Okay, I know I said I wouldn't be posting again until after New Year's--but I'm sure you'll forgive me if I break that promise.
I've blogged before about vanity publisher Jones Harvest Publishing, whose business model's similarity to that of disgraced vanity publisher Airleaf is no accident, since Brien Jones, Jones Harvest's owner, is also one of Airleaf's founders (under its previous name, Bookman Marketing). I've blogged a number of times about Airleaf, too.
Well, Brien Jones is currently not a happy camper. He's furious with Bonnie Kaye, whose efforts on behalf of Airleaf victims were instrumental in enabling the Indiana Attorney General to bring suit against Airleaf, and who has also begun collecting complaints about Jones Harvest. He has excoriated her in posts like this one on the Jones Harvest blog, accusing her of lying about the complaints she has received. He even persuaded a lawyer to send her a cease and desist letter (though the impact of this missive is somewhat diminished by the fact that the lawyer doesn't appear to understand the difference between slander and libel, as evidenced by this, from the letter's third paragraph: "The elements of slander are a false and unprivileged written publication..." Bzzt. Wrong. No biscuit).
Brien is not a man to be stingy with his ire. As much as he has lavished on Bonnie, there's enough left over for me, Lee Goldberg (who has blogged about Jones Harvest ), and Julie Neidlinger (who hasn't blogged about Jones Harvest, as far as I can tell, but who did once blog about Airleaf). See for yourself, in this excerpt from his latest anti-Bonnie post:
I also understand cowardly women like Victoria Strauss, Julie Neidlinger and Lee Goldberg and their lies. After all they’re not saying anything bad — just repeating what they were told. And what do you know! They all have their own publishing companies too! I won’t say which publishing companies...but you can figure it out in less than 30 seconds yourself.
Unfortunately, a few of Brien's facts are, well, not exactly factual. Writer/producer Lee Goldberg was understandably quite surprised to discover that he has been transformed not just into a publishing CEO, but a woman. I imagine that writer/artist Julie Neidlinger might be equally bewildered by her sudden elevation to publisher. As for me, I'm certain I'm not just having a senior moment when I completely fail to recall ever owning, heading, or even working for a publishing company.
Hmmm. I guess there's a reason why Brien dare not speak these publishing companies' names. Kind of puts a different spin on the whole lying thing, eh?
Here's Bonnie's response to Brien on the Jones Harvest Fraud Victims blog.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Happy Holidays
To all our wonderful readers, subscribers, and followers--thanks for visiting us this year, and we look forward to seeing you next year as well. Have a happy and peaceful holiday season, and we'll be back with new blog posts in January 2009!
- The Writer Beware Team
- The Writer Beware Team
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Letter to a Desperate Author
Dear Desperate Author,
Once again, you sent me an email solicitation to buy your recently self- or small press-published novel. Perhaps you used Media Eblast or a similar spam generator, or hired one of those fake marketing services that prey on desperate authors just like you. Perhaps you crafted the email all on your own. Because it's the holidays and the world is spiraling ever farther into economic crisis, you may have suggested that books make good gifts, so I should buy yours.
What I want to know is, what made you think that the email address for a website called "Writer Beware" was appropriate to solicit? I mean, for one thing, there's that word, "Beware." Why would you imagine that the folks at a website that's all about Bewares, especially writing-related Bewares, would be receptive to a buy-my-book spam? (Of course, scammers also solicit Writer Beware, so I guess it's not that much of a deterrent.)
Another thing. If you aren't just spamming blindly, and actually know something about me or Writer Beware, you may also be aware of my opinion of bulk email as a promotional strategy. You may even know that I have a particular loathing for Media Eblast. Which would make your buy-my-book spam even less appropriate and even more annoying than it would otherwise be. (And if this is news to you, I guess you are spamming blindly. Naughty, naughty.)
Also, do you really think that spamming--even targeted spamming--is an effective way to drum up sales for your book? I mean, really? I've got news for you--it's not. No one buys a book because they got an email solicitation from someone they never heard of. Most people will respond as I did, and hit the delete button. (For your sake, I hope you didn't pay someone a lot of money to irritate me in this way.)
One last suggestion. Proofread your damn spams. A thriller is not a "triller." It's "heart-rending," not "heart-rendering." Apostrophes should not randomly adorn plurals and possessives, but should decorate only contractions. Yes, I'm a stickler for this stuff, and I'm not alone. You don't enhance your credibility with typos, grammatical errors, or malapropisms. (Again, I really hope you did not pay anyone to make these mistakes on your behalf.)
Desperate Author, I don't mean to be unsympathetic. I understand your desperation--heck, all authors are fairly desperate these days, no matter who their publishers are. I know you may be spamming me not because you really think I'll buy your book and give it to my Great-Aunt Edna for Christmas, but because it distracts you from your desperation by giving you the illusion of being pro-active. But trust me--you need to stop. Seriously. Because it's not doing you any good, and no one loves a spammer. Not even at the holidays.
Sincerely,
- Victoria
Once again, you sent me an email solicitation to buy your recently self- or small press-published novel. Perhaps you used Media Eblast or a similar spam generator, or hired one of those fake marketing services that prey on desperate authors just like you. Perhaps you crafted the email all on your own. Because it's the holidays and the world is spiraling ever farther into economic crisis, you may have suggested that books make good gifts, so I should buy yours.
What I want to know is, what made you think that the email address for a website called "Writer Beware" was appropriate to solicit? I mean, for one thing, there's that word, "Beware." Why would you imagine that the folks at a website that's all about Bewares, especially writing-related Bewares, would be receptive to a buy-my-book spam? (Of course, scammers also solicit Writer Beware, so I guess it's not that much of a deterrent.)
