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Posted by Michael Capobianco for Writer Beware The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently held a public meeting on “Facilitating the Development of the Online Licensing Environment for Copyrighted Works.” The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the National Writers Union, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors submitted a paper for consideration listing what, in our estimation, are the points that any online licensing system must recognize if it is to be effective. “Discoverability” is a key component of any such system, which requires not only that works must have unambiguous identifiers, but that the identifiers point unambiguously to the authors of the works rather than to publishers. Any such system must also recognize that the author is the best, and in many cases only, source of information about the ownership of rights. More and more books are self-published; publishing companies aren’t involved at all, and any system that relies on them w...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware In 2012, I posted a warning about Raider Publishing International . Founded by former (and disgruntled) PublishAmerica author Adam Salviani, and presenting itself as an independent publisher, Raider is basically a self-publishing service in the Author Solutions mold, with some added (and highly dubious) bells and whistles . Raider began to become a problem in 2012, with mounting author complaints. Here's what I wrote at the time: Over the past few months, I've begun receiving a steady trickle of complaints about Raider, where before I only received questions. I'm not the only one; as a result of the negative feedback he's gotten from Raider authors, Mick Rooney of The Independent Publishing Magazine has revised his once-positive review of Raider to "not recommended." Other complaints can be found online-- at Ripoff Report , for instance, and Scam Informer (I always take websites like this with a grain of...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware The actual impact of four- and five-star reviews on Amazon and other retailers' websites is a matter of ongoing debate, but their perceived importance is not. Which explains why, if those reviews aren't accumulating on their own, there's a quick fix--as long as you're willing to hold your nose and open your wallet. Throw a virtual rock these days, and you'll probably hit a service that, for as little as five dollars , will create a glowing review of your product and post it online--even if the reviewer has never used or even looked at your product. Authors are as vulnerable to the lure of the quick publicity fix as anyone else (perhaps even more so, given the crowded book marketplace and the struggle for discoverability). One of the most infamous examples of book boosting by dubious means is self-publishing superstar John Locke, who, as one of his publicity strategies, bought hundreds of book reviews from a service call...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware On March 31, 2014, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the New York field office of the FBI announced charges against Peter Thomas Senese , founder and director of the I CARE Foundation, which billed itself as a group combating the crime of parental child abduction. From the press release: Since at least 2013, SENESE allegedly defrauded parents whose children were victims of international abduction by falsely representing that he, working with the worldwide resources of I CARE, could rescue their children and return to them to the United States in exchange for money for his purported rescue operation expenses. Senese allegedly conned over $50,000 from one parent of a lost child , and is charged with one count of wire fraud (the criminal complaint can be seen here ). He was arrested and arraigned March 31. He's currently free on bail. Okay--but what, you may be wondering, is Peter Senese doing on Writer Beware? Well...

Posted by Michael Capobianco for Writer Beware If you follow publishing news, you're probably aware of the recent controversy over Clean Reader, a reading app that scrubs ebooks clean of curse words and profanity. Now, in a step toward the future of interactive digital media, bold start-up Inkadinkadu has partnered with a number of major ebook distributors to produce and distribute a new reading app, called Naughty-No-No!. Starting where censorship app Clean Reader leaves off, Naughty-No-No! allows readers to make any ebook capable of being read and enjoyed by pre-schoolers down to the age of three. “If they can read, they can read with Naughty-No-No!,” said Inkadinkadu head honcho Jimmy Duranceville, “and, if they can’t read yet, the app will read the book to them in a voice modeled after the legendary stage and screen actress Shirley Temple Black during her famous child actor years." Not only does it substitute baby-language for those words that parents have rightfully ba...