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Jones Harvest Publishing , a vanity publisher/"marketing" service founded by Brien Jones, former VP of disgraced vanity publisher/"marketing" service Airleaf , wants to get you into the movie biz! Jones Harvest authors recently received this pitch: We'll take Your Book to Hollywood! We have already made three trips to Hollywood and we are going back again in June! Before we make the trip, we want to know which books to propose. In the past 18 months there has been a dramatic upsurge in the number of feature films based on books. Today most of the films in theatres were originally a novel or have been based on a novel. Documentaries have always been based on non-fiction books. Now we have an affordable, 3-step plan to break through with your book and we need to start NOW. 1.. We will write a treatment about your book and contact 500 executives in the entertainment industry. 2.. We will provide you with feedback from these producers and directors in advance of o...

Edited to Add: Objective seems to have discontinued these referrals. Since the fall of 2009, Writer Beware has received no further reports. Over the past couple of days, I've heard from several writers who queried agents at Objective Entertainment , a relatively new literary agency with a strong track record and experienced staff, and received the following response: Dear [name redacted], Thank you so much for contacting us at Objective Entertainment. We have reviewed your material and we would like to refer you to one of our Publishers who we trust and believe will be able to serve you best. In order to do this I need your permission and the following information so they can either contact you via Phone or Email. The following information we need is if you would like to receive their newsletter and special offers. I think this is an amazing opportunity for you. Please reply with the information we asked so that we can get you that one step closer to getting your work published! B...

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which sponsors Writer Beware, has chosen me to receive this year's SFWA Service Award for my work with Writer Beware. Here's the official press release . This is very, very cool, and I'm truly honored. By rights, half of the award belongs to Ann--not only is she Writer Beware's co-founder, she ranks me on the Writing Scams Committee. But she and her husband, former SFWA President Michael Capobianco, received a joint SFWA Service Award a few years ago for their many years of service as officers and volunteers, and I guess this is the kind of award you can't get twice. I'm grateful to SFWA for standing behind Writer Beware for the past ten years. Ann and I do the work, but without SFWA's steadfast and ongoing support, we could not exist. And I'm deeply grateful to all of you--the many writers who read this blog, who visit the Writer Beware website , and who contact us to share their stories. Without you,...

Many of you may have noticed that an angry and not very grammatical person calling herself "Firsttimeauthoress" is attempting to hijack the comments thread of my last post . What you may not have noticed is that Ms. Authoress has invaded earlier posts as well (I have this blog set to send all comments to my email address, since people often comment on older posts and I want to make sure I see them all). Here are some samples of Ms. Authoress's distinctive prose stylings, which I'm reproducing, mistakes and all, partly because I think they're amusing, and partly because she may try to delete them: On Author Solutions Acquires Xlibris : You people just love lording it around. You take delight in making publishing seem impossible to rub it in that you got published while most people don't. to you, everyone is a scammer, a crook, a thief. You say writer's digest is a joke but then admit that you've contributed. You ruin the reputations of good, hardworking...

The Austin American Stateman has an interesting story today by Omar L. Gallaga, entitled Publishing Changes in the Digital Era --interesting to me, that is, though possibly not for the reasons Mr. Gallaga intended. "Here's a pleasant surprise," the story begins. "One of the areas where I'm seeing some of the most interesting new-media marketing is in the oldest of old media: book publishing." The story goes on to describe the publishing and promotion efforts of Tam Thompson, a writer who has just self-epublished a fitness guide for women, Busy Sexy Body . She's doing a signing at a local library , printing out color copies of the ebook's cover which she will sign for buyers (purchases can be made online right at the library). Says the article, Thompson deals with lots of writers and says many of them are hopelessly mired in the past, waiting for a publisher's paycheck to land on their door. She thinks they should instead aggressively promote th...

The Author Solutions juggernaut continues to balloon. The company, owner of POD self-publishing service AuthorHouse , acquired rival POD service iUniverse in 2007. Now the New York Times reports that it has acquired another competitor , Xlibris . According to the NYT, "Terms of the deal were not disclosed." When iUniverse--then one of the most cost-effective and reliable of the POD self-publishing services--was gobbled up by Author Solutions, I worried that service would deteriorate. Writer Beware receives a steady trickle of complaints about AuthorHouse--the only large POD service of which that was true prior to the iUniverse acquisition. Googling AuthorHouse brings up a multitude of unhappy stories (although it must be acknowledged that at least some of the unhappiness results from unrealistic expectations on the authors' part). I also have some semi-personal experience--my uncle, who chose AuthorHouse to publish the collections of short stories he wrote after he re...

Last July, I blogged about the judgment obtained by one of Light Sword Publishing's authors against Light Sword Publishing and its two principals, Linda Daly and Bonny Kirby. Among other things, the author alleged breach of contract, fraud in the inducement, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A default judgment in the amount of $15,342.64 was entered against Bonny Kirby, and a default judgment in the amount of $16,558.63 was entered against Linda Daly and Light Sword Publishing. The author reports that to date, neither judgment has been paid. Now Writer Beware has learned that on December 15, 2008, Linda Daly and Light Sword Publishing filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy petitions with the US Bankruptcy Court in the Eastern District of Michigan. Chapter 7 is "[t]he chapter of the Bankruptcy Code providing for 'liquidation,' (i.e., the sale of a debtor's nonexempt property and the distribution of the proceeds to creditors.)" (Definition taken from the US...