Another thing. If you aren't just spamming blindly, and actually know something about me or Writer Beware, you may also be aware of my opinion of bulk email as a promotional strategy. You may even know that I have a particular loathing for Media Eblast. Which would make your buy-my-book spam even less appropriate and even more annoying than it would otherwise be. (And if this is news to you, I guess you are spamming blindly. Naughty, naughty.)
Also, do you really think that spamming--even targeted spamming--is an effective way to drum up sales for your book? I mean, really? I've got news for you--it's not. No one buys a book because they got an email solicitation from someone they never heard of. Most people will respond as I did, and hit the delete button. (For your sake, I hope you didn't pay someone a lot of money to irritate me in this way.)
One last suggestion. Proofread your damn spams. A thriller is not a "triller." It's "heart-rending," not "heart-rendering." Apostrophes should not randomly adorn plurals and possessives, but should decorate only contractions. Yes, I'm a stickler for this stuff, and I'm not alone. You don't enhance your credibility with typos, grammatical errors, or malapropisms. (Again, I really hope you did not pay anyone to make these mistakes on your behalf.)
Desperate Author, I don't mean to be unsympathetic. I understand your desperation--heck, all authors are fairly desperate these days, no matter who their publishers are. I know you may be spamming me not because you really think I'll buy your book and give it to my Great-Aunt Edna for Christmas, but because it distracts you from your desperation by giving you the illusion of being pro-active. But trust me--you need to stop. Seriously. Because it's not doing you any good, and no one loves a spammer. Not even at the holidays.
Sincerely,
- Victoria
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Subscriptions and Solicitations
I'm often asked whether it's worth an aspiring writer's money to subscribe to Writer's Digest. The answer I usually give is "maybe."
The features can be helpful (disclosure: Ann and I have written for Writer's Digest)--though principally for beginners--and the interviews can be interesting. However, the articles and filler pieces often seem superficial, the advertising is heavily oriented toward paid "services" including self-publishing services, and the Classifieds section is rife with ads for vanity anthology contests and scam literary agents (a number of whom are on Writer Beware's Thumbs Down Agency List). Not exactly helpful for writers are looking to break into the commercial publishing market.
Simply filling its pages with self-publishing advertisements is not enough for Writer's Digest. Its subscriber base, after all, provides a perfect captive audience for direct solicitation. The following was recently received by a WD subscriber who'd signed up for email "updates" from WD (my bolding):
As part of Writer's Digest's commitment to presenting our subscribers with useful information on new products, services, and educational programs for aspiring and professional writers, we want to share the following paid message from one of our advertisers.
It's been an exciting year for Trafford Publishing and 2009 is shaping up to be even better for authors who wish to publish their books independently. Never before have the advantages of Trafford Publishing's print-on-demand publishing service been more obvious: no inventory fees, no costly return credits, and the ability to order and ship just as many copies as are needed are just three of the ways POD is changing the way books are being published now and in the future. Trafford authors own 100% of their copyright and set their own book prices, giving them the freedom they need to target their specific markets. Interested in learning more?
Call us today at 1-888-232-4444 and ask to speak to one of our friendly publishing consultants.
There's more, but you get the picture.
Now, Trafford is a perfectly reliable, if somewhat expensive, print-on-demand self-publishing service. Writer Beware has gotten no recent complaints about it. However, it has in the past used questionable methods to promote its services, such as offering a 15% referral fee to literary agents who sent writers its way. So that it would direct-solicit the WD subscription base isn't really a surprise--nor, given the percentage of WD's advertising that's represented by self-publishing services, is it really surprising that WD would be OK with this. What crosses the line, for me, is WD's introduction, which reads a lot like an endorsement. It's one thing to sell your subscriber list. It's another to lend your name to the resulting solicitation.
Solicitation of writers by scam agents and vanity publishers is nothing new, of course. Long before the Internet and email, they were using not just magazine subscription lists, but information from the US Copyright Office, to lure writers into their clutches. They still are. If you register copyright for your book manuscript, be prepared to be solicited by Dorrance, a hugely expensive vanity publisher that wants to charge you five figures to print a few hundred copies of your book. (This is just one of several reasons not to register copyright for unpublished work.)
The features can be helpful (disclosure: Ann and I have written for Writer's Digest)--though principally for beginners--and the interviews can be interesting. However, the articles and filler pieces often seem superficial, the advertising is heavily oriented toward paid "services" including self-publishing services, and the Classifieds section is rife with ads for vanity anthology contests and scam literary agents (a number of whom are on Writer Beware's Thumbs Down Agency List). Not exactly helpful for writers are looking to break into the commercial publishing market.
Simply filling its pages with self-publishing advertisements is not enough for Writer's Digest. Its subscriber base, after all, provides a perfect captive audience for direct solicitation. The following was recently received by a WD subscriber who'd signed up for email "updates" from WD (my bolding):
As part of Writer's Digest's commitment to presenting our subscribers with useful information on new products, services, and educational programs for aspiring and professional writers, we want to share the following paid message from one of our advertisers.
It's been an exciting year for Trafford Publishing and 2009 is shaping up to be even better for authors who wish to publish their books independently. Never before have the advantages of Trafford Publishing's print-on-demand publishing service been more obvious: no inventory fees, no costly return credits, and the ability to order and ship just as many copies as are needed are just three of the ways POD is changing the way books are being published now and in the future. Trafford authors own 100% of their copyright and set their own book prices, giving them the freedom they need to target their specific markets. Interested in learning more?
Call us today at 1-888-232-4444 and ask to speak to one of our friendly publishing consultants.
