Writer Beware

Latest Posts

A Quick Pre-Holiday Warning for Authors: Guard Your Credit

Header image: woman in blue shirt holding a selection of credit cards (Credit: Me dia / Shutterstock.com)

DEC 21, 2024January 14, 202527 COMMENTS

The latest newsletter from the Authors Guild includes this scam alert:

Beware of aggressive “independent publishers” like Leap Write Literary, who persistently call until authors agree to republish their books then orchestrate elaborate multi-stage scams. In this case, the scammer (using the name Pia Robinson) first charged $6,000 for supposedly required documents for a fake $282,000 publishing deal with Hachette, then attempted to extract more money through a fraudulent movie deal with Focus Features. When the author refused the movie scam, the company retaliated by making an unauthorized $4,000 charge to their stored credit card information.

The scammers sent out fake emails from executives (using non-corporate email addresses) promising large advances and elaborate details about publishing and movie production. Red flags include the requirement to pay for query letters and synopses, non-working email addresses for supposed executives, blocked access to sales reports, and an F rating with the BBB.

CONTRACTS

When Royalty Language in Publishing Contracts Isn’t What it Seems

Header image: fountain pen on a sepia background over the words "Publishing Contract" (credit: alexskopje / Shutterstock.com)

DEC 6, 2024December 6, 202412 COMMENTS

Recent complaints to Writer Beware about a couple of different publishers' royalty practices has alerted me to the fact that writers may need to demand more clarity around royalty language in publishing contracts--even if that language looks completely standard.

First, though: an overview.

Royalty language varies widely from contract to contract, but good royalty clauses should include, at a minimum:

OVERSEAS SCAMS

Failing the Reality Check: Independent Literary Recognition Guild and Acquisition Database

Header image: "Real" fading away and being replaced by "Fake" (Credit: Net Vector / Shutterstock.com)

NOV 29, 2024March 30, 202516 COMMENTS

From time to time, scammers create faux organizations or publishing industry groups in order to enhance the appearance of legitimacy or to run a fraud. Some of these are quite elaborate, with large, well-designed websites (and, occasionally, text plagiarized from legitimate sources they're imitating). I've covered a few of these sleazy efforts over the past couple of years.

Herewith, a couple of new outfits that flunk the reality test.

I became aware of the Independent Literary Recognition Guild (ILR) thanks to comments on another of my blog posts from writers who'd been contacted to buy ads in its magazine. (The pay-to-play magazine racket--whether the fees are for interviews or ads--is a well-established pitfall for writers; I've written about it a number of times. Even when not a scam, it's a dubious investment, especially if you can't determine subscription or circulation numbers.)

PUBLISHING SCAMS

Book Guard: “Anti-Scam Protection” That’s Anything But

NOV 22, 2024December 1, 202430 COMMENTS

The writing world may have reached Peak Scam: the point at which the extreme prevalence of writing scams can be leveraged to create a protection racket to exploit the victims of those scams.

Kind of like paying the people who'd beat you up and burn down your business to defend you against the people who'd beat you up and burn down your business. Nice little sum of money you lost there, let us help you lose some more! (Also see my post from last week, which features a protection racket run by a scammer impersonating Writer Beware.)

Meet Book Guard. Its motto: Peace of Mind is not expensive, it's Priceless! Its purported mission: to protect vulnerable authors against "deceitful schemes that promise success."

OVERSEAS SCAMS

Dogging the Watchdog Redux: Someone Else is Impersonating Writer Beware

Header image: WOOF in cartoon lettering on a cartoon explosion background (credit: Kapitosh/Shutterstock.com)

NOV 15, 2024November 15, 202428 COMMENTS

A bit over a year ago, a scammer (I never was able to determine which one, but it's highly likely it was someone on this list) sent out a large number of emails under my name, using a fake address (writerbewaree@gmail.com), offering to provide "guidance" to authors to protect them against scams and help them "connect with well-known traditional publishing houses".

The aim, it turned out, wasn't to rip anyone off, but to troll me. Since trolling isn't any fun unless the trollee knows about it, the scammer also sent the emails directly to me (twice), with the subject line "Writer Beware, the Watchdog and Dog Victoria Strauss" (hence the title of my post about the episode, which also used the graphic above). Maybe because I didn't respond, or maybe because I mocked them publicly, the troller never dogged me again and I never got any other reports of those particular fake Writer Beware emails.

Unfortunately, there's now another Writer Beware/Victoria Strauss impersonation attempt. And this one seems designed not just to troll, but to defraud.

EDITORS AND EDITING

Edioak and House of Pages: Lots of Questions, Questionable Answers

NOV 1, 2024January 13, 202521 COMMENTS

I've heard from a number of writers recently who've been invited to join a venture called House of Pages. The contacts, which mostly seem to be via contact forms on the authors' websites, look like this:

What is House of Pages? According to its website, it's a cross-promotion network where authors can pair with other authors to expand their visibility to different audiences. This isn't a new idea, nor is House of Pages the only group cross-promotion venture; still, it appears to have signed up a lot of writers already, and cites various success statistics. And it's free to join.

At the moment, House of Pages doesn't appear to be fully open (there's a contact form, but no way to sign up directly)--but according to contact person Melissa Smith, to whom I reached out for comment, it will fully launch next week. (You can see Melissa's full response, along with her response to several other questions I asked, at the bottom of this post).