Our first Sid Caesar Doubletalk Award goes to MoreBooksReviews.com

Sid Caesar is an hysterically funny comedy writer and actor who was born in 1922. Sid was an important part of the Golden Age of television in the 1950s who starred in Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour. Those of you who missed the 1950s, may have seen Sid play Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.

Sid has an amazing ability to mimic the rhythms and accents of foreign languages. He can spout streams of syllables that sound like sentences in French, German, Spanish, Polish, etc. -- but in reality he makes up the "words" on the spot, and what he says is nonsense.

This blog has previously established the Borat Akademi of English Writteningistics to honor (?) people who do a particularly bad job of writing in English. Our new award, named to honor the greatest doubletalker of all time, will be given to writers, blogs and print publications that put words together in sequences that looks like English, but make little or no sense.

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Our first winner is a blog called More Books Reviews (not More Book Reviews). The blog operator has a strange plural fetish that forces him or her to overuse the letter "s." Sections of the blog include the "Books Shop" and "Books Store." I'm not sure of the reason to have both a shop and a store, but this way there are more of the beloved "esses."

The "About:" section tells us that the blog contains "Infos about book reviews covering almost everything - history, literature, popular science, computing, sf + fantasy, biology, historical fiction, anthropology, politics." Learn about techniques about writing a book, ebooks and articles to publish in internet.

What follows is a posting that tries to provide information about copyrights:

Copyright may be a legal fiction designed to protect the works of artists, inventors and innovators. In essence, it is a legal bar, allowing exclusivity for those who produce works in the form of an intangible asset that can be sold or relinquished, and that expires upon a certain amount of time. With the expansion of the net, and also the creation of additional and a lot of content, the question of copyright is becoming increasingly additional relevant, and one that additional and a lot of webmasters are considering to protect their own interests. Additionally, with the increase of the freelancer market, the problem of copyright is changing into a heated topic of dialogue for both buyers and sellers at each stage in the assembly chain, and the effects of not having the relevant rights might be probably catastrophic. In this text, we have a tendency to'll have a look at what exactly copyright is, and how it relates to the web in content creation.


Copyright is a synthetic concept that provides the creator of a piece, or the person he sells the right to, the legal right to use or modify in whole or in part, and to decision their own. It's a different that means in most jurisdictions, however the fundamental principle is the identical: the creator owns the first copyright to the work in query, and has the liberty to pass this on at can, usually in consideration for money. Where a creator is operating on commission, copyright is intended to act as a lien in his favour, meaning that if he creates and passes on but does not receive payment, he will withhold copyright and sue for breach where applicable. Of course, he would conjointly have remedies underneath the normal law of contract, but the grasp of copyright may be a terribly powerful tool, which can even be used against the third party buyer from the initial commissioner.


Copyright is designed as a tool to hide what's known as intellectual property. Committing intellectual thoughts and ideas to paper, or creating them tangible is usually sufficient to give rise to the copyright protection, that usually lasts for a range of decades in preventing others from steeling ideas. This is often primarily designed to encourage forward thinking and art, and will be a very important tool in protecting the monetary interests of those accountable for some of the world's most very important progressions. Think about the inventors of the seatbelt, Volvo. Volvo might have used their copyright to prevent other makers from installing seat belts, and this would are sufficient to shield any alternative manufacturer from doing so. Of course they waived their rights for the security of the general public, that is additionally a attainable consideration for the creator of one thing new and innovative.
[A seatbelt would have a patent, not a copyright, you fucking idiot!]


Copyright is an exhaustible right, and it typically expires on a given date, once which all works enter the public domain. This means that people who create new product have sufficient time to capitalise on their idea before the globe at large can join in. Sadly for many musicians, this implies their inventive works can not create them cash specifically, and can be used royalty free; a truth that has caused a lot of uproar and unrest in recent years.


Copyright could be a dynamic area of the law, and is significantly relevant to the internet. As additional and more content of more and a lot of varieties is made on-line, there comes a would like to search out protection in copyright law to stop unscrupulous parties from using content without authorisation. In combating this, a variety of international legal organisations have been established with a read to tackling copyright violation, and serving to those without legal support to fight cases for the protection of their work. It's undoubtedly an area of law that's on the ascendancy, as lawyers worldwide strive to search out a cohesive structure to on-line intellectual property law, and therefore the protections on-line authors ought to be afforded for creating their works. A minimum of inside national boundaries, it's highly potential to rely on copyright laws to guard and govern material.


If you are looking for a personal injury lawyer in Miami, then visit: miami personal injury lawyer. The miami personal injury lawyer serves clients in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties, and is available for service statewide. Go to miami personal injury lawyer now! Excellent in service and efficienct in cost! [You imbecile, what the hell does this paragraph have to do with copyrights?]

Related Reading: [The recommended "related reading" is not related, and you can't read it. It's a 30-minute film titled Mezzogiorno - Vesuvio's shadow: Roman ruins and a Swedish doctor.]

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TWO-FER TUESDAY BONUS EXTRA BLOG:thinking about the future

Presumably if I drop dead while typing this sentence, all of my previous rants will still be available to be read by anyone who cares -- but for how long?

Will Google maintain the blogger.com memory for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years? What about a hundred years or a thousand years?

The "Wayback Machine" archives milions of web pages, but probably not for millions of years. How will 21st-century electronic texts be read in the 31st and 41st and 91st centuries?

The excitement over the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other eBook readers has caused a lot of tongue flapping about "the end of printed books." Some have predicted that paper books won't be printed after around 2020.

Apprently nobody is making 8-mm film projectors or 8-track tape players anymore. It seems unlikely that your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grand children will be able to buy a device to read a 2010-vintage eBook.

However, as long as human beings can read, they should be able to read today's printed books, and the Declaration of Independence, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the words on ancient Greek, Roman, Chinese and Japanese pottery, the heiroglyphs on walls of Egyptian pyramids, and maybe even the symbols on the walls of Neanderthal caves.

The iPad is way cool, and I'm going to get one. But far, far, far from now, the chiseled words on a wall might be more useful.

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Reality Check: Outskirts Press distribution vs. Real Self-Publishing

Inept vanity publisher Outskirts Press frequently brags and lies to make it seem like they have advantages over other paths to publication -- particularly independent (i.e., "real") self-publishing.

In an effort to get customers, Outskirts boss Brent Sampson has written many sentences on the company website and in his blog and books that are simply not true.

Perhaps his most outrageous fiction is this statement: "The majority of independently self-published authors find it nearly impossible to secure distribution through book wholesalers like Ingram and Baker & Taylor."

• In reality, Brent has no way of knowing the experiences of the majority of independently self-published authors. It's highly likely that those people (which include me) have their books printed by Lightning Source, which provides automatic access to Ingram and Baker & Taylor. It's "nearly impossible" not to secure this distribution.

Bad Boy Brent has also written about the "headaches" caused by getting an ISBN and bar code, and "paying thousands of dollars to print thousands of books" and the “hassles of independent self-publishing, like guessing print-runs, managing inventory, and the responsibility of order fulfillment.”

• In reality, that's all-self-serving bullshit. I’m an independent self-publisher, and the truth is I never ever think about print runs, inventory or order fulfillment. The biggest hassles I deal with are typos.

Outskirts also says, "One of the most common misconceptions about print-on-demand companies [euphemism for "vanity publishers"] is that their only value is printing books one at a time. While it is true that just-in-time printing is an advantage of publishing with a POD publishing service company, there are many greater advantages than just printing. Perhaps the best reason of all, however, is not the printing of the books, but the distribution of the books after publication."

• That's more B.S. From Brent Sampson. Below is the distribution diagram for the more-expensive Outskirts Press Diamond, Ruby, and Pearl publishing packages.

What follows is a modification of the Outskirts Press chart that shows how distribution works if you are a real self-publisher and have your books printed by Lightning Source. All you lose are direct sales from the Outskirts Press website (which are probably insignificant). If you form your own little publishing company, you'll probably  publish faster, get your money faster, and make more money. If you publish properly, you should have better books and have a better chance of getting your books reviewed.

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Why am I so damned critical?

Any of you who have read more than two or three editions of this blog know that I frequently criticize inept and dishonest vanity publishers and terrible writers.

Pompous incompetents are funny, it's fun to write about them, and I'm performing a public service by exposing them.

