The spectrum of publishing companies, which seem to be everywhere in this, the free world with new ones being created daily, do nothing more than satisfy the demand of an even faster growing spectrum of writers. During the past five years it seems that there has been an explosion of people, perhaps baby boomers, who need to write their stories and then get them published. Publishing companies range from what I call, "The Old School" right up to the "Outrageous!" with some of them blatantly advertising that they are traditional. Being traditional means only one thing to me -- they will in fact pay you, the author of the novel, advance monies for either a two or perhaps a three book deal. On the other hand the bottom feeder publishers will print anything you send them as long as you send them a check to cover well worded fees, book costs, shipping costs, and many other incidentals.

     Among the vast amount of established publishing companies, there is one publishing company actively working and claims that they are in fact traditional only because they pay their authors.

     This unique, well-established Publishing company attracts not only new authors, but existing authors who have been previously scammed by the low-end publishing companies who seem to be more worried about getting your money rather than producing a marketable product. Within a two year period, well over four thousand authors found this new Publisher and submitted their manuscripts for approval. Almost all, at least the ones I talked to, got accepted – No money down, nothing to do other than sign a seven year deal for the publishing rights, and then wait for your advance – one contractual, justifiable dollar.

     This publishing savior, if you want to call them that, seems to relish in taking into consideration the needs of many struggling authors, and with their corporate publishing heads held high, a result of being the fastest growing publishing company in the world, and yet they decline to be interviewed with dateline NBC, is called - Publish America.

     I, in fact, had two books contracted with them, so my comments, views, and observations are totally founded.

     First of all, trying to get a response to an email request from these people, after you have been accepted for publishing of course, is a nightmare. The books cost twice as much as they should, and then waiting almost a year to see your book completed is totally unjustified; besides, the royalty payments are terrible even though they claim to have a great marketing plan. After all they do repeatedly claim that they can sell books. Sit back, toss out the ego factor, and simply do the math and please be conservative. Who will buy your book – average estimate is ten to twelve family members, perhaps a dozen or so friends, and then you! This is what they bank on and the more authors they sign, the better the income. Let’s take, what they announced a few weeks back that a hundred new authors sign each month. Okay, at $9.50 per book, and having each author order the minimum order of a 100 books the number or dollar income is $100,700 a month income. Can you see how they do it, and waiting a full year is now justified since the "Proofers" are constantly busy getting manuscripts ready for the digital print process.

     After my third feeble attempt is when I first heard back from Publish America. Once I found the right person and after I did send them my complete manuscript, is when after four weeks, I received an email back that my novel would be printed in book form and I was congratulated. The contract arrived by snail mail a week later, and an Author’s Guide, which included techniques for basic book format, proper punctuation, and some other simple rules suddenly managed to get to me. Once I read the contract, two things popped out; first the seven year time frame and secondly, the emphasis on getting one last kick at the can, if you wish, but only one last chance, and this would happen, when they sent me the final edited version. However, until that time you receive the final version of the novel, they stress not to contact them or ask questions. Wait and be patient, should be their motto!

     They did have an internal message board system and I did find it after three months or so, and then tried, via email, to inquire about getting involved, perhaps I could offer a few comments, or continue to learn what Publish America was all about. Nothing came my way for a long time, and after six or seven attempts to get my own password so I could participate in the message board system, is when I finally got it. By the time I got my own codes, I was discouraged; besides, I had read the other messages and noticed they were totally redundant with no real value. When I got authorization to be included in the system, I did in fact post three messages and I received the normal responses from the regulars who seemed to be glued to this message board system and I quickly figured out that these were the authors that had not had their books completed yet. I on the other hand, had one already finished, and yes, I did buy a 100 of them, and yes, once again, I became one of their marks. I paid $9.80 per book and waited three weeks for delivery. I was glad I did not have to pay an upfront fee to see this book in print. My view on this whole thing is quite simple - these people were the best of the worst!

