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Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a small obsession with so-called literary reality shows. (Amazed that such things could even exist? See this recent post for a recap.) To date, seven of these suckers have surfaced. Five never got past the planning and announcement stages. The jury's still out on the sixth (I'm not holding my breath), and the seventh is still embryonic (not holding my breath there either). Now, however, there's a literary reality show that might actually go all the way. Fourth Night, a blog maintained by writer Constantine Markides, will launch FourthFiction , "the first blog-based literary reality show," on July 4. Twelve writers will write original novels, which they'll post in tri-monthly installments, according to literary guidelines provided by Mr. Markides. Readers will vote to eliminate one contestant per round. On December 4, the single survivor of all twelve rounds will be announced. What does he or she win? Well,...

Writer Beware often gets correspondence that goes something like this: Dear Writer Beware, I [wrote/self-published] a book about [topic/plot synopsis]. I sent [the manuscript/the book] to [name of agent/publisher]. Next thing I know, there's a book on the market just like mine! I'm sure that someone plagiarized it. What can I do? My answer (couched, of course, in much more tactful terms): Get over yourself. Theft is an incredibly common writerly fear, but for book writers, it's almost completely unjustified, especially where unpublished work is concerned. A good agent or publisher won't risk his or her reputation by stealing; a bad agent or publisher isn't interested in your manuscript at all, only in your money, or else is too unskilled to do anything with your manuscript even if they were stupid enough to try and steal it. Also, if your writing is marketable (the biggest "if" in the quest for publication), it's a lot less trouble just to sign you for...

There's been some recent buzz about IndieReader , a new service for self-published books launched by commercially-published author Amy Holman Edelman . "The fact is," the IndieReader website says, "self-published authors know it's a rough world out there. They get no respect from publishers and little attention from consumers." But "more and more Indie books [are] finding mainstream success ( Still Alice, The Shack ) and more mainstream authors [are] writing Indie books (Dave Eggers, Noam Chomsky)." IndieReader is poised to become part of this "vast sea change in publishing:" People are naturally drawn to what’s unique and genuine, be it Indie movies, Indie music...or Indie books. They are tired of hearing about the next John Grisham, of taking their cues from traditional publishers who are afraid of what's new, niche and different. They are hungry for something like IR—and with a team that has a combined 40 + years of public relati...

You may never have heard of him, but with more than 200,000 nonfiction titles in his name ( more than 100,000 of which are listed at Amazon), Philip M. Parker may be, in his own words , the most published author in the history of the planet. How does he do it? According to a 2008 article in the New York Times , Parker, a professor of marketing at INSEAD business school in France and founder of ICON Group International , "has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject—broad or obscure—and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books in a range of genres, many of them in the range of 150 pages and printed only when a customer buys one." (This patented process is explained step-by-step in a YouTube video .) Parker's books sell anywhere from a few hundred to a few dozen copies each. In addition to compiling books himself, he offers compilation applications to other businesses via ...

The book world is sometimes a very weird place. In keeping with that, two news items caught my eye today... Another Harry Potter Infringement Claim According to this press release , the estate of children's author Adrian Jacobs is suing Bloomsbury Publishing, alleging that J. K. Rowling stole the plot of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from Jacobs' 1987 book The Adventures of Willy the Wizard--No 1--Livid Land , and that Bloomsbury is in copyright violation for printing and selling Goblet . According to the press release, Both books describe the adventures of a main character, "Willy" in Jacobs' book and "Harry Potter" in Rowling's, who are wizards, who compete in a wizard contest which they ultimately win. Both Willy and Harry are required to work out the exact nature of the main task of the contest which they both achieve in a bathroom assisted by clues from helpers, in order to discover how to rescue human hostages imprisoned by a community o...

We tell some strange tales here on the Writer Beware blog. There's scam agent/vanity publisher Martha Ivery , noted for harassing authors and for impersonating herself with her alter-ego, Kelly O'Donnell. There's scam agent/writers' conference promoter Elisabeth von Hullessem , who had a similar mania for aliases and, it turned out, was wanted by the police for a crime much worse than relieving writers of their cash. There's Christopher Hill , another scam agent who created elaborate forgeries to fool his clients and then used a fake name to out himself on a popular writers' message board. There's the guy who tried to get people to pay him $1 per word to add to his collaborative novel. There's the literary agency that wanted writers to bid for representation on eBay. There are the literary reality shows . The list goes on. As strange as anything we've ever covered, however, is the tale of vanity publisher Diggory Press , which has been explored i...

Author Solutions, Inc. , parent company of POD self-publishing services AuthorHouse , iUniverse , Xlibris , and Trafford , is nothing if not an inventive marketer. Last year, ASI debuted "gift" publishing ( "First-of-its-kind Service Allows Gift Buyers to Make Loved Ones' Dreams of Publishing a Book Reality" ). Then, this past weekend, ASI hooked up with the AARP to offer publishing incentives to older people attending the AARP Life Festival in Chicago. Over-50 authors were eligible to " get their age in free books " just by agreeing to publish with AuthorHouse. The catch? Authors had to agree to buy one of AuthorHouse's more expensive Premium packages--and to talk to an ASI "publishing consultant." Based on the stories I've heard about ASI's hard-sell phone tactics, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the authors wound up buying more than just publishing. What's next? Your weight in free books?

I meant to post this yesterday, but after the frenzy of getting ready for BEA and then three high-adrenaline days of being there, I needed a day to recover. Plus, I sustained an injury in the cause of bringing scam awareness to North America's largest book show--but more about that later. Writer Beware's presence at BEA this year--courtesy of our new co-sponsor Mystery Writers of America , which kindly gave us space in their booth and let us raid their fridge for water and soda (thanks, Margery!)--was something of an experiment. Some of us had attended the show before in other capacities, but this was the first time that Writer Beware attended as a group. Overall, we feel it was very much worth it. We brought handouts (my article, Writer Beware , and Ann's anti-scam handout, Excuse Me, How Much Did It Cost You? ), business cards, and a brand-new Writer Beware brochure, and gave out a lot of each to the librarians, booksellers, aspiring authors, journalists, and others who ...