I've alway liked deflating big egos, and revealing scams. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, I'd be the little kid who yelled out that the idiot ruler was parading in his undies. I have a powerful internal bullshit detector and I am by nature a bit of a wise-ass and seldom hold anything back. I see no need to be nice to jerks with big egos. I am not afraid of being sued, and my wife is so scared of my constant "pushing the limit," that she won't read what I write.

Yesterday I spent two wonderful hours with the man who taught me English and history in seventh grade. I had not spoken to him since June of 1959, so we had a lot to catch up on.

The main reason for my visit was to give him a copy of my book Stories I'd Tell My Children (but maybe not until they're adults),  which is coming out on April Fools' Day. The book includes more than 100 mostly hysterically funny (others have said that -- not just me) stories that span 55 years. Incompetence is a frequent theme for the stories, and with no specific plan, it appears that I've targeted lots of incompetent doctors, lawyers and teachers.

I had a lot of really shitty teachers, and a few superb ones, including Lawrence DePalma, whom I visited yesterday. In the book, I wrote much more about the bad teachers, both as a warning and because they stimulated writing funny stories.

In the back of the book I have a two-page "honor roll" where I pay tribute to my few good teachers, like "Mr. D," and I wanted him to see it.

Because there are so many stories about bad teachers (and I decided to write the book when I was in sixth grade and the victim of a terrible teacher), I felt the need to point out to Mr. D that I am definitely not anti-teacher. I told him that my mother was a teacher, my father briefly taught college, my sister is a teacher, her husband taught in the same school that Mr. D taught me in, their son is a teacher, and I suppose I think of myself as teaching through my 40-plus years of writing.

While driving away from Mr. D's house, I thought about why I target bad doctors, lawyers and teachers in my book. The answer quickly came to me. It's because these three professions are so important, that when the professionals screw-up, they can do terrible damage.

Doctors are involved with us even when we are still pre-natal. They deliver us to the world, and heal us when we are ill or wounded. Their mission is to preserve life; and when they screw up, people can die.

Teachers are responsible for informing, shaping and directing each new generation of human beings. When a teacher screws up, kids can be misinformed, misshapened and misdirected.

Lawyers are intrusted to protect our rights -- while negotiating contracts and defending us in court. As legislators, they make laws and as judges, they rule on cases. When lawyers screw up, people agree to bad deals, children and spouses lose inheritances, guilty people go free, innocent people are executed, and millions suffer because of bad laws.

I can pick out other critical professions and occupations. If architects screw up, buildings fall down. If engineers screw up, airplanes fall down and cellphone batteries overheat. If pharmacists screw up, people can die from taking the wrong medication. If cooks screw up, people can get poisoned. If accountants screw up, their clients pay too much tax, or may get fined. If rulers screw up, their citizens die in the wrong wars.  Etc.

When I was the victim of some terrible teachers, I complained to my mother (who later became a teacher). She did not believe my reports of lunacy, incompetence and sadism in the classroom and said that teachers must be respected because of their position (regardless of incompetence or derangement).

When we realize that some people in power are not worthy of automatic respect simply because of their title or uniform, some of us become incurable cynics.

I have trouble accepting authority. I know that if I was in the army and my sarge ordered me to peel potatoes, I'd respond either, "Why should I?," "Get a machine," "Do it yourself," or "Go fuck yourself" -- and I'd be in the brig. Fortunately, I was never in the army.

Vanity publishers probably have not caused deaths like bad doctors or bad judges or bad presidents. But they do cause writers to waste time and money, and cause readers to buy some terrible books. As shelves and websites get clogged with crap, it can be harder for good books to be recognized.

We all choose our battles and our opponents -- some puny, some powerful. Ralph Nader fought General Motors. I admire his zeal, although I loved my own 1965 Corvair Corsa. Consumer Reports targets dangerous and difficult-to use products and points out bad values. Thousands of reviewers warn us about bad books, movies and restaurants. This blog often goes after bad publishers and writers (but I have praised good books).

We should all be crusaders. Don't be afraid to call attention to naked emperors, corrupt cops, stupid judges, bad burgers, bad cars, bad boks, bad movies, bad bosses, inaccurate articles, and sloppy driveway pavers.

But be equally dedicated to providing praise when deserved.

If you hear a street musician whom you like, don't just dump a quarter in her or his coffee cup and move on. Stick around to dig the performance; and at break time, shake a hand and give some encouragement. If you've enjoyed a good meal in a restaurant, tell the manager (who mostly hears complaints) and go into the kitchen to shake hands with the chef, and write something nice online.

It's important for inept and dishonest people to know that their failures and crimes will be discovered and publicized.

It's equally important for the hard-working good guys to know that their efforts will be recognized and rewarded.

(That's the end of today's sermon. Tomorrow I'll probably kick someone's ass.)

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Ancient people

I'm in south Florida for a few days.

The main reason is to visit my mother, who recently fell (old people do that a lot) and broke her collar bone. She's been living alone since my father died last summer.

My mother (I despise that juvenile "my mom" phrase) is 87 and has had a lot of injuries over the last decade or so. She has a pacemaker implant and so much metal inside her that I call her my "bionic mother." Until about a month ago, she drove her car to stores and doctors and restaurants and the hair dresser -- the basic itinerary for people of her age in Florida. Her vision is deteriorating and she turned in her driver's license a few weeks ago.

Mom used her walker to get to and from the car. She was able to do a lot, but everything she did required a great effort. To get off the bed or a chair or out of the car, she uses her arms to move her legs. A couple of times she fell and got stuck in the bathroom and had to be rescued by the 911 squad. Once she spent about eight hours on the floor of the john because she couldn't reach her panic pendant. Now Mom's walker has been replaced by a wheelchair, and she needs someone (this weekend it's me) to push her around.

But the important thing is that she wants to get around, even if her legs don't work well enough to transport her. I hope I've inherited her spirit (but not her frailties).

If I had all her problems, I think I might just say "fuck it" and stay in bed with a remote control, a cordless phone and a bedpan; and ring a bell when it's time for my 24-hr. aid to empty the pan and wipe my ass, or bring me a meal or give me a sponge bath.

Although she has never been a physically active "jock" (except for one summer when she was forced to play football with strong men in a phys-ed class she needed for grad school -- at around age 50), Mom has always been extremely mentally active. If she could get her brain transplanted into a new body, she should be good for another century or two.

Like my father, Mom attended a high school for "the gifted." She is responsible for half of my IQ and my lifelong love of reading and my drive to be productive before the chickens wake up (I start blogging at 3:30 a.m.).

The compulsions to read and get out of bed early came together when I was in junior high school and we watched Sunrise Semester together on TV. It started at 6 a.m. Mom watched it to get her master’s degree. I watched it because I liked classic Greek literature. Lysistrata is an extremely funny and sexy anti-war play, written over 2400 years ago by Aristophanes. I highly recommend it.

Like me, Mom usually reads at least three books each week. We're both very fast readers, but Mom never became computer literate. She won an award for penmanship eons ago, but never learned to type; and got special permission to submit her master's thesis in handwriting. There was no Wite-Out or correction tape on it.

My father was a pretty-good two-finger typist (I've recently regressed from six fingers back to two), and used an iMac for occasional email. When I was down here two years ago, I had to use a crappy intermittent AOL dial-up connection. Last year I used slightly better AT&T DSL. Now I'm connecting this laptop through a neighbor's zoomy Wi-Fi. It's fast, reliable, and it's FREE.

My mother does not share my love of technology. Only one of her TVs has a flat screen and her camera uses (GASP!) film. Despite the free Wi-Fi and my offer of a new PC, she feels no need to learn to type at this stage. She still writes beautiful-looking letters in longhand, even though her hands are filled with nylon and stainless steel.

Getting old sucks, but it usually beats the alternative (dying young).

In mid-morning, while my mother's aid is here, I'll go out for a while and visit another old person.

Lawrence DePalma taught me English and History when I was in the seventh grade, back in the 1958-1959 school year. (Yeah, I'm that old. I'm a proud member of the first cohort of the baby boom, born in 1946 along with Cher, Oliver Stone, Billy Clinton, Donny Trump, Georgie Bush, Dolly Parton, Candy Bergen, Sly Stallone, Reggie Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Linda Ronstadt and Laura Bush. I think we're still middle-aged, not senior citizens).

I had a lot of really shitty teachers in school, and many of them are described in my book, Stories I'd Tell My Children (but maybe not until they're adults. It's coming out on 4/1.

