Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Feb 9, 2012, 12:50 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Over the past few months, I've gotten a number of questions from writers who've received spam--excuse me, invitations from a website called Publishers' Desk. Its motto is "Bringing Authors and Publishers Together," and it describes itself thus...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Feb 2, 2012, 12:03 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware This article from the Authors Guild was posted Tuesday on the Authors Guild blog. It's a must-read for anyone interested in the ways in which the book business is changing, and how we reached the point where a single retailer has the power to dictat...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jan 27, 2012, 12:18 pm
Last December, I blogged about Amazon's KDP Select program, which allows KDP authors to participate in Amazon's Kindle Owners' Lending Library and be paid per borrow from a fund established by Amazon. Two weeks ago, Amazon issued a press release charting KDP Select's performance during its first mon...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jan 25, 2012, 5:43 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A little while back, I stumbled on a news story about Mitchell Gross, a Georgia man who was recently indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly luring a woman into investing ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jan 20, 2012, 1:58 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Yesterday, with great fanfare, Apple rolled out two new applications:  iBooks 2, with new features aimed at students; and iBooks Author, which allows individuals to create iPad-optimized ebooks. Both applications are targeted to the textbook ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jan 17, 2012, 1:01 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware One of the effects of the phenomenal growth of ebooks over the past few years has been to bring new value to the backlist--both for publishers who hold the contracts for backlist books, and authors who want the freedom to exploit a...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jan 11, 2012, 1:49 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Recently I've gotten a number of questions about BookStoreMarketing.net, a service that promises to promote authors' books to bookstores via a printed catalog, a promotional email, or both. Alternatively, you can buy a bookstore mailing list, ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jan 3, 2012, 1:06 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware As we begin the new year (Writer Beware's fourteenth!), here's a look back at some of Writer Beware's most notable posts and warnings from 2011.  JANUARY First One Publishing's Writing Contest: This contest was intended t...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Dec 23, 2011, 5:12 pm
Because even watchdogs have to rest sometimes, the Writer Beware blog will be taking a break over the holiday season. Unless there's a really juicy publishing story, we'll be on hiatus until the new year. (We'll still be answering email, so if you want to reach us, drop us a ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Dec 19, 2011, 12:45 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A couple of weeks ago, I began hearing from self-published and small press authors who'd been approached over the summer by a Turkish publisher called Arvo Basim Yayin. All reported having been contacted out of the blue by an editor named Huly...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Dec 16, 2011, 1:03 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware 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 Nobl...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Dec 13, 2011, 2:33 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware 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 per...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Dec 8, 2011, 11:03 am
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware 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...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Dec 6, 2011, 10:45 am
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware 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 inf...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Nov 29, 2011, 11:35 am
 Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware 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) s...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Nov 2, 2011, 5:51 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I'm writing this in my local Panera, which is one of the few places where I can power my computer just now. Here in Massachusetts, we are still suffering through the after-effects of the massive Snowtober storm, and after four days I still don't...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Oct 28, 2011, 11:47 am
by Michael Capobianco Recently, a consortium of university libraries called HathiTrust decided to make more than one hundred digitized books available as e-books to the universities’ communities because the books were “orphans,” works for whom the rightsholders could not be located...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Oct 25, 2011, 1:56 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A month ago, I blogged about the troubles at Aspen Mountain Press, whose authors report nonpayment of royalties, contract breaches, delayed publication schedules, and other problems; and whose senior staff resigned en masse in early August. Us...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Oct 18, 2011, 12:17 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Today's guest post by multi-published author Doranna Durgin is about a publisher behaving badly. More than that, however, it highlights something that every writer signing a publishing contract needs to be aware of: the importance of reversio...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Oct 13, 2011, 1:30 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware LOBSTER PRESS For some time, there've been rumors of financial trouble at Canadian children's publisher Lobster Press. Those rumors were recently confirmed in articles from Publishers Weekly and Quill and Quire. From Quill and Quire: Q and Q h...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Oct 11, 2011, 1:00 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware It's been a year since I first blogged about serial plagiarist "Iron" Dave Boyer (among many other names), whose prolific pilfering of other writers' words has become something of an Internet legend, especially in the horror community, where he conc...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Oct 3, 2011, 1:04 pm
Posted by Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Some of you may be aware that for the past few months, a group calling itself The Write Agenda has been attempting to wage a disinformation campaign against Writer Beware and other anti-scam activists. (Note: We're expecting th...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 29, 2011, 12:55 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware  I get a lot of questions about publishing contracts, and many requests to review them. I'm not a lawyer, but I do have a fair knowledge of publishing contract boilerplate, as well as a good grasp of the issues that writers need to look out for, an...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 26, 2011, 12:42 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware To all appearances, Colorado-based Aspen Mountain Press is an active and problem-free publisher. According to its Submissions page, it is currently seeking new fiction, and it recently launched a SF/fantasy imprint. This attractive facade, how...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 23, 2011, 12:24 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware On Tuesday I posted about PUBSLUSH Press, a new crowdfunding venture for books. I found it an interesting idea (rather than just donating cash to worthy projects, PUBSLUSH supporters actually pledge to buy books; if the number of supporters reaches ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 21, 2011, 8:12 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I'm sure you all remember the notorious J.K. Rowling Incident, in which PublishAmerica tied Rowling's name to one of its numerous author promotions. Rowling was not amused; through a spokesman, she made it clear that she had no relationship with Pub...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 20, 2011, 5:51 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I've been getting a number of questions lately about PUBSLUSH Press. From PUBSLUSH's FAQ page: What is PUBSLUSH Press? PS Press (as we prefer to call ourselves) is a full service publishing platform that connects write...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 15, 2011, 2:00 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware The Google Books lawsuit, which generated a widely hailed and criticized settlement that was ultimately rejected by the court, will go to trial--although the parties in the case say that they are still in talks. Per Publishers Weekly, The Google Bo...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Sep 13, 2011, 10:39 am
