Yesterday I went looking for a homeless person who probably wasn’t going to accept any help.  “Have you seen this person?” I asked two DPW workers doing landscaping in a nearby park.  “Try the supermarket,” one of them told me. “Might be there. Walks around town all day.”  “Thanks.”  I’d parked my car next to […]

The post A Walk Among The Tombstones. appeared first on Waiter Rant.

I was huffing and puffing on the Stairmaster at the gym a few weeks ago when I noticed a woman staring at me. In her early forties, she was fit, pretty, and wearing a tight workout garment that accentuated her shapely physique.  Since I don’t suffer from the delusion that all women find me attractive, […]

The post Stealing Fire appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

I've been expending a lot of words and time lately warning about the latest scam phenomenon to hit the writing world: fake publishing and marketing companies that, through outrageous prices and worthless services, extract enormous amounts of money from unwary writers.

Based in the Philippines (despite their apparent US addresses, phone numbers, and telemarketer names) and focusing primarily on small press and self-published authors (particularly authors who've published with one of the Author Solutions imprints), these companies recruit writers with relentless--and highly deceptive--phone and email solicitations. Some do provide the services authors pay for, albeit at seriously inflated prices and often of poor quality. Others just take the money and run. I'm hearing from a growing number of writers who've paid five figures in fees to one--or, in some cases, more than one--of these scams, with next to nothing to show for it.

Given how fast the scams are proliferating (I learn about a new one every few weeks), I thought it would be helpful to gather all the information I've put together about them in one place.

My posts about the scams--where they come from, how they work, and how to recognize them:

- Army of Clones: Author Solutions Spawns a Legion of Copycats
- Army of Clones Part 2: Twenty-One (More) Publishing and Marketing "Services" to Beware Of
- Solicitation Alert: LitFire Publishing
- Amelia Publishing and Amelia Book Company: Sons of LitFire Publishing
- Solicitation Alert: Book-Art Press Solutions and Window Press Club
- Solicitation (and Plagiarism) Alert: Legaia Books / Paperclips Magazine

Here's a list of the scams themselves--at least, the nearly 100 I've identified so far (the list is also posted in the sidebar of this blog). You'll note that a number of them operate under more than one name--I suspect the interconnection is much greater than this, but I've only indicated the additional names where I've been able to reliably document them.

Some have perished since I began the list--I've noted this, but left their names, for the sake of authors who may have been scammed while they were operational.

- Access Media Group (aka Quill Space Media)
- Ace Media Creative Publication / Ace Media International / APM Media Production (aka Pearson Media Groups)
- ADBooks Media (aka Coffee Press / Okir Publishing, which is defunct)
- Alpha Books Solutions
- Alpha Books United
- Amelia Publishing / Amelia Book Company (aka LitFire Publishing / GoToPublish)
- AnalytIQ
- Ascribed LLC (defunct)
- Author Aide
- Author Codex (aka BookSpine Press)
- Author Media Express
- Author Pro Creatives and Marketing (defunct) (still doing business as Matchstick Literary)
- Author Reputation Press
- Author University
- AuthorCentrix (formerly BookBlastPro)
- AuthorLair
- Author's Note 360
- Authors Press (aka Westwood Books Publishing [formerly Greenberry] / Creative Books)
- Beacon Books Agency
- Black Lacquer Press & Marketing
- BooConn Marketing
- Book Agency Plus (aka BookTrail Agency)
- Book Art Press Solutions (aka Window Press Club / Booktimes)
- Book Avenue Publishing (aka Nivra Press, which is defunct)
- Book Magnets
- Book Reads Publishing (defunct)
- BookSpine Press (aka Author Codex)
- Booktimes (aka Book Art Press Solutions / Window Press Club)
- BookTrail Agency (aka Book Agency Plus)
- Book Vine Press
- Books Scribe
- BookVenture Publishing
- BookWhip (aka Carter Press / PRM Solutions)
- Box Office Media Creatives (aka Buzz Media Creatives)
- Bright Lights Distribution
- Buzz Media Creatives (aka Box Office Media Creatives)
- Capstone Media Services (defunct) (now doing business as Stampa / Stampa Global)
- Carter Press (aka BookWhip / PRM Solutions)
- Chapters Media & Advertising (aka Techbooks Media)
- Coffee Press (aka ADBooks Media) (formerly Okir Publishing)
- Creative Books (aka Westwood Books Publishing / Authors Press)
- Creative Titles Media  (aka TrueMedia Creatives)
- Crest Media Distribution
- Diamond Media Press
- Dream Books Distribution
- EC Publishing
- Editor's Creative Media (aka Editor's Press and Media)
- Editor's Press and Media (aka Editor's Creative Media)
- Global Summit House
- Gold Touch Press
- Golden Ink Media Services
- Goldman Agency
- GoToPublish (aka LitFire Publishing / Amelia Publishing / Amelia Book Company)
- Happy Media Consulting
- Haynes Media Group
- IdeoPage Press Solutions (aka The Writer Central)
- Legaia Books
- Lettra Press
- LitFire Publishing (aka Amelia Publishing / Amelia Book Company / GoToPublish)
- Maple Leaf Publishing
- MatchStick Literary (aka Author Pro Creatives and Marketing --defunct)
- McNaughton Books / McNaughton Publishing (website is currently dead)
- Netsfilm & Media Press
- New Leaf Media
- New Reader Media
- Nivra Press (defunct) (still doing business as Book Avenue Publishing)
- Okir Publishing (defunct) (still doing business as ADbook Press / Coffee Press)
- Outstrip (defunct)
- PRM Solutions LLC (aka Carter Press / Bookwhip)
- Pacific Books
- PageClapp Media
- PageTurner, Press and Media
- Parchment Global Publishing
- Paradigm Print
- Paramount Books Media
- Pearson Media Groups (aka Ace Media Creative Publication / Ace Media International)
- Press To Impress Publishing
- Pubkits.com
- Quill Space Media (aka Access Media Group)
- Readers Magnet
- Royale House (defunct)
- Rushmore Press
- Sherlock Press (defunct)
- Silver Fox Media
- Stampa / Stampa Global (formerly Capstone Media Services)
- Stonewall Press (aka Uirtus Solutions) (both defunct)
- Stratton Press
- Techbooks Media (aka Chapters Media & Advertising)
- Toplink Publishing
- TrueMedia Creatives (aka Creative Titles Media)
- Uirtus Solutions (aka Stonewall Press) (both defunct)
- Universal Book Solutions
- URLink Print and Media
- Vivlio (a.k.a. Vivlio Hill, Vivlio Hill Publishing, Vivlio Solutions, Vivlio Marketing Solutions)
- WestPoint Print and Media
- Westwood Books Publishing (formerly Greenberry) (aka Authors Press / Creative Books)
- Window Press Club (aka Book Art Press Solutions / Booktimes)
- WorkBook Press
- The Writer Central (aka IdeoPage Press Solutions)
- YourOnlinePublicist
- Zeta Publishing