Mr. DePalma was one of the few good teachers I had, and I wrote about him in a brief section about my good teachers:

Lawrence DePalma taught me history in junior high school around 1959, and was not afraid to ignore the Board of Education’s plans if he thought he knew a better way to teach. Instead of using the latest slick and simplified textbooks, Mr. DePalma distributed tattered copies of Morey’s Ancient Peoples that he had diverted from a trip to the dump and guarded carefully year after year. He regarded their intellectual content as more important than their physical appearance. That itself was a valuable lesson. Rev. Martin Luther King said something similar a few years later in his “I have a dream” speech.

I'm looking forward to talking about the good-and-bad old days with Mr. DePalma after breakfast. I'm going to give him a copy of my book, along with a copy of Morey's that I bought on Amazon.

Mr. DePalma and my mother have given me a lot. I'm glad that they and I have survived to the point where I can give a little bit back.

For you kids (i.e., anyone younger than me) reading this, a brief sermon: It takes a hundred years to go from age-10 to age-18. It takes about an hour to go from 20 to 40, and about five minutes to go from 40 to 60. We don't know how much time we have left -- or how much time anyone else has left. If you're planning to do something important some day (like donating $25 to help Haiti), do it today.

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It doesn't get much better than this:Vanity publisher Outskirts Press brags about its vanity award from a scam organization

In December, Outskirts Press -- the vanity publisher I love to hate -- issued a press release that said:

Outskirts Press, Inc. Receives 2009 Best of Business Award
Small Business Commerce Association’s Award Honors the Achievement

Outskirts Press, Inc. has been selected for the 2009 Best of Business Award in the Publishing category [That's not true. The default award is for "business services." There is no publishing category. Outskirts could have typed in street sweeping, prostitution, burglary, heart surgery or anything.]  by the Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA).

The SBCA 2009 Award Program recognizes the top 5% of small businesses throughout the country. Using consumer feedback, the SBCA identifies companies that we believe have demonstrated what makes small businesses a vital part of the American economy. The selection committee chooses the award winners from nominees based off information taken from monthly surveys administered by the SBCA, a review of consumer rankings, and other consumer reports. Award winners are a valuable asset to their community and exemplify what makes small businesses great.

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Basically, the Small Business Commerce Association poses as a national version of your local Chamber of Commerce. Its main agenda is to sell awards to enhance the walls, tables and egos of its honorees.

Last fall, yours truly received email for AbleComm (my full-time business) saying:

"The Small Business Commerce Association (SBCA) is pleased to announce that AbleComm Inc has been selected for the 2009 Best of Business Award in the Business Services category. The SBCA Best of Business Award Program recognizes the best of small businesses throughout the country. Using consumer feedback and other research, the SBCA identifies companies that we believe have demonstrated what makes small businesses a vital part of the American economy. The selection committee chooses the award winners from nominees based off information taken from monthly surveys administered by the SBCA, a review of consumer rankings, and other consumer reports. Award winners are a valuable asset to their community and exemplify what makes small businesses great. A copy of the press release is available on the SBCA awards website listed below. SBCA herby grants AbleComm Inc a non-exclusive, revocable, license to use, copy, publish, stream, publicly display, reformat, excerpt, and distribute this press release. If you desire, a 2009 Best of Business Award has been designed for your place of business and can be obtained by pressing the receive awards tab while retrieving your press release from the SBCA awards website. Additionally, a Web Logo proclaiming your 2009 Best of Business Award selection can be obtained through our website as well."

I had my choice of paying $57.57 for a plaque, $117.97 for a trophy, or $157.97 for both. The Outskirts press release shows a trophy design copied from the SBCA website, so Outskirts may not have actually spent any money for a physical trophy. Up above I show a customized trophy for my publishing company with the geographic area expanded from my city to the entire country. The third item is an award for HBO's Tony Soprano, recognizing his business services in "New Joisey."

Just like inept Outskirts picked the wrong category for its Inc. 500 award, it foolishly accepted its little hometown of Parker, Colorado to be displayed on the trophy. For the same price, instead of being the best publisher in Parker, Outskirts could have displayed a phony award that proclaims it to be the best in Colorado, or the United States, the planet Earth or the entire Milky Way Galaxy!

(What follows is from the Better Business Bureau) Recent emails notifying businesses that they have won "prestigious awards" from a national association appear to be part of a widespread scheme designed to get companies to pay for “vanity” awards and plaques.  Once the award code entered into the organization's website, it is revealed that in order to receive this award the business must pay $57.00 to $150.00.

BBB has requested basic information from this company and has received no response. Specifically, BBB asked what publication or places were the award winners displayed and why it is not stated in the email to the businesses that they must pay for their award.

Among the winners were a discount driving school in Maryland, a tattoo removal clinic in California, a bagpipe player in Arizona and a “laser tag family fun center” in Louisiana. Other award winners were in categories such as “astrologers,” “disc jockeys,” “tanning salons,” and “artificial waterfalls.”

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PS: The number of news media that published the Outskirts press release is ONE.

Oops! I'm sorry, folks, but the number should probably be ZERO.

That alleged news medium that published the press release, called Self Publishing News,  is actually a blog produced by (drum roll please) Outskirts Press.

So, we have a vanity publisher, using its own vanity blog to publish a vanity press release bragging about a vanity trophy.

I couldn't make this up.

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Are key employees at Outskirts Press trying to find new jobs?

LinkedIn is an online social network of over 55 million "experienced professionals" from 150 industries and 200 countries.

One stated objective is to help members to "Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs..."

It appears that the two key people at vanity publisher Outskirts Press who are not members of the Sampson family are ready to jump off the sleazy ship as soon as they get suitable offers.

Based on Karl's terrible arithmetic and Kelly's terrible writing, I would not hire them to publish toilet paper.

Actually, some Outskirts Press books are better suited to wiping than reading.

ADVICE TO JOB SEEKERS:

1. If you're looking for a new job, try not to advertise your desire where your current employer can find it. Disloyalty may be a reason for termination.
2. Your chance of landing a better job is severly limited if potential employers can easily find examples of your substandard work.

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I'm not sure if Outskirts Press is cheating or stupid, but I know it's lying.

In its September 2009 issue, Inc. magazine named Outskirts Press to its annual “Inc. 500” list of the nation’s fastest-growing privately-held businesses. The ranking is based on the rate of revenue growth from 2005 through 2008, when Outskirts Press claims it grew by 850.5%.

Outskirts Press is the 21st fastest-growing business in the Consumer Products & Services category on the Inc. list. Inc. lets companies choose the category they compete in.

Book publishing does not seem to be a genuine consumer product or service, like laundry detergent, fast food, DVD rental or shoe repair.

• If Outskirts Press was included in the Business Services category (like others in the publishing business) its rank would drop from #21 to #43. Clearly Outskirts’ bragging rights would suffer if it was in the business products category, where it seems to belong.
• However, if Outskirts was listed in the Media category (with others in the publishing business), it would rank #8. The publicity-hungry vanity press could have claimed to be in the TOP TEN, but they goofed by choosing a classification that placed them 13 positions lower, and out of the TOP TEN in a class.

So, did Outskirts choose its category because it expected to gain an unfair advantage over other companies, or just because it's stupid?

The company is often both.

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A bit more analysis:

Outskirts Press does a huge amount of self-promotion, often through inefective freebie press release distribution services.

An Outskirts Press press release writer (probably Jeanine Sampson or Kelly Schuknecht) wants the world to know that Inc. magazine declared Outskirts to be the “Fastest-Growing Self Publishing Company.”

Forget, for just a moment, that Outskirts is not a self-publishing company.

The release stupidly says: “sales of self-publishing books climbed 132% while the sales of traditionally published books fell by 3%.”

“Self-publishing books” would be books about self-publishing, just as running books are about running. The release should have said "self-published” books.

Even worse, Outskirts is seriously distorting the statistics (originally provided by R. R. Bowker). The 132% growth was for on-demand books, which include much more than self-published books. Major traditional publishing companies print-on-demand, as do university presses, vanity presses, and real self-publishers.

• Here’s the actual statement from Bowker: “Bowker projects that 285,394 On Demand books were produced last year, a staggering 132% increase over last year’s final total of 123,276 titles.”

And, of course, authors who use companies like Outskirts are not really self-publishing. If Outskirts is the publisher, the author is not the publisher; and you can’t be a self-publisher if you are not a publisher.

Outskirts is notorious for deception, exaggeration, and stupid errors. Company boss Brent Sampson wrote a book that showed that he didn’t know what a foreword is, and he forgot the last name of the author of Roget’s Thesaurus — among other sins. He apparently had no editor or a blind editor. Or maybe none of his employees is willing to correct the boss. Some of his employees are relatives.