There's more, but you get the picture.
Now, Trafford is a perfectly reliable, if somewhat expensive, print-on-demand self-publishing service. Writer Beware has gotten no recent complaints about it. However, it has in the past used questionable methods to promote its services, such as offering a 15% referral fee to literary agents who sent writers its way. So that it would direct-solicit the WD subscription base isn't really a surprise--nor, given the percentage of WD's advertising that's represented by self-publishing services, is it really surprising that WD would be OK with this. What crosses the line, for me, is WD's introduction, which reads a lot like an endorsement. It's one thing to sell your subscriber list. It's another to lend your name to the resulting solicitation.
Solicitation of writers by scam agents and vanity publishers is nothing new, of course. Long before the Internet and email, they were using not just magazine subscription lists, but information from the US Copyright Office, to lure writers into their clutches. They still are. If you register copyright for your book manuscript, be prepared to be solicited by Dorrance, a hugely expensive vanity publisher that wants to charge you five figures to print a few hundred copies of your book. (This is just one of several reasons not to register copyright for unpublished work.)
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Why You Shouldn't Write for Essay Mills
I get a fair number of questions from writers wondering whether essay mills are legitimate freelance markets. My response: Caveat writer. Big time.
What's an essay mill? A website where customers can buy term papers, research papers, and/or dissertations, and writers can (theoretically) be paid for writing them. There are scores of these sites online--EssayWriters.net, Eduwriters.com, BigPapers.com, Buyaresearchpaper.com, 4termpapers.com, Custom-Writing.org, to name just a few. Sometimes, a single company will own multiple URLs.
Essay mills advertise for writers online or in venues like Craigslist, promising easy work and good pay. Some, such as Essaywriters.net, even claim to offer bonuses. Especially if you're an aspiring writer looking to build credits, you might be tempted. But there are reasons to think twice--and then to think again.
- It can be a pain in the ass. Many essay mills, such as Academia-Research.com, promise writers flexible schedules and the ability to pick and choose which orders they take. The flip side of this is that they typically allow purchasers to demand almost unlimited editing and revision. For instance, Customwrittenpapers.net promises "free unlimited revisions." And StandOutEssay.com, in its pitch to customers, describes its process thus: "Normally, the process starts with regular research, continues with planning, crafting a rough draft and then writing, re-writing, and editing until the customized paper meets your expectations."
What this means for writers: anything you write may come back to you multiple times for changes and revision (and remember, your customer will be a student too lazy to write his or her own research paper, who very likely knows way less than you do about the subject of the essay). This is time for which you get no extra money, because you're usually being paid on a per-page or flat fee basis. Hour by hour, what looks like attractive pay can work out to a pittance.
- You could lose copyright. Some essay mills claim copyright on all papers written for them--essentially, it's work-for-hire. Given that you're writing for others and may never want to use the work yourself, this may not be a big concern for you--still, it's something to be aware of.
- Payment is not guaranteed. Complaints about essay mills abound, most centering on money. Writers report slow payment, non-payment, and non-communication when they question or complain. Here's a typical nonpayment complaint involving Essaywriters.net. These nonpayment complaints focus on Academia-Research.com.
(Customers also report bad dealings--Scamessays.com and Essayscam.org are just two of several websites devoted to discussing customer problems with essay mills. I have no sympathy. As cheaters, it's only cosmic justice if they get cheated themselves.)
- It won't count as a pro writing credit. Many sites claim to customers that their writers are BA's and PhD's, but in practice, they are likely to be much less selective. You yourself may turn out an impeccable research paper, but you'll be working alongside a lot of people whose writing isn't up to professional standards, or who aren't above borrowing their source material from someone else (many of the complaints at Essayscam.org involve papers written by people whose first language clearly wasn't English, or papers later discovered to be partially or wholly plagiarized). More than that--although they aren't illegal, essay mills are widely recognized as disreputable. Which brings me to my final--and most important--point:
- It's ultra-sleazy. Your customers will be college and high school students too lazy to write their own papers. Essay mills don't want you to believe this, of course, and try to dodge such criticism by claiming that the papers they provide are only templates on which the students can model their own work, or that they're providing academic resources the students can cite in footnotes, or that they don't condone cheating and instruct their customers not to use the essays dishonestly.
Here's a typical disclaimer, from Bigpapers.com's terms of sale: "Custom written papers by BigPapers.com are to be used for research purposes only...BigPapers.com does not endorse nor tolerates any form of whole or partial plagiarism or any activity that will facilitate cheating." Or from Custom-Writing.org's Terms and Conditions: "Custom-Writing.org presents a prototype work that is intended to be used for further research." OxbridgeEssays.com, which claims to hire only students or graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, explains itself thus: "Our service is dedicated to supplying model answers to client’s academic questions, and in this we consider our work no different at all from private tutors who guide students to the model way of answering a question, often by writing-out such an answer just as we do." They also claim to "strictly require of our clients that they never submit our work as their own." I'm sure their customers treat that stricture with the respect it deserves.
My favorite is the evocatively-named EssayCheat.net's delightfully weaselly rationale for why using its service is not, in fact, cheating:
Take, for example, a lecturer who sets a nice easy essay question: ‘Who was John F Kennedy?’. Most students will use Google to search for initial information on this topic and they will find some 7.6 million answers to their question. The process of reading through these answers is not cheating. However - if the student takes one of the answers and hands it in, passing it off as their own work, then without doubt, they are cheating. In fact, there are many more subtle ways they could use their material to cheat - rewording a website they found, rearranging words, citing the source but relying too heavily on the material - and so on. But they could also use the material as a guide and write their own, original answer to the question set. In the same way, a student who orders a custom essay can use the essay as a guide and can write their own original answer to the question that has been set for them. They can even do their own research.
