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.
Last week, Dymocks, an Australian bookselling chain, announced the launch of D Publishing, a electronic and POD self-publishing service. Like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Dymocks is a major book vendor. Unlike Amazon and Barnes and Noble, it doesn’t have its own ereading device–so D Publishing does not resemble the free, direct-to-device self-pub services offeredRead More
Writer Beware has learned that Pearson Education, a major education services company (and the parent company of trade publisher Penguin), is currently requesting vastly extended licenses for copyrighted text and images that it has received permission from rightsholders to include in its print textbooks and other publications. The original licenses were limited by language, territory,Read More
Almost since Amazon’s controversial Kindle Owners’ Lending Library–which allows Amazon Prime members to borrow selected ebooks for free–debuted, there have been rumors that Amazon was inviting KDP self-publishers to participate. Amazon has just unveiled KDP Select, which allows self-publishers to “Distribute books through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and reach the growing number of USRead More
Every time I look at Writer Beware’s bulging file drawers, and wonder whether I should get rid of files for agents and publishers that have gone silent (or at least consign them to the basement), I’m reminded of why it’s important to keep old information handy. The bad guys may disappear–but, as this week’s guestRead More
Today I saw the following statement used as justification for choosing a fee-based publisher that charges its authors nearly $4,000, and actively presents itself as a real publisher, rather than a vanity publisher or a (very costly) self-publishing service: A couple ratios I read a while back convinced me I did the right thing byRead More
Writers: Forget about that boring day job. Forget about tedious book promotion. Heck, forget about writing books! There’s another way to make money–and it was created with authors in mind. I received a spam a couple of weeks ago from an outfit called The Best Authors Lounge for a query letter webinar. Intrigued by theRead More