Brent promotes himself as a “bestselling author.” I’ve twice asked for specifics about his bestseller status, but never received an answer.

A book about flea removal from pregnant three-legged albino Weimaraners could sell exactly one copy and still be the BESTSELLER in its field. There is no law that requires an explanation for a bestseller claim. Anyone can call any book a bestseller.

The press release about the Inc. 500 status says that from 2005 through 2008, “Outskirts Press grew at a rate of 850.5%, making it the fastest growing self-publishing and book marketing company and #268 among all American businesses.”

• That's a bunch of crap!

In truth, Outskirts Press might be #268 among the businesses that submitted information to the magazine. But only the IRS has the data to judge revenue growth of "all American businesses." And companies can lie to both the IRS and to Inc.

• Additionally, Inc’s rankings are of “America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies” (that submitted data to Inc.) — not ALL American companies, as Outskirts wants us to believe.

Inc. conveniently supplies a press release template for use by honorees.

Here’s part of it: “Inc. magazine today ranked COMPANY NAME NO. XX on its 28th annual Inc. 500, an exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies.”

• Here’s how Outskirts modified the template to remove the reference to “private companies.”: “Inc Magazine released their annual Inc. 500 list of the nation’s fastest-growing businesses.”
• Look again at the headline in the Outskirts press release: “Inc. 500 Names Outskirts Press Fastest-Growing Self Publishing Company.” In truth, Inc. never said that Outskirts Press is the “Fastest-Growing Self Publishing Company.”

The Outskirts company profile published by Inc. says that the company’s 2008 sales were $4.6 million. While that revenue is equal to three or four McDonald's restaurants, it does not mean the company is a titan in the publishing business.

Business information provider Manta.com said that Outskirts' competitor Author Solutions “has annual revenue of $29,300,000 and employs a staff of approximately 260.” Random House, the world’s largest English-language general trade book publisher, reportedly has annual sales of about $2.3 billion and about 6,000 employees.

The Outskirts Press company profile published by Inc. says that Outskirts has just three employees. The Outskirts website shows three employees (all named Sampson.) Judging by the poor quality of the company’s output, those three people must be terribly overworked and/or terribly unqualified for their jobs.

With about $5 million in annual sales, I'd think the Sampson clan could afford a nice office -- but the mailing address for the company is a private mailbox at a UPS Store.

Brent and his family probably work at home in their underwear or pajamas. At least they don't spend much money on commuting. How green!

According to Linkdin, Director of Author Support Kelly Schuknecht lives in Iowa. She probably doesn't commute to Colorado.

Outskirts Press is a vanity press that calls itself a “self-publishing company.” It grows by exploiting ignorance and gullibility. As journalists and prospective customers continue to catch the company’s lies, distortions and stupid errors, its growth will not continue.

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Another award-winner from the Borat Akademi of English Writteningistics:If you can't write, you can advise writers

Re-published without alteration from bestseller.tatoblog.com.
("author" unknown)

How to publish a book for free

And 'the dream of every writer, a published author, to sit down and write books and publish and sell around the world. How great would be able to write books that you know, and everyone wants to be published?

One can imagine that?

If you want to write and publish pounds for a life that could work from anywhere in the world. You could sit by a pool and hide, write, or sit on a warm tropical beach or in a log cabin covered with snow, whileMigrating from a great book after another, knowing that each of them will be published.

How great would that life is?

Now you can now stop dreaming and make your life as a successful author in reality. And if you think that they can not afford to publish all your books, then you are wrong. Because it is now possible to write and publish all the books for free.

So if you are a book, edited and written evidence they have read the manuscript, then it's time to turn the publication into aBook. And there are several ways that you should do. The easiest way is to sell your eBook (an eBook) for immediate download via the Internet.

If you already have a web page, you can sell your book from there by creating a sales page and thank you "page that contains the instructions for download. You can then set the payment process, with a online payment companies like PayPal.

PayPal allows you to set up an account with them for free. Through thisAccount, you can purchase a 'link' payment, which is just copy and your sales page. Once a customer makes a purchase are also on your thank you 'addressed-you "page where you can download the your book.

If you do not have a website, you can sign up for a blog and sell your book from there as well. Or if you are not so adept at creating web pages, not sold on a website or blog to all your book.

It is possible an ebook onlineMobipocket companies with names you will provide with free software so that you can upload your book file to their website. You can then choose your own price and description of the book, etc., and Mobipocket will not sell your book for you, and a share of each sale.

MobiPocket is owned by Amazon.com, so if you are a publisher agreement with Mobipocket, your book for instant download through the Amazon is also available as well as over 100 other online eBookstores.

And if you want your book in print available, you can use LuLu.com.

LuLu.com POD is a free online publisher, a printed copy of your book on-demand sales of its website and will also cover you in the design of a free book. Everything that is sold in exchange for a percentage of each book.

So, if your book for free, try these simple ways, and you can easily get your book published in a single afternoon, and as an eBook and printedBook. And then it's time to start writing your next book, and the next and the next …

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Shouldn't an American publisher understand the English language?

The ads for vanity press AuthorHouse (part of the vanity colossus Author Solutions) show how stupid its employees are, and how stupid it assumes its prospective customers are.

The person who writes advertising for AuthorHouse doesn't understand the English language.

The first two sentences in #1 above say, "You set your self-publishing goals. As your book publisher..."

If AuthorHouse is the publisher, there is no self-publishing going on!

The second segment says, "Thinking of self publishing your book" and "Get published for just $399.

If someone is self-publishing, she or he does not get published -- she or he publishes!

In the third segment we are informed that AuthorHouse is "the leading self-publishing company in the world."

That's an interesting claim, and an impossible, illogical claim. AuthorHouse is not a self-publishing company, leading or otherwise. Except for a small book business set up by a self-publishing author, there is no such thing as a self-publishing company. No company can self-publish an author. Only the author can self-publish the author.

The AuthorHouse website offers "free" books with various publishing packages. As shown above, you can get 60 "free" books with their Pinnacle package. However, those 60 books are free only if the author/customer/victim ignores the $1,999 that must be paid to get the "free books."

Doesn't anyone at AuthorHouse know what "free" means? It's not a very complicated word. If the books are really free, you shouldn't have to pay nearly two thousand bucks to get them. Even if you pay a penny and not thousands of dollars, the books are not free.

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Wave bye-bye to $9.99 bestsellers.Amazon caves in to publishers' pressure to raise eBook prices

The $9.99 bestseller that helped Amazon.com dominate the booming eBook business may disappear. Amazon surrendered in a fight triggered by the launch of Apple's new iPad that allows publishers to make more money.

Amazon cryed "uncle" Sunday evening after it had stopped selling all books published by Macmillan in an eBook pricing dispute. Having made the $9.99 price standard for eBooks, Amazon now may have to boost its prices to match better deals that Apple is offering to book publishers.

"Ultimately we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own books," Amazon said.

Amazon's move shows how seriously Amazon is taking Apple's challenge to its position as the market leader in eBbook sales. This is the first of what is expected to be a series of upheavals as Amazon and Apple square off over the digital future of book publishing and retailing.

The picture is likely to get more complicated when Google launches its own eBookstore later this year. Google said it will allow publishers to set their own prices, but Google may discount prices even if it loses money.

When Apple unveiled the iPad last Wednesday and disclosed that five major publishers, including Macmillan, will begin selling their own eBooks for the device. Publishers will set prices themselves on Apple's iBooks store and many of the new eBook bestsellers are expected to be priced at $12.99 or $14.99 -- terms that the publishers are expected to ask Amazon to match.

Under the Apple model, publishers will receive 70% of each sale, or $10.49 on a $14.99 eBook. This compares unfavorably with what they were receiving from Amazon per title. However, publishers believe that Apple's customers represent a vast new market and that they will make up the difference on volume. They also believe Amazon's $9.99 price tag doesn't reflect the true value of their books.

Whether consumers will be willing to pay more for their eBooks remains to be seen. After a news conference announcing the iPad, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that "the prices will be the same" for books on the iPad as on the Kindle.

The Macmillan fracas came to light after Macmillan boss John Sargent flew to Seattle to discuss "new terms of sales for eBooks" with Amazon last Thursday, the day after the Apple announcement. By the time he returned to New York on Friday, he had been informed that Macmillan's books would not be for sale on Amazon.com directly. By late Friday evening, many of Macmillan's titles had already been removed.

