Writer Beware

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Bankruptcies of Unbound and Albert Whitman & Co Put Authors Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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JUN 6, 2025August 1, 202526 COMMENTS

Established in 2011, UK-based crowdfunded publisher Unbound styled itself the Kickstarter for books and was widely heralded as the next big idea in publishing. Heady words like "disruption" and "paradigm" were tossed around, and the company's launch garnered substantial positive media coverage. (This blog post from Nail Your Novel provides an overview of how it all worked).

To all appearances, Unbound had a good run, publishing hundreds of books over more than a decade, gaining both critical and sales success. By some accounts, though, a lot of it was smoke and mirrors, and in 2024 cracks began to show, with authors reporting royalties delayed or unpaid and books unavailable for sale.

In December 2024, Unbound informed its authors that what they suspected was true: it didn't have the money to pay royalties. It claimed to be re-structuring, bringing on a new CEO, Archna Sharma, who promised to stabilize the company. But just three months later, Unbound went into administration--and almost at once was sold, with all its assets, in a pre-pack deal (a kind of bankruptcy deal where the sale of a company is negotiated with a buyer before an administrator is appointed) to a new company called Boundless Publishing, at a fire-sale price of £50,000.

OVERSEAS SCAMS

Two to Avoid: Book Order Scams and Fake Reviews

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MAY 9, 2025May 9, 202526 COMMENTS

Scammers are nothing if not inventive. As writers become wise to their techniques, they invent new ones.

Here are two newish frauds that appear to be on the rise. As with most writing scams these days, they target self-published authors.

I've written before about book order scams, in the context of scammers impersonating bookstores such as Barnes & Noble with out-of-the-blue emails promising bulk purchases and big royalties. All the author has to do is pony up thousands of dollars or pounds to cover printing and/or shipping costs (the relevant note here: bookstores do not print the books they sell, and they typically order from the publisher or publishing platform, rather than from the author).

OVERSEAS SCAMS

Guest Post: My Twenty-Four Hour Dream

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APR 25, 2025April 25, 202533 COMMENTS

I've written many scam case studies and investigations on this blog, all of which reference and/or describe writers' direct experiences (while protecting their identities, as Writer Beware always promises to do). But when the essay below landed in my inbox this week, it presented the perfect opportunity to offer a different perspective: a writer's own first-person description of her encounter with a scammer.

The scam in question is an extremely common one: out-of-the-blue contact from someone claiming to be a well-known film producer/famous movie director/executive with a major production company supposedly eager to turn the writer's book into a movie. The essay details all the typical elements of this often-elaborate fraud: praise and promises carefully calibrated to manipulate the writer's hopes and dreams (and ego), contracts and other items that lend a veneer of authenticity, even a phone call from the famous director attached to the project! But also warning signs, which this writer didn't ignore but too many writers do--such as American movie people speaking with strong foreign accents.

Denise Beck-Clark has kindly given me permission to use her name and bio (at the bottom of the post). Hopefully her experience will help other writers recognize and avoid this type of scam. (My favorite part of the story: when the scammer recommends using Writer Beware.)

Generative AI and Copyrightability: Report From the US Copyright Office

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APR 4, 2025April 4, 20259 COMMENTS

In 2023, the US Copyright Office launched an initiative to examine the legal and policy implications for copyright of generative AI (GAI). Incorporating comments from the public, the resulting report will be issued in installments, each addressing a different topic.

Today, I'm discussing the second installment, published in January, which offers the Office's determinations on what does, and doesn't, make a work that incorporates GAI eligible for copyright protection. (Part 1 came out in 2024 and covered digital replicas--deepfakes, etc.) There's a lot of confusion in this area, and while the report does deliver some welcome clarity, there's still plenty of ambiguity for individual creators and individual works.

Bottom line: works that incorporate GAI may be copyrightable. But there are limitations, and the determination must be made on a case by case basis.

LITERARY AGENT SCAMS

A New Scam to Watch For: “Pre-Paid” Agent Commissions

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MAR 28, 2025March 28, 202513 COMMENTS

As I've discussed to my readers' exhaustion, as well as my own, impersonation scams are rife these days. Scammers are impersonating real, reputable literary agents, publishers, editors, film production companies, bookstores, and organizations with out-of-the-blue phone and email solicitations purporting to offer representation, or publication, or a big budget movie--but in reality, the goal is to steal writers' money by convincing them to pay large fees for fake, unnecessary, or wholly fictional goods and services.

Often, scammers impersonating Big 5 publishers create fake publishing contracts, either to string the writer along or as an incentive to pay exorbitant fees. That's where you'll find the latest scam ploy, the pre-paid literary agent commission.

Here's the relevant clause from a Penguin Random House contract fabricated by Calyx Literary Agency, which (falsely) claimed to have submitted to PRH on the author's behalf (you can see the entire contract here). Supposedly sent by Jessica Willow, PRH Contract Associate, the contract promises a "total contract price" of $230,000.

PUBLISHER COMPLAINTS

Author Complaints at Clear Fork Press

MAR 21, 2025March 21, 20259 COMMENTS

In early February, author Vanessa Keel published a long, cautionary blog post about her experience with one small publisher. It was not a happy tale: an absent editor, little marketing support, a non-standard wholesale discount that discouraged bookseller orders, problems with royalty statements and payments, and much more. The result: few sales, crushing disappointment, and, ultimately, a rights reversion.

Vanessa didn't name the publisher, but she did mention the title of her book. So it was easy to confirm that the publisher in question was Clear Fork Press (CFP), a children's book publisher that publishes under four imprints: Spork, Blue Whale Press (formerly an independent publisher, acquired by CFP in 2020), &MG, and Rise. Per Amazon, CFP has a catalog of around 150 titles, most released via the Spork imprint (though you'd never know it from looking at the CFP website--more on that below).

I first heard about Clear Fork Press (then Clear Fork Publishing) way back in 2016, thanks to questions from authors who'd received contract offers. At the time, CFP had no imprints; its (poorly formatted and unprofessionally-worded) contract was quite brief, but included one significantly author-unfriendly provision: royalties paid on net profit (actual sales income less printing and shipping--for why this can be a contract red flag, see here).