(I'm continuously updating this list--adding new companies as I discover them, noting the ones that disappear.)

I know my warnings are having an effect, not just because I'm hearing from writers who've found my posts or my list and have been able to avoid being ripped off, but because some of the scams are getting...a little defensive. Book-Art Press now includes this in its solicitation emails:
The links are to anti-Writer Beware screeds from people WB has exposed.

The grievance is definitely on display in this one, from MatchStick Literary (it also showcases the scams' trademark fractured English):

See ya at Writer Beware, scammers!

UPDATE 12/10/19: I want to highlight this recent comment, which illustrates how ubiquitous and persistent these scams are. Bottom line: if you self-publish, you can count on being solicited. Be on your guard. (By "GoTo", I'm assuming the commenter means GoToPublish.)

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

If you're not part of the horror or speculative fiction community, you may not be aware of the scandal that over the past two weeks has engulfed ChiZine Publications, a (previously) highly-regarded Canadian independent publisher.

In September of last year, several authors, including Ed Kurtz, made a complaint to the Horror Writers Association about long-overdue royalties at ChiZine. On November 5 of this year, after the complaint became public knowledge, CZP posted a statement on its Facebook page, claiming that Kurtz's royalties were "currently paid in full" and that "Any other monies he might be due will be paid on his next royalty statement". Kurtz's response, posted by his partner on Facebook a day later, was blistering:

The statement from Chizine neglects a number of salient facts, such as the moment in July 2018, at Necon, when I explained to Brett Savory that my partner was facing a layoff, our cat was ill, we were in severe financial distress, and I had *never* been paid a single cent of royalties in what was at that time almost two years for a moderately successful book. He actually grinned and said, "Things are hard for everyone right now" before walking away. The following morning it was reported to me that Sandra was loudly complaining in the dealer room about me having asked about my royalties, and of course the two of them went on a whirlwind trip around the world a few weeks after that, showing us all that things weren't so rough for them, after all.

In fact, I'd asked after my royalties several times and was rebuffed or given excuses every single time (usually something wrong with their accounting software or something similar, which I later learned they’d been saying to authors for years). I only went to the HWA after several other frustrated CZP authors (one of whom hadn't been paid in five years!) strongly encouraged me to do so. I expressed fear of bullying and/or retaliation, and some of these authors promised me they'd have my back (they didn't). And yes, a lot of us got paid through my efforts, though it is untrue I'm paid in full. I was never paid royalties for the months of my first year of publication, 2016, though CZP continues to claim I was. I just gave up on this.

Kurtz's experience was not isolated.


Between 2010 and 2015, Writer Beware received a handful of complaints (fewer than five) about ChiZine from authors who cited months-late royalty payments or long waits for contracts. Because the complaints were so few, and also because the authors all did eventually receive their payments or their contracts (though in most cases only after persistent prodding), it wasn't clear to me whether the tardiness indicated a pattern of problems, or was the kind of occasional glitch that can afflict otherwise reputable small presses with small staff and tight finances.

As it turns out, those few complaints were just the tiniest bubbles drifting up from what appears to be a roiling ocean of dysfunction.

Following Kurtz's public response, CZP authors and staff began to come forward with their own experiences--a tsunami of serious allegations including non-payment (some staff say they were never paid for years of work), extremely late or missing royalty payments (years in arrears in some cases; many authors report having to fight for what payment was received), erratically-produced royalty statements (CZP breached at least some of its own contracts by sending out royalties once a year instead of bi-annually--more on that below), missed pub dates, broken marketing promises, and financial mismanagement--especially concerning, since a big chunk of CZP's budget comes from grants and subsidies. (Former CZP staff member Michael Matheson has written a pair of illuminating posts on CZP's finances, including its treatment of grant money and habitual financial distress.)

