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This week I've gotten several questions about something called the Emerging Writer Awards . Writers of poetry, short stories, and unpublished book length fiction may enter to compete for two grand prizes : $2,000 and a possible publishing contract from Triom Publishing for book manuscripts, $1,000 for short subjects. Both prizes include "national promotion through Emerging Writer Magazine ." The deadline for entries is August 31, 2009. (Obligatory pedantic aside: "emerging writer," a term that is often used instead of or interchangeably with the odious "pre-published," is one of my euphemism pet peeves. You are an emerging writer if you've published a couple of books and are getting increasing sales and attention. You are not an emerging writer if you merely aspire to publication--just an unpublished one.) Why wouldn't you want to enter this contest? Sure, you've never heard of Triom Publishing or Emerging Writer Magazine, but the prizes ...

Nearly two years ago, I did a writeup on a vanity anthology scheme called Wake Up...Live the Life You Love . Just for agreeing to buy 200 books for $2,697, or 500 books for $5,497, authors could have their 1,000-1,200 word story or article included in the latest Wake Up book (a series of inspirational compilations along the lines of Chicken Soup for the Soul ), along with "some mega-best selling authors, speakers, trainers, mentors and world class business leaders." The result: "Instant Credibility (tm) with your clients and customers...because, with a book, you will be considered a 'celebrity' in your industry as a best selling co-author." And if that weren't enough, a lucrative affiliate program allowed "co-authors" to earn up to $1,000 per head for referring others to the program. Now the Wake Up folks have branched out: into "private author publications" (a.k.a. vanity publishing) and contests. Wake Up Publishing is a Full-ser...

So okay, this doesn't have to do with writing (unless of course it sparks an idea for a story. Or a publicity strategy). But it's so bizarre I couldn't resist featuring it. Advertising is everywhere. It bombards us at every moment and from every side (if you have an ebook reader, watch out-- it will soon be there as well ). There's a dilemma for advertisers, though--the more advertising there is, the more desensitized to it we become. So what's an advertiser to do? What new publicity frontier might blast through ad overload, and seize the public's tired eyeballs? How about the moon? A company called Moon Publicity is promising to use robots to create advertising images on the moon. The company's "Shadow Shaping" technology will create "several small ridges in the lunar dust over large areas that capture shadows and shape them to form logos, domains [sic] names or memorials." Never in the history of advertising has the possibility of pene...

Jane Smith, who operates the very helpful How Publishing Really Works blog, has declared Friday, July 17 Anti-Plagiarism Day , with a post that provides a sampling of notorious plagiarism cases, a roundup of writings on the subject, and some thoughts on plagiarism in general. Check it out--it's fascinating and thought-provoking reading. I've written about plagiarism a number of times on this blog, mostly from the perspective of reporting on frivolous plagiarism lawsuits and debunking writers' common fear that submitting their work to agents and publishers is just asking for theft (it's not--reputable professionals won't risk their reputation by stealing; disreputable people aren't interested in manuscripts at all, and couldn't do anything with them even if they were dumb enough to try to pilfer them). But though publishing professionals aren't likely to rip off aspiring writers, aspiring writers aren't always so scrupulous about thieving from thei...

Recently I blogged about IndieReader , an online bookstore/distributor that is attempting to raise the visibility of self-published books and authors. In the process of researching that post, I discovered Publetariat Vault , which is also attempting to bring attention to self-published books--though in quite a different way. The Vault is a project of Publetariat , an online community for self-published and small-press authors founded by self-publishing evangelist April Hamilton. Sporting the same revolution-referencing socialist realist graphics and wordplay as its parent site, the Vault is designed to promote successful self-published books to commercial publishers and film producers. From its Welcome page : The Publetariat Vault provides a groundbreaking service: the opportunity to get your indie book in front of the publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for low-risk acquisitions. If you've ever thought that if publishers or producers only knew how much readers l...

Below, links to some interesting and useful articles and blog posts that I've encountered recently in my travels round the Web: - On Nathan Bransford's blog, guest blogger Eric, a sales assistant at a major book publisher, provides a primer on how publishers sell books into bookstores . An eye-opening post that points up, among other things, the vital importance of sales reps. - As a new author, you're an unknown quantity--which means (from publishers' and agents' perspective) that you're a risk--but also, possibly, that you could break big. Once you're published, however, you are largely defined by your sales numbers. If you're a US-published author, how do publishers and agents know your sales numbers? From Nielsen BookScan , which tracks about 70% of all bookstore sales in the USA. Bad BookScan numbers can torpedo your next sale--and if you think you can just change your name, or slide on over to a new agent or publisher, think again: they have BookSc...

Last week, the Twitter- and blogosphere were abuzz with two tales of authorial bad behavior: much-published author Alice Hoffman's Twitter meltdown over a poor review (Hoffman tweeted several angry messages about the review, including one that provided the reviewer's phone number and email address and encouraged fans to "Tell her what u think of snarky critics;" Hoffman's publisher subsequently yanked her Twitter account, and Hoffman issued an apology); and philosopher and author Alain de Botton's blog explosion (de Botton posted an angry comment on the reviewer's blog, concluding "I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make"; he, too, subsequently apologized, excusing himself by saying "It was a private communication to his website, to him as a blogger...It's appalling that it seems that I'm telling the world." Well, duh). Although you can blame these errors in judgment o...

Yesterday, the US Justice Department confirmed that it is opening a formal investigation into the Google Book Settlement. A quick recap: Several years ago, Google entered into agreements with a number of libraries to scan the books in their collections. The books were then listed online via Google Books , along with publishing info and, for books still in copyright, limited "snippets" of text (for public domain books, the entire text was available). Claiming that the scanning was fair use, Google argued that it didn't need to seek copyright holders' permission first. Authors disagreed, and in 2005, a group of publishers and the Authors Guild filed suit to stop the scanning. Last October, the parties in the suit reached a settlement--a mind-numbingly complicated arrangement that, depending on whom you ask, is either the first step toward a universal world library or the next step in Google's quest for world domination. Much like desperately ill patients forced to ...