{"id":785,"date":"2005-09-20T04:30:47","date_gmt":"2005-09-20T02:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=785"},"modified":"2005-09-20T04:30:47","modified_gmt":"2005-09-20T02:30:47","slug":"publishamerica-and-advances-in-printing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/09\/20\/publishamerica-and-advances-in-printing\/","title":{"rendered":"PublishAmerica and Advances in Printing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So I have always wanted to be a writer. When I say always, we&#8217;re talking Grade School here. I&#8217;m not screwing around. Recently I learned about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publishamerica.com\/\">PublishAmerica<\/a>, because a fellow participant in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.3daynovel.com\">3-Day Novel Contest<\/a> had said she&#8217;d published her book product of the previous year&#8217;s contest through them. Well, well, well, I thought. Let&#8217;s see.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that PublishAmerica is a print-on-demand company. Print-on-demand [POD] is this new technology that makes it cost effective to make exactly as many books as get ordered. Your &#8220;inventory&#8221; is blank paper, binding materials and a bunch of computer files, ready to go if anyone wants one printed out. Most POD publishing is vanity or subsidized printing. That is, the author pays to put it out. Not so with PublishAmerica. They promise never to charge you a thing, unless you want to buy a big stack of your own books to sell yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Fine.<\/p>\n<p>I sent two novellas I&#8217;ve written in to them. I wanted to publish them as one volume called <\/p>\n<ul>\nFun With Cults: 2 Novellas<\/ul>\n<p>. Sound good? I&#8217;d buy it. My books were accepted immediately. I mean, right away. I mean, there was no way they could have read them.<\/p>\n<p>So I get a contract and a pushy Acquisitions guy emailing me about joining up. I talk myself into it and think, &#8220;Well, if I&#8217;ve got hustle, I can make this happen.&#8221; I had basically decided to do it when a friend of a friend who happens to be a published writer contacted me and I asked her what she thought about the Publisher. Her view? Don&#8217;t do it. Go for the small press, but not POD. She sent me an article from the <\/p>\n<ul>The Washington Post<\/ul>\n<p> that reported a lot of unhappy writers (and a few happy ones).<\/p>\n<p>Now, the two big concerns are as follows: 1) prestige. The lit world is all about prestige. If I went POD out of the box, would it follow me? 2) If it&#8217;s too good to be true, it probably is. Though, in the company&#8217;s defence, one of the less esoteric objections they have raised about PublishAmerica has been corrected. At one time, their books weren&#8217;t returnable. This is sort of weird, but if a book doesn&#8217;t sell at a book store, publisher&#8217;s will refund them for the trouble of putting it out. I don&#8217;t really get it, but when everyone else is doing that, it&#8217;s hard for a non-returnable book to compete for shelf space. As of last week, though, these POD books are now returnable.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, it didn&#8217;t seem like PublishAmerica was much of a brand. What would the consumer know if they saw the PublishAmerica name on the spine? It seems like there business model is publish as many books as they can, and hope they sell enough to make money. Why not? The only cost is the production work, right? The inventory takes up no real space. In fact, once they have thousands of books on file, they can just sell them forever. Eventually they might not even need to accept new titles. See, the name sort of gives it away: we aren&#8217;t about giving you a particular sort of book &#8211; we&#8217;re about publishing people who want to get published. Publish, publish, publish &#8211; see what sticks.<\/p>\n<p>OK, so it sounds like I&#8217;ve made my decision. I guess I have. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll do it. After all, those novellas really aren&#8217;t ready to go, though they are fun. But I have one nagging concern.<\/p>\n<p>What if I&#8217;m missing the boat? What if this new kind of printing is the way of the future and I&#8217;m scared to get in on the ground floor? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So I have always wanted to be a writer. When I say always, we&#8217;re talking Grade School here. I&#8217;m not screwing around. Recently I learned about PublishAmerica, because a fellow participant in the 3-Day Novel Contest had said she&#8217;d published her book product of the previous year&#8217;s contest through them. Well, well, well, I thought. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-tech","category-brady-dale","category-uncategorical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-cF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3371,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/20\/help-jessica-and-me-make-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":785,"position":0},"title":"Help Jessica and me make art!","author":"nathaniel","date":"20 March 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi Everyone: Jessica Meuninck-Ganger and I are trying to raise money for our next collaborative solo exhibition at\u00c2\u00a0GALLERY AOP in Johannesburg, South Africa, in January 2013, through crowd-funding site US Artists.\u00c2\u00a0Some of this work will also be shown in Milwaukee as part of\u00c2\u00a0SGCI next March.\u00c2\u00a0Please consider donating even the smallest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"13 Views of a Journey","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/f51a68dd625e9d4ae3f40a67a\/images\/13.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/f51a68dd625e9d4ae3f40a67a\/images\/13.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/f51a68dd625e9d4ae3f40a67a\/images\/13.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1266,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/06\/david-krut-print-workshop-new-work-2006\/","url_meta":{"origin":785,"position":1},"title":"David Krut Print Workshop: New Work 2006","author":"nathaniel","date":"06 July 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Preview of some prints of mine that'll be part of a DKW box set will be up, this Saturday. Sadly, I can't make the opening, but will be there in spirit.... From Krut site: Opens Saturday 8 July at 12h00 This exhibition of prints produced and published at David Krut\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"DKFA_05_06_06_022.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.davidkrutpublishing.com\/dkp\/wp-content\/uploads\/ArtGallery\/DKFA_05_06_06_022.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":111,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/07\/happy-day-to-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":785,"position":2},"title":"happy day to me","author":"nathaniel","date":"07 June 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Nicole and I are still very sick but, despite this, we are having a dinner party tonight to celebrate my birthday. I hope we do not pay for it with further ill health tomorrow. Lot's of work to do this week, so you may not be seeing much action on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;news and politics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"news and politics","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/news-and-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5305,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/24\/wednesday-sept-27-morehshin-allahyari-at-uwm\/","url_meta":{"origin":785,"position":3},"title":"Wednesday Sept 27: Morehshin Allahyari at UWM","author":"nathaniel","date":"24 September 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Morehshin Allahyari is an Iranian artist who moved to the US ten years ago, and produces work across Internet art, video and installation, sculpture, writing, and other forms, all of which explore, she says, \u00c2\u00a0the political, social, and cultural contradictions we face every day. Two of Allahyari's recent and most\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Morehshin-Allahyari-3D-prints-artifacts-destoyed-ISIS-material-Speculation-preserve-cultural-memory11-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1591,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/20\/contemporary-irish-art-society-and-a-birthday-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":785,"position":4},"title":"Contemporary Irish Art Society and a Birthday Blog (updated below)","author":"nathaniel","date":"20 February 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Haydn and I gave very brief talks to the the Contemporary Irish Art Society last night, about my recent print work for Art on Paper Gallery (South Africa) and Haydn Shaughnessy Gallery (Ireland and in Second Life). It was really fun to be with an audience who knew nothing of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1062,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/05\/latest-compressionist-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":785,"position":5},"title":"latest Compressionist images","author":"nathaniel","date":"05 February 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Compressionism: digital performance, analog archive; earth, wind, fire, true colors, Johannesburg Boogie Woogie.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"earth, lambda print metallic paper, 30 x 15 cm","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/21\/95775558_3e35e787dd_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}