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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Last November, I wrote a post about deadbeat vanity publisher 2 Moon Press , which closed its doors in May 2013 amid competing claims of wrongdoing by its former and current owners. In the process, it left large numbers of authors in the lurch--many of whom had paid thousands of dollars and never seen a single book. Despite all this, prosecutors initially declined to bring charges against former owner Don Semora (even though, according to news coverage of the situation, he has a prior history of fraudulent activity, and has served time in prison) or current owner Melinda Lundy. That changed when a local news channel produced an investigative segment on 2 Moon Press's demise (well worth watching, if only for the confrontation between Melinda Lundy's son and the reporter, in which a camera gets smashed). As a result of the segment, the case has been re-opened. In addition, a number of 2 Moon Press authors are trying to recover their ...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I often hear from authors wondering what questions they should be asking when they receive The Call--the agent representation call, that is. How can you be sure if this particular agent is really right for you--if his plan for your manuscript matches your goals, if her style is a good fit for your needs? Well, of course, the answer is...you can't, not completely. No matter how many questions you ask or how much research you've done, there's no way to know everything, or to predict the future. The best manuscripts sometimes fail to sell. The most promising relationships sometimes wind up on the skids. When you sign with an agent--even if he or she is your dream agent--you're launching yourself into the unknown. You can, however, do your best to be  prepared and informed. Following are some resources to help. - First, an important caution from agent Steve Laube: Really, You Don't Have to Ask . Steve identifies a number of ...

  Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A while back, I wrote a funny post about a "literary agent" who popped up under one name, then another, then a third . To give you the gist...In 2009, I began hearing from writers who'd submitted to a Boston-based literary agent called Sara Levine, only to be contacted by Levine's supposed assistant, who told them that Levine had died suddenly of a heart attack and referred them to Levine’s colleague, Julia Levin of the Florida-based Julia Levin Literary Agency. However, things about Julia Levin didn't quite add up. None of her clients were published. Her sales claims didn't check out either, and the physical address she gave for her agency turned out to be bogus, as did the agency where she claimed to have trained. The weirdness of Sara dropping dead and Julia emerging out of thin air began to look even weirder--could Sara and Julia, with only an “e” of difference between their last names, possibly be the same p...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I've written many hundreds of words on this blog about the problems with Author Solutions, Inc. , the biggest of the self-publishing service providers and the one with (as far as I'm aware) the worst reputation. Misleading PR strategies , overpriced marketing services , customer service nightmares , payment issues , relentless upselling --the list goes on. Author Solutions is currently the focus of a class action lawsuit for alleged deceptive business practices. And yet, despite the huge and growing litany of complaints and problems , many reputable publications accept advertising from Author Solutions--advertising that doubly exploits AS authors, not only because they have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to be included, but because magazine and newspaper ads are arguably among the least effective book promotion methods. For instance, The Bookseller , the UK's equivalent to the USA's Publishers Weekly . As author and s...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Before I start, let me emphasize that what follows is my own personal opinion. I'm not speaking here for anyone but myself. Many of you may be aware of the controversy that erupted last year over the content and format of SFWA's quarterly publication, the Bulletin . This resulted in the Bulletin's temporary suspension while a task force appointed by SFWA's then-President, John Scalzi, investigated the Bulletin's role within the organization, with the goal of recommending changes going forward. Over the past week or so, controversy has engulfed the Bulletin once more, with a petition circulated by former SFWAn Dave Truesdale protesting "politically correct censorship" of the currently non-existent Bulletin. (It's also worth reading the original, much more wordy, version of the petition, which can be found here .) Among the 30 or so signers of the petition are a number of eminent speculative fiction aut...

Posted by Michael Capobianco for Writer Beware I’m 0000 0000 6755 1414. I’ve been assigned this number by ISNI , the International Standard Name Identifier. I could insert a quote from the old televison show The Prisoner here, but in this case I’m ambivalent about being a number (although I also would prefer to stay a free man.) One of my causes is the creation of a system that would make it easy for authors to be identified and found, partially so that the publication of new editions or derivative licenses could be negotiated, but increasingly to protect these works from being declared as “orphans” and being appropriated if their authors or other rightsholders can’t be located. To me, it seems like the problem of works which are still under copyright, but whose authors cannot be found, is to make it easier to find them. There were already a number of library-related systems for identifying authors and disambiguating authorship in existence. They are generally referred to as authorit...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Readers of this blog may remember Mike Albee of the infamous Albee Agency PR service, who filled his website with fake testimonials from well-known writers and allegedly plagiarized another publicist's website to create his own . Outed by me and others, Albee showed up a few months later as Sandpiper Publicity , peddling the same spam-style PR "services" (heavy on the email blasts and press releases and social media postings). Here's Sandpiper, Twitspamming: Unlike the Albee Agency website, which vanished soon after Albee was exposed, Sandpiper is still active. However, for whatever reason, Albee has reincarnated yet again, this time as Magnus Publicity , which bills itself as "a worldwide leader in public relations." How do I know that Magnus is Albee in yet another disguise? Have a look at this screenshot (click to enlarge). The proposal comes from Magnus Publicity, but see the URL? It belongs to Sandpiper P...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware PLEASE NOTE: As a result of this post, I'm getting many emails from authors who believe they are contacting PublishAmerica/America Star Books. Writer Beware is not connected in any way with PublishAmerica or America Star Books (in fact, they sued us, unsuccessfully , for defamation in 2014). PublishAmerica has a new name: America Star Books . The PublishAmerica URL ( www.publishamerica.com ) now defaults to the America Star Books website. The changeover is acknowledged on America Star's website, on the About Us page : America Star Books used to be known as PublishAmerica, the no-nonsense, hard driving pioneer that changed the American publishing landscape for good when in 1999 it forced an opening for tens of thousands of American authors to join what was until then an elite status of being published for free. The name change is recent: sometime after January 4, 2014, which is the last date the old PublishAmerica website was...