Staff and authors also--in multiple, strikingly similar posts and complaints, including some received by Writer Beware--cite a toxic work culture that featured bullying, intimidation, sexual harassment, racism, gaslighting, and more. Several of those who contacted me told me that they felt CZP operated "like a cult," with charismatic leaders at the top who were admired and feared in equal measure, and whom many dared not defy.

This account only scratches the surface. For much more:

• Jason Sanford's Genre Grapevine column discusses the allegations against CZP, with quotes from authors he interviewed; and also looks at CZP's book sales, with data from Nielsen BookScan.
• Two posts from File770, plus one more
• A roundup of coverage from High Fever Books
• Tonya "Tricia" Liburd's Twitter thread compiling statements and stories

On November 11, CZP's founders, Sandra Kasturi and Brett Savory, posted a statement on the CZP blog and Facebook page indicating that they have decided to "step down." Although the statement mentions financial issues ("we have taken a short-term personal loan to bring payments up to date"), it doesn't address the many other complaints that have been leveled against the company--and, notably, does not include an apology.

The response has not been kind.


Despite all of the above, there are still those who continue to defend CZP, and to brush off the statements by writers and staff. For example, this, from editor Stephen Jones (Jones's post has been removed; this is a screenshot posted to Twitter):

What stands out for me here is not just the skepticism that whistleblowers always have to face (and which, even when the publisher doesn't try to intimidate or engage in reprisals, makes it so much harder for whistleblowers to come forward), but the defense of unprofessional business practice--not just by CZP but, apparently, by small press publishers in general. Small presses are doing something great for writers and readers, so we should "cut them some slack" when they fail to pay, or don't fill book orders, or miss a pub date, or engage in some other kind of behavior that has a negative impact on staff and authors. That's "simply the nature of small press publishing." Deal with it!

It's a really common argument. I can't tell you how often I've seen some version of it--not just from toxic or troubled publishers, but from the writers they are screwing over. But it is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

No matter how "worthy" a publisher may be, that does not give it the right to abuse its writers or its staff--whether by accident or design. Publishers function in the realm of art, but they also need to function like businesses--not like cults of personality, not like sinecures, not like kitchen-table hobby projects where it doesn't really matter that they know little about publishing and have never run a business as long as they've got good intentions. You don't get a pass because you've got a noble goal. You don't get a pass because independent publishers are struggling and we need more of them. You don't even get a pass because you're putting out good books from disenfranchised authors. You need to run your business right, and treat your writers and your staff right, or you have no business calling yourself a publisher.

Which brings me to my next point. The scope and range of what has apparently been happening at ChiZine is bigger than usual (and having seen as many small press implosions as I have over the years, it's amazing to me that it took so long for the scandal to break). But it's important to emphasize that it is not an isolated occurrence. Contract breaches, financial malfeasance, even the kind of harassment and gaslighting and dictatorial behavior that CZP authors and staff describe--all are rampant in the small press world. Just go back through a few years of the entries on this blog, and you'll see plenty of examples.

I don't mean to tar all small presses with the same brush. There are, it's important to acknowledge, many small and indie publishers that operate with complete professionalism and do all they can to treat their authors right. But there is a huge, huge problem in the small press segment of the publishing industry, and we don't do writers--or readers--any favors in dismissing or downplaying or making excuses for it.

I'm not the only one who is making this point. Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who had payment issues with CZP and also has experience running a micro-press, addresses the issue in a Twitter thread:


In a blog post, former CZP staffer Michael Matheson responds to those who would like to see publishers like CZP dealt with more kindly:

And, commenting on the Chizine situation, writer and reviewer Gabino Iglesias points out:


I agree 100%. But I'm not holding my breath.


The scandal has unfolded very quickly but there've already been consequences. High Fever Books reports "a mass exodus" from CZP, with authors requesting rights reversions for their books, and withdrawing stories from CZP's forthcoming Christmas anthology. The Ontario Arts Council, one of CZP's funders, has recently removed CZP from its list of grant recommenders. And SFWA has issued a statement:



Finally, some semi-wonky publishing stuff.

There's been some discussion of irregularities with CZP's royalty statements. I've seen a number of these, kindly shared with me by CZP authors, and while they're somewhat of a chore to figure out and are missing some information that ideally should be present, the numbers do add up. However, a few things are sub-optimal.

- CZP's contract boilerplate empowers the publisher to set a "reasonable" reserve against returns. There are no specifics, so it's basically up to the publisher to decide what "reasonable" is.

For CZP, "reasonable" seems to mean 50%. This seemed high to me, so I did a mini-canvass of literary agents on Twitter. Most agreed that smaller is better--maybe 25-30%, though some felt that 50% was justifiable depending on the circumstances. They also pointed out that the reserve percentage should fall in subsequent reporting periods (CZP's remains at 50%, unless boilerplate has been negotiated otherwise), and that publishers should not hold reserves beyond two or three years, or four or five accounting periods (CZP has held reserves for some authors for much longer).

(If you're unclear on what a reserve against returns is, here's an explanation.)

