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.
You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen! Kelly O’Donnell/Martha Ivery/6 other aliases has just pleaded guilty in Federal Court to ALL 15 COUNTS OF FRAUD (INCLUDING BANKRUPTCY FRAUD) SHE WAS CHARGED WITH! Sentencing was set for April 28th, 2006. Victoria and I are planning to be there in court that day. Folks, this meansRead More
Speaking of ads, I remember that Kelly O’Donnell/Martha Ivery used to have a regular ad running in Publisher’s Weekly. Every week, there she was, with her little ad. She had one in Writer’s Digest, too. And now she’s facing prison for scamming authors. Basically, here’s a quick “check” for any of you writers who areRead More
Remember the agent I talked about in a previous post–the one who charges a $3,200 service fee for a year of representation, and in the nearly 10 years her agency has existed has never sold any books to commercial publishers? Well, I just discovered that she has bought a membership in Publishers Marketplace, and hasRead More
Well, my two cents worth about the new Harry Potter film is that, while I understood why they did what they in concentrating on the MAIN HP plot (Harry vs. He Who Shall Not Be Named), I really missed the subplots and other characters that we’ve grown used to seeing. I missed Hermione and RonRead More
A couple of weeks ago I got a question about the reputation of a publisher I’d never heard of before. I checked out its website, which was pretty amateurish-looking, and provided no information at all about who was running the company and where the company was located. This is information you always want to seeRead More
Hope everyone had a good holiday! Ours was fine, just quiet with family, which was nice. Sometimes we have a lot of visitors with us, but not this year. And what was REALLY nice was that the MEN pitched in and helped my sis and me clean up. Now you know who still did theRead More