Sargent said late Sunday that Macmillan is now "in discussions with Amazon on how best to resolve our differences. They are now, have been, and I suspect always will be one of our most valued customers"

Macmillan boasts such top sellers as Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. On Saturday it published The Politician, an account of the John Edwards scandal that on Sunday afternoon ranked No. 1 on the bestseller list at Barnes & Noble.com.

The Wall Street Journal reported that neither of those titles was available from Amazon, in eBook or hardcover versions, over the weekend.

Amazon said it doesn't believe that "all of the major publishers" will follow Macmillan's position. Amazon didn't rule out others offering cut-rate prices: "We know for sure that many independent presses and self-published authors will see this as an opportunity to provide attractively priced eBooks as an alternative."

The new pricing demands could have benefits for Amazon. Instead of losing several dollars on new eBook best sellers -- which Amazon was willing to do to push sales -- it stands to make a profit on each title. And publishers are expected now to make their new eBooks available on the same day as their hardcovers, a position Amazon has long advocated. (info from The Wall Street Journal)

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Supreme stupidity: Shouldn't an American publisher understand the English language?

The ads for vanity press AuthorHouse (part of the vanity colossus Author Solutions) show how stupid its employees are, and how stupid it assumes its prospective customers are.

The person or robot that does advertising for AuthorHouse doesn't understand the English language.

The first two sentences above say, "You set your self-publishing goals. As your book publisher..."

If AuthorHouse is the publisher, there is no self-publishing going on!

The second segment says, "Thinking of self publishing your book" and "Get published for just $399.

If someone is self publishing, she or he does not get published -- she or he publishes!

At the bottom, we read that AuthorHouse is "the leading self-publishing company in the world."

That's an interesting claim, and an impossible, illogical claim. AuthorHouse is not a self-publishing company, leading or otherwise. Except for a small book business set up by a self-publishing author, there is no such thing as a self-publishing company. No company can self-publish for an author. Only the author can self-publish the author.

The Author House website offers "free" books with various publishing packages. As shown above, you can 60 "free" books with their Pinnacle package. However, those 60 books are free only if the customer/victim ignores the $1,999 that must be paid to get the "free books."

Doesn't anyone at AuthorHouse know what "free" means? It's not a very complicated word. If the books are really free, you shouldn't have to pay nearly two thousand bucks to get them.

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Good news from Amazon, bad news from Borders, mixed news from B&N

Amazon.com's 2009 fourth-quarter earnings jumped 71 percent, as shoppers spent more than ever on books and a wide range of other items during the holiday season.

Despite the sluggish economy, Amazon did well throughout the year, drawing shoppers with its Kindle e-reader and low prices on other products. Amazon predicted first-quarter 2010 revenue that exceeds analyst expectations.

Amazon said it earned $384 million, or 85 cents per share, in the October-December period, compared with $225 million, or 52 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter, which included a holiday season that Amazon had described then as its "best ever," only to be surpassed by the 2009 holidays.

Revenue rose 42 percent to $9.52 billion. That includes a $200 million contribution from online shoe and apparel store Zappos, which Amazon recently bought.

Revenue from books, CDs, DVDs and other media climbed 29 percent to $4.68 billion. Electronics and other "general merchandise" revenue rose nearly 60 percent to $4.61 billion. Revenue increased 37 percent in North America and nearly 49 percent elsewhere.

Amazon had previously said it reached a Kindle milestone on Christmas Day, when it sold more copies of eBooks than printed books for the first time. The company is attracting growing competition from other of e-reader suppliers including Apple, which announced its iPad on Wednesday.

In hopes of staying ahead of the pack, Amazon reducing the Kindle's price yet again during the quarter, cutting $40 off to reach $259.

Barnes & Noble has come out with its $259 Nook, and Sony has increased its Reader lineup with lower- and higher-priced models. Apple's iPad will start at $499.

For the full year, Amazon earned $902 million, or $2.04 per share, on $24.5 billion in revenue.

The Amazon results sharly contrasted with recent developments at competitor Borders -- the second-largest book retailer in the U.S. Last week it announced that it is firing 124 employees, or about 10% of its corporate staff.

The layoffs come only a few days after Chief Executive Ron Marshall quit to become CEO of A&P. Marshall has been succeeded on an interim basis by Michael Edwards, who had been the retailer's chief merchandising officer.

The layoffs were expected in light of the company's poor holiday sales performance. Revenue at Borders superstores for the 11-week holiday period ended January 16 dropped 15% to $649.2 million from a year earlier. Same-store sales also fell 15%.

Borders, which on April 1 must repay a $42.5 million senior secured loan from Pershing Square Capital Management LP, its largest investor, is trying to chart a new course as bookselling comes under increasing pressure from cheap electronic books and aggressive discounting of hardcover titles online.

Anne Roman, a spokeswoman for Borders, said some of the corporate layoffs were in information technology and finance. She said there have been some redundancies in those areas in recent months because the retailer has combined its various computer systems. She added that 40 distribution workers in California and Tennessee also have been laid off. Borders employs about 22,500 worldwide.

Borders has been closing stores in the U.S. since 2007. The no-longer-related British Borders has gone out of business.

Barnes & Noble, the world's largest bookseller, reported that store sales for the nine-week holiday period from November 1, 2009 to January 2, 2010 declined by 5% over the same period a year ago. Online sales at Barnes & Noble.com increased 17% for the holiday selling season. (info from the AP and the Wall Stree Journal.)

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Brent and Michael debate (sort of)

On January 25, Brent Sampson (left, above), the often-inept boss of often-inept vanity publisher Outskirts Press, blogged about what he perceives to be the difference between “self publishing” and a “self publishing company.”

Many people assume that pay-to-publish companies like Outskirts describe their businesses as "self-publishing" in order to cash-in on a term that is exciting, modern, glamorous, revolutionary, hip, cool, in vogue, a buzzword, etc.

• Brent denies that. Instead, he indicates that "self-publishing" has negative implications and is used almost as a warning, to let would-be authors know that the "self-publishing companies" won't do all that is required to make a book a success, and that authors are largely responsible for their book's success or failure.
• Michael thinks Brent is not being honest, and that he uses the "self-publishing" term to attract customers -- not to warn them.

Here's what Brent said, with Michael's comments in red:

I would like to address a point of contention and misunderstanding facing the author-supported self-publishing industry today, and that is the chasm between “self-publishing” and “self-publishing companies” or what some call ”vanity” publishing. Authors who have traditionally published books or independently published their own books by doing all the work themselves often denounce “self-publishing companies” as either “vanity” publishers if they’re being nice, or “scams” if they’re feeling particularly hostile. [It's more likely that they're trying to warn people.] Neither term is accurate; although I can appreciate their point of view–they’ve worked hard to accomplish something that self-publishing companies make relatively easy, so you can’t blame them for being mad.

While we critics are upset, we are not yet foaming-at-the-mouth like mad dogs. Except for a small book business that's owned by a self-publishing author, there's no such thing as a "self-publishing company." The words just don't make sense the way you and your competitors like Author Solutions use them.

A person can be self-educated, but only if she educated herself. And just as it's impossible for someone else to self-educate you, self-immolate you, self-medicate you, self-express  you or self-anything-else  you... no other person or company can self-publish you. The words just don't make sense. If others do it to you or for you, you're not doing it yourSELF.

• Vanity publishing and self-publishing are as different as murder is from suicide, as different as adoption is from conceiving and giving birth, as different as buying a term paper is from researching and writing one, as different as buying a house is from designing and building one, or paying for a bus ride vs. learning how to drive and driving yourself, or buying a McDonalds Filet-O-Fish vs. catching and cooking a fish.

Publishing is a business where the end-product is a collection of words, and people in the business should use words properly. Brent, I don't expect you to refer to your company as a vanity publisher or even a pay-to-publish company, but you could legitimately call it an author services company. No way in hell is it a self-publishing company.

Ultimately, much of the confusion [REAL self-publishers aren't confused, but your customers are.] comes down to semantics, and a misunderstanding [No Brent, it's not misunderstanding, it's DELIBERATE MISUSE of language.]  of what differentiates “self-publishing” from a “self-publishing company.” I imagine  “self-publishing companies” may use the term “self-publishing” in their marketing efforts, not to anger independent self-publishers, but rather to SET THE EXPECTATIONS of their own authors.

Oh, come on, Brent. This is the place for facts, not what you imagine may be happening. Be honest. Tell the world why YOUR company uses the term.

