The Artist Tree

FACT #1: Unique among all traditional book publishing companies, PublishAmerica counts nearly 20,000 happy authors. Each day, an average 10 of them ask us to also accept their next work, 50 second-book requests per week, more than 200 per month, roughly 2500 per year! By any standard, this is an amazingly high number of return authors, unseen in the rest of the book publishing company industry.

FACT #2: Each day, an average 125 new authors who are looking to find a book publishing company ask us to publish their book, more than 30,000 per year, an absolute record in the industry. We review not only the quality but also the genre of their work. PublishAmerica specializes in books about, for, or by people who confront a challenge in life, and who are determined to overcome it, real or imagined, fiction or nonfiction. While we pride ourselves in maintaining lower acceptance barriers than any other traditional publisher, like all serious book publishing companies we have to be picky as we can only accept the works that meet our requirements in both areas. We never charge any author fees, ever.

FACT #3: Again, unparalleled among all traditional book publishing companies, each day an average 15 times a PublishAmerica author appears in the news media, in newspapers, magazines, radio or TV. The authors of this book publishing company have been interviewed, reviewed or introduced in literally thousands of newspapers across the country, from the Washington Post to the Clackamas County News, from the Kingwood Observer to the Los Angeles Times to Women's World Magazine. They have made appearances on local TV, and on national ABC, CNN, MSNBC and FOX TV. They also have been interviewed by radio shows hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus, Diane Rehm, and Oliver North.

FACT #4: Each day, PublishAmerica authors are invited to do a book signing or another in-store event at a bookstore or a library. An average 600 times each day, a bookstore calls or logs on to order a PublishAmerica title. Of all the brick-and-mortar bookstores, Barnes and Noble is by far our largest customer. Borders/Waldenbooks and Books-A-Million are second and third. Amazon is our largest online customer. Bookstores appreciate that thousands of our titles are returnable.

FACT #5: PublishAmerica is NOT in any way a POD, vanity press, or subsidy publisher, and has nothing in common with them. Obviously, our authors are also not being self-published. In the most commonly used context, POD indicates "Publish On Demand", or vanity publishing. Vanity publishers charge for their "services". Some charge a few hundred dollars, others a thousand or more. We are not in that league, in any way, shape or fashion.

FACT #6: PublishAmerica is a traditional, royalty paying publisher. We are strongly opposed to charging fees, ever. There's no catch, no hidden surprises. We even pay small advances to indicate our principle. The author is never, ever, under any obligation to pull their wallet to make any purchase whatsoever. We don't want their money. We want their book. All expenses involved with acquiring, producing, manufacturing, and publishing a book, and marketing it to the industry's wholesale and distribution channels for full availability through all bookstores at home and abroad are underwritten by PublishAmerica solely. This is one of our main claims to fame, and one that we are very proud of. All authors are treated equally here.

FACT #7: The only area where the acronym POD comes in sight, is the printing stage of a book. Among printers, POD means print-on-demand, a digital technology that enables the printer to manufacture a book one at a time. This is in contrast with the offset technology that, by definition, must produce at least hundreds of copies of a book at a time at a minimum, but preferably thousands, to justify the expense of running the press.

FACT #8: ALL publishers use digital (Print-On-Demand) technology for printing, from all major publishing houses such as Random House down. In fact, Random House is a major producer of digitally printed books. They also use additional printing technologies, including offset. PublishAmerica uses the offset technology occasionally as well, each time a larger run is necessary.

FACT #9: Does the use of the digital on-demand printing technology make a publisher a POD house? No, it does not. Of course not. According to www.acronymfinder.com, there are 57 different meanings for POD, from Post Office Department to Point Of Departure to Proof Of Delivery. In our world, POD is vanity publishing, and PublishAmerica is no vanity publisher, by any stretch of the imagination.

FACT #10: As for the production time of our books, we put the author in full control. If an author wants us to release his or her book fast, we can do that. Authors who feel that their manuscript is already edited to perfection may opt to have no additional editing done, provided that we agree. Depending on how fast they submit all necessary information and materials, they may see their book go to the printer within as little as 6 weeks. If time is of no primary concern, or if we decide that additional editing is required, we assign an editor who will spend time going through the text. We don't touch style issues, we don't edit the author's voice, tone, or delivery. We edit for spelling, mechanics, grammar, and typos. In all situations, before it goes to print we send a book back to the author at least twice, to ensure that it looks exactly as the author wants it to look.

FACT #11: We assign a graphic designer who comes up with a unique cover design. All PublishAmerica book covers are custom designed, without exception. Our designers communicate with the authors, to hear their suggestions and ideas, so that they can be incorporated into the design. We believe that this communication is important to our authors. After all, this is their life's work. They want it to be treated accordingly. They want time control, and they want quality. We assure them both. For free. There are no charges under any circumstances, ever.

FACT #12: PublishAmerica is only interested in a book's publishing rights. We don't want any other rights, unless an author insists that we carry them on his/her behalf. Movie rights, audio rights, TV rights, merchandising rights, the copyright, they all remain the author's. We are a BOOK publisher, the only way we earn our money is by selling books, and we're very good at that. Everything else can be done better by others. Our contracts expire after seven years, unlike the life term that most other traditional publishers require. Maybe that's one of the reasons why our contracts seem to be particularly liked by lawyers: we count a few hundred attorneys among our authors.