As of mid-August, the service that handles Writer Beware email subscriptions and RSS feeds, Feedburner, is terminating its email service.
Blogger, the platform I’ve been using for the blog, is very limited in functionality, and there doesn’t seem to be any alternative to Feedburner that will work with Blogger and won’t cost me an arm and a leg.
I’m working on a solution–as well as an overhaul and facelift for the Writer Beware blog. But this will take several weeks, and that unfortunately means you’ll stop receiving Writer Beware emails sometime this month. Rest assured, however: a fix is underway and it’s only a temporary interruption.
There won’t be any interruption to the blog itself: I will continue posting all the latest news about the schemes, scams, and pitfalls that infest the writing and publishing worlds.
Feedburner has disabled new subscription signups, so if you’re not on the email list and would like to be added, please contact me. If you’re already a subscriber, you don’t need to do anything: you’ll be automatically opted in to our new subscription service (whatever that turns out to be).
In the meantime, our RSS feed still works, and you can always visit us on the web.
Any questions, please let me know, and thank you so much for your support!
Unknown 9/21,
I'm afraid it is a scam. It's a new name for the scammers described in this blog post: https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2021/03/paper-bytes-marketing-solutions-and-its.html.
Do you know of Alison Sommers with her agency Quantum Discovery? Cold called me saying she had learned I published a book in the culinary genre. I did not. Scam?
Dorothy J. Moore,
Dreamer's Point is a new name for me, but looking at its website, it's clearly one of the Philippines-based scams I've been warning about. It's got all the markers: solicitation, English-language errors and uncorrected typos on the website, no verifiable information about the company or its staff, re-publishing offers, and insanely expensive junk marketing services (Facebook "branding", YouTube videos, and LinkedIn ad spam). My advice would be to avoid them like the plague.
My name is Dorothy J. Moore. I'm trying to find out about a Publishing Company Called
Dreamer's Point, that is based in the Philippines. They say the company is in Willmeanton
Delaware, nut the printing is done in the Philippines. I have found them on Facebook. Can you help me find any information, please?
Thank you
Dorothy
Thanks for the suggestion, David and Kaye. I've been solicited several times by Follow.it, and it looks like a reasonable option (though the spamming is annoying). But the email subscriber thing is just the start of my frustration with Blogger, and I do have a plan, as well as help from some generous people. So all is in hand! Thanks again.
I'm using follow.it also. It's not ideal, and not prompt, but it works. And it's free for me. It might cost if you have a lot more followers than I do. I, too, could get rid of the spam followers, which was a plus.
I have blogger too and moved successfully to https://follow.it/intro … it's free and pretty simple to sort – you basically export a list of your subscribers from the current host and then import it into follow.it …
At the same time I sorted it and removed piles of obvious spam accounts (they are obvious when you see the patterns) …
Might be a solution for you too …
David
Vivian Zabel,
You can email me: beware@sfwa.org
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
Thank you for letting us know. How do I let know about a possible problem I have discovered?
You have saved so many writers from being ripped off by seemingly 'legal' contests, contracts and 'agents'. Brilliant work and kudos. Many thanks
Good luck. 😀 … see you on the other side, I hope. 😀
It's good to know that you will still be there, to give us a heads-up on things. Thank you for all that you do.
LT