Book Making

Michael N. Marcus discusses writing, editing, publishing and sometimes other things. He often draws attention to inept publishers and writers. It's his duty and his compulsion. It's important and often funny. If you present work to the public, you must be able to withstand criticism. If your feelings get hurt easily, keep your work private. When you seek praise, you risk derision. In publishing, either produce pro-quality work by yourself or get help from qualified professionals.

Monday, October 26, 2009

A1 Books, another Pinocchio of Publishing

A1 Books lies about list prices and lies about discounts. Some of their prices are actually HIGHER than list price. (These are books I wrote, so I am sure of the list prices. I assume they also lie about other books.)

"I Only Flunk My Brightest Students"

Real List Price: $15.95

Phony List Price: $19.95

Phony Sale Price: $17.55

Phony Savings: -12%

Real Difference: +9%

"Phone Systems & Phones for Small Business & Home"

Real List Price: $19.95

Phony List Price: $29.95

Phony Sale Price: $22.03

Phony Savings: -26%

Real Difference: +9%

"AbleComm Guide to Phone Systems"

Real List Price: $15.95

Phony List Price: $19.95

Phony Sale Price: $16.43

Phony Savings: -18%

Real Difference: +3%

"Become a Real Self Publisher"

Real List Price: $19.95

Phony List Price:

Phony Sale Price: $22.30

Phony Savings:

Real Difference: +11%

...

1 comment:

Christy Pinheiro, EA ABAOctober 26, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Hey how do you keep finding all these scammers? The price war between Wal-mart, Amazon, and Target will kill all these little online bookstores soon-- I don't really know how anyone else can compete. I saw the fantastic review your new book got on Amazon-- Congrats!
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I've been writing professionally for more than 40 years. My first book was published by Doubleday in 1976. Since 2008, I've owned a small publishing company, Silver Sands Books. Some recent and future books are shown above and below. Info is at the Silver Sands site. Printed and e-books are available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other online and terrestrial booksellers. PDF e-books are available at Lulu.com and elsewhere. Some cover designs shown may not be the final versions.

About my typing errors

I frequently criticize errors in books, and some readers have complained about my own lack of perfection. Even though I often go over my blog posts 10, 20, 30 or more times, they are not immune to errors. There is no excuse, but there are several reasons. (1) I'm getting old. (2) The spell checker in Blogger is terrible. (3) I have neither the time nor the budget to hire an editor for a daily blog, which I normally start writing at about 3:30 a.m. (4) Books and commercial websites (especially publishers' and authors' websites) should be held to a higher standard than daily blogs. (5) I'm getting old. Oh. Did I say that before?

Who & What

This blog is written and edited by Michael N. Marcus. He's a first-year baby boomer and president of AbleComm, "the telecom department store." Michael's also a journalist, author, publisher, advertising copywriter and amateur attorney.

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It's Too Easy To Get Pregnant reports on some of the
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My Final Quarter-Century Above Ground is an appropriately irreverent blog about dying and death.

I never did it, was never arrested for it, never tried for it, and never convicted of it tells the story of my horrible and damaging harassment, and my response.

911 Wackos provides a look at weird 911 calls and callers.

Letters to April Wong is a collection of ridiculous and scam emails sent to a person who does not exist.

For The First Time (or the last time) talks about changes in society and technology: first toilet paper, last convertible, first voice mail, last Automat, first female leader of Boy Scout troop, etc.

OH, how stupid! provides an an occasional look at some of the stupidest things done by human beings.

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