Sucker, Meet Con Man

One of the principals of PublishAmerica has written what amounts to a book-length press release for PA that fraudulently tries to portray PA as a disenfranchised writer's David slaying the "elites" of nasty, awful traditional publishing. The reactions have been typical. Lee Goldberg has had his fun with it, as he does with all similar stories. Goldberg is a fairly successfull writer and vanity publishing scams and their victims give him a chance to feel superior to the benighted suckers who get scammed. Over at POD-DY MOUTH, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth in outrage.

I'm sorry, but this is getting really tiresome. How blatant does a scam have to be to become obvious to anyone in possession of their rational faculties? Anyone who has taken the time and made the effort to write an entire book-length manuscript can discover PA's true colors as well as the pitfalls of self-publishing and POD in at most, one hour and in many cases far less time with online research.

If they still decide to use PA, then no amount of anti-PA warnings will deter them.

There are stupid, credulous or deluded people who cannot be disabused of their fantasies. Stop spending valuable energy trying to protect them. If PA doesn't get them, some other vanity press will. As Calvera (Eli Wallach) says in The Magnificent Seven, "God made them sheep so that they could be shorn."

Years ago, Philip Wylie wrote of the principle of opposites as visually represented by the mandala. All sorts of things cannot exist in isolation. They only become perceptible when contrasted to their opposite quality. Without suckers, there would be no con men, and vice versa.