Monday, August 11, 2008

Authorhouse - £310,000 advance!

In light of my next posting about what POD published books sell best, I thought the article which appeared in this morning's Daily Telegraph very interesting. It would appear that POD publisher Authorhouse has paid out author Lorna Page a substancial advance for her novel 'A Dangerous Weakness'.

A quick check on amazon.co.uk adds further to this story as the book does not appear in an advance search of Authorhouse's top 30 titles. The book has been out since last month. It would appear that Ms Page has quite a number of other fictional 'nursing story' titles out as far back as 1944! Her publisher list includes, Gresham, Dales, Newton and Linford over the years.

The full Telegraph story is here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2535308/First-time-author-93-saves-friends-from-care-homes-with-book-advance.html

Your thoughts on this very odd story appreciated. There does seem to be something more to this story than at first meets the eye.

There is now a discussion thread on this at AbsoluteWrite.com:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2641710&posted=1#post2641710

Also BBC Spotlight TV Interview:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7553576.stm
by Mick Rooney on Monday, August 11, 2008
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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

this just doesn't stack up.
Does Authorhouse pay advances? I always thought Authors PAID THEM.

11 August 2008 13:42
SUSAN said...

This story is a total scam. Authorhouse is vanity publishing, they do not pay anyone a penny. The book doesn`t even appear on Nielsen Bookscan... someone has made it up, which is sad if there really ARE old ladies hoping to be re-housed. And if they have been re-housed because their friend has just forked out the money from her own purse then good on her, but this story was always going to be found out.
NOBODY gets £310,000 advance these days for a modest thriller.

11 August 2008 13:46
Poor Pothecary said...

Agreed. The nursing romances appear to be a different Lorna Page: as the Guardian mentions, the name is one of the many pseudonyms of the pulp writer Donald S Rowland.

11 August 2008 13:48
Mick Rooney said...

If this is a scam Susan, and I suspect something is definitely awry here, then the Daily Telegraph have fallen for it without their reporter doing any real research.

11 August 2008 15:18
Mick Rooney said...

Here is a link to some further comments I have posted at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk

Having researched and written about Self/Publishing and Print-on-demand publishing for more than a year, I have been following this story very closely in the British National papers as well as the BBC. I find it very odd that Authorhouse, Ms Page's publishers, a POD/Subsidy, 'pay to play', publishers would stump up an advance of £310,000, as is being reported. On Amazon.co.uk, this title does not even register in Authorhouse's top 20 titles. If the current publishing trends are to be believed, a large commercial publisher would not pay an advance of this amount to a first-time novelist. I just wonder how much backround research has actually been done into this story by uk media reporters and editors. While I do not wish to be a killjoy, at best, is this actually a promotional push by the publisher themselves. For the many hundreds and thousands of authors who pay to have their work published through Authorhouse each year, it does present a highly skewed impression.

11 August 2008 17:11
Poor Pothecary said...

Reading the newspaper stories again, the funny thing is that it's primarily the headlines that present the story as "she has the money and has already used it for ... whatever".

The stories themselves, by and large, say that it's what she "plans" or "has pledged" to use the money for; and when you look closely at the wording you find they hedge their bets about causal connections. For instance, this section in the Daily Mail ...

"She wrote her book while living in a one-bedroom flat but has now swapped it for a £310,000 five-bedroomed property in Weare Giffard, Devon ... Mrs Page, a widow, said: 'The book has sold nicely and I was able to buy a much bigger place to live. I only had a small flat before"

... strongly implies that she bought the house on the book's proceeds, but actually says nothing of the sort. I think there's some very subtle spin-by-juxtaposition going on with these news stories.

11 August 2008 18:19
Jennifer said...

This is ironic as I just sent a note to AuthorHouse asking them about this. Her book is on their website as one of the top sellers but it's not at the very top. No, this doesn't feel right, and I would be surprised if this was a scam perpetrated by AuthorHouse. They're one of the largest in the world, would they need to do this to draw attention to themselves ..or maybe I'm being naive??

12 August 2008 00:57
Mick Rooney said...

As this story continues to unfold, it looks increasingly lightly that quite a number of media outlets have seen the BBC TV Spotlight footage, added 2+2 and got 5. What it does underline is how media sources will colour a 'story' as best they can to make good headlines at an extremely slow news-time of the year.

It also underlines the lack of understanding of the Subsidy/Vanity publishing industry, not just with the general public, but media outlets themselves.

This story actually doesn't do POD publishers or self-Published authors any favours, and simply continues to perpetrate the myths surrounding this form of publishing.

Good luck to Lorna Page and her novel--I hope on the back of this publicity she sells bucket loads of her book, but, ultimately, many hundreds more aspiring, stary-eyed, first-time authors will dream of their own lucrative 'advance' from a publisher who is never going to write that cheque.

12 August 2008 10:00
Anonymous said...

I just heard back from AuthorHouse to my query, and this was a press error, there was no advance paid to this author. Apparently the daughter of the author sent in a press release with incorrect information. There was no advance paid

12 August 2008 21:19
Mick Rooney said...

hmmm, think this strikes me as an 'error' committed deliberately, but on purpose.

Lorna Page was interviewed on Today FM's eveing slot programme yesterday, and when asked by the presenter, "So, you bought a house for you and your friends with the advance?", Ms Page replied, "Yes, I did."

Me thinks there is much promotional spin coming from the family now.

13 August 2008 09:52
Anonymous said...

I just got this note back from the Telegraph when I pointed out that AuthorHouse does not make advances to authors, fyi:

I am writing in response to your email concerning the article by Stephen Adams about Lorna Page.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the error. The correct version of the article was published in the paper, but regrettably the article that was published online was incorrect. This is now being amended.

Many thanks for your email.

Yours sincerely,

Anna Stubbings

Editorial Information

14 August 2008 18:07
June said...

I haven't heard any interviews ith the author, and so can't comment on what was and was not said. I have though seen the original press releases, and can confirm that neither of these make any mention of an advance or a house. While I acknowledge that certain sectors of the press do have a tendency to embellish the facts, and make 2 and 2 add up to five, I also feel that there is no smoke without fire, and something about this story does not to me feel right.

17 August 2008 12:47

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