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware In the wake of the failed Google Book Settlement and the still-unresolved lawsuit that produced it, the Authors Guild, two international writers' groups, and several individual authors have filed suit against a number of major US universities that h...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 24, 2011, 12:20 pm
Posted by Ann C. Crispin for Writer Beware How many times have you tuned into a murder mystery television show, such as Murder, She Wrote, and within the first 10 minutes, been able to ID whodunit…sometimes even before the murder occurs? I bet a lot of you are like me – you can spot the m...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 18, 2011, 1:43 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I blogged Tuesday about PublishAmerica's now-infamous J.K. Rowling promotion, which promised, for just $49, to bring PA authors' books to Rowling's attention during PA's upcoming visit to Scotland. (The promotion, which has set the blog- and Twitter...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 16, 2011, 12:04 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware PublishAmerica. As many of you are aware, this author mill is known for its efforts to persuade its authors to buy their own books, in part via a rotating series of "special offers". If only authors will order X number of books, a copy or copies of ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 12, 2011, 1:03 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I've been getting questions about a new awards program: the IndieReader Discovery Awards for self-published authors. "What do you get when you cross a bunch of great self-published books with extraordinary publishing industry professionals?" ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 10, 2011, 12:51 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware When Westerners think of major book markets, India may not be the first country that springs to mind. But India's publishing industry is the sixth largest in the world, and fully a third of it is devoted to English-language publishing. Just as...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 5, 2011, 1:44 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I've gotten some questions over the past week about a fiction contest currently being conducted by WriteOnCon, a "totally free, interactive online Writer’s Conference held annually during the summer." The contest, which is being conducted in assoc...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Aug 2, 2011, 12:34 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware When Writer Beware was founded in 1998, it was vanishingly rare for publishers (or agents) to contact aspiring writers to express interest in their work--so rare, in fact, that any sort of unsolicited publisher or agent contact was almost certain to...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jul 26, 2011, 6:31 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware There's been some Internet buzz over the past few days about an apparent scam in which an unknown individual, posing as agent Jodi Reamer of uber-agency Writers House, targeted an unsuspecting author with a fake representation offer, followed by a f...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jul 21, 2011, 12:53 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware If you thought that Judge Denny Chin's denial of the Google Book Settlement last March was the end of that story, you were wrong. In the absence of a settlement agreement, the 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and various publishers against ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jul 19, 2011, 2:31 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware When publishing relationships go bad, the writing was often on the wall long before the author signed on the dotted line. Perhaps there were nonstandard business practices, such as a hidden fee or a book purchase requirement. Or there might have bee...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jul 8, 2011, 1:48 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Fellow authors, do you have a loved one who was a writer too, but sadly passed over into the Great Beyond with their poems or prose unpublished? Does the cosmic injustice of that weigh heavy on your soul? Do you lie awake nights, grieving that your ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jul 1, 2011, 2:48 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware As some of you may know, I was at one time a SF/fantasy book reviewer--mostly for SF Site, but also for other publications. (Most of my reviews are posted at my website.) However, I got burned out on reviewing after doing it for many years, and took...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jun 28, 2011, 1:59 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Yesterday, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, a major US agency, announced that it will be facilitating self-publishing for some of its clients. Over the past months and years we’ve come to the realization that e-publishing is yet another area...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jun 23, 2011, 1:23 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Writer Beware often hears from authors who've signed up with bad or inexperienced or dishonest publishers, and are desperate to get free. They write to us wanting to know how they can break their contracts and regain their rights. Unfortunately, the...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jun 17, 2011, 12:33 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I spend too much time online. There, I've said it. Much of my Internet time is work-related--research for my writing, stuff for Writer Beware. As for the personal stuff--Facebook, YouTube, reading the news, emailing friends, following ...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jun 14, 2011, 3:10 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware For any author, whether self-, small press-, or big house-published, getting noticed is one of the primary challenges. Larger publishers provide marketing support for their authors (yes, they really do, despite popular wisdom to the contrary), but w...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jun 7, 2011, 12:26 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware From yesterday's Burlington Free Press: Behnah Ghobadi, president of Print Tech, a Burlington publishing firm has been printing books for customers across the United States for 34 years, but he says it was somebody in his own backyard that has given him h...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - Jun 3, 2011, 2:07 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Every time I bemoan Writer Beware's overpacked file drawers, and wonder whether I should get rid of files for agents and publishers that have gone out of business (or at least consign them to the basement), I'm reminded of why it's important to keep...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - May 31, 2011, 2:19 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware In the comments thread of a previous post, a reader asked whether there is a difference between royalties paid on net income and royalties paid on net profit. There most definitely is a difference--and, depending on the circumstances, royalties paid...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - May 27, 2011, 2:19 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Literary agencies becoming publishers? Screw that trend. PublishAmerica, always a trail blazer, is swinging the other way. The email from which I've quoted below was sent out today by the PA "Author Support Team." (All bolding is PA's.) Just imagine...
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Victoria Strauss posted an article on Writer Beware Blogs! - May 20, 2011, 1:07 pm
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware The Gloves Are Off! Earlier this week, I blogged about the accelerating trend of literary agencies turning publishers in order to re-issue their clients' backlists. There's gold in the backlist (see this interesting article about writers who've take...
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