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.
Victoria’s posts about the wacky and woebegone world (like that alliteration, boys and girls?) of Melanie Mills reminded me of all the crazy excuses we’ve come across during our years of tracking scam agents. Some of these excuses are downright creative, yessiree bob! If only those scheming little minds could be turned to good… ExcuseRead More
Serial liar, scam literary agent, amnesia faker, and alleged mother-squasher Lisa Hackney (who in yet another alias switcheroo, now appears to again be calling herself Melanie Mills) embellishes her imaginary life in this interview in the Madison County Record. A few heart-wrenching quotes:
“I’d never had anything like this happen to me before,” Mills said. “This involved my Mom. I allowed my emotions to control my intelligence. I didn’t have any intelligence at the time. I allowed my emotions to rule my actions. I didn’t want to deal with the pain.”
Oh, man. I'm bawlin' here.
Mills said being on the run and hiding out, not being able to befriend many people, was a complete change from her normal personality.
From audiate, a question in the Comments section of my Breaking Up post: “Victoria, thanks for sharing this info about termination clauses. Can you tell us what other things should be covered by an author-agent contract?” From an author’s perspective (agents may feel differently), here’s what I’d want to see covered. The scope of representation.Read More
Hi, folks. I’m back, a bit tanned and rather rested. I actually did write while on vacation, whoohoo! Love my new notebook computer! While I was traveling around Florida, zipping by towns on the interstates, or even traveling around in some towns, I couldn’t help remembering how many scam or questionable literary agencies have FloridaRead More
Just ran across this–Lulu, a POD publishing service provider (which, depending on your bias, can be called with equal honesty a vanity publisher or a self-publishing service) has initiated Blooker Prize. (The entry deadline was yesterday, so obviously I’m discovering this rather late.) If you’re not familiar with the concept of a blook, the contestRead More
Ann and I often hear from writers who’ve unwisely signed with a scammer or an incompetent, and want to know how to get out of the relationship. In many cases, I don’t think that it’d be a big deal simply to walk away. Since the contract was offered under false pretenses (that the agent wasRead More
