sàds

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Writer Beware gets a ton of email. Reports of schemes, scams, and fee-charging, of course, but also questions about agents' and publishers' reputations, questions about the researching/querying/submitting/publishing process, requests for advice, requests for recommendations. Requests to deny reality. Say what? Well, a request to deny reality is when a writer sees something on this blog or on the Writer Beware website, doesn't wish to believe it, and wants to be told that in his or her case, it's just not true. As in, "Your website says that agents shouldn't charge upfront fees, but this agent who wants me to pay $500 is so nice, are they maybe legit anyway?" Or, "Agent X is on your Thumbs Down list, but they want to represent me and their website looks professional, are they really so bad?" Or, "I found your Alert that says Publisher Y is being sued, but they have books on Amazon, so couldn't ...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Have you recently received this spam? Dear Friends, Do you write? We're looking for good-quality eBooks, eZines and self-published articles for our new website! This is a FREE MARKETING TOOL for you, as we post all material absolutely free for our visitors to read. In return, you may be eligible for profit-sharing from our advertising revenue. Don't want to give it all away from free? No problem -- post a quality excerpt, and include a link for them to buy the full version! Want to learn more? Check us out at http://www.myfreeread.com and click on Submit to tell us about yourself! To your success! Lisa Davies MyFreeRead.com 406 Amapola Avenue #210 Torrance, CA 90501 If so, you might want to read my blog post from earlier this year .

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware More on "Iron" David Boyer Writer Beware has learned about another David Boyer project in the works--a book called Vast Horizons , to be published in 2011 by Boyer's own Darkened Doorways Press. Like his Prodigies and Legends books, it features interviews, in this case with SF writers, including some who are very well-known. Here's the full list, taken directly from the Table of Contents: Authoress Tessa B. Dick Nebula Award winner Mike Resnick Author Allen Steele Greg Bear, author of Blood Music Jeff Somers - Author of the Avery Cates series of Sci-FI noir novels and editor of The Inner Swine . Warren Fahy, author of Fragment David Gelber, author of the ITP series, Future Hope ; Joshua & Aaron Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever War Kevin Bohacz, author of Immortality Jeremy Robinson, author of Pulse and Instinct Terry Lloyd Vinson, author of Desolation Outpost Todd A. Fonseca, author of The Time Cavern Barry Longyea...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I hear often from writers worried that their work will be stolen. Especially among new writers, it's a major fear. However, theft in the book and short fiction world is extremely rare. (Really. Reputable agents and editors will not risk their reputations by stealing, and disreputable ones aren't interested in your work at all, only in your money). Despite the hundreds of questions I've gotten about theft, I can count the actual incidents on one hand. Which is why, when plagiarism does occur, it's especially noteworthy. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been getting complaints about "Iron" David Boyer (he also goes by numerous aliases--see below), publisher/editor of, among others, New Voices in Horror Magazine, NVH Books, and Darkened Doorways Magazine. Iron Dave has reportedly been soliciting submissions, and then publishing others' books and stories under one of his several names. He has also allegedly u...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware In August, I wrote a post about Indiana-based vanity press New Century Publishing , whose owner, David Caswell, was being investigated by the Indiana Attorney General for taking authors' money and failing to publish their books. I'm a bit late with this follow-up, but a lawsuit against Caswell and New Century was filed by the AG's Office in Marion County Circuit Court on August 17. Caswell is accused of multiple violations of the Deceptive Consumer Sales Act, as well as interchanging corporate and fictitious names in order to mislead and confuse customers, commingling corporate and personal funds, and the use of customer funds for other than their designated purposes. Sixteen writers are named in the complaint, and thousands of dollars in fees for publishing, finished books (most never delivered), and other services (such as a table at a book signing event) are detailed. The AG is requesting both injunctive relief (all of it cons...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware One of the big publishing headlines this week ( here , for instance) was that e-books from some popular authors were selling on Amazon for higher prices than the hardcover versions. For instance, the hardcover of Ken Follet's Fall of Giants was priced at $19.39, while the digital version cost $19.99. James Patterson's and Howard Roughan's Don’t Blink was going for $14.00 in hardcover, and $14.99 in digital. Predictably, Kindle-maniacs flipped out, slamming the books with one-star reviews and angry comments. "The publisher expects more for the Kindle electronic version than the hardback. It is unfortunate the publishing industry continues to live in the past...Take advantage of your customers and feel their wrath," wrote one commenter. "It is ridiculous that the publisher is charging more for the Kindle version than the hardcover," wrote another. "The price for this eBook is outrageous (more than the har...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Yesterday, Barnes & Noble announced the launch of PubIt! , a free self-publishing service for its Nook e-reading device. With PubIt!, B&N joins Amazon and Apple in offering direct-to-device self-publishing (though Apple allows this only if you have a Mac; if you don't, you must use an Apple-approved aggregator like Smashwords ). Like Apple, B&N uses the EPUB open ebook standard (Amazon, by contrast, imposes a proprietary format). There's a free tool to convert your manuscript, and an ISBN is not required (Amazon also doesn't require an ISBN, but Apple does.) You must own your electronic rights, which means you can't simultaneously publish elsewhere unless those agreements are nonexclusive. Unlike other devices, the Nook allows users to lend and share ebooks, and all books from PubIt (I refuse to keep typing in that stupid exclamation point) will be lendable. Books can be priced anywhere from $.99 to $199.99. I...