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.
Authors: have you received an unsolicited email from a "talent scout" at #WORLDCLASS Magazine pitching an interview and/or cover feature? Here's what you need to know in case you do: it's pay-to-play.
Here's a sample pitch, sent to me by a wisely wary author (emphasis added, and all errors courtesy of the original):
Dear [name redacted],
Semora offers a smorgasbord of services for authors, from book layout to map design to a "self-marketing pack." His fees start at $60, with rates varying depending on the project. As you can see, the man's got mad skillz, at least in his own opinion:
Of course, mentioned nowhere on Semora's website is the fact that he's the former owner of Michigan-based pay-to-play publisher 2 Moon Press (now defunct), which was the focus of a police investigation based on dozens of author complaints of unpaid royalties, unfulfilled book orders, and breaches of contract (examples can be seen at the Better Business Bureau website, where 2 Moon Press has an F rating).
While Semora denies being the source of 2 Moon's problems (blaming them on Melinda Lundy, to whom he sold the publisher shortly before its 2013 demise), he has a prior history of fraudulent activity (including a 2004 conviction for Conspiracy to Commit Larceny by Conversion and Fraud), and has admitted to using 2 Moon Press funds for personal expenses, including vacations for himself and his wife.
One of today's most popular pastimes, in the writing world at least, is demonizing Amazon (or sanctifying it, but that's not the subject of this post). Latest flashpoint: Amazon's review policies.
The flap seems to have begun with blogger Imy Santiago, who wrote about her attempt to post a review of a self-published book she'd just read. She received an automated response from Amazon indicating that she was "not eligible to review this product," and when she contacted Amazon to ask why, she was told:
We cannot post your Customer Review for (book title deleted) by (author name deleted) to the Amazon website because your account activity indicates that you know the author.
In February 2015, having completed discovery, Giskan Solotaroff filed for class certification with a lengthy Memorandum of Law that unpacked a lot of information about ASI's business model and internal operations.
That certification has now been denied, in a decision handed down by Judge Denise Cote on July 1.
From what I can tell on an initial reading, the decision seems to boil down to the fact that in one of the subclasses they were seeking to certify, plaintiffs weren't able to meet certification requirements; and in the other, weren't able to demonstrate a clear pattern of deception on the part of AS that could apply to everyone in the proposed class.
Judge Cote's decision can be read in full here.
In my last blog post, I discussed how to recognize and avoid profitmaking writing awards--fake awards that exist not to honor writers, but to enrich sponsors. If you're looking to win writing awards and enter writing competitions, though, the profiteering fakers aren't the only risk you face.
For instance...the short story competitions run by Scotland's Almond Press.* Almond's output is tiny--founded in 2012, it has published just three anthologies of stories collected from its annual competitions--but it boasts some impressive sponsors, including Booktrust UK and the University of Stirling, as well as a nice website and attractively-designed book covers. Its contests have no entry fees, and there's a 100 GBP prize for the winner, who is also promised "Exposure and publicity via our online presence".
Its Terms and Conditions, however, stink.
“Discoverability” is a key component of any such system, which requires not only that works must have unambiguous identifiers, but that the identifiers point unambiguously to the authors of the works rather than to publishers. Any such system must also recognize that the author is the best, and in many cases only, source of information about the ownership of rights. More and more books are self-published; publishing companies aren’t involved at all, and any system that relies on them will be incomplete. A publisher-centric system will also assign rights incorrectly, especially considering that publishers have begun to claim ebook rights for works even though the contracts for those works do not mention them.
SFWA has been interested in developing a way to find authors for a long time. The failed Google Books Settlement and subsequent developments call into question what an orphan work is. If a defining characteristic is that the author can’t be found, clearly, then, a system that facilitates finding authors is necessary before works can definitively be declared orphans.
SFWA has made recommendations concerning orphan works to the Copyright Office several times now, focusing on the creation of a national Author Information Directory (AID), a database that would function as the source of unambiguous identifiers for authors as well as provide contact information for negotiations about licensing rights. SFWA feels that creating this database should be left to government rather than for-profit entities, and that a database that allows direct updates from the authors themselves would be well within the Copyright Office's capabilities.
