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none CONTRACTS

Bad Contract Alert: GoodNovel

108 COMMENTS

This time, GoodNovel (aka Singapore New Reading Technology PTE. Ltd.) is in my sights. Like the many similar platforms of this type, it hosts a wide range of genre content, and is aggressively recruiting writers to create long (sometimes extremely long) serialized online novels. 

(UPDATE: Other serialized fiction apps in the New Reading Technology portfolio include Meganovel, Bluenovela, Filinovel, GoodShort [videos], and GoodFM [audiobooks]).

Writers can use the platform to create without signing a GoodNovel contract, or they can apply for a contract by posting at least 5,000 words and clicking a button, after which GoodNovel will evaluate whether they want to offer a contract, and if so, what kind. 

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none CONTESTS AND AWARDS

Keeping Moral Rights: A Wattpad Contest Controversy

7 COMMENTS

Last week on Twitter, I was contacted by a writer with concerns about the official rules for Wattpad's Open Novella Contest 2022. Specifically, this clause:

This is incredibly writer-unfriendly. Prize winners must grant rights exclusively, perpetually, and without the option to terminate, and the contest sponsor can use those rights as it chooses, without notifying--or paying--the writer.

Additionally, and most egregiously, winners must waive their moral rights, which include the right of attribution--the right to have your work published with your name--and the right of integrity--the right to have your work published exactly as you wrote it. In other words, winners' works could be published or adapted in abridged or altered form, without their name or under someone else's name, and they'd have no right to object--if they knew about it at all.

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none OVERSEAS SCAMS

How to Spot a Ghostwriting Scam

Header image: Person dressed as a ghost in a sheet and tie in front of a computer (credit: Jose Bolio / Shutterstock.com)
129 COMMENTS

In 2018, I wrote a post that, in part, warned about a solicitation from an obviously dodgy "ghostwriting" service (one big clue: the mangled English everywhere on its website).

With a bit of digging, I discovered not only that this service was a single scammer doing business on four different websites under four different names, but that domain registration, content, and other similarities linked the ghostwriting sites with nearly 30 other scammy websites offering other kinds of services, from logo creation to accounting.

Back then, ghostwriting scams (ghostscams for short) weren't super-common. How times have changed. There are a TON of ghostscams now.

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none PUBLISHERS AND PUBLISHING

Pink Sand Press: What Can Happen When Your Agent Decides to Become Your Publisher

Pink Sand Press logo
4 COMMENTS

Last week, several people drew my attention to this article in the Des Moines Register. "Iowa Romance Writer Sues Over Efforts to Have Ghostwriter Take Over Series."

If your "conflict of interest" radar is screaming right now, it should be.

Clark's complaint (which you can see here) accuses Grishman et al. of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraudulent concealment, and alleges a variety of malfeasance, including concealing the family connection, and invoking an allegedly non-existent contract clause to justify buying out the final two books in an uncompleted series and hiring a ghostwriter to write them. Clark is seeking to terminate both her RedRock Literary and Pink Sand Press contracts, and to receive an award of "lost profits, damages, costs, and attorney's fees based on Pink Sand's breach".

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none COPYRIGHT

Online Copyright Registration Services: Writer Beware

2 COMMENTS

In 2014, I wrote a post about Copyright Registration Online, one of many faux and exploitative copyright registration "services" that cater to writers' anxiety about theft and plagiarism, particularly of unpublished work, by promising to register US copyright or to provide some sort of copyright verification service.

Naturally, there are fees for these services. At the time I wrote the post, Copyright Registration Online was charging $135--which was a ripoff, on two fronts. You can register copyright yourself online at the US Copyright Office for only $45. Just as important: there's absolutely no need to register copyright for unpublished work.

Some registration services are basically pass-throughs: they do submit registration applications to the US Copyright Office, just at a seriously inflated cost. Others provide their own "registration" documentation or certificates, often based on some sort of timestamp. These might--and I emphasize might--help you prove copyright ownership, along with other materials like drafts and research notes, but there is no legal substitute for registration with the US Copyright Office (in the United States, you must previously have registered your copyright in order to file an infringement action). Just like so-called poor man's copyright, any "registration" received from a source other than the Copyright Office won't qualify.

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