If you are really using the term "self-publishing" to reduce the expectations of potential customers, the term belongs in the fine print of contracts -- not in the headlines of ads.

You know damn well that you use the term to attract customers -- NOT to warn them.

By labeling services as “self-publishing” there is an attempt to make it clear to the authors who use such services that their success rests largely on their own shoulders, [Get real. The term is used to glamorize sleazy businesses by deceiving potential customers.]  just as it does for authors who independently self-publish. [NO. Your customers are less likely to succeed compared to skilled and knowledgable real self-publishers because your books are often poorly edited and poorly promoted -- and I have email from your customers and actual Outskirts books and press releases to prove it.] The difference is that with self-publishing companies, instead of incurring the time and effort of establishing a DBA [It took me less than five minutes and cost me just $8, and my DBA is valid for life!] and or LLC or C-Corp or S-Corp or sole-proprietorship with the state [NONE of that is necessary for self-publishing] , reviewing cover designers [Yes of course -- that's how to get a good-looking cover.] , seeking interior formatters [Not difficult.] , getting bids from printers [Not necessary.] , acquiring ISBNs [Very easy.] , dealing with Ingram [Not necessary.] , dealing with fulfillment [Not necessary.], dealing with returns [Not necessary.], dealing with accounts receivables [Not necessary.] , dealing with taxes, [Paying income tax is no different with self-publishing or vanity publishing. You deduct the costs of doing business, and pay tax on the net income.] etc., etc., etc.  [No etceteras.] , the author is incurring a service charge and having all those details taken care of for them. [Oops. "Author" is a single noun. "Them" does not agree with it. Brent, you were an English major in college, weren't you? But, more importantly, Outskirts Press does not take care of all of the details, because with Outskirts Press, editing is an option, not a basic part of the publishing packages.]  It’s not right for everyone, but it is right for a lot of people. [Crappy books are not right for any people.]

There are [Should be "is."] a growing number of companies in the “self publishing” industry. [Sure -- it's the scam du jour.]  And why not? As the traditional publishing industry continues to struggle, the self-publishing industry is growing at a steady pace and is earning more respectability daily. [Self-publishing, yes; vanity publishing, no.] The internet has made it possible for anyone to sell a book globally (on sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble) and has also improved the book marketing reach of authors who leverage popular sites like YouTube and twitter. [Actually, it's "Twitter."]

Very soon, traditional and bestselling authors with established names (Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, etc.) will realize they no longer need traditional publishers and will turn to “self publishing companies” [Which do not exist.] for a greater stake of the profits. [While Stephen and Stephanie may turn to self-publishing, it seems highly unlikely that they will use a company like Outskirts Press. If they want more money, they may follow the pattern of Hollywood stars who formed their own movie production and distribution companies.]

“Self-publishing companies” [Which do not exist.] are service companies [Correct -- so call them author service companies.] who [Should be "which."] provide valuable (and convenient) services to writers for a fee. This is no different from any other service industry. For example, I can either choose to do my own taxes, or I can pay H&R Block to do them for me. [But H. & R. Block doesn't call their operation a self-tax-preparation company!] I can either build my own house, or I can buy one that has been built by professionals, so I’m confident it won’t fall apart. [What about vanity books that  fall apart, or have blobs of glue on the first and last pages, or misaligned pages, or defective formatting, or no fact-checking or editing?]  I can either milk my own cow, or I can go to 7-11 and buy a gallon of milk that is ready to drink. Are people surprised that 7-11 charges money for milk? Do they get upset that 7-11 charges more money for a gallon of milk than King Soopers does? Rational people realize that convenience costs money and that industry know-how costs money. [Some Outskirts books indicate that your company has inadequate know-how.] To suggest that a company cannot help you self-publish  [There's nothing wrong with helping someone to self-publish, but Outskirts customers are NOT self-publishing. If Outskirts is the publisher, its authors are NOT self-publishing. If the ISBN and logo on a book indicate that Outskirts is the publisher, the author is NOT the publisher and self-publishing did NOT occur.] is like saying H&R Block cannot help you do your personal taxes. [But H. & R. Block doesn't call their operation a self-tax-preparation company! Quicken's TurboTax is for people who want to do self-preparation of their income taxes.]

Do I really want to spend my valuable time doing taxes, building a house or milking a cow–all of which first requires me to LEARN how to properly do all those things? Or would I rather calculate my own hourly rate and determine that it is more cost-effective to pay an expert to do it for me so I can spend my time doing things that are more important to me–like going to work and spending time with my family? [Brent, some people actually like to learn. Some people actually like the work involved in self-publishing. It's certainly more fun than doing taxes or milking cows.] Self-publishing companies don’t do anything that someone who is very motivated cannot do themselves with a lot of industry knowledge, effort, resources, time, and money. [It's not a lot of money. It can be done for $600-$1200.]  But much like doing taxes, building a house, and yes, even milking a cow, what seems easy at first is actually more complicated than you might expect — I would imagine. [IMAGINE? Brent, when you are discussing something important, you should not be imagining. This is not the time to imagine what the other side thinks or does. You could ask what it's like to self-publish, read a book about it, or even try it yourself. You've been complaining about how difficult it is to self-publish, but it's very obvious that you don't really know what it's like. All you do is imagine. That's not good enough to make a convincing argument.] Personally, I don’t do my own taxes, build my own homes, OR milk cows for my own milk. [Maybe you should try it, Brent. You might find that you enjoy it. You might get a house you like better, and milk you like better.] Like most people, I pay professionals to do all those things for me.

For those authors out there who have already invested their time and energy on the steep learning curve [It's not very steep. It can be learned in a few days to a few weeks.]  that is “self-publishing,” naturally they don’t see the benefit of using a ”self-publishing company.” [Which does not exist.]  But most people have better things to do, or at least, their interests lie elsewhere — most people just want to be published authors,  [Most people who want to be published authors, want to have good books, and your company turns out some terrible books -- including one you wrote.] not publishers. [If most people don't want to be publishers, why do you advertise "Self-Publish Your Work. Self-Publish from $199?" It sure seems like you are soliciting business from people who do want to be publishers. And why are you heading your ads with the phrase that you said lets writers know that they'll have to do a lot of work. If you've being truthful about your use of the term, then your advertising is very wrong. It's like putting the cancer warning in big type on the top of a cigarette ad.]

You know what they say about the lawyer who represents himself, or the doctor who has herself as a patient, right? The same could be said for most authors. Sure, there are exceptions, but the services of “self publishing companies” are intended for the majority of writers, entrepreneurs and professionals out there who would find value in having a published book, but also value their time enough to let the professionals do it for them. [Tragically, a huge number of the books published by Outskirts and its competitors are terribly produced and inadequately promoted by "professionals" who don't seem to care about the quality of their work, and don't respond to customers' questions and complaints.] And there’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is wanting desperately to be published and not doing anything about it — out of fear of failure or fear of someone else telling you that you made ”a wrong choice.” The only truly wrong choice is not doing anything. As Wayne Gretzky says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” [And you may miss 100% of the money paid to a vanity publisher.]

Suffering from ED?Outskirts idiots misspell their own name again.

On January 6 I showed you a press release from inept vanity publisher Outskirts Press that left the S off Outskirts.

They did it again on January 26, but this time they misspelled "Outskirts" TWICE in one paragraph.

Is Outskirts Press suffering from Performance Anxiety, or Editorial Dysfunction?

Are the highly touted Outskirts Press "infrastructure of talented publishing artisans" and "veritable army of publishing professionals"  nervous and getting sloppier just because they know they're being watched?

If the company's talented infrastructure and veritable army (and a boss and boss's wife who majored in English in college) didn't notice that the last letter of their company name was missing at least THREE TIMES in press releases, what are the chances of them publishing a proper book?

There's probably no chance at all.
In his own book, Outskirts Press founder Brent Sampson wrote that Roget's Thesaurus was published by Peter Mark (actually, Peter Roget published it), confused a foreword with a preface, and misspelled "offset." Brent advises potential authors that "Errors in your writing cause readers to question your credibility."

He's absolutely right about that.

In his blog, Brent recently said, "This allows me an opportunity to stress the importance of professional copyediting when publishing a book."

Yeah, right. What about copyediting press releases?

Brent brags that "Our publishing guide Self-Publishing Simplified continues to serve as a product brochure, an example of the company’s exemplary quality, and evidence that publishing a print-on-demand book does not require an outlandish retail price. Try to find a new book by any other print-on-demand publisher on Amazon for $5.95! The power of our pricing speaks for itself."

