patgund | *Snork*

Vanity press "PublishAmerica", (even though they claim they aren't), posts a nasty diatribe against SF/F writers, saying that: "A second caveat is that science-fiction and fantasy writers have it easier. It's unfair, but such is life. As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction. Therefore, beware of published authors who are self-crowned writing experts. When they tell you what to do and not to do in getting your book published, always first ask them what genre they write. If it's sci-fi or fantasy, run. They have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home. Unless you are a sci-fi or fantasy author yourself.."

So a batch of 30 SF/F writers all sit down and, over the course of a weekend, hammer out a chapter each of the worst tripe they can. They then add typos and an entire chapter of computer-generated nonsense, and send the results, a mess called "Atlanta Nights" off to "PublishAmerica"

Which then sends them a publishing contract

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb202277.htm

To make it even funnier, when the writers then publically announced the hoax, PublishAmerica then withdrew said offer. *chuckle*

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006041.html
http://coldground.typepad.com/cold_ground/2005/01/atlanta_nights_.html
http://www.sfwa.org/beware/general.html#PA
http://www.sfwa.org/news/atlantanights.htm

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"PublishAmerica" is right: 98% of the 'SF/F' stories published out there - in book and short-story form - *is* crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

Looking over the list of SF/F 'writers' listed, I didn't recognize any of the names (Maybe I'd recognize a published title or two, I dunno).

They're dead-on. Sure, they may be a vanity press, but they've got it right with regards to most writer wanna-be's.

I think we could go with 98% of the stories - in ANY genre - are crap.

I recognized about five of the people on that list.

Yeah, but most writer wanna-be's write SF/F.

And as a genre, it lends itself *so* *easily* to being butchered.

Crap, Crap, Crap!

There's no "may be a vanity press" - looking through the links and some of the crap that got submitted to PublishAmerica, it is a vanity press, one that deceives, likes and makes what could have been a good book into unmarketable, illegible crap.

According to one thread off one of the links, real publishers (the kind that get books into bookstores, gives advances on sales, and is capable if giving real, hard numbers when hammering out contract details) won't touch PA-related stuff. I can't think of an appropriate metaphore, beyond "It stinks so much, even flies won't go near it."

I'm rather glad to have seen this, so I know to avoid them in the future.

Well, I meant "may be" in the idiom meaning "Is, but for the sake of the argument we might consider alternatives."

As in "GWB may be the worst president since Taft, but he can peel bananas with the best of them."

I don't give Dubya credit for peeling his own bananas... but that's a wholly other tangent :)

(I understand what you're saying)

Snork

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