Publish America: We Are Not Vanity

By Staff, PW NewsLine -- Publishers Weekly, 11/19/2004

Earlier this week, we ran a story about the controversial Publish America in which authors leveled a number of charges at the house. Poor editing, high prices, unforgiving contract terms, non-responsiveness and a general approach that resembled a vanity press concerned with selling books to authors more than to the public were among the complaints. After we ran the story, we heard from still more troubled authors, each with their own tale of money lost and promises unkept.

But in an interview yesterday, the company's executive director, Miranda Prather, said that all of the author claims were unfounded.

On bookstores, she said that the company does have a substantial book presence but "we don't control the bookstores in the country," and declined to estimate how many of the 9000 authors the house claims in fact had a trade presence. Responsiveness was a priority; she said there is a "two-day turnaround" for authors who get in touch. (Responses are generally conducted by email, according to authors, and indeed there are no phone extensions, just a general voice mailbox, when one calls the company. Prather said that the house was in the process of moving and hadn't set up its new phone lines.) List prices, she said, were based "on what the market can bear."

As to marketing the author, Prather said there's "no pressure on our authors to buy their books. That would make us a vanity press." But she declined to identify the company's CEO and, unlike a traditional house, said that the company does not edit for content, only for grammar and spelling. Prather estimated that 80% of authors who approached the house were turned away, and that the house has "thirty full-time editors" out of a staff of sixty, and plans on bulking up total staff to 100.

She also said that the house was open to renegotiating contracts but did not automatically terminate a deal because an author was unhappy. "Nobody has come to us with a true breach of contract. [Claims] have run the gamut of individuals complaining about the prices, the editing or the marketing."