Writer beware: PD Publishing
Guys, anybody thinking of submitting to PD Publishing, you should read these entries from Anne Brooke in order:
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Short version of the story: Anne Brooke wants to terminate her contract with PD Publishing, PD Publishing wants to charge her USD 10k, of which 4.5k is for "lost sales" on an EBOOK EDITION THAT WAS NEVER RELEASED!!!
To put numbers into perspective, Anne made $160 in royalties from her PD Publishing release in 2010. I can state with confidence that I've made more in the same time from "Deliverance", a 7k short story.
What's really extremely classy is that, according to Anne's account, PD Publishing cc'ed Anne's OTHER PUBLISHERS (so far uninvolved) into their email trail.
Because, yes, it makes a lot of business sense to shame an author with the competition. Umh, not. If I were Dreamspinner or any of the others, I'd laugh my head off at the patheticness of it all.
After reading the nonsense that Anne Brooke has to deal with, I'm counting my blessings that PD Publishing turned down my novel I sent them in 2009. I'd have signed that same contract.
Some of the stuff that PD puts out is excellent, like Erastes' "Standish". But I will never submit anything to them again (shit, buying a car is cheaper than getting out of their contracts!), also because their sales stink. I mean, $160 for a full novel (plus a $200 advance)? That's not enough to get out of bed for.
But now I also will never buy a single book from them again. I also won't review any of their books. I'm not supporting publishers that are taking the piss like this. (All this based on Anne's account - I'm happy to link whatever PD Publishing has to say to this clusterfuck).
You know, big changes happened when people started to care how people/animals that produce the stuff we want are being treated - hey, presto, fairtrade coffee and bananas. Hey, presto, organic milk and eggs and meat.
I do hope that readers care about how publishers treat their authors.
In my case, I'm boycotting PD Publishing. You, too, can opt for fairtrade.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Short version of the story: Anne Brooke wants to terminate her contract with PD Publishing, PD Publishing wants to charge her USD 10k, of which 4.5k is for "lost sales" on an EBOOK EDITION THAT WAS NEVER RELEASED!!!
To put numbers into perspective, Anne made $160 in royalties from her PD Publishing release in 2010. I can state with confidence that I've made more in the same time from "Deliverance", a 7k short story.
What's really extremely classy is that, according to Anne's account, PD Publishing cc'ed Anne's OTHER PUBLISHERS (so far uninvolved) into their email trail.
Because, yes, it makes a lot of business sense to shame an author with the competition. Umh, not. If I were Dreamspinner or any of the others, I'd laugh my head off at the patheticness of it all.
After reading the nonsense that Anne Brooke has to deal with, I'm counting my blessings that PD Publishing turned down my novel I sent them in 2009. I'd have signed that same contract.
Some of the stuff that PD puts out is excellent, like Erastes' "Standish". But I will never submit anything to them again (shit, buying a car is cheaper than getting out of their contracts!), also because their sales stink. I mean, $160 for a full novel (plus a $200 advance)? That's not enough to get out of bed for.
But now I also will never buy a single book from them again. I also won't review any of their books. I'm not supporting publishers that are taking the piss like this. (All this based on Anne's account - I'm happy to link whatever PD Publishing has to say to this clusterfuck).
You know, big changes happened when people started to care how people/animals that produce the stuff we want are being treated - hey, presto, fairtrade coffee and bananas. Hey, presto, organic milk and eggs and meat.
I do hope that readers care about how publishers treat their authors.
In my case, I'm boycotting PD Publishing. You, too, can opt for fairtrade.
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Brenda
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Jun 24, 2011 03:39PM
Thanks for the heads up! I am passing along the link to your blog to some people who I am sure would be interested in knowing about what Anne went though!
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Very interesting. I didn't read the linked posts (I will later on) but I would love to know why the ebook was never published and how can they claim lost sales from that? Is it even legal?!I swear, the more I read about stuff like this, the more respect I have for writers who put up with the shit in order to publish their work and make a buck...
Whoa, thats pants...Makes me wonder how they think they have the right - very odd.
Brenda - thanks!Sandra - basically, PD Publishing doesn't appear to understand how ebooks work, so they seem to think of themselves as a print publisher. In an environment where you sell 10 ebooks for every paper book, that's... not a smart strategy. But that's guesswork. You can email them and ask them.
Casey - I think by that point they'd just descended into pettyness. Not people I would want to get into business with.
Definitely descended into something - and it isn't smelling of roses either. Mindless. Their desperation doesn't bode well for the state of their business. What does it say when they need to pull income from authors - is it because they can't get it from book sales?The strangest thing is that somewhere in their perception of the world they obviously think they are the ones being cheated. Humanity scares me...
Casey - yeah. A lot of hurt feelings, no doubt. But if I were in that situation, I'd just let the author go. There's nothing to be gained from it but bad blood.
Exactly - why would you want to keep someone on a leash for 7yrs when they want out. Power play as much as anything I guess. It might even be one of those weird things where they've been stiffed by a couple of authors and poor Anne stood up at the wrong time with a genuine request so they pounced on her with all the unreasonableness of past 'authors are out to screw you' experiences.
I soooo have to stop overthinking things - time to remind myself i don't need to have an opinion on everything or know the insides of a duck's ass about why people make decisions. I'm a sucker for psych lol
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