- Per CZP's contract, royalties are paid "by the first royalty period falling one year after publication." What this means in practice (based on the royalty statements I saw) is that if your pub date is (hypothetically) April of 2016, you are not eligible for payment until the first royalty period that follows your one-year anniversary--which, since CZP pays royalties just once a year on a January-December schedule, would be the royalty period ending December 2017. Since publishers often take months to issue royalty statements and payments following the end of a royalty period, you'd get no royalty check until sometime in 2018--close to, or possibly more than, two full years after publication.

In effect, CZP is setting a 100% reserve against returns for at least a year following publication, and often much more. This gives it the use of the author's money for far too long, not to mention a financial cushion that lets it write smaller checks, since it doesn't have to pay anything out until after returns have come in (most sales and most returns occur during the first year of release).

I shouldn't need to say that this is non-standard. It's also, in my opinion, seriously exploitative.

- And...about that annual payment. It too is non-standard--even the big houses pay twice a year, and most small publishers pay quarterly or even more often. It's also extra-contractual--at least for the contracts I saw. According to CZP's boilerplate, payments are supposed to be bi-annual after that initial year-or-more embargo. The switch to annual payment appears to have been a unilateral decision by CZP owners for logistical and cost reasons, actual contract language be damned (I've seen documentation of this).

- A final wonky contract point: CZP's contract boilerplate mentions royalty payments (as in, they're bi-annual)--but does not, anywhere, mention royalty statements.

A publishing contract absolutely needs to bind a publisher not just to pay, but to account royalties on a regular basis (whether or not payments are due). If there's no contractual obligation for the publisher to provide royalty accounting, it may decline to do so--and that's not theoretical, I've gotten more than a few complaints about exactly this. Just one more reason to get knowledgeable advice on any publishing contract you're thinking of signing.

In mid-2016, I wrote about YA publisher Month9 Books' abrupt decision to scale back its list, reverting rights to as many as 50 authors across all its imprints. Explaining the culling, Month9 founder and CEO Georgia McBride cited her own health problems, along with staffing issues and the company's "substantial growing pains" over the past six to nine months.

McBride's announcement triggered a surge of complaints from Month9 authors, who described a host of serious problems at the company, including late or missing payments (for staff as well as authors), problems with royalty accounting, delayed pub dates, broken marketing promises, overcrowded publication schedules, communications breakdowns, and harsh treatment and bullying by McBride.

According to authors and staff, these problems were not new or even recent, but had been ongoing for a long time. Why had authors kept silent? Almost every writer who contacted me mentioned their fear of retaliation--along with the draconian NDA included in Month9's contracts. I've rarely encountered a situation where authors seemed so fearful of their publisher.

Things quieted down after the initial flood of revelations, as they often do. Month9 survived and kept on publishing, though its list continued to shrink: between a high point in 2016 and now, the number of titles appears to have fallen about 50%. Apart from a handful of additional complaints in late 2016 and early 2017 (similar to this one), I didn't hear much about Month9 in the years following.

Until now. Over the past few weeks, I've been contacted by multiple writers who say they are still suffering from the same problems that surfaced in 2016: primarily, late (sometimes very late) royalty and subrights advance payments and statements (in many cases received only after persistent prodding by authors and their agents), and allegations of irregularities in royalty reporting.

The intimidation level, too, seems not to have changed. Most of the authors told me that they feared reprisal for coming forward, and asked me specifically not to mention their names or book titles. (Writer Beware never reveals names or other unique identifying information, unless we receive specific permission from the individual. That disclaimer is included on our website and in our correspondence.)

If you've been following the recent ChiZine scandal, you may be feeling some deja vu--notably, in the alleged existence of a toxic culture within the publisher that makes authors fearful and and helps to keep them silent. It's disappointing to learn that even if the issues that thrust Month9 into the spotlight three years ago have gone quiet, they don't seem to have eased. Writers be warned.


I wrote about Black Rose Writing in 2009, in connection with its requirement that authors buy their own books. Writers who submitted were asked how many of their own books they planned to buy; their response was then written into their contracts. (Book purchase requirements are back-end vanity publishing: even if writers aren't being asked to pay for production and distribution, they still must hand over money in order to see their work in print.)

Black Rose got rid of the book purchase requirement a few years later, and claimed to be a completely fee-free publisher. I had my suspicions that money might still somehow be involved, though...and as it turns out, I wasn't wrong.

I've recently learned that new Black Rose authors receive a Cooperative Marketing Catalog that sells a range of pay-to-play marketing and promotional services, with costs ranging from a few hundred dollars to four figures. For instance:


It's true that purchase is optional (though I would guess that authors are heavily solicited to buy). But reputable publishers don't sell marketing services to their authors--and in any case, much of what's on offer are things that other publishers, even very small ones, do for their authors free of charge, as part of the publication process.

That's not the only way in which Black Rose authors are encouraged to pay their publisher. Owner Reagan Rothe is a self-described "financial partner" in two additional businesses: the Maxy Awards, a high entry fee book competition that donates "a large part of every entry" to a charity (how large? No idea; that information is not provided); and Sublime Book Review, a paid review service.

Though Mr. Rothe's financial interest in these businesses is not disclosed on the business's websites, both businesses are clearly energetically promoted to Black Rose authors. On Sublime's website, nineteen of the first 20 book reviews are for Black Rose books. There's also this, from the marketing catalog (note the lack of disclaimer):


As for the Maxys, thirteen of the 17 winners and runners-up for 2019 are Black Rose books.

