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.
A not uncommon clause you may encounter in a publishing contract is an early termination fee: an amount of money charged by the publisher if the author wants to end a contract early, supposedly to reimburse the money the publisher has invested in the author and the profits the publisher would have made if theRead More
Writers & Artists–the Bloomsbury Publishing-owned writers’ handbook that’s the UK equivalent to the USA’s Writers Market–has just launched a free self-publishing provider comparison service. Here’s how it works. Detailed questionnaires cover a variety of areas: editing, ebooks, design and formatting, marketing, and printing. Writers can fill out any or all of these. At the endRead More
So a week ago, I stumbled on this news item in a generally reliable venue: The [growth of ] self-publishing has created a new publishing market that totals $52 billion in revenues, according to a new report from media technology firm New Publisher House. According to the report, this is twice as much money asRead More
As reported by a number of sources, including USA Today, Macmillan is launching Swoon Reads, a new teen romance imprint, under its existing Feiwel and Friends imprint. It’s looking for submissions of previously unpublished manuscripts. The twist: Swoon Reads is a “crowdsourced” imprint, with readers commenting on and rating the posted manuscripts. Highly-ranked manuscripts willRead More
I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently about Paul Hollingshead and the Barefoot Writer’s Club (part of American Writers & Artists Inc., which sells courses that promise to help you “Learn How You Can Become a Six-Figure Copywriter”). To be honest, I’ve been hesitant to write this post, because Barefoot/AWAI advocates are vigilant aboutRead More
UPDATE: This lawsuit, along with another brought later, was dismissed in August 2015. In April of this year, the law firm of Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart filed a class action lawsuit against Author Solutions Inc. (ASI) and its parent, Penguin Group, on behalf of three plaintiffs, alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, various violations ofRead More
