Writer Beware

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Best of Writer Beware: 2025 in Review

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JAN 16, 2026January 16, 20264 COMMENTS

It's been a busy year in writing scams (but then what year isn't?). From the new AI marketing scams, to nasty contract clauses, to publishers behaving badly, to the biggest copyright infringement restitution in history, Writer Beware has been on the beat. If you missed any of our posts, here's your chance to catch up.

On a personal note, it's always instructive for me to do these overviews, not just because they help me take stock of how well Writer Beware is fulfilling its mission, but also because looking at the trends and changes of the year just past can give me a sense of what I'll likely be focusing on in the year ahead. I was a little surprised, for example, to see how much space I devoted to generative AI.

Also somewhat surprising: scams are what most people think of when they think of Writer Beware, but my posts about scams actually comprised less than half of what I published in 2025. Just a reminder that "beware" applies to much more than literary fraud.

CONTRACTS

Reversion Redux

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JAN 9, 2026January 9, 20263 COMMENTS

In the aftermath of the recent Anthropic Settlement (more information here), many writers are making a reassessment of the necessity and value of copyright registration. Claiming a share of pay-out from the settlement is 100% dependent on having a work registered with the U. S. Copyright Office in a timely fashion. It’s relatively easy to register a work with the Copyright Office and doing so can guarantee the right to receive statutory damages in infringement lawsuits and settlements.

These writers may be overlooking another significant factor in making a class action claim – whether the work’s rights have been reverted to the author.

Under the definitions on the Anthropic Settlement website, there are two types of rightsholders who may make a claim – those who have received publishing rights by contract (generally, the publishers) and those who have licensed those rights (generally, the authors). While this breakdown is very common for traditionally published books, there are many exceptions. Self-publishers, for example, own their rights 100% because they’re both the publisher and author. (For these works, Amazon is a distributor and owns no publishing rights.) Another important exception is for works that originally had a publisher but have gone out of print and have had their rights returned to the authors (rights reversion).

CONTRACTS

Why These Contract Clauses Are Scary

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DEC 19, 2025December 19, 202518 COMMENTS

The clauses I'm going to discuss in this post come from the contract of Shadow Light Press, a publisher of fantasy and science fiction with deep ties to the LitRPG community. The contract stirred controversy this week when it was publicly posted on Reddit--largely from people aghast at its author-unfriendliness, but also because of alleged issues around the publisher's relationship with a major progression fantasy and LitRPG Discord server.

I'm not going to go into those issues here (you can find out more, if you like, from the comments on the Reddit post). My focus will be on the contract itself (which I can confirm is authentic: I've seen several other copies). My intent--as always with my posts about publishing contracts--isn't just to call out a publisher for problematic language, but to explain why it's problematic, with the goal of empowering my readers to better evaluate the contracts they may be offered. New writers, who may be less knowledgeable or dazzled by the prospect of publication, are especially vulnerable to predatory contracts like this one.

Oh, and I'm not a lawyer. So what follows isn't legal commentary or advice.

Kindle’s New Gen AI-Powered “Ask This Book” Feature Raises Rights Concerns

DEC 12, 2025December 30, 202563 COMMENTS

In a recent press release, Amazon noted that some new features were coming to Kindle.

We’re adding new AI-powered reading features that preserve the magic of reading on Kindle. Story So Far lets you catch up on the book you’re reading—but only up to where you’ve read without any spoilers. For our endlessly curious readers, Ask this Book will let you highlight any passage of text while reading a book and get spoiler-free answers to questions about things like a character’s motive or the significance of a scene.

The lead article in today's Publishers Lunch (PL) is all about Ask This Book, which went live in the Kindle iOS app earlier this week (it'll be rolled out on all devices and Android OS in 2026). Amazon's breezy announcement of the feature's debut describes it as "your expert reading assistant, instantly answering questions about plot details, character relationships, and thematic elements without disrupting your reading flow." You can highlight a phrase or sentence, type a question into a search box, and AI will generate an answer "right on the page." There's a little video to demonstrate the process.

PUBLISHER COMPLAINTS

Royalties in Arrears: Mango Publishing / Blushing Books / Bottlecap Press

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NOV 21, 2025November 21, 202521 COMMENTS

Publishers do a lot of bad things (as the archives of this blog attest), but among the most infuriating--and, often, the hardest to remedy--is the failure to pay authors the money they are due. Non-payment of royalties and/or failure to provide sales reporting are among the most common publisher complaints Writer Beware receives.

Below, you'll find a collection of recent offenders.

In January 2025, Publishers Lunch reported on layoffs at Florida-based Mango Publishing, along with the departure of publisher Brenda Knight to form her own company.

BOOK MARKETING SCAMS

If a Famous Author Calls, Hang Up: Anatomy of an Impersonation Scam

Header image: a business-suited wolf, hiding behind a smiling mask, facing an unsuspecting woman who is about to be scammed (Credit: dariodraws / Shutterstock.com)

NOV 14, 2025November 25, 202564 COMMENTS

You open your email program one morning. The usual work stuff. Some spam (annoying that it got past your filters!). A couple of newsletters (maybe later). You sip your coffee, scroll down.

Wait. What's this? An email from...Suzanne Collins? The Suzanne Collins?

This can't be real, you think. Why would Suzanne Collins be contacting you out of the blue? And why is she introducing herself as if she were an unknown writer querying for her unpublished manuscript?