Mr. Rothe does admit his relationship with the businesses in this recent email to Black Rose authors--though only to afford them yet another opportunity to give him money:

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

In a super-crowded, hyper-competitive marketplace, one of the main challenges for book authors is to stand out. And where there's a need, there are always unscrupulous operators waiting to take advantage. The internet is awash in worthless schemes and outright scams designed to profit from authors' hunger for publicity and exposure.

I've written about a number of these--Hollywood book-to-screen packages, the hugely marked-up PR options offered by Author Solutions, the plague of marketing scams originating in the Philippines. Others to watch out for include book fair display packages (publishing industry expert Jane Friedman has a good article on why these are not worth your money), pay-to-play book review services, and what I'm going to talk about in this post: vanity radio.

What's vanity radio? In the "writer beware" context, it's radio air time that you, the program guest, have to pay for. Such schemes have been around forever in various forms, aimed at experts and creatives of all kinds, from services that explicitly sell pay-to-play interviews, to show hosts that charge interview fees to defray the fees they themselves have to pay their platforms.

The main selling point is the promise that your interview will be heard by a large and eager audience, giving wide exposure to you and your book (see the pitches that I've pasted in below). But vanity radio is primarily online radio, delivered via platforms like Blog Talk Radio and Spreaker, and streaming services like iTunes, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud. Online radio listenership is steadily rising, but unless there are subscriber lists (as on YouTube, for instance), there's usually no way to determine the audience for any given host or show--or to authenticate any listenership claims the show may make. Lots of people may be tuning in...or no one at all.

As a result, the only verifiable benefit authors may receive for their money is an audio or audio-and-video clip that they can post to their websites and social media accounts. Whether that's worth it when it costs $99 or $150 or $200 is debatable enough. But when the price tag is four figures?

As always in the realm of junk marketing aimed at writers, Author Solutions has been both the pioneer and the primary practitioner. All its imprints sell vanity radio in some form: here's AuthorHouse's offering, for instance (just $1,099!). iUniverse's is identical. Xlibris and Trafford currently sell teasers rather than interviews (for significantly more money), but through 2017 they too hawked interviews.

Recently, however, AS's leadership in the realm of predatory marketing services has been challenged by a flood of scammy imitators. These copycat ripoff factories have adopted vanity radio in a big way, and they aggressively hawk it to authors, both on its own and as part of costly publishing and marketing packages. Here, for instance, is an offer from Book Vine Press (cost: $1,500):

From Author Reputation Press (cost: £1,500):


From Parchment Global Publishing (cost: $1,499):


The copycats re-sell the services of a number of show hosts (there's a list below), but the three personalities noted above--Kate Delaney with America Tonight Radio, Ric Bratton with This Week in America, and Al Cole with People of Distinction--make the most frequent appearances on the copycats' websites and in their email solicitations. Delaney and Bratton have substantial, legit resumes in TV and radio; Cole is a bit harder to research, but he too seems to have a sizeable track record as a talk show host.

What, if anything, do they know of the reputation and tactics of the copycats that are re-selling their services? I contacted all three for comment last week. Cole's assistant responded in email that "Al Cole knew nothing about this....Our office will certainly look into this." As of this writing, I haven't heard back from Delaney or Bratton.

Given that the copycats routinely charge an enormous markup on products they re-sell (see, for instance, this warning from the Combined Book Exhibit, whose book fair exhibit packages many of the copycats re-sell for hugely inflated prices; the copycats also seriously jack up the fees for paid book reviews such as Kirkus Indie and BlueInk Reviews), it seems a fair bet that the interviews' hefty price tags are substantially inflated as well.

Apart from the question of such interviews' value for book promotion, that seems like reason enough to avoid them.


Author Solutions copycats that sell interviews from the individuals mentioned above:

BookVenture, ReadersMagnet, Maple Leaf Publishing, Parchment Global Publishing, Rustic Haws, Branding Nemo, Creative Titles Media, Paradigm Print, Stampa Global, Books Scribe, Matchstick Literary, PageTurner Press, EC Publishing, WestPoint Print and Media: Ric Bratton

LitFire Publishing, Author Reputation Press, ReadersMagnet, BookTrail Agency, Book-Art Press, Box Office Media Creatives, IdeoPage Press, Book Agency Plus: Kate Delaney


ReadersMagnet, Author Reputation Press, Rustik Haws, URLink Print & Media, Workbook Press, Parchment Global Publishing, BookWhip: Al Cole


BookTrail Agency: David Serero

BookTrail Agency, Book Agency Plus: Angela Chester


UPDATE 1/9/19: Parchment Global has added the disclaimer in red to its solicitations for Al Cole interviews (it might want to do some proofreading):


I don't know if this was at Mr. Cole's behest (remember, he's the only vanity radio host who responded--if not very expansively--to my request for comment) or is just CYA by Parchment Global itself, but hey--it lets me know that the scammers are still reading my blog.

Do I believe Parchment Global has stopped taking a cut? What do you think?

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

In my first post about the ways that predatory companies attempt to ensnare unwary writers who are searching for publishers, I discussed fake publisher-matching websites. In my second, I exposed the scammy Google ad tactics of vanity publisher Austin Macauley.

