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Scam , that is. Lately in the comments section of this blog, there's been an outbreak of the s-word. In some cases, people have falsely accused me of labeling the companies/individuals I discuss as scams. In others, people have jumped to the mistaken conclusion that a company or individual is a scam because of one or another of the questionable or nonstandard practices I've written about. Let's look at the word itself. From Merriam-Webster : Scam 1. Function: noun Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1963 i: a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation (an insurance scam) 2. Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): scammed; scam·ming Date: 1963 i: deceive , defraud ii : to obtain (as money) by a scam Based on these definitions, a literary scam can be defined as an operation that's deliberately designed to enrich its perpetrator by deceiving and defrauding writers. Anyone who carefully reads what I and Ann write--here, on the Writer Beware website, in private correspondenc...

Last year, e/print publisher New Concepts Publishing stirred up some discussion by posting a Public Notice listing the names of authors whose contracts it was terminating. Previously, New Concepts had been the focus of a variety of complaints , including late payments, failure to fulfill publicity promises, failure to edit, and releasing material without authorization. There was some speculation that New Concepts was booting authors who had been vocal in their dissatisfaction. Now it appears that e/print publisher Cacoethes Publishing --also the focus of author complaints (including complaints to Writer Beware about nonstandard contract terms)--has followed in New Concept's footsteps. Cacoethes authors recently received this press release: Ms. Denise Mosley has officially disclosed the names of the authors whose contracts are being terminated by Cacoethes Publishing House. In a closed interview she stated “I think this move is beneficial for both parties. As a small company, ...

The blogosphere and the Twitterverse have been abuzz over the past few days with news of a change in the Terms of Service at Facebook. The old TOS ensured that the limited license that Facebook users grant to the company expired when user content was removed from the site. The new TOS eliminated that provision, making the license, in effect, perpetual. The ensuing uproar (including some semi-hysterical misinterpretation, such as the notion that Facebook was claiming copyright on content), has been such that Facebook has now reversed its position , returning to the old TOS and inviting users to contribute ideas for a new revision. The issues that caused the uproar are presented in detail in this post from the excellent Plagiarism Today blog. The author also notes something that I think is important: I’ve noticed over the years that sites have become more and more aggressive about giving themselves rights in their TOS. Users, for the most part, haven’t noticed as the TOSs have grown ...

As readers of this blog probably know, I'm always on the lookout for writing oddities (and by the way, I always appreciate it when people bring strange or wacky writing-related things to my attention). My latest find: Shortstoryofthemonth.com . Shortstoryofthemonth.com, as its name implies, is a monthly ezine consisting of 3 stories per issue. According to the FAQ , stories are chosen by an unnamed "forum of executives", and "selected" writers who make the cut get a flat $100 per story (the FAQ says that writers keep copyright, but no other information about rights or contracts is provided). An annual "Best of" edition will be issued in print, with the chosen writers getting extra payment "depending on the success of the program and other factors." But that's not all. Shortstoryofthemonth.com isn't just a chance for writers, it's an opportunity for readers too! "AN INSTANT AND PAINLESS SOURCE OF MONTHLY INCOME!" the webs...

Just got this alert from the Authors Guild : On Monday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reading device at the Morgan Library in New York. Most of the changes from the first version of the Kindle are incremental improvements: the new Kindle is lighter and thinner, for example, and Amazon eliminated the scroll wheel. One update, however, is wholly new: Amazon has added a "Text to Speech" function that reads the e-book aloud through the use of special software. This presents a significant challenge to the publishing industry. Audiobooks surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2007; e-book sales are just a small fraction of that. While the audio quality of the Kindle 2, judging from Amazon's promotional materials, is best described as serviceable, it's far better than the text-to-speech audio of just a few years ago. We expect this software to improve rapidly. We're studying this matter closely and will report back to you. In the meantime, w...

Check it out: Opening Paragraphs for Sale . Writing is hard. Stringing letters together to make words? Hard. Grouping those into meaningful sentences? Harder. But the hardest part? Ask any successful novelist: the hardest part is writing the opening paragraph. Uh, okay. First paragraphs are tough. First sentences are tough. So? The good news is that you don't have to be the one to write that first paragraph, because professionally crafted, ready-made ones are for sale by The Avocado Papers right here on this page, at the very reasonable rate of US$1.75 per word. You will not find a better deal anywhere on the internet. Not so sure? Go ahead: find a better deal. Hmmm. Intriguing idea! What's on offer? Let's see-- The President was in a pensive mood as he wondered what sort of arc his second term would follow, and idly surveyed what he believed to be the Washington Monument (but which was, in fact, the Capitol) through the tinted, bullet-proof windows. It had been a tough d...

Last September, I blogged about peer critique website YouWriteOn and its ill-advised print-on-demand publishing endeavor. In collaboration with Legend Press , YWO promised to publish a maximum of 5,000 writers for free (or, if they wanted an ISBN number, for £39.99) by Christmas 2008, as long as they submitted their manuscripts by October 31. Among other criticisms, I questioned how it would be possible to crank out that many books in a mere two or three months, and whether the cramped timeframe would allow for any sort of quality control in the production process. I pointed out that the promised 60% royalty, touted by YWO owner Ted Smith as "four times higher than mainstream publishing," was nothing of the sort, since royalties were paid on net, with net defined as "after printing costs." Last but not least, I questioned the wisdom of sacrificing first publication rights for a quickie, bare-bones book production service all but guaranteed to have substantial logi...

University Press of the South (UNPS), (warning: hideous website alert) is a primarily academic publisher that also accepts adult and children's fiction. Over the years, I've gotten a trickle of advisories from non-academic authors who were asked for substantial fees in order to publish--$2,500 due on contract signing for "administrative costs," plus the entire cost of printing. UNPS does not disclose these fees on its website. Academic vanity presses can serve as a fallback option for scholars who cannot find a more reputable academic publisher for their manuscripts. Academic vanity publishing isn't prestigious--but it doesn't carry the same stigma that we're familiar with in the trade publishing world. Libraries do acquire books from academic vanity presses, and scholars cite them on their CVs. UNPS is an old-style vanity press. Manuscripts must be delivered camera-ready; UNPS then prints whatever quantity of books the author desires, and the author is r...