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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. If you're a writer and have even a smidgeon of online presence, you've probably been emailed or messaged or tweeted by Inkitt , a Berlin-based company that allows writers to post stories and get reader reviews and votes. A prolific spammer, Inkitt also conducts a lot of contests with titles like Vendetta Thriller/Adventure Contest , along with fanfic contests like Star Wars Sci-Fi Writing Contest   (does George Lucas know?). Winning gets you badges on your profile page, and, occasionally, publication. Tales of Inkitt spam can be seen here or here or here (I've gotten my share, as well). Vote-shilling by contest participants won a temporary ban on Inkitt posts on Reddit a few months ago. Most recently, Inkitt launched its Grand Novel Contest (for which, no surprise, it is energetically spamming on Twitter ): Win a publishing offer from Inkitt! No submission fees! Submit your finished novel, 40,...

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A roundup of publishers about which I've recently received serious complaints (all of them documented). Pegasus Books Pegasus Books of California (not to be confused with indie publisher Pegasus Books of New York or UK-based vanity publisher Pegasus Elliott Mackenzie or any of the several bookstores by that name) is the subject of serious complaints by authors. Complaints include referrals to a paid editing service ( Rumpelstiltskin Editorial Services ) that's presented as an outside contractor, but is actually owned by Pegasus's publisher, Marcus McGee; poor quality editing/copy editing (one writer reports that editing consisted mostly of "the addition of hundreds of italics, em dashes and commas and correcting a few instances of passive voice"); various fees including fees for cover art (even though Pegasus's website presents the company as "a medium-sized traditional publisher" that does not char...