In this third post, I'll talk about an equally insidious practice: providing misinformation or even outright lies about traditional publishing, in order to make self- or vanity publishing appear superior.

Yesterday on Twitter, someone tweeted this chart, which purportedly compares traditional publishing and self-publishing.


If you're even slightly savvy about publishing, the inaccuracies are easy to spot. Trad pubs often pay royalties on retail price (not "net sales"), or pay a higher percentage (higher royalties are especially common in the small press world). Trad pubs that pay advances don't withhold them from less popular authors, and they don't require authors to make "certain minimum orders" or to buy thousands of copies of their own books. And while it's often true that smaller traditional publishers don't provide much in the way of PR or marketing support, and larger houses invest more marketing in more popular books and authors, they don't simply ignore 95% of their output (this makes no sense; what business markets only 5% of its products?)

As for author rights...trad pubs do license exclusive rights from authors, sometimes for a period of years, sometimes for the life of copyright (with reversion usually happening well before then). But they don't gain ownership of them (as "all rights are with the publisher" implies), because the author retains copyright--plus, authors can often negotiate to keep some of their subsidiary rights. And although self-publishing is typically non-exclusive, allowing authors to publish on multiple platforms if they wish, they do still have to license publishing and distribution rights to whichever platform or service provider they choose--otherwise, the platform couldn't legally produce and sell their books.

The chart comes from this how-to-self-publish article, which is really just a long ad for PublishEdge, which is (surprise!) a paid publishing services provider.


PublishEdge is a "division" of Zaang Entertainment Pvt Ltd, which, unlike the Philippines-based scams I've been covering so much lately, is based in India. The range of services it sells aren't priced as high as some of the scammers', but there are still plenty of warning signs: no information about who is providing the services on offer (so you have no idea who they are or if they're qualified); no cover or website design samples (so you have no idea what you'd be getting for your money); and this pitch for ghostwriting services, which invites you to "Discover the simple secret to how celebrities and busy professionals get their books published without actually writing", courtesy of "our book writing experts", who (judging from the description of the service) basically type up a Skype interview into a chapter book. Most likely these unnamed "experts" are hired on Upwork or Fiverr or a similar jobs site (holy plagiarism scandal, Batman!).

PublishEdge isn't alone in misrepresenting traditional publishing in order to make itself look more attractive. Among other alternative facts, this chart from Morgan James, a vanity publisher with an author purchase requirement, claims that "many major houses" require authors to buy 5,000 copies or more of their own books (doesn't that make MJ's 2,500 purchase requirement seem appealing?), and that trad pubs provide no PR or marketing support for 94% of their books and authors. (Hmmm. Could PublishEdge have borrowed a little something there?)

Here's another misleading comparison, from Union Square Publishing, a self-styled hybrid (read: vanity) publisher. It too borrows heavily from Morgan James's chart, with several of the same dubious claims. Here's another one--this time from Success Publishing, which sells Chicken Soup-style anthology slots.

This one, from "custom" publisher Momosa Publishing (packages start at $5,900), doesn't tell quite so many fibs, but encourages you to believe that trad pubs cap their royalties at 6%, and don't market their books to libraries. And then there's this from Atmosphere Press, another so-called hybrid, which wants to convince writers that a $5,000 publishing fee will save them from the "raw end of the deal" they'd get from a trad pub, "losing not just their royalties but also the rights to their material and to their control over their art." Not addressed: the likelihood of ever making that $5,000 back.

These are just a few examples; there are many more. If you use the internet as part of your publisher search, you're very likely to encounter them (in some cases, disseminated by self-styled experts who ought to know better). It's a great argument for a step that many writers skip: learning about publishing before diving into the quest for publication. As with all aspects of publishing, knowledge is your greatest ally and your best defense: the more you know about the way things really work, the better protected you will be against the disinformation described above.

Final note: I know that many writers have had bad experiences with traditional publishers--I've had some myself. Especially in the small press world, many traditional (at least in the sense that they don't charge fees) publishers engage in nonstandard and author-unfriendly business practices. There's plenty of discussion of that on this blog. I'm not trying to paint trad pub as perfect, or argue that it's necessarily a better choice for any given writer.

But deliberate distortions like those described above don't help anyone, even if you don't take into account their obvious self-serving agenda. Tarring an entire segment of the publishing market with a broad negative brush--especially where some of the supposed negatives are demonstrably false--is as irresponsible as arguing (as some people still do) that only traditional publishing is a worthwhile path. 

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

On Sunday morning, I woke up (late, I admit) to a flurry of emails about an website I'd never heard of before: Pressfuls.

The writers who contacted me reported that they'd entered a free short story contest this past September.


As you can see, pretty minimal information. At the end of October, they received a mass email (which, curiously, cc'd all the recipients instead of bcc'ing them, so that all email addresses were visible to everyone), announcing the winner:


Although the contest entry info hadn't mentioned that the winner would be published, the writers thought they were done and moved on. Some submitted their contest stories elsewhere. Some of those stories got accepted.

Then, just a few days ago, on December 19--surprise!