Uh huh. But if they could do their own research, they wouldn't need to buy a paper, now would they?
Disclaimers are all very well. But the bottom line is that people who buy from these services are not looking for templates or footnote material or guidance--they are paying others to do work they should be doing themselves, and passing that work off as their own. Essay mills are almost universally condemned--and not just by colleges and universities whose harried instructors fight ongoing battles against plagiarism and cheating (see, for instance, Plagiarized.com). In 2007, Google banned ads from paper-writing services, adding essay mills to its blacklist of unacceptable ad content, which includes, among others, ads for anabolic steroids, ads for escort services, and ads for illegal drugs and drug paraphenalia.
What's an essay mill? A website where customers can buy term papers, research papers, and/or dissertations, and writers can (theoretically) be paid for writing them. There are scores of these sites online--EssayWriters.net, Eduwriters.com, BigPapers.com, Buyaresearchpaper.com, 4termpapers.com, Custom-Writing.org, to name just a few. Sometimes, a single company will own multiple URLs.
Essay mills advertise for writers online or in venues like Craigslist, promising easy work and good pay. Some, such as Essaywriters.net, even claim to offer bonuses. Especially if you're an aspiring writer looking to build credits, you might be tempted. But there are reasons to think twice--and then to think again.
- It can be a pain in the ass. Many essay mills, such as Academia-Research.com, promise writers flexible schedules and the ability to pick and choose which orders they take. The flip side of this is that they typically allow purchasers to demand almost unlimited editing and revision. For instance, Customwrittenpapers.net promises "free unlimited revisions." And StandOutEssay.com, in its pitch to customers, describes its process thus: "Normally, the process starts with regular research, continues with planning, crafting a rough draft and then writing, re-writing, and editing until the customized paper meets your expectations."
What this means for writers: anything you write may come back to you multiple times for changes and revision (and remember, your customer will be a student too lazy to write his or her own research paper, who very likely knows way less than you do about the subject of the essay). This is time for which you get no extra money, because you're usually being paid on a per-page or flat fee basis. Hour by hour, what looks like attractive pay can work out to a pittance.
- You could lose copyright. Some essay mills claim copyright on all papers written for them--essentially, it's work-for-hire. Given that you're writing for others and may never want to use the work yourself, this may not be a big concern for you--still, it's something to be aware of.
- Payment is not guaranteed. Complaints about essay mills abound, most centering on money. Writers report slow payment, non-payment, and non-communication when they question or complain. Here's a typical nonpayment complaint involving Essaywriters.net. These nonpayment complaints focus on Academia-Research.com.
(Customers also report bad dealings--Scamessays.com and Essayscam.org are just two of several websites devoted to discussing customer problems with essay mills. I have no sympathy. As cheaters, it's only cosmic justice if they get cheated themselves.)
- It won't count as a pro writing credit. Many sites claim to customers that their writers are BA's and PhD's, but in practice, they are likely to be much less selective. You yourself may turn out an impeccable research paper, but you'll be working alongside a lot of people whose writing isn't up to professional standards, or who aren't above borrowing their source material from someone else (many of the complaints at Essayscam.org involve papers written by people whose first language clearly wasn't English, or papers later discovered to be partially or wholly plagiarized). More than that--although they aren't illegal, essay mills are widely recognized as disreputable. Which brings me to my final--and most important--point:
- It's ultra-sleazy. Your customers will be college and high school students too lazy to write their own papers. Essay mills don't want you to believe this, of course, and try to dodge such criticism by claiming that the papers they provide are only templates on which the students can model their own work, or that they're providing academic resources the students can cite in footnotes, or that they don't condone cheating and instruct their customers not to use the essays dishonestly.
Here's a typical disclaimer, from Bigpapers.com's terms of sale: "Custom written papers by BigPapers.com are to be used for research purposes only...BigPapers.com does not endorse nor tolerates any form of whole or partial plagiarism or any activity that will facilitate cheating." Or from Custom-Writing.org's Terms and Conditions: "Custom-Writing.org presents a prototype work that is intended to be used for further research." OxbridgeEssays.com, which claims to hire only students or graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, explains itself thus: "Our service is dedicated to supplying model answers to client’s academic questions, and in this we consider our work no different at all from private tutors who guide students to the model way of answering a question, often by writing-out such an answer just as we do." They also claim to "strictly require of our clients that they never submit our work as their own." I'm sure their customers treat that stricture with the respect it deserves.
My favorite is the evocatively-named EssayCheat.net's delightfully weaselly rationale for why using its service is not, in fact, cheating:
Take, for example, a lecturer who sets a nice easy essay question: ‘Who was John F Kennedy?’. Most students will use Google to search for initial information on this topic and they will find some 7.6 million answers to their question. The process of reading through these answers is not cheating. However - if the student takes one of the answers and hands it in, passing it off as their own work, then without doubt, they are cheating. In fact, there are many more subtle ways they could use their material to cheat - rewording a website they found, rearranging words, citing the source but relying too heavily on the material - and so on. But they could also use the material as a guide and write their own, original answer to the question set. In the same way, a student who orders a custom essay can use the essay as a guide and can write their own original answer to the question that has been set for them. They can even do their own research.
Uh huh. But if they could do their own research, they wouldn't need to buy a paper, now would they?