     My second novel finally arrived from what they call the Proofer, and I must say, there was no editing at all performed on my second manuscript. I tore into it and found many errors, misspellings, structure problems, yet the physical format was great, since they reduced the number of pages from 287 to 236. I continued digging and then quickly found out how they achieved this – margins, headers and footers, and a font change -- brilliant move to keep the book within their physical range of spine spacing.

     I will give Publish America credit where credit is due – their cover design staff. The covers that were supplied to me were outstanding, great, attractive, and even after I suggested a few minor changes, they were done perfect and quick and all without problems or arguments. I just wished that my other covers could have been done this way.

     Now the final test for this publisher is going to be without a doubt the issuing of my first six-month royalty statement. I have been pre-warned about the monetary royalty reward and that it will appear to be very low; almost to the point of being insulting. I patiently wait to see the statement -- since I have followed the sales of my first released book with people that I know who bought books, including myself, my family, my business associates, and my wife. I hope they do not skim and falsely report sales.

     Another small note -- I did notice after I received both of my books that the disclaimer of the book being a work of fiction and that the names, places, and characters were totally in the mind of the author… was absent from my two books. I found this to be totally surprisingly irresponsible, especially from a so-called traditional "Old-Fashion" publisher.

     So far in my own publishing journey, I have now figured out that publisher’s who are not traditional, are those that will no doubt make their money selling books to authors. That’s it in a nutshell. The more books they sell to us, as being authors, the more profit they make, since our cost is twice what it needs to be and even though these publishers set up on-line internet addresses with all the on-line major book sellers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books A Million,) the regular buying public, unless you as the author tell them, have no earthly idea of where to go and find your book.

     In summary, If you do not mind buying your own book for around $10.00 per book, and then if you do not mind waiting 365 days to see your work in print, then believe me, Publish America is for you! Submit your manuscript and you will be accepted.

     Follow-up: The royalty statement arrived, .96cents per book sold. What happened to their disclaimer - we can sell books. Yes, they sell them to us as authors for $10, but generating interest and sales within the book stores – does not exist.

     The angles, the new avenues, all designed to have you as the author fork over more money leading only to a dead-end.

     I had a friend share with me that he spent over $2500 to get his book listed in the NY Times – a full page ad. When I asked him how many books he had sold? His answer – "Not a damn single one!"

     These so-called publishers are solely based on making a ton of money off of our dreams and to me this is nothing but fraud! Outright fraud!

     Have things changed that much over the past century and a half – the first salespeople, those wagon bearing ones, who roamed the country claiming that their products can do the unbelievable and if you do not buy now you will loose out. These were the salespeople who introduced testimonial customers to endorse products and what they can do. In today’s publishing world, these are called POD’s (Print On Demand Publishers.) Nothing has changed over the past 150 years.

     Try and get a person a Publish America. No matter how hard you try, it’s not going to happen. Write an unfavorable comment on your message board, and I am told that your posting privilege will be immediately revoked, do not buy your 100 or 150 books at the inflated $10.00 per book, and you receive nothing, not an endorsement, not a perk, not even recognition within their Web Page – you will simply vanish.

     I asked another author one time, "I saw that your book was requested by a famous person for review. You must be so happy. How did this happen?"

     Her answer was simple, "I did not know anything about it! I read it one day and tried to get an answer, but like always, nothing came my way not even sales."

     I published two books with this publisher and both times when my complimentary two copies were to be mailed to me, I did in fact receive two other author’s books. I had to re-ship them to the appropriate authors, and I did not receive my two copies at all. What is this all about? Conspiracy theory, perhaps a way to promote other authors books?

     These people strive on selling books to author’s family and friends and then to the author themselves, and they do this all without directly asking you for money. However, they do ask for one hundred address labels that you must send in. Once you order your 100 copies and pay them $1000, do the math. All-in-all, the publisher will receive, including shipping, approximately $1200 per author. Currently they boast of having over 7000 authors, and when I subtract costs, are you ready for this, they make a profit of $6,000,000 million dollars - Wow, why didn’t I think of this?