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.
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
I first heard of City Limits Publishing (CLP) in September 2020, via a question about author-unfriendly guidelines in a contest it was running (simply by entering, writers granted "a worldwide royalty-free perpetual license to publish"). At the time, CLP had published just eight books, all by the same two authors (you can take a peek at that version of its website courtesy of the Internet Archive), and was calling for submissions.
To me, CLP looked like a self-publishing endeavor that was trying to expand into traditional publishing. This doesn't always work out well, since not all self-publishers have a solid knowledge of publishing (or, necessarily, any business experience) and may unintentionally disadvantage writers with nonstandard business practices, or author-unfriendly contracts, or both. And indeed, CLP's original contract had some problems. It included a transfer of copyright, a major red flag in a non-work-for-hire contract...
...that was directly contradicted by a clause stipulating the printing of copyright notices in the author's name (not the publisher's, as would normally be the case with a copyright transfer), as well as an extremely generous termination clause allowing authors to cancel their contracts post-publication at will for any reason. This kind of internal contradiction is something I see not infrequently in small press contracts, and is a red flag all on its own: it suggests that the publisher has a less than perfect understanding of its own contract terms.
Back in January, I heard from a writer who'd received a conference participation solicitation that looked to be a scam.
Although the company named in the solicitation, Crown Castle, was real, it had nothing to do with publishing, and the poor phrasing and lack of detail--such as the conference's name--was equally suspicious. The writer contacted the company to ask, and, unsurprisingly, was told that they had no employee named James Gilbert and were not planning any conferences, let alone one for "qualified writers and poets."
Deciding to lead the scammer on for a bit, the writer pretended interest. They got this reply:
