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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Two individuals who exploited writers got their comeuppances recently. Robin Price of Avalon Associates, Media Arts International, and Prospero Films Robin Price, a fake literary agent and film producer accused of bilking writers out of more than £500,000 over a number of years, admitted in a UK court on Wednesday to six counts of theft. He was sentenced to six years in prison. Price, who changed the name of his company several times to dodge complaints on the Internet, started out by setting himself up as a literary agent and charging relatively modest reading fees. Later, he presented himself as a film producer, convincing clients to hand over enormous sums of money to invest in non-existent film and publishing deals. He claimed extensive experience and contacts within the entertainment industry--this was a complete fabrication, but apparently Price was persuasive. One client paid him nearly £300,000, while others paid fees ranging from se...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I often hear from writers who are convinced that they're being cheated by their self-publishing services because they've been vigorously promoting their books, and yet their royalty checks are tiny. Often, these angry authors offer evidence: changing Amazon rankings, listings of their books with multiple online sellers, used copies for sale, friends' reports of purchases. There's always the possibility that some kind of skullduggery or error is involved--especially if you've used one of the many small self-publishing services set up by not-necessarily-qualified individuals. The larger self-publishing services have pretty efficient setups for record-keeping and payment--but even so, mistakes can occur, and customer service may be inadequate, making problems hard to resolve. However, in many cases, the trouble is not malfeasance or bad record-keeping, but authors' unrealistic expectations and assumptions. They may not b...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Midwest Literary Magazine (MLM) bills itself as "the quiet press." Its online magazine publishes poetry, articles, and short fiction. Its mission : to "find and publish excellent authors of poetry, fiction and non-fiction." So far so good. However, Our vision does not include any self-promotion. We strive toward one simple integrity, “keep the focus on the writers and their work.” We do not list the real names of our staff members. This has been our tradition for years. So writers who are interested in submitting to MLM must do so with no knowledge of who is actually running the publication. This is problematic in two respects: first, authors must take it on faith that the people involved are qualified to acquire, edit, and publish--not, in these days of easy electronic media, a safe assumption; and second, with anonymous staff there's no accountability. Of course, there may be no accountability with known staff eit...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Breaking news: Judge Denny Chin has denied the Google Book Settlement. From Judge Chin's opinion: The question presented is whether the ASA [Amended Settlement Agreement] is fair, adequate, and reasonable. I conclude that it is not. While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far. It would permit this class action -- which was brought against defendant Google Inc. to challenge its scanning of books and display of "snippets" for on-line searching -- to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire books, without permission of the copyright owners. Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case. Accordingly,...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware How not to promote your book: make up a faux publicity company (at whose supposedly professional website you are the only listed client), whip up a badly-written press release (don't bother with grammarcheck), and spam everyone you can think of (including, unfortunately, Writer Beware). That, apparently, is the strategy behind the email that landed in my Inbox the other day. It's just so awful I had to share it (it's exactly as written, though I've redacted the author's name, the title of the book, and the name of the faux publicity company.) Writers: don't do this. Great Publication vs Successfully Commercial Stories - What's the difference? Some questions have such clear answers that you know your answer the moment you hear or read it. These are of the "Who was the better James Bond: Connery or Dalton?" sort. You might even blink a few times to make sure you read the question correctly. Any book public...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I'm running another book giveaway this month, this time for my recently re-published fantasy novel, The Garden of the Stone (the sequel to The Arm of the Stone , both books now available in trade paperback and ebook format). Here's the blurb: At the heart of the Fortress lay the Garden. At the heart of the Garden lay the Stone. It was a living entity of power beyond understanding--not even by the men who had used its energies to control the unGifted masses, ever since the wrenching cataclysm that shattered the union of Hand and Mind and split the world centuries ago. Then came Bron, his arrival long foretold as the one destined to restore the balance between Hand and Mind. But Bron had other plans. He stole the Stone...and vanished. Now Bron's daughter Cariad, a skilled empath and assassin, must follow the footsteps of a father she's never known, into the depths of the same Fortress. Waiting there is Jolyon, her father's...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware The tragedy in Japan makes things like coming up with new blog posts seem pretty trivial. Nevertheless, here are a few items of publishing news that have intrigued me over the past week or so. Whoops, they did it again Another traditional publisher has contracted with Author Solutions Inc. to run a self-publishing division. Berrett-Kohler , an independent nonfiction publisher, announced the launch of Open Book Editions , which it describes as a service for "aspiring authors who can't be sustainably published through our traditional publication program." Unlike other ASI/publisher collaborations, Open Book Editions doesn't seem to have a dedicated website, but rather a page on the iUniverse website. Its packages are pricey , compared to some of the other collaborations--there are no options under $1,600. Copy editing is mandatory, and requires an additional fee . And as usual, there's the snake oil : "Open Book Edi...

Posted by Ann C. Crispin for Writer Beware Ask anyone – in these days of a less-than-thriving economy, and reduced budgets for book promotion, publishers increasingly count on authors to do much of the promotion for their own books. For the past three years, I’ve been working on an enormous, “epic” project – a prequel to the popular Disney film series, Pirates of the Caribbean. My novel, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom , will be released May 17 of this year, and tells the story of how Jack Sparrow first became a pirate captain. For most of the time I was writing it, I was uncomfortably conscious of the fact that when I finished the actual writing of the book, my work would by no means be finished. I knew that, for the first time in my life, I’d really have to work at promoting a book. It used to be that authors could concentrate on writing, and that their publishers would do most of the promotion for their books. Authors like SFWA Grand Master Andre Norton, who rarely...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I've been getting some questions about a new competition: TheNextBigAuthor.com . In May 2011, the publishers of many of the world's most famous authors - including Dan Brown, Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer - join to support The Next Big Author: a new initiative which encourages budding authors to write the opening to a novel in May. All you have to do, according to the Competition Rules , is write your opening chapters (any genre, between 5,000 and 7,000 words), upload them between May 17 and May 21 to writers' critique community/POD publishing service YouWriteOn.com (this requires joining YouWriteOn, which is free), and exchange reviews with other contestants and YouWriteOn members (for every review you do, you receive a review of your own chapters). On July 1, the five highest-ranked contestants will be announced. Each of these winners will receive a critique from someone at Random House, Bloom...