Disclaimers are all very well. But the bottom line is that people who buy from these services are not looking for templates or footnote material or guidance--they are paying others to do work they should be doing themselves, and passing that work off as their own. Essay mills are almost universally condemned--and not just by colleges and universities whose harried instructors fight ongoing battles against plagiarism and cheating (see, for instance, Plagiarized.com). In 2007, Google banned ads from paper-writing services, adding essay mills to its blacklist of unacceptable ad content, which includes, among others, ads for anabolic steroids, ads for escort services, and ads for illegal drugs and drug paraphenalia.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Publishing's Week of Gloom
Last week was not a good one along Publishers' Row.
- Random House USA announced a major reorganization, laying off staff, consolidating imprints, and axing the heads of two of its largest groups.
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which previously suffered firings, staff departures, and a temporary freeze on acquisitions (though there are indications that the freeze may be more of a slushy than an ice cube), announced massive staff layoffs (probably in the hundreds) as part of sweeping reorganization plans aimed at streamlining its K-12 publishing divisions.
- Simon & Schuster eliminated 35 positions. PW reports that "the cuts came in all areas of the company, including S&S’s publishing divisions, operations and sales departments and international division."
- Thomas Nelson initiated the second round of job cuts this year, laying off 54 workers--approximately 10% of its workforce.
- Penguin Group announced that it would freeze pay raises for staff earning $50,000 or £30,000 or more.
- HarperCollins will defer all raises until after July 1, 2009.
One major exception: the Hachette Group, home of the Stephanie Meyers juggernaut, not only doesn't appear to be laying anyone off, but plans to give bonuses to every employee in the company.
All of this is certainly grim news. No doubt the coming weeks will bring more. Still, given the atmosphere of dread bred by daily reports of economic chaos, I can't help wondering how much of the rush to slash staff and expense is driven by actual planning for the future, and how much by simple fear. In an article about the staff cuts, the New York Times notes that according to Nielsen Book Scan, book sales are actually up slightly through the third quarter of 2008. Will they fall precipitously enough in October, November, and December to make the retrenchment frenzy look timely rather than panicked? The fourth quarter figures will tell the tale.
I also wonder whether all the downsizing and cost-cutting will have any impact on advance bloat. I've seen discussion over the past few months to suggest that midlisters have been feeling advance contraction for some time--but that's not where it needs to happen. It's the over-hyped debut novels, the celebrity children's books, the fad-of-the-moment projects where there needs to be some scaling back. And how about cutting lists? While it seems crazy to put a hold on acquisitions altogether, as at HMH, there are far too many books being published. The publishing industry has been shedding jobs since the 1980's, when the conglomeration trend began, yet the number of books published has continued to rise. This logic-defying trend damages authors--who must struggle for visiblity in an overcrowded marketplace--and publishers, which toss out books like spaghetti, hoping that at least some will stick to the wall.
The news isn't bad for all segments of publishing. TeleRead reports that US wholesale ebook sales soared in the third quarter of 2008. Even with steady increases over the past few years, ebook sales numbers are still a tiny fraction of p-book sales numbers--but it's an interesting trend.
- Random House USA announced a major reorganization, laying off staff, consolidating imprints, and axing the heads of two of its largest groups.
- Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which previously suffered firings, staff departures, and a temporary freeze on acquisitions (though there are indications that the freeze may be more of a slushy than an ice cube), announced massive staff layoffs (probably in the hundreds) as part of sweeping reorganization plans aimed at streamlining its K-12 publishing divisions.
- Simon & Schuster eliminated 35 positions. PW reports that "the cuts came in all areas of the company, including S&S’s publishing divisions, operations and sales departments and international division."
- Thomas Nelson initiated the second round of job cuts this year, laying off 54 workers--approximately 10% of its workforce.
- Penguin Group announced that it would freeze pay raises for staff earning $50,000 or £30,000 or more.
- HarperCollins will defer all raises until after July 1, 2009.
One major exception: the Hachette Group, home of the Stephanie Meyers juggernaut, not only doesn't appear to be laying anyone off, but plans to give bonuses to every employee in the company.
All of this is certainly grim news. No doubt the coming weeks will bring more. Still, given the atmosphere of dread bred by daily reports of economic chaos, I can't help wondering how much of the rush to slash staff and expense is driven by actual planning for the future, and how much by simple fear. In an article about the staff cuts, the New York Times notes that according to Nielsen Book Scan, book sales are actually up slightly through the third quarter of 2008. Will they fall precipitously enough in October, November, and December to make the retrenchment frenzy look timely rather than panicked? The fourth quarter figures will tell the tale.
I also wonder whether all the downsizing and cost-cutting will have any impact on advance bloat. I've seen discussion over the past few months to suggest that midlisters have been feeling advance contraction for some time--but that's not where it needs to happen. It's the over-hyped debut novels, the celebrity children's books, the fad-of-the-moment projects where there needs to be some scaling back. And how about cutting lists? While it seems crazy to put a hold on acquisitions altogether, as at HMH, there are far too many books being published. The publishing industry has been shedding jobs since the 1980's, when the conglomeration trend began, yet the number of books published has continued to rise. This logic-defying trend damages authors--who must struggle for visiblity in an overcrowded marketplace--and publishers, which toss out books like spaghetti, hoping that at least some will stick to the wall.
The news isn't bad for all segments of publishing. TeleRead reports that US wholesale ebook sales soared in the third quarter of 2008. Even with steady increases over the past few years, ebook sales numbers are still a tiny fraction of p-book sales numbers--but it's an interesting trend.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
I Had a Dream...
Hi, folks!
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.
Last week I had a dream that made Victoria laugh out loud when I told her about it, so I thought I'd share it with you. I've never before had a Writer Beware dream...this was a first.
