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.
Have you recently received this spam? Dear Friends, Do you write? We’re looking for good-quality eBooks, eZines and self-published articles for our new website! This is a FREE MARKETING TOOL for you, as we post all material absolutely free for our visitors to read. In return, you may be eligible for profit-sharing from our advertisingRead More
More on “Iron” David Boyer Writer Beware has learned about another David Boyer project in the works–a book called Vast Horizons, to be published in 2011 by Boyer’s own Darkened Doorways Press. Like his Prodigies and Legends books, it features interviews, in this case with SF writers, including some who are very well-known. Here’s theRead More
I hear often from writers worried that their work will be stolen. Especially among new writers, it’s a major fear. However, theft in the book and short fiction world is extremely rare. (Really. Reputable agents and editors will not risk their reputations by stealing, and disreputable ones aren’t interested in your work at all, onlyRead More
In August, I wrote a post about Indiana-based vanity press New Century Publishing, whose owner, David Caswell, was being investigated by the Indiana Attorney General for taking authors’ money and failing to publish their books. I’m a bit late with this follow-up, but a lawsuit against Caswell and New Century was filed by the AG’sRead More
One of the big publishing headlines this week (here, for instance) was that e-books from some popular authors were selling on Amazon for higher prices than the hardcover versions. For instance, the hardcover of Ken Follet’s Fall of Giants was priced at $19.39, while the digital version cost $19.99. James Patterson’s and Howard Roughan’s Don’tRead More
Yesterday, Barnes & Noble announced the launch of PubIt!, a free self-publishing service for its Nook e-reading device. With PubIt!, B&N joins Amazon and Apple in offering direct-to-device self-publishing (though Apple allows this only if you have a Mac; if you don’t, you must use an Apple-approved aggregator like Smashwords). Like Apple, B&N uses theRead More