Yeah, right.

1. This inaccurate and dishonest book ("an example of the company’s exemplary quality"),  is priced low because it is an advertisement and Brent wants to make it easy for potential customers (i.e., victims) to afford it. It's not priced like a real book that is expected to make money for its author.
2. Several booksellers offer it (new) for just $2. That price is probably a better indicator of its value.

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New Apple tablet might be revealed today, might change the world, and might be good for publishers and authors. Or maybe not.

UPDATE: It's the iPad and prices start at $500 and I want one.

Here on the East Coast (in one of the 13 original colonies!), it's not yet 5 a.m.

By the time some of you late-sleeping West-Coasters and Pacific Islanders see this blog posting, Apple probably will have already made a long-awaited announcement about its potential Amazon Kindle-beater, Sony Reader-beater and B&N Nook-beater, and may have changed the world.

Or... maybe not.

For now, I'll just provide links to some learned speculation from the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Business Week. Feel free to believe or ignore as you wish.

CLICK
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In the past George Burns and Eric Clapton have been called "God." Maybe Steve Jobs will dethrone them later today in San Francisco.

I personally think that if the iTab or iSlate or iStrain or iYiYi or iGevalt (ethnic humor) or whatever it's called, can run all of the iPhone/iPod apps on a big color touchscreen AND display book, newspaper and magazine pages on that big screen, it will KICK ASS. It has the potential to become a major gaming platform. It could change book-reading beyond just providing a compact-yet-huge storage device by including multimedia addons and even live "tabcasts" and updates.

I have not yet bought an eBook reader, but I might go for this one.

I'd be perfectly happy to "load it up" with a connection to my PC, or use Wi-Fi, as I do with my iPod Touch, or if it comes with unlimited wireless downloading like the Kindle.

OTOH, if it won't work without an expensive monthly data downloading subscription, I'll probably spend my money elsewhere.

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And now, another kind of sleazy publishing

I just read an article called "Options expand for authors," written by Jane Laskey and published on sctimes.com -- the website for the St. Cloud, Minnesota, Times newspaper.

Jane terrified me with mentions of authors who paid (gasp!) $20,000 and (OMG!) $25,000 to publish their books.

I was disappointed to read about North Star Press in St. Cloud. Jane wrote that it "is one of many small presses giving new writers a chance." They don't have much of a chance. After 40 years, the family-owned business is going over to the dark side of publishing. Just like Harlequin and Thomas Nelson.

The company has an interesting business method. Jane pointed out that PublishAmerica requires its authors to be editors, proofreaders and designers, but North Star requires authors to be book peddlars!

Jane wrote, "North Star Press now asks its authors to pitch in with marketing. Each is required to buy copies at wholesale prices and sell them."

The North Star website says, "while each author receives traditional royalties, each is now also required to buy a minimum of 100 copies of their books at a 50% discount for re-sale [sic] into nontraditional venues."

• "I'd like a large peperoni pizza with extra cheese, but I'll buy it only if you buy my book."
• "Sweetheart, you are my true soulmate, the love of my life, and I want to spend my life with you. I want you to be my bride, but only if I can sell books to the wedding guests, the minister and the caterer."
• "I need an oil change for my Toyota Corona, but I'll get it only if you buy my book."
• "Hi, Handsome. I'll be glad to spend the night with you, and I'll show you tricks your wife never dreamed of. My price is just $1,000 for the sex, plus $19.95 for a copy of my book."
• "I need a seat in first-class to Tahiti, but I'll  buy the ticket only if I'm allowed to sell books to the other passengers and the flight crew.
• "I need a haircut and a perm, but if you won't buy my book, I'll get my hair done somewhere else."
• "I have a terrible toothache. I'd like you to check it -- if you'll buy my book."
• "Yes, I'd love to attend this college, but only if the library will buy my book."
• "Welcome to Walmart. I'll be glad to let you use this shopping cart if you buy my book.
• "Hello, 911. I think I'm having a heart attack. Please send an ambulance, but make sure the paramedics are willing to buy my books."

Let's assume that those 100 books have a cover price of $20. North Star brags about its experience and its ability to produce books at "a reasonable cost." OK, a reasonable cost to print books might be $2 each. A 50% discount from the cover price comes to $10. An author pays $1,000 for 100 books that North Star paid $200 to print. North Star nets $800, which likely covers its cost of designing and editing the book, and provides a bit of profit. Maybe North Star convinces the ecstatic author to buy 200 books -- or 2,000 books. Maybe the cover price is an inflated $29.95 but the printing cost is still two bucks.

With their costs covered by the author (who is even financing her own advance and royalties), there is little incentive for North Star to try to sell books to bookstores. All the company needs to succeed is a parade of eager and ignorant writers ready to be plucked.

And, by the way, if an author is not good enough for a not-quite-conventional advance-and-royalties contract from North Star, the company will be glad to provide "Guided Self-Publishing." The website says, "the author is still directly responsible for all costs related to the production of the book and promotion."

That sure sounds like vanity publishing to me, and North Star is doing the same thing as Harlequin and Thomas Nelson, with their new vanity operations. I'm not sure who copied whom. Writers who are not good enough to be paid by the publisher, are good enough to pay money to the publisher.


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A "landmark day" (like 9/11/01?):WestBow Press releases its first vanity book

Today, WestBow Press, the vanity publishing partnership (or "strategic self-publishing alliance") of Christian publisher Thomas Nelson and mega-vanity-press Author Solutions, has announced its first book. (Actually, it was published over a month ago.)

The book is Mustardseed Thoughts, by Ron Edmondson -- a pastor from Tennessee.

Edmondson said, “I am delighted, after years of writing online devotionals, to finally see some of them in print. My online readership has been patient with me about doing this, but the timing was right with WestBow Press. Their affiliation with Thomas Nelson and the positive reputation that brings assures readers a quality print that will hopefully be used for God’s glory for years to come.”

It's likely that Edmondson's book was rejected for a standard royalty-paying contract from Thomas Nelson, and he was directed to WestBow to pay to be published. With WestBow books, Thomas Nelson has no risk, and has guaranteed income even if no books are ever sold.

Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt said, “I first met Ron through his blog. I became a fan immediately.”

Apparently Hyatt is not enough of a fan to offer an advance and royalties, and printing without payment.

The 376-page paperback is priced at (gulp) $24.95. The hardcover version is priced at (BIG GULP) $39.95.

At those absurd prices, there will be plenty of money for the publishing partners (if any copies are sold).

Unfortunately, the book prices are so high that it's likely that few books will be sold and there's a good chance that Edmondson will lose the $999 to $6,499 he paid to publish. Of course, the publishing partners don't care if no books are sold, because they got their money from Edmondson before they did any work. WestBow and Author Solutions make most of their money by selling services to writers -- not by selling books to readers.

Author Solutions CEO Kevin Weiss said the release of WestBow’s first title marks a landmark day for the publishing industry. Yeah, just like the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and 9/11/01.

Note to Kevin and Michael: It's not necessary to print the word "By" and put a colon before the author's name on the front cover. A real publisher should know this. Also, the front cover of the book spells "Mustardseed" as one word. The WestBow website and the press release and the information on Amazon.com show it as two words. The back cover of the book spells it both ways.

There's more sloppiness inside the book.

• The first page of text addresses "you, the reader." Who could "you" be, except the reader?
• Lower down on the same page is: "if you are already Christians" -- strangely slipping from addressing a single reader into the plural form.
• Another page refers to a "gospel track." It should be "tract." A pastor should not have made the error and an editor should have fixed the error.
• There's also sloppy justification.
• And this strange construction: "Being an older home when I bought it and having been previously owned by an elderly widow, I have plenty of...." That's an interesting reincarnation -- the pastor used to be a house!  Maybe this book could lead to a sequel to "My Mother the Car."

The Westbow website brags: "you also have an entire staff of experienced industry-professionals on your side.... We help your book live up to industry standards and take care of all the details."

Well, maybe not all of the details.

What a bunch of idiots!

Sadly, the author's expectation of "the positive reputation that...assures readers a quality print" is not justified.

For its important debut, Westbow has clearly demonstrated what's wrong with vanity-published books. I hope that the book's inept production will serve as a warning to potential victims of both WestBow and the Author Solutions brands.

P.S.:  To me, a mustard seed is the beginning of a jar of the tangy yellow-brown stuff that I slather on Hebrew National hotdogs. I have no idea what the author means by "mustardseed," or "mustard seed." I guess the book was not intended to be read by people like me. Still, it would be nice to have an explanation.