I dreamed that I read an announcement in my local paper saying that Agent X, whom I recognized as a notorious scammer, would be teaching a "how to write fiction and get it published" class at my local college. I was furious, and nobody at the college would believe me that this guy was a scam agent and publisher. You know how dreams are...I seemed to spend hours hunting for people who could help, with my feet encased in lead, only to be told that no, the class would go on, and did I want to sign up for it?
So I decided to go underground, and sign up for the class. I appeared in class the first day, and it was exactly what I had expected...Agent X gave some very generalized comments about writing, then began pitching his bogus "literary agency" at the attendees, who were, in typical desperate newbie fashion, only too eager to sign up and pay him money for worthless services.
As the hapless class members queued up, checkbooks and credit cards in hand, I slowly rose to my feet. In true superhero fashion, I metaphorically ripped open my blouse and ID'd myself as the Chair of Writer Beware. As I did so, Agent X's face twisted with hatred into a gargoyle mask. The students shrank back. I told the students to go to Writer Beware and read how to avoid scuzzy fake agents. I climbed atop my desk and waved my copy of Writer Beware's impressive printout of our "questionables" list (which contains over 300 questionable agencies, both living and now out of business -- because fake agencies, like vampires, do tend to Rise from the Grave) and told my fellow students that their so-called instructor was on it. Gasps of consternation ran around the classroom. (This is where you can tell it was MY dream. In real life, newbie writers would have reacted with expressions of "Huh?")
Raging, the instructor strode out. My fellow students cheered me.
But wait! There's more!
I left the classroom and headed for my vehicle. The parking lot was deserted and dark. Suddenly I heard a squeal of wheels, and I saw Agent X, still with his gargoyle mask of fury, behind the wheel of a white pickup truck. He gunned the truck towards me. I tried to jump aside, but he hit me, and I rolled to the pavement.
I "lost time" then, in true dream fashion. When things resumed, I had casts on both arms and legs. I was hobbling on crutches. But I was determinedly heading back for Round Two, the second class.
When I got back into class (I was late because of my crutches) I found the instructor happily collecting money from the students who were signing up to "publish" their books with his vanity press. I went ballistic. I did another rant, pointing out that X Publishing could not get their books onto the shelves in bookstores, that they were being charged not only for publishing, but for all kinds of "extras" like editing, etc. I rose to heights of eloquence never before seen, waving my crutches in the air for emphasis.
Agent X's face underwent its gargoyle transformation again! This time, instead of hurling himself out the door, he hurled himself straight at me, and bore my plaster-encased self to the floor. He locked his hands around my throat and began strangling me, raving aloud about how he thought he'd killed me when he hit me with his pickup.
Fortunately my fellow students rallied, and pulled him off me. THIS time I had witnesses to the attack! They called the police, and he was led away in handcuffs, charged with two counts of attempted murder (because my fellow students had overheard his confession of trying to run me down). I stood there, ruffled and plastered, but grinning exultantly, because I knew he was going to go to the hoosegow for a good long time.
Just before the cops dragged him out the door, he shouted, "And I would have got away with it, too, if it wasn't for Writer Beware!" in true Scooby-Doo fashion.
But this was actually a weirdly REALISTIC Writer Beware dream. Because the next image in the dream was of me staring glumly at the letter from the college to the students of the writing class. Since "Agent X" had become "unavailable" the letter said, they had hired "Agent Z" to teach the remainder of the class.
You guessed it. Agent Z was ALSO on Writer Beware's Thumbs Down List of Questionables.
The name of the game is "Whackamole," my friends.
Happy holidays, everyone!
-Ann C. Crispin
Chair, Writer Beware
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.
Last week I had a dream that made Victoria laugh out loud when I told her about it, so I thought I'd share it with you. I've never before had a Writer Beware dream...this was a first.
I dreamed that I read an announcement in my local paper saying that Agent X, whom I recognized as a notorious scammer, would be teaching a "how to write fiction and get it published" class at my local college. I was furious, and nobody at the college would believe me that this guy was a scam agent and publisher. You know how dreams are...I seemed to spend hours hunting for people who could help, with my feet encased in lead, only to be told that no, the class would go on, and did I want to sign up for it?
So I decided to go underground, and sign up for the class. I appeared in class the first day, and it was exactly what I had expected...Agent X gave some very generalized comments about writing, then began pitching his bogus "literary agency" at the attendees, who were, in typical desperate newbie fashion, only too eager to sign up and pay him money for worthless services.
As the hapless class members queued up, checkbooks and credit cards in hand, I slowly rose to my feet. In true superhero fashion, I metaphorically ripped open my blouse and ID'd myself as the Chair of Writer Beware. As I did so, Agent X's face twisted with hatred into a gargoyle mask. The students shrank back. I told the students to go to Writer Beware and read how to avoid scuzzy fake agents. I climbed atop my desk and waved my copy of Writer Beware's impressive printout of our "questionables" list (which contains over 300 questionable agencies, both living and now out of business -- because fake agencies, like vampires, do tend to Rise from the Grave) and told my fellow students that their so-called instructor was on it. Gasps of consternation ran around the classroom. (This is where you can tell it was MY dream. In real life, newbie writers would have reacted with expressions of "Huh?")
Raging, the instructor strode out. My fellow students cheered me.
But wait! There's more!
I left the classroom and headed for my vehicle. The parking lot was deserted and dark. Suddenly I heard a squeal of wheels, and I saw Agent X, still with his gargoyle mask of fury, behind the wheel of a white pickup truck. He gunned the truck towards me. I tried to jump aside, but he hit me, and I rolled to the pavement.
I "lost time" then, in true dream fashion. When things resumed, I had casts on both arms and legs. I was hobbling on crutches. But I was determinedly heading back for Round Two, the second class.
