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.
Last week, the Authors Guild sent out this warning:
...in order to share an equally fake memorandum about PRH's supposed new submission guidelines...
...in aid of lending false credibility to the editing and other overpriced and substandard services Silver Ink pushes on its victims.
As of mid-August, the service that handles Writer Beware email subscriptions and RSS feeds, Feedburner, is terminating its email service. Blogger, the platform I’ve been using for the blog, is very limited in functionality, and there doesn’t seem to be any alternative to Feedburner that will work with Blogger and won’t cost me an armRead More
That’s right, boys and girls–it’s another of my posts about hinky contest rules. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know I publish a lot of these. That’s not because I like repeating myself…it’s because bad contest legalese is depressingly common, especially in contests conducted by high-profile organizations or individuals, such as HBO’s “LovecraftRead More
Over the past year, I've gotten a flood of questions and complaints from writers who've been approached by serialized fiction platforms or apps based in Hong Kong or Singapore.
There's a growing number of these platforms, and they are aggressively soliciting for content, including on established platforms like Wattpad. While most of the solicitations target writers directly, agents are receiving approaches as well.
Some platforms appear professional, with contracts that are fairly reasonable and straightforward. Others...not so much. Last October, I wrote about the terrible contracts offered by A&D Entertainment and EMP Entertainment, two companies that are deputized to recruit for Webnovel.
I've written a number of posts about scammers impersonating literary agents and publishers. Writers should be aware that they're also impersonating major motion picture studios.
Here's one example, from a scam that does business under multiple names: Page Turner Press and Media, Orions Media Agency, Fox Media Studios Agency, and Silver Fox Media. Despite their apparent US addresses and phone numbers, all are based in the Philippines, where they operate under the umbrella of a company called Innocentrix (you can read more about the huge proliferation of overseas scammers here). (UPDATE: Another name has been added to this scam complex: Experttell, aka Experttell Media.) (ANOTHER UPDATE: Two more new names for this scam complex: InkStone Literary Agency and The Metro Films.) (YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Another new name: Creative Films.)
This is the initial pitch--which arrives, as always with this type of scam, out of the blue:
Among the interesting phenomena of the universe of failed and dodgy people in and around writing and publishing (at least, interesting to me) is how often they just can’t quit it. Agents outed for scammery start new agencies under new names. Ditto for disgraced publishers. This is one of several reasons why it’s so importantRead More
