorance rather than you in doubt.
Who are the gatekeepers of your work? It’s now after the fact of publishing in many instances that the gatekeeper comes into play. Each of us will determine for ourselves whether your book is worth something or not. When Victoria used the example of an editor at Delacorte, I was pleased she used a modifier, for the gatekeeping editors at the big houses, in my opinion, have for the most part done a fine job with what they have chosen to be published. But it’s important to note that they have never chosen everything that might ought to be published. And again, that is where the Internet comes in and PA as well. If you were to query that Delacorte editor about a new novel you had written and were rejected, I would hope for my faith in such editors that the person did so because of some telltale signs in your letter and not because of an across-the-board, untested prepossession.
|
Victoria (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 24.60.187.36
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 08:49 am: | |
>>Those who insist on dubbing PA as a vanity are distorting the language and refusing to accept some of the change in our new technology-driven world.<<
At the risk of fanning flames...I disagree. The basic definition of a vanity publisher--a publisher that depends principally on its own authors for its income--doesn't change because of the use of a different technology.
I do agree with the analysis of Erica House's transition to PublishAmerica...but I'd argue that while Erica's owners did recognize the potential of the Internet and of print-on-demand, they saw it as a way not to transition to a different kind of publishing, but to implement a new-style vanity model. Yes, PA authors don't pay upfront; yes, PA's income derives from the sale of its books. But since most of those sales are to the authors themselves, or to pocket markets surrounding them that they themselves leverage, this is a difference without a distinction--since it's still the authors who provide the bulk of the company's income.
I agree also with the comment about gatekeepers. The Internet and print-on-demand technology, which have led directly to the proliferation of fee-based POD publishing service providers and neo-vanities like PA, as well as a huge number of amateur publishers, definitely has forced booksellers and editors to become their own gatekeepers. Because gatekeeping is easier when you have a broad policy rather than a case-by-case one, too often this means "no POD-published books", no matter where those books come from.
- Victoria
Writer Beware
http://www.writerbeware.com/
|
F.E. Mazur (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 171.75.101.206
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 10:39 am: | |
"The basic definition of a vanity publisher--a publisher that depends
principally on its own authors for its income--doesn't change because of the use of a different technology."
This is another distortion, a warping of the words. The basic definition of a vanity publisher is one that charges its authors to publish their books, period!
Also, in reference to Erica House and PA, I used the term 'transitioning' not 'switched.' Some might want to think about why that is.
And regarding gatekeepers, I believe my point was missed. Editors and booksellers have always been gatekeepers. And they will remain so, but their authority will diminish because of the Internet. I was saying that each of us today are own gatekeepers. We must become our own validators. And not just with books, but with everything. The hype and pitch are everywhere, and today they are quite refined. |
Laurel Johnson
Unity Member
Post Number:
2398
Registered: 01-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 10:58 am: | |
As I read this thread, my mind was forming exactly what you said in the last paragraph, Frank. I don't have enough information to argue either side of the debate. I DO have enough information to state with confidence that I am my own gatekeeper. I choose what I want to write and do not change it to suit any purpose other than my own. I choose how I want to publish what I write, be it subsidy or not, and understand the potential of my choces.
That is not acceptable to everyone, but it is the way I do things. To do it any other way takes what little control I have away from me. I will never be rich and famous, but I will be in control of my words.
That is what Mary was saying at the beginning I think. She seeks her own form of validity, which varies from mine but is equally valid on a personal level. |
Kevin P. Grover
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
954
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 11:08 am: | |
(The peanut gallery had better not raise your hackles on this. I know you will want to, but whatever your opinion is on this or that...stop being a**holes when someone merely wants information. Thank-you.)
Mary,
Apologies for taking so long to chime in.
Whether or not one person or another accepts your book as published doesn't matter a bit. The fact remains that it was assigned an ISBN number, placed into formatting for printing, printed, bound, registered with the LOC, and put out for sale. This is being published. Whether it be with 1stBooks, Simon & Schuster, or if you did it all yourself. The book is considered to be published, therefore, ineligible for entry.
Sorry, but that's the way I read it, and I believe it's somewhat the same as Victoria interpreted it as well.
(Message edited by kevingrover on November 05, 2003)
www.winterwolfpublishing.com |
Mary Gibbs
Hunger Member
Post Number:
81
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 01:53 pm: | |
"Whether I like it or not." Can you READ? Are you that daft? Another idiot...sheesh. I specifically said, "Do I consider myself published? Yes." What part of "yes" don't you understand? I'm very HAPPY to be published, regardless of who happened to publish it. My first novel in question is still getting rave reviews (I have to loan my copy out a lot), & people are begging me to get it republished. I haven't allowed my experiences to be a hindrance. I've met a lot of great people & I've learned a lot as well. No worries. No bitterness.