Writers were shocked. As far as they knew, they had never granted permission for their stories to be published or turned into audio versions--much less made part of some sort of pay-per-view subscription service. As for the request for PayPal information, that sounded really scammy. Writers who emailed Pressfuls to ask questions or emphasize that they hadn't granted publication rights received a non-responsive response reiterating that their story was going to be published, and that "We will give you more details about it in short time [sic]."

So what is Pressfuls? With a web domain registered just six months ago, its current website (which writers tell me has been overhauled since the contest) presents as a short fiction subscription service, with a bizarrely large variety of paid subscription plans. There is no information whatever about staff, owners, the company, or, on the submission page, payment structure and publishing rights.

There's also a couple of new short story contests with 2020 entry deadlines. And that brings me to my main reason for writing this post. Beyond the questionable happenings in this particular case, Pressfuls is like an archetypal object lesson on the kinds of contests you want to avoid.

Count the red flags:

- No rules or guidelines. The page for the September contest is gone, but writers who contacted me say that there were no posted rules or guidelines--and certainly there are none for the current contests. Bad contest rules are a red flag...but no rules at all is a giant, klaxon-blaring, run-away-now warning sign. Pressfuls' attempt to monetize entries it was never authorized to publish in the first place illustrates why.

Never, never, NEVER enter a contest if you can't find, read, and/or understand the rules.

- No information about rights or payment. Plenty of contests have unfriendly rights demands. For instance, you may have to grant publication rights simply by entering, and the contest sponsor may never release them. At least when that info is present on the sponsor's website, you can't say you weren't warned. But if there's no rights or payment information whatsoever, you are really setting yourself up for the possibility of a nasty surprise...like finding out your entry has been included in a subscription service with a sketchy payment plan.

- No information about the company. Do you seriously want to enter a contest whose organizers or sponsors you know absolutely nothing about--not even where they're located or how long they've been around? I'll give you a hint: No. If you can't confirm who's running the contest, don't enter.

- No information about judges. Part of the prestige of a contest (if it has any--and most contests don't) depends on who is doing the judging. Reputable contests disclose their judges.Otherwise, you have no guarantee the contest isn't just pulling names out of a hat.

- English-language errors. Sure, anyone can make mistakes or typos (although you have to wonder about the professionalism of a contest sponsor that isn't capable of proofing its own website). But if it's an English-language contest, and you see errors or odd syntax that suggest the website has been created by people whose first language is not English, be wary. A lot of scams these days are coming from overseas. The Pressfuls website isn't as bad as many I've seen, but there are enough lapses (dropped plurals, missing articles, mis-spellings--for instance, in several locations "Fantasy" is spelled "Fanstasy") to prompt caution. (Pressfuls' emails provide much clearer examples.)

So what is Pressfuls, really? A phishing scheme? A sleazy way to acquire and monetize content? A clueless would-be publisher with no idea how things should be done? I really can't tell. But none of these possibilities are good ones.

A couple of the writers who contacted me told me that Pressfuls complied (though without any acknowledgment) when they demanded that their stories be taken down. However, another writer said that they tried several times and their story is still online.

Since Pressfuls has no real "contact us" option on its website, my suggestion is to send a DMCA takedown notice to its email address (shortstorycontest@pressfuls.com) or, if that yields no response, to the email address of its web host (abuse@in2net.com). You can find out more about DMCA notices (which are legal notices demanding removal of infringed material from the internet) here. SFWA offers a handy DMCA notice generator.

For more information and cautions about contests, see Writer Beware's Contests and Awards page. I've also written a blog post that covers some of the same ground: Some Tips on Evaluating Writing Contests.

UPDATE 12/24/19: Since I put this post online yesterday, Pressfuls has amended the descriptions on its contests. Originally they looked like the description for the original contest (see above). Now they look like this:


This is not an improvement, since there's still nothing about publication or rights. Also, the copyright info is ignorant on multiple levels. WGA and WGC registrations (which are primarily for screenwriters) are not legally equivalent to US copyright registration--and they don't prove anything anyway, since the author already owns copyright, by law, as soon as the words are written down.

I shouldn't need to say that you really want your publisher to have an accurate understanding of copyright.

Writers tell me that Pressfuls sent out another mass email with instructions on how to have content removed, so it seems they're paying attention. We shall see.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®


On this blog and elsewhere, I spend a lot of time warning about junk book marketing services: so-called marketing and promotional services that are cheap to provide, but can be sold at a big markup, and for the most part are of little worth for book promotion or can more effectively be done by the author him/herself. Some examples: press releases, email blasts, book trailers, book fair display, social media setup, and social media advertising.

All these and more are hawked to writers at exorbitant prices by assisted self-publishing companies like the various Author Solutions imprints--and also, increasingly, by their scam imitators. Either way, they're a ripoff...but the scammers demand even bigger fees, tell even bigger lies, and deliver even more shoddy results. And that's when they're not just taking your money and running.

A few weeks ago, I focused on pay-to-play radio interviews--another junk marketing service--and why they're not worth the huge fees charged by providers. This week, I'm going to talk about pay-to-play magazines. (You'll note that all the companies discussed below are on my Big List of Publishing and Marketing Scams.)

Have you ever received a solicitation like this one?

Or this one?

Or this one?

Of course the books haven't undergone "extensive evaluation", or been "carefully chosen", or showed to "a team" that "really like[s] your vision". Such solicitations are just spam, blasted out to addresses scraped from the internet or stolen from self-publishing company customer lists.