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Amazon and BookLocker settle antitrust lawsuit. Amazon will pay court costs.

(What follows is from a statement by BookLocker, a pay-to-publish company that appears to be more author-friendly than the usual vanity presses.)

As many of you probably remember, in March, 2008, an Amazon / BookSurge representative called us on the phone and told us we (and other Print on Demand publishers) must start paying Amazon to print our books. If we didn’t, they would remove our “buy it now” buttons from Amazon.com.

NOTE: Amazon recently retired the BookSurge name (that was not a surprise), and is now doing their POD business under the name CreateSpace. Other than the name, not much appears to have changed.

After the phone call, we publicly cried foul, and alerted the publishing industry about the threat. We subsequently heard from other publishers who had received the same ultimatum, including a university press. A media firestorm erupted and many authors and publishers alike screamed “monopoly”, launching an online revolt. Several, including myself, boycotted Amazon.com, and publicly shared their anger about the Amazon / BookSurge (now CreateSpace) Ultimatum.

Our publicity efforts forced Amazon to finally make public what targeted POD publishers claimed to have been told through what some considered intimidating phone conversations. Until that point, Amazon hadn’t appeared to want to put anything in writing.

Unfortunately, many of the large POD publishers signed the Amazon / BookSurge (now CreateSpace) contract after Amazon gave them a deadline. We did not. BookLocker.com, instead, filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon, alleging their actions violated federal antitrust laws.

That’s when the real battle began. We spent hundreds of hours researching, corresponding with other publishers, authors and our attorneys, and writing and rewriting legalese that would at times make my eyes glaze over. Each time I had to work on the case, my initial anger about the unfairness of it all would return. I’ll admit it was hard to keep a smile on my face most days. The worst part of the entire experience was the time I was forced to spend away from our children because of Amazon’s actions. Mason is three years old and we’ve been dealing with this for almost two years now.

As expected, Amazon filed a motion to dismiss. We were not surprised in August, 2009 when Chief U.S. District Judge John Woodcock Jr. issued a 26-page order denying Amazon’s motion to dismiss.

We suspected Amazon would want to settle before discovery began and we were right.

We hammered out the details for almost two months. I wanted to share the settlement information with you all in the worst way during that time, but could not because the negotiations could have fallen through at any moment (and almost did a few times!). For example, we specified initially that any cash offered to BookLocker by Amazon would go directly to a charity and we wanted that statement included in the settlement. Amazon refused to allow the charity wording to appear in there. (Why do you think they did that??) We subsequently refused any cash payment from Amazon. We then included a statement in the settlement that BookLocker declined a cash settlement from Amazon…and Amazon insisted on removing that verbiage, too.

We didn’t do this for the money. We did it to make Amazon understand that covert efforts aimed at forcing POD publishers to pay Amazon / BookSurge (now Createspace) to print their books is not the way responsible corporate citizens should act. By getting Amazon to rescind their pay-us-to-print-your-books-or-else policy, we believe BookLocker’s lawsuit achieved its goal.

Large companies will run all over small ones unless somebody fights back. The publishing industry contains many players and, for the benefit of readers everywhere, they all deserve an equal place in the market. Allowing the largest online retailer to strong-arm publishers into paying more for a product that may, in fact, be inferior hurts publishers, authors, and, ultimately, the reader. Yes, BookSurge (now operating under the CreateSpace name) has had quality problems. We recently ordered some books from them to see if things had changed. One arrived looking so bad that Amazon inserted an apology note into the book itself, saying it was the best they could get from their distributor. (IT’S THEIR BOOK!) Another arrived with the interior appearing upside-down. Their quality problems have been reported online by others as well.

Finally, we want to publicly express our deepest gratitude to Seth Klein, Bob Izard, and all the caring folks at Izard Nobel LLP, and to Anthony Pellegrini and the team at Rudman & Winchell. Without them, we and all POD publishers might be in a completely different position today.

Even one person can make a difference,but maybe he shouldn't

Each year at election time we are urged to vote because "even one person can make a difference."

Actually very few elections are decided by one vote, but in the U. S. Supreme Court, a one-person majority can radically change the course of history and the way we live, or die.

In 2000 in "Bush vs. Gore," by a 5-to-4 vote the Supremes decided that George W. Bush should become our 43rd presdent -- despite his loss of the national popular vote and widespread voting irregularities in Florida. CLICK for more.

By endorsing Dubya, the Court paved the way for all that Bush and Cheney did to screw up this country in the following eight years, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the response to Hurrican Katrina ("Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job"), opposing the Kyoto protocol for cleaner air, limiting stem cell research, warrantless phone bugging, authorizing waterboard torture, cancelling the ABM treaty with Russia, and the Great Recession. (Some also blame them for the 9/11 tragedies.)

Ironically, unforseeable after-effects of the 2000 Supreme Court decision were Bush's nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Court.

Yesterday Roberts and Alito helped to remake history by overturning laws and court rulings that limited political advertising by non-persons.

By a one-person majority, the Supremes have allowed the Teamsters Union, Ford, Sony, the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Exxon-Mobil or presumably any other domestic or foreign corporation or union to spend millions or billions to influence the way American citizens vote.

I am, in general, a supporter of unfettered speech -- but that's for speech by people, not by deep-pocketed institutions that want laws changed to favor them.

One Supreme Court Justice, who could have voted the other way, has set us up for a scenario where a Senatorial candidate could be offered a $1 billion advertising campaign by Johnson & Johnson but just half a billion by Pfizer, and the candidate's loyalty will go where the big money is.

A candidate for governor who is offered advertising worth $1 billion by Ford, half a billion by Nissan and $300,000 by the United Auto Workers Union can be expected to follow the money.

It's logical to assume that a candidate for president who is offered $100 million in ad backing by Google, $90 million by Microsoft, $80 million by Apple, and $70 million by Yahoo will sell-out to the highest budder.

The decision to take that money is based on the desire to be elected -- not by a desire to serve the people, or the merits of pending and possible legislation -- and it shouldn't be that way.

If a new dog catcher is elected in Wasilla, Alaska because of a one-vote majority, the election probably won't radically change the way people live. But yesterday's decision can radically remake the nation and change the world.

Yesterday's decision has the potential to make American politics even more corrupt than it has been. Its chief beneficiaries will be politicians and the people and companies that sell advertising. The losers could be every American, or maybe even every person in the world.

It's time for Congress to make some new well-thought-out laws regulating campaign financing that the Supremes can't overturn.

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Borders is hurting, and holding back payments to smaller publishers

At the end of 2009, the British Borders bookstore chain went bust. That business was founded by the American Borders company, but it is no longer connected. However, they do share an important problem -- sales are off and it's difficult to pay bills.

Borders is also later than chief bricks-and-mortar competitor Barnes & Noble in offering an eBook reader. All bricks-and-mortar booksellers face increased online competition, particularly from Amazon.com; and physical big-box retailers such as Walmart and Target are increasing their book business.

Borders shut its 200-store Waldenbooks chain last year. Borders' sales for the quarter ending on October 31 were nearly $100 million less than the comparable period in 2008. They lost about $34 million in the quarter -- about $10 million worse than a year earlier.

For the 11-week holiday period ending on January 16, 2010, sales droppd about 15%. Barnes & Noble reported similar trouble for the holiday season in its physical stores, but online sales were up.

The Financial Times reported that "management is playing a risky game of favorites by only paying some of the publishers it trades with, according to six suppliers interviewed by Debtwire. The company is paying its largest vendors in timely fashion but is in growing arrears to a number of smaller publishing houses, some of whom are preparing to take legal action."

"A group of publishers supplying Borders have retained the bankruptcy group of Lowenstein Sandler as legal counsel concerning mounting receivables from the nation’s second biggest bookseller, said two sources familiar with the situation. The group approached management with inquiries about a potential restructuring, its payment plans and the state of operations but never received a response, said one of the sources."

"Three major publishers said they received payments in full from Borders for the December period but three smaller firms said the company has been delaying payments."

"The average time it took for Borders to pay back suppliers spiked over 40% to 97.9 days in the year ended 31 October, from 69.4 days in the prior year period, based on the company’s reported accounts payable and cost of goods sold."

A Borders spokesperson said the company "has continued to pay its vendors and is not aware of any material disputes related to its December 2009 payments.” (info from the Financial Times and Debtwire)

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