Laurel, you were close...lol. I just didn't want to waste my time preparing an entry, only for them to say "sorry...no dice" & have it possibly reflect poorly on me because I tried to enter. I plan to query them someday...lol
I merely asked for information. Thanks to those who actually offered it, & didn't use this thread as a platform for their agendas. Maybe the ones with agendas are the ones that need a life, not the former PA authors! |
F.E. Mazur (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 171.75.101.144
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 02:48 pm: | |
"Does briefly being published by PA count as really being published?"
Sorry, Mary. I erred. I can see where I missed the certainty of your conviction.
(And yes, I read your next thread, too.)
Stream-of-consciousness...
"Well, Mary, you're a woman, whether you like it or not!"
"What! Are you daft? Of course I'm a woman. Can't you see?"
Lighten up, em gee, and hold onto that 'idiot' tag for when it's really needed.
Frank |
Kevin P. Grover
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
955
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 03:07 pm: | |
Mary, I wasn't referring to you with that. I was referring to the people who would start going on and on about things. I have no agenda, and merely went a round-about way of stating that I didn't want my post to be made part of anyone's agenda.
The bottom line is that yes, you ARE published.
My apologies if what I wrote was confusing. It wasn't meant to be.
www.winterwolfpublishing.com |
pacwriter
Unity Member
Post Number:
1039
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 03:12 pm: | |
Trying to classify PA is only difficult when you add into the mix what PA has to say about who and what they are. Take away the PA line of thought and what you have left is this:
A publisher who will publish anything they feel the author will sell enough copies to make the Publisher's profit margin. In other words, they are selling a service to the author for a certain amount of money. (vanity)
With PA you have the $1.00 advance which allows the author to say, "they are a traditional publisher because they gave me an advance!"
There is no waste, no inventory with POD printing. Once past the "setup" fees, the price of the ISBN and the cost of printing there are no other expenses except shipping and shipping is billied at the hightest rates possible. No publicy fees or marketing costs. Maintaining a website doesn't count because it is the advertizing tool for the publisher to gain more clients to purchase the service.
PublishAmerica is a vanity press that unlike most vanity presses, contracts for the print rights. You might say it is a way to hedge their bets so the author will hustle to sell books.
Way back when I signed with PA, authors had to agree to purchase 2 PA books. They created a market and believe me, the $1.00 advance did not cover the required two book purchase.
http://www.pacwriter.netfirms.com/ |
Todd Hunter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
875
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 04:07 pm: | |
It was getting a little bit nippy outside...brrrr...
Good thing you can always count on flames around here to stay warm...
sigh.
Methinks Mary got the answer to her initial question for the purposes of this conversation...yes, it really counts as being published... |
Matt Dinniman
Hunger Member
Post Number:
90
Registered: 04-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 04:38 pm: | |
Hey, Mary!
I'm about to finish my first YA manuscript, and I'm going to enter that contest. Thanks for the link!
|
Mary Gibbs
Hunger Member
Post Number:
82
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 05:13 pm: | |
Matt, good luck!
F.E. it's very apparent that you didn't read anything I wrote, & that you just read what your opponents in this silly battle wrote. I thought that my question was made a smidge more clear when I wanted to make the clarification of what *I* thought, & what, say, a mainstream publisher would think. I can THINK I'm anything, but it doesn't mean I am. If thinking something makes it so, then I THINK I'm a tall, gorgeous blonde with a chateau in the country. Excuse me for asking a question that was meant to be an honest "I don't know". It's nice to know the rules before I play by them, if that makes any sense, which I doubt at this point. I'll take "idiot" back & replace it with "ignorant." Or how about "a person with a lack of reading comprehension"? That better?
Kevin, you're fine. It's just the agenda junkies that aren't.
Pac, I was onboard when I had to buy the books too (October 2000). Boy, weren't we suckers?
Again, sorry for my snittiness, decent people. It's pathetic when someone just wants to ask a question & the vultures attack. But, it's their sad little lives, not mine.
In OTHER news, I spoke to another person who wants a copy of the out of print book. Last I heard, there were some at BN.com, so I directed her there. I had the notebook that I was working on the rewrite in, & we were talking about it. Even in death, the book has life. |
C. E. Winterland
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
1225
Registered: 06-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2003 - 05:25 pm: | |
Aw jeez! Actually good stuff. I loved Matt's commentary at the end - good stuff! and good luck, Matt!
The problem here is, it seems that both sides of this argument have valid points. We could dance around this one forever.
At this point, I don't really consider myself a published author, as my book was never really (in my eyes), made available to the bulk of the book buying public. However, to Kevin and Victoria's point, legally and technically speaking, I am.
However, if you want to see some interesting stuff on how the industry might perceive that status, check out sfwa's website on what they consider to be the requirements of the term 'published author'. While sfwa is by no means all of the industry, I think they represent a pretty good segment.
just ramblin on,
CEW |
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