Buy Lorna’s book and give an old person a home
If you don’t, you’ll surely go straight to hell…
This nonagenarian used the $600,000 advance from her thriller, A Dangerous Weakness, to buy a five bedroom home in which she plans to house some lucky friends who were miserable in care homes.
”The book has sold nicely and I was able to buy a much bigger place to live. I only had a small flat before,” she said.
“I wanted to be able to give a room to as many friends who live in care homes as possible.
“Care homes can be such miserable places. You sit there all day staring out the window with no-one to talk to.”
Mrs Page, who is 93, is a first time author with two children and two grandchildren.
She now faces the difficult task of selecting which friends to move into her new place.
May I suggest a Krypton Factor style challenge? The old folks who manage to shuffle their way around an obstacle course and at the end, do a complex logic puzzle, are in.
For those that fail: it’s back to cold custard and cruel care assistants.
While this whole thing just stinks of a publicity stunt- sorry Lorna, I’m cynical for a reason love- I still think it’s fantastic she’s gonna open a party house for her and her mates. It could even become a great platform for a reality show. An OAP big brother. You could watch the old folks knit, sing, watch Countdown and suck eggs..
It would have to be more entertaining than the show as is.
I also smell a rat because Author House are vanity publishers, and, having never ventured into that area, am assuming such operations generally don’t give out advances. Am I mistaken?
http://www.authorhouse.co.uk/Bookstore/ItemDetail~bookid~52282.aspx
Am I mistaken?
No, I agree; I thought I was being over-cynical, but I’m glad someone else had the same thought.
It’s altogether very odd. Self-publishing firms – let’s call them that to be charitable – don’t give advances, and furthermore many of the newspaper accounts are reporting significant proceeds from sales too. Again, how? It’d take humungous sales to recover the investment and make a profit on top of that, but if you Google the title and author, this book is virtually unfindable prior to the current newspaper blitz (e.g. it’s not on Amazon.co.uk).
Ray Girvan
August 11, 2008 at 2:21 am
Thanks for that, Ray. I indeed thought it rather suspect. Although the story itself is quite funny, I’m dubious as to the intentions behind it. I also find it quite bizarre a newspaper as seemingly respectable as the UK Telegraph would run it without doing the required background checks. I know Amazon don’t usually sell publish on demand titles and I have never heard of this book. I guess it will become clear if someone decides to delve a little deeper. RR
badwordsalad
August 11, 2008 at 3:45 am
The ‘Publisher’ is AuthorHouse (formerly 1st Books) is a vanity press. It does NOT pay advances to authors. On the contrary, it charges them for editorial and publishing services. The company is listed as ‘not recommended’ on the well-onown writers’ watchdog site, Preditors and Editors. There is something distinctly fishy about this tale. Neil Marr
Neil Marr
August 11, 2008 at 8:52 am
Well it seems that this is a genius PR idea, no sales before yesterday and now pretty decent sales on Amazon! Lorna might be 93 but I’d give her a job , well done Ms. Page!
Peter Edwards
August 11, 2008 at 11:38 am
Rebecca, we just came to the same conclusion over at my blog! The story was picked up by the BBC too, although they didn’t mention the obviously false assertion about a huge advance. Honestly!
Tania Hershman
August 11, 2008 at 12:10 pm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dangerous-Weakness-Lorna-Page/dp/1434378047/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218456903&sr=1-1
yup. The book is av available on amazon, on order. And it is whizzing up the ratings. Clever.
Vanessa Gebbie
August 11, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Damn, such a good story, but when I saw that it was a vanity publisher, I was confused. They don’t pay you an advance, you pay them to put your story together as a ‘real book’. They don’t really care that much about the quality of said story.
Although Amazon do sell some print on demand novels, they are really difficult to find. A name and author should be enough but isn’t. A friend of mine who was published by the same vanity publisher had to give me the link to his novel on amazon because I couldn’t find it by the usual searches.
Definitely something odd going on here.
storyteller
August 11, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Actually, it is on Amazon.
http://tinyurl.com/5qdsm8
Fred
August 11, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Actually Amazon do sell publish on demand titles if you buy a marketing package from somewhere like lulu.com or Lightning Source, or have an account with them.
pep
August 11, 2008 at 3:18 pm
This lady was on PM on radio 4 today. I believe her story , you lot are too cynical !!!
graham
August 11, 2008 at 4:56 pm
They’re discussing this issue on the very knowledgeable Making Light blog, coming to pretty much the same conclusion: something’s fishy. Here’s a link: Tales of the Big Advance
Daniel
August 11, 2008 at 7:44 pm
This story has generated a LOT of interest. But again, what confuses me more than anything is why the papers would seemingly run it without doing a few background checks? Never let the truth get in the way of a good story? Vanity Press NEVER GIVE ADVANCES! They take your money for God’s sake. I’ll check out your blog later Tania as blogspot is blocked in my office(!) RR
badwordsalad
August 11, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Way to go Lorna!
Catwoman
August 12, 2008 at 12:24 am
Amazon do sell POD titles. However, they recently moved the goalposts. There is such a lucrative, easy business involed in ‘publishers’ merely converting raw, unread manuscripts into PDF versions and setting the ‘books’ with Lightning Source, etc, that they bought up the (then) small BookSurge outfit tofurther cash in on the trade. Now, unless a book is produced by BookSurge (by no means the best option in my opinion), Amazon refuse their full service. Buy now buttons have been removed from thousands of titles produced elsewhere and many, many titles have disappeared altogether. Neil
Neil Marr
August 12, 2008 at 6:56 am
I just had this vision…or whatever you may call it…of Lorna Page ripping off her face Scooby Doo style…to reveal she is really Dick Milkbottle, evil author and criminal mastermind. RR
badwordsalad
August 13, 2008 at 6:57 am
Ms Page has now announced that she was not given an advance, and did pay to get published.
I’ve just blogged about it here:
http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/2008/08/case-of-imaginary-big-advance.html
(Sorry, can’t work out how to make that a clickable link in comments)
The real issue isn’t one of inflated or imaginary advances, but of how many novice writers will now proceed to AuthorHouse.
Jane Smith
August 15, 2008 at 7:26 am