When I got back into class (I was late because of my crutches) I found the instructor happily collecting money from the students who were signing up to "publish" their books with his vanity press. I went ballistic. I did another rant, pointing out that X Publishing could not get their books onto the shelves in bookstores, that they were being charged not only for publishing, but for all kinds of "extras" like editing, etc. I rose to heights of eloquence never before seen, waving my crutches in the air for emphasis.
Agent X's face underwent its gargoyle transformation again! This time, instead of hurling himself out the door, he hurled himself straight at me, and bore my plaster-encased self to the floor. He locked his hands around my throat and began strangling me, raving aloud about how he thought he'd killed me when he hit me with his pickup.
Fortunately my fellow students rallied, and pulled him off me. THIS time I had witnesses to the attack! They called the police, and he was led away in handcuffs, charged with two counts of attempted murder (because my fellow students had overheard his confession of trying to run me down). I stood there, ruffled and plastered, but grinning exultantly, because I knew he was going to go to the hoosegow for a good long time.
Just before the cops dragged him out the door, he shouted, "And I would have got away with it, too, if it wasn't for Writer Beware!" in true Scooby-Doo fashion.
But this was actually a weirdly REALISTIC Writer Beware dream. Because the next image in the dream was of me staring glumly at the letter from the college to the students of the writing class. Since "Agent X" had become "unavailable" the letter said, they had hired "Agent Z" to teach the remainder of the class.
You guessed it. Agent Z was ALSO on Writer Beware's Thumbs Down List of Questionables.
The name of the game is "Whackamole," my friends.
Happy holidays, everyone!
-Ann C. Crispin
Chair, Writer Beware
Friday, November 28, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Freelancehomewriters.com
Even if you're not a natural cynic, like me, a good rule to follow if you're a writer is "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is." Case in point: Freelancehomewriters.com, a website that promises easy money for your writing.
"Why not stay home and get paid for typing on your computer?" the website asks. Freelance Home Writers are needed immediately to make blog posts for up to $15 per hour, write "simple articles" for up to $45 per hour, and write fiction or nonfiction stories for $450 per tale! It's "A Great Job even if you're not a 'natural born writer.'"
Let's say I'm Jane Everywriter, and I'm intrigued by the possibility of getting paid for my scribbling. Or maybe I'm Joe CouchPotato, and I'm excited by the prospect of making money by sitting on my butt. Hey, I wrote a few papers in high school. All I have to do Get Started Now is to provide Freelancehomewriters.com with my first name and email address.
I'm whisked to the job description page, where I learn that "Thousands of smart people just like you are are [sic] already brining [sic] in an easy $1,000, $2,000...even as much as $5,000 every single week just by doing this easy writing in their spare time...and now it's your turn!" I'm so excited now I can hardly stand it. With bated breath and pounding pulse I read down the page...websites are starving for content...I can make as much as $10,000 a year writing as few as 3 articles a day...yes, yes...the jobs come to me...I don't have to have a resume or writing credits...Oh boy! Oh crap. I'm at the bottom of the page and I still haven't found out how to access this fantastic opportunity. So I click the "Complete Registration" button.
And I discover there's a catch.
This wonderful world of easy writing money can be mine...for a small fee. A $2.95 Special Risk Free Trial Membership Fee, to be exact (normally $69.95), which gives me access to the Freelance Home Writers system for 7 whole days. There's also a monthly membership fee of $47.00--hmmm, a bit more than I bargained for, but as the website reminds me, just a fraction of the boodle I can make with this wonderful system. And hey, if I'm not happy, I can cancel anytime. I'm going to do it. Yes I am. I'm going to take the plunge. Just have to heave myself off the couch and get my credit card. And a bag of chips.
Writers, don't fall for this. Freelancehomewriters.com is the writers' version of the familiar work-at-home schemes that are the subject of warnings from the FTC and the BBB. These schemes tempt you with promises of easy money, but require you to spend money first in order to access their "systems" or receive their kits. Much of the time, the materials or leads you are given are substandard, or the company misrepresents the demand for whatever business you're supposed to be establishing, or it's not revealed that there are substantial additional costs. Consumers have lost thousands of dollars to these schemes.
Freelancehomewriters.com isn't the only website of its kind. There are others--some more subtle, some more crude. Cultivate your inner cynic, and never trust anyone who offers you an "easy" way to sell your writing.
(If you get as far into the site as I did, and try to leave, a little "STOP! DON'T GO YET! message box appears on your screen. If you click it, another little box implores you not to leave empty handed, and offers to send you a "make money success kit" for FREE! Yes, delivered to your door absolutely FREE [you pay only shipping and handling]. What a deal.)
"Why not stay home and get paid for typing on your computer?" the website asks. Freelance Home Writers are needed immediately to make blog posts for up to $15 per hour, write "simple articles" for up to $45 per hour, and write fiction or nonfiction stories for $450 per tale! It's "A Great Job even if you're not a 'natural born writer.'"
Let's say I'm Jane Everywriter, and I'm intrigued by the possibility of getting paid for my scribbling. Or maybe I'm Joe CouchPotato, and I'm excited by the prospect of making money by sitting on my butt. Hey, I wrote a few papers in high school. All I have to do Get Started Now is to provide Freelancehomewriters.com with my first name and email address.
