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.
Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency (SBPRA) is the tip of a fee-charging agenting/editing/publishing iceberg created by Robert M. Fletcher of Boca Raton, Florida. Since 2001, it has employed a veritable carousel of changing names (more than 40 to date), and Writer Beware has received hundreds, if not thousands, of complaints from authors who’ve citedRead More
On April 30, Author Solutions Inc. (currently the subject of a class action lawsuit by authors who allege, among other things, breach of contract and unjust enrichment) announced expansion of its Partridge brand to South Africa and surrounding nations with Partridge Africa. This follows expansion in March to the Malaysia region with Partridge Singapore. BothRead More
UPDATE: This lawsuit, along with another brought later, was dismissed in August 2015. As I’m sure most readers of this blog know, self-publishing services provider Author Solutions Inc., along with its parent, Penguin Group, is currently the subject of a class action lawsuit, filed in May 2013 by the law firm Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & StewartRead More
This post has been updated.
Starting in the summer of last year, self-published authors whose books made it onto Amazon's Movers and Shakers list began to receive solicitations from a publicist named Kerry Jacobson (here's an example).
Jacobson, who claimed more than eight years of experience boosting authors onto bestseller lists, promised a marketing push that would vault the authors' books onto the New York Times and USA Today lists, or propel them into Amazon's top ten. He also promised guidance and mentoring to help them make the most of the opportunity.
Another small press disaster came to an ugly conclusion last week. In mid-2012, I began getting complaints about Silver Publishing, which started up in 2009 as a self-publishing facilitator, but in 2010 transformed itself into a “traditional royalty-paying press” (I put that in quotes because, these days, it means so little). Reported problems included poorRead More
Got the yen to write a book, but lack that essential creative spark? Looking to ride the coattails of the Kindle self-publishing craze, but don’t want to bother with all that pesky scribbling? Want an author to create a story for you, but don’t know where to find one? Fret no more. The Internet’s gotRead More
