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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Last week, I started hearing from writers who'd entered a contest sponsored by an outfit called Bookbzz , which describes itself thus: Bookbzz.com was designed as a simple but powerful book marketing engine to enable authors and publishers to better market their books. By gathering together basic information and enabling social sharing we are able to provide authors with a free marketing suite, reviews and tell-a-friend engine to promote their books. While listing a book is free, Bookbzz pushes its Premium Membership option, which costs $7.50 per month (for one book) and offers the "opportunity" for writers to pay much more for additional promotional services. The contest, Prize Writer Competition 2015, solicited entries in ten categories (children's books, fantasy novels, etc.) and promised cash prizes to the top three finishers in each category, who were to be chosen by public vote. (Contest description and guidelines ...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware UPDATE: These lawsuits were  dismissed in August and September of 2015 . In April 2013, the law firm of Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart filed a class action lawsuit against Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI). The case survived various motions to dismiss, and this past February completed discovery and filed for class certification . Now the same law firm has filed a second class action against ASI. Dated March 23, 2015, the complaint was filed in District Court in the Southern District of Indiana (ASI's headquarters are in Bloomington, Indiana) on behalf of two new plaintiffs, Patricia Wheeler and Helen Heightsman Gordon. It alleges fraud, unjust enrichment, and violation of various statutes and consumer protection acts, including the Indiana Deceptive Consumer Sales Act and the Indiana Senior Consumer Sales Act (Wheeler is over 60 years of age). ASI's parent company, Penguin Group (which was bounced from the first class action ...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Do you remember Omni Magazine ? Created in the 1970s by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, it published some of the most iconic names in science fiction, along with in-depth articles on science and the paranormal. It ceased publication in 1998. In 2013, Omni's archives were purchased by Jeremy Frommer of media company Jerrick Ventures . In addition to putting all past issues of Omni online , Frommer resurrected Omni as an online-only publication called Omni Reboot. Omni Reboot, which describes itself as "the intersection of science, technology, art, culture, design, and metaphysics," has published features and fiction , and is open for submissions . Its website offers no details about rights or payment. However, a writer who recently received a publication offer sent me a copy of the Jerrick Ventures contract (Jerrick Ventures owns several other webzines in addition to Omni Reboot)--and it includes a major rights grab. Here...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Last week, a writer contacted me to ask about WriterPitch.com ,"a website that blends the worlds of literary agents and writers under one roof." How ? For Writers: You’ll have the ability to have your pitch/pitches read by hundreds of literary agents. With the click of a button an agent can request your manuscript and instantly an email will be sent to you as well as a notice to your homepage.... For Agents: As an agent you’ll have the ability to search through pitches by specific genres. With the click of a button a request of materials will be sent to any pitch you like, this request letter will be completely customized by you as a field in your personal profile. The question the writer wanted to ask me was whether WriterPitch's Terms and Conditions posed a problem, specifically the User Content clause: You grant to WriterPitch.com a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, adapt, pub...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware UPDATE: This lawsuit, along with another brought later, was  dismissed in August 2015 . Reported in Publishers Lunch last week (but apparently nowhere else): the lawsuit against Author Solutions launched in 2013 has completed the discovery stage, and has filed for class certification.   A February 26 filing in New York's Southern District Court by Kelvin James, Jodi Foster, and Mary Simmons (added to the suit after Terry Hardy dropped out in the fall of 2013) asks Judge Denise Cote for certification of the class, covering 170,000 or more authors "who, during the period 2007 through the present, purchased a publishing package or service from Author Solutions." The plaintiffs say their lawsuit is "a case about a publishing company that makes money from authors, not for them." They allege again that ASI "operates more like a telemarketing company, not a publisher, that employs a large, commissioned sales force to...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware On February 9, while doing research on something else, I noticed that Harlequin's Author Solutions, Inc. -run self-publishing imprint, Dellarte Press, had closed its doors. Dellarte's website is now a placeholder , with a "we're sorry" message. Some of you may remember the outcry that greeted Dellarte (originally named Harlequin Horizons) when ASI and Harlequin rolled it out in November 2009. (By contrast, the earlier launch of WestBow Press for Thomas Nelson caused barely a ripple ). Writers flipped out . A slew of pro writers' groups either issued statements condemning the move or de-listing Harlequin . Ultimately, the bad press forced Harlequin to change the service's name and also to distance itself from Dellarte. Of the several self-pub divisions run by ASI for traditional publishers, Dellarte was the only one that didn't prominently tout the connection with its parent publisher. Why such an abrupt, ...