I'm whisked to the job description page, where I learn that "Thousands of smart people just like you are are [sic] already brining [sic] in an easy $1,000, $2,000...even as much as $5,000 every single week just by doing this easy writing in their spare time...and now it's your turn!" I'm so excited now I can hardly stand it. With bated breath and pounding pulse I read down the page...websites are starving for content...I can make as much as $10,000 a year writing as few as 3 articles a day...yes, yes...the jobs come to me...I don't have to have a resume or writing credits...Oh boy! Oh crap. I'm at the bottom of the page and I still haven't found out how to access this fantastic opportunity. So I click the "Complete Registration" button.
And I discover there's a catch.
This wonderful world of easy writing money can be mine...for a small fee. A $2.95 Special Risk Free Trial Membership Fee, to be exact (normally $69.95), which gives me access to the Freelance Home Writers system for 7 whole days. There's also a monthly membership fee of $47.00--hmmm, a bit more than I bargained for, but as the website reminds me, just a fraction of the boodle I can make with this wonderful system. And hey, if I'm not happy, I can cancel anytime. I'm going to do it. Yes I am. I'm going to take the plunge. Just have to heave myself off the couch and get my credit card. And a bag of chips.
Writers, don't fall for this. Freelancehomewriters.com is the writers' version of the familiar work-at-home schemes that are the subject of warnings from the FTC and the BBB. These schemes tempt you with promises of easy money, but require you to spend money first in order to access their "systems" or receive their kits. Much of the time, the materials or leads you are given are substandard, or the company misrepresents the demand for whatever business you're supposed to be establishing, or it's not revealed that there are substantial additional costs. Consumers have lost thousands of dollars to these schemes.
Freelancehomewriters.com isn't the only website of its kind. There are others--some more subtle, some more crude. Cultivate your inner cynic, and never trust anyone who offers you an "easy" way to sell your writing.
(If you get as far into the site as I did, and try to leave, a little "STOP! DON'T GO YET! message box appears on your screen. If you click it, another little box implores you not to leave empty handed, and offers to send you a "make money success kit" for FREE! Yes, delivered to your door absolutely FREE [you pay only shipping and handling]. What a deal.)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- A Day in the Life
I usually stay away from personal stuff in this blog. But I'm currently in Alabama with my 81-year-old mom, helping my 89-year-old aunt pack up the big old historic home in which they both were born for my aunt's impending move to a retirement community--and my mind is pretty far from Writer Beware right now. So here's a snapshot of a more or less typical day.
Get up around 8:30, having been disturbed only twice in the night by the raccoon doing the tarantella in the chimney (it climbs up through the open stone fireplace in the dirt basement, which is where all the cooking was done in 1830, when the house was built). Transition from the temperate zone of the house (my bedroom) to the tropical zone (the rest of it). Eat breakfast in the kitchen, which is around 90 degrees because my aunt gets cold--but we can't eat in the dining room, which is slightly cooler, because the table is completely covered by an ever-changing collection of porcelain and silver, as my aunt tries to make up her mind which fraction of her vast possessions to take to the retirement community, and there's no room to put down a plate.
Move to the sun room--which is not sunny due to the fact that the curtains, which shut out most of the light, have been draped with blankets, to shut out even more light--to do some catching up on email. It's 80 degrees in here--not as bad as the kitchen, but I can't go back to the temperate zone because this is the only place I can piggyback on someone else's non-security-enabled wireless and get access to the Internet. Tap, tap, tap away at my computer, while listening to my aunt and my mom arguing in the office. My mom wants my aunt to throw out useless papers, of which there are enough in this house to furnish a Presidential library. My aunt doesn't want to. My mom gets frustrated. My aunt gets angry. It's all complicated by the fact that my aunt is getting quite deaf. Fun, fun, fun.
Around noon, go out for a run. Lovely sunny weather--around 58 degrees. Alabamians all bundled up in winter gear (I've lost count of the number of people I've heard complain about how cold it is). Me, the Massachusetts-ite, in capri tights and a sleeveless top. Freedom. Ahhhh.
Lunch in the 90-degree kitchen. My mom misses NYC, where she lives. My aunt, a Southerner to the bone, is skeptical about all aspects of the nawth. Then they start reminiscing about their childhoods, which is fun and interesting. But it's too hot, so I go off to do some drawer-mining. There are about 100 drawers in this house, and they are all stuffed full of, well, stuff. I'm hunting for things to throw away and things we can sell (money is pretty tight), but also scouting for important papers, which have been turning up in some exceedingly odd places, such as the drawer of the vanity in my aunt's bathroom (my aunt, by the way, has all her marbles and then some, but she's the most disorganized person I've ever known). I've managed to find documents pertaining to the renovation of the house in the 1980's and its subsequent placement on the National Historic Register (both important for the realtor we're planning to hire) and I've hidden them in my room so they won't vanish.
Later, run some errands. Dinner in the 90-degree kitchen--I'm a vegetarian and my aunt and mom are not, so I cook for myself. My mom tired and frustrated. My aunt sweet and cheerful. I clean up. Then, back to the sun room, to WATCH TV FOR DEAF PEOPLE! REALLY LOUD!! REALLY, REALLY LOUD!!! But I need to answer email, and it's better than the 90-degree kitchen.
Then bedtime, with my friend the raccoon. And ghostly knocking in the middle of the night. And peculiar noises as if people were banging planks together in the basement. But at least it's cool.
Get up around 8:30, having been disturbed only twice in the night by the raccoon doing the tarantella in the chimney (it climbs up through the open stone fireplace in the dirt basement, which is where all the cooking was done in 1830, when the house was built). Transition from the temperate zone of the house (my bedroom) to the tropical zone (the rest of it). Eat breakfast in the kitchen, which is around 90 degrees because my aunt gets cold--but we can't eat in the dining room, which is slightly cooler, because the table is completely covered by an ever-changing collection of porcelain and silver, as my aunt tries