The official blog of Writer Beware® shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news, and commentary. Writer Beware® is sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.
If, like me, you’ve been frantically devoting hours to reading up on Google Book Settlement in an attempt to make up your mind about what to do in the final days before the May 5 deadline…take a breath. PW reports that “In a surprise move, New York Judge Denny Chin today granted a four-month extensionRead More
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a small obsession with author reality shows. It's the kind of concept that would seem like a complete non-starter--watching authors sit at their desks for hours at a time? Or, alternatively, avoiding sitting at their desks for any time at all? Not exactly riveting viewing. Yet over the past few years, no fewer than five author reality shows have attempted to get off the ground. Let's recap.
- Book Millionaire. The brainchild of Lori Prokop, owner of her very own vanity press, this show was to feature "Eight people with dreams of seeing their book ideas become published and being the next author launched to best selling and celebrity status." It never got beyond the video audition stage.
- The Ultimate Author. Created by journalist and self-published author Lauren Spicer, this show promised contestants "go[ing] toe-to-toe in a writing competition that tests their ability to develop attention-grabbing content." At least one show appears to have been taped, but there's no sign it was ever broadcast.
Once upon a time, there was a pair of literary scammers named George Harrison and Janet Kay Titsworth. The Titsworths lived in San Angelo, Texas, and ran a “literary agency” called Helping Hand Literary Service (later re-named Janet Kay & Associates) that charged its victims an “expense reimbursement” of $100, $200, or $300, depending onRead More
Why was the domain for sale? According to Wikipedia, "Publish Today and Noble House Books, the branches of Poetry.com that managed the publishing and printing of their books, have gone out of business." Wikipedia is never the most reliable resource, but Lulu appears to confirm this report on the new Lulu Poetry website: "Lulu.com, an award winning Internet company, recently purchased the URL 'www.poetry.com' from the previous failed business that owned it."
Here's PW's coverage of the purchase. And here's Lulu's rather arch press release.
I covered the vanity anthology scheme recently in a post on brand-new vanity anthologizer Eber & Wein, but briefly, here's how it works. The anthology company places ads in various high-visibility publications announcing a free poetry contest, with cash prizes for the finalists and guaranteed publication for finalists and semi-finalists. Everyone who submits is declared a semi-finalist, no matter the quality of their poem. The company then hits them up for money: $40 or $50 to buy the anthology, plus, often, substantial fees for "extras"--adding a biography to the anthology, having the poem mounted on a plaque, attending a big bash poetry convention...the list goes on. It's not exactly a scam, since if you buy something you do receive it--but the anthologies never see the inside of a bookstore (despite the companies' claims), and because there's no editorial gatekeeping, they are not regarded as a legitimate publishing credit.
On the Writer Beware blog, we talk a lot about the danger to book writers of reading fees, submission fees, and vanity or “partnership” publishing arrangements. But being forced to pay for the promise (not necessarily the actuality) of exposure isn’t just a danger for aspiring writers–it’s a problem in all areas of the arts.Read More
Last May–largely as a result of tireless campaigning by writers’ activist Bonnie Kaye–the Indiana Attorney General’s Office filed suit against fraudulent vanity publisher Airleaf and its CEO, Carl Lau. The suit seeks restitution for 120 identified authors (the true number of the defrauded is closer to 450), civil penalties of up to $5,500 per violation,Read More