Nor are these real magazines, in the sense of publications that are widely available to the public. Instead, they're collections of ads, interviews, and "feature articles" sold to writers at huge prices, sometimes interspersed with general interest pieces (often really badly written) or, in the case of New Reader Magazine, with fiction, poetry, and art. These "publications" are never circulated in any meaningful sense; they may be posted online, but their primary mode of distribution is from tables in company booths at book fairs...where many of the authors buying ad or interview space have already paid a premium for display.


The prices the faux magazines charge for placement can be enormous. For instance, here's the  "Executive Full-Spread Ad" from Paperclips Magazine, which is owned by (not "partnered with" as claimed in its solicitation email) publishing and marketing scammer Legaia Books:


A "Showcase" full-page ad costs $3,698 ($2,218.80 on sale), and a "Premier" half-page ad clocks in at $2,599 ($1,299.50 on sale). Paperclips' parent company, Legaia Books, also sells publishing and marketing services at high prices, using deceptive sales tactics to target small press- and self-published authors.

Here's one writer's not very satisfactory experience with Paperclips. I've gotten emails from many others.

New Reader Magazine--which looks quite legit if you don't know better--is owned by New Reader Media. Though the magazine actually appears to provide small payments for content acquired via general submission, it charges anywhere from $5,000 and up for the magazine feature and "partnership" mentioned in its solicitation email. Like Legaia, New Reader Media also sells publishing and marketing services at gigantic prices, as well as book-to-screen services (always a scam).

New Reader has accumulated some online complaints due to its aggressive solicitation and poor performance. It has also been caught making false claims, such as that it was responsible for Christopher Paolini's bestselling novel Eragon being made into a movie.

The Christmas magazine that's the subject of EC Publishing's solicitation can be seen here (if you're brave, you can also check out the Las Vegas Edition, produced for the Las Vegas Book Festival). Like most of the pay-to-play magazines, it's a compilation of author-purchased ads and features, laughably badly-written general interest articles, and a smattering of actual advertising. Prices for inclusion range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on how much space is purchased.

Thanks to its aggressive soliciting, EC Publishing is the subject of a warning from the Australian Society of Authors.

Authors Press's Authorial magazine has its own website (note the "notice of non-affiliation and disclaimer" that pops up if you linger on the home page: the scammers read Writer Beware). Writers can buy a spot in the magazine, starting at fees of a few hundred dollars; ad space or "features" are also included in some of the more expensive promotional packages Authors Press offers.

Authorial's BEA 2019 issue consists of more than 75 pages of author ads, interviews, and excerpts. Just imagine the thousands of dollars in revenue generated by all those pages, some of which include ten or more ads. Also have a peek at Authorial's gallery page, which features photos of  the dozens of books displayed in Authors Press's BEA booth. In 2019, writers were being charged anywhere from $1,000 to $3,500 for presence in the booth, depending on what level of activity they chose. Now multiply all of this by the seven book fairs Authors Press attended in 2019. It's not chump change.

From URLink Print and Media comes Harbinger Post. Like the others, it's nearly all paid content, interspersed here and there with staff-written features. Here's an example of the caliber of that writing:


Other scammy publishing and marketing companies that sell space in proprietary magazines (I've received multiple complaints about all these companies):

Global Summit House: Global Summit House
Litfire Publishing: WayFairer
AuthorCentrix: AuthorCentrix Magazine
Stonewall Press (defunct): GoldCrest Magazine

Print advertising is expensive, and how useful it is for book marketing is an open question. But if it is to be effective at all, it must offer the possibility of being seen by a large audience of potentially interested readers and buyers.

That means circulation, subscriptions, and quality content beyond mere advertising--not ad-stuffed, error-ridden, proprietary publications whose only exposure to the public is a "free, take one" stack on a side table in a book fair booth. Even if the ad slots weren't insanely expensive--and even if writers didn't have to pay for what real magazines never charge for, such as interviews--buying space in these fake publications would be a waste of money.

Writer beware.

UPDATE 1/29/20: It's not just scammers that run this kind of racket. Via its PW Select - BookLife feature (which I discuss here and  here), industry magazine Publishers Weekly has begun to sell a "very special" service:


These prices rival the scammers'. And the promise of print exposure is not quite what it seems. Per PW's Q&A explainer, the interviews appear not in the body of the magazine, but in "PW’s BookLife supplement, which is published the last week of each month bound into that week’s issue of Publishers Weekly". In other words, easy for readers to ignore or skip over.

PW actually has the wide circulation and industry audience the scammers only pretend to. But given the huge fees and the segregation of the interviews in a separate supplement--not to mention the open question of how useful any kind of print advertising is for book marketing--there's more than a whiff of the same kind of exploitation here.

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eyyy

Today's comic is a guest strip from my good buddy KB Spangler! Thanks buddy! Regular comics resume tomorrow.

EMU

Hehehe

I was so mad at myself and also pleased with myself when I came up with that song concept

Hey there! I am pleased to announce that I have a new album out! It is instrumental metal and is about our oncoming climate apocalypse. Check it out below, and if you like what you hear, feel free to purchase a copy!

same-night delivery, nice

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Elliot isn't doing himself any favors

Beeps!

OBEY

wheee

Night brun

Hercules!