Writer Beware

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Publisher Storm Warnings: Diversion Books

APR 16, 2021November 10, 20255 COMMENTS

Founded in 2010 by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Literary Agency, Diversion Books was one of the earliest of the literary agency-powered publishing ventures that sought to take advantage of the growing digital market, including the opportunity to bring their clients' backlists back into circulation (others include Arthur Klebanoff's RosettaBooks, Andrew Wylie's Odyssey Editions, and Richard Curtis's E-Reads).

Diversion has since expanded into traditional print, audio, and subsidiary rights representation. It has also, over the past few weeks, become the focus of author complaints.

I first heard about problems at Diversion much earlier than that, though, in 2018, from an author who cited late and missing royalty statements, multiple errors on the statements they did receive (including mis-allocated subsidiary rights income), and failure to register copyright as contractually stipulated. (To this day, this individual is still struggling to obtain a full and correct accounting of their book's sales and income, and believes they have not been paid all the royalties they are owed.)

OVERSEAS SCAMS

Scammers Taking Big 5 Publishers’ Names in Vain: A Growing Trend

Header image: Word cloud with SCAM in large red letters (Credit: kentoh / Shutterstock.com)

MAR 26, 2021June 18, 202429 COMMENTS

I've been doing the Writer Beware thing for quite some time, and I Have Seen Some Shit.

But this solicitation from a Philippines-based publishing and marketing scammer calling itself Right Choice Multimedia (among other names) is one of the most disgusting things that has come across my desk in a while...and that's saying something.

Here it is in its entirety. Read it and boggle. You can also scroll down directly to my (far more grammatical) debunking. Be sure to read all the way to the end, because I have some things to say about why Big 5 publishers should care that their trademarks and reputations are being co-opted in this way.

BUSINESS OF WRITING

Contract Red Flag: When a Publisher Claims Copyright on Edits

MAR 19, 2021April 28, 20229 COMMENTS

This is an updated version of a post I published a couple of years ago. It’s not all that common, but I do see it from time to time in small press publishing contracts that I review: a publisher claiming ownership of the editing and copy editing it provides, or making the claim implicitlyRead More

LITERARY AGENT SCAMS

Scam Alert: Chapters Media & Advertising / Paper Bytes Marketing Solutions / Blueprint Press Internationale / Quantum Discovery / Aspire Publishing Hub / 20/Twenty Literary Group

MAR 12, 2021April 7, 202548 COMMENTS

Once upon a time, there was a publishing and marketing scammer called Chapters Media and Advertising, owned by one Mark Joseph Rosario. Chapters pretended to be a US company--it even had dual business registrations in Wyoming and Florida, as well as a purported address in Nevada--but in reality, it operated out of the Philippines (much like its many brethren).

Chapters was an unusually devious little scammer. In addition to offering the usual substandard publishing services and junk marketing ripoffs, it had a sideline in impersonating literary professionals, including agent Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Agency and literary scout Clare Richardson of Maria B. Campbell Associates. I've written about both of these impersonation scams (as well as the issue more generally; Chapters was not the only one doing this).

I don't know if it was my posts that did it, but Rosario apparently felt that Chapters had received too much exposure--because sometime in the past couple of months, he abandoned the old Chapters website (along with the website of an associated scam, TechBooks Media) and rebooted as a pair of new companies: Paper Bytes Marketing Solutions and Blueprint Press Internationale.

PUBLISHER COMPLAINTS

Publisher Cautions: Riverdale Avenue Books, Breaking Rules Publishing, Adelaide Books

Zigzags of yellow Caution tape (credit: heromen30 / Shutterstock.com)

MAR 2, 2021September 24, 202568 COMMENTS

It also, apparently, has trouble providing royalty statements and author copies.

Writer Beware has received a number of complaints from Riverdale anthology and book authors who cite publication delays, poor copy editing, late or missing royalty statements, non-provision of contractually-promised print author copies, and poor communication (for instance, authors finding out about to-be-published stories only when other authors spotted the stories in proof copies).

I've also seen royalty statements for several RAB anthologies, which appear to sell in miniscule numbers (for example, several years into its five-year contract term, one anthology had sold just 35 copies in total, according to correspondence from RAB). RAB has a policy of not paying out anthology royalties at all until at least $50 is due; this benchmark is stipulated in most of the RAB anthology contracts I've seen--but not in all, and even where it's not, the $50 benchmark has been cited as a reason for not providing royalty checks.

LITERARY AGENT SCAMS

Pique Literary: Unmasking a Fake Literary Agency

FEB 5, 2021June 26, 20225 COMMENTS

This is an expanded version of a Twitter thread I published last weekend--but not everyone is on Twitter and there have been new developments, so I'm amplifying it here.

You'll find this post useful not just as an amusing account of unmasking a fraud, but as a series of tips on what should ring warning bells when you're evaluating an agency's website.

On Sunday morning, an alert writer DM'd me about a new agency promoting itself on Twitter: Pique Literary.