author

Dee's story

I signed the PA contract in 2002, believing that PA was a small press.

The website said PA titles were in bookstores. The fact PA books were not returnable meant nothing to me. I had had two books previously published by a major publisher, but didn't have a clue how books got into bookstores. The fact that there was no guarantee of bookstore placement meant nothing, my other contracts didn't guarantee bookstore placement. The wording for the marketing that PA would do and that I was supposed to be available for was similar to my other contracts.

I didn't expect a huge amount of editing because our previous books hadn't required that much editing.

The year of 2002 passed quickly and became the summer of 2003. My first clue that something was amiss was when Booklist requested advance reading copies and PA refused to send them. Booklist requires that the ARCs be sent from the publisher. So I had two copies bound sent them to PA with a cover letter for them to put on their stationary, and a prepaid postage envelope. Whether PA ever sent them, who knows.

Second clue was when I noticed that there was no Library of Congress catalog description on the PDF file of the galley. I emailed PA twice and never received an answer.

Third clue, my PA book, a trade paperback, was priced at $21.95, outrageously high. PA wouldn't budge on the price, gave me the whole rhetoric about priced competitively, what the market will bear. I even did an analysis of the price points for trade paperbacks, but it was useless.

It is now September 2003. After personally sending out 50 review copies, not one newspaper reviewed the book. About half of those review copies had been requested after I queried the book editor. These review copies cost me $11.00 each plus postage to send out.

We had a book signing lined up at a major chain for the end of September. She said it was too late for her to order the books from Ingram so could I bring them. And if it wouldn't be too much trouble could I send her a copy right before the event.

The book signing was cancelled the day before it was to take place. Why? When she received her copy she realized it was PA and they don't do events for PA books. PA books were not stocked at that chain as a matter of policy and they don't do events for books they don't stock.

That was the clue that did it. No matter how hard I worked, promoted, or marketed, it wouldn't make any difference. I queried the other chains and several independents, they all refused to stock PA books.

In December of 2003, I got the contract for The Making of a Bestseller. Because of the research for that book, I learned how the publishing industry worked, how books got on bookshelves and how the PA business model was set up to sell books to their authors and was a huge barrier to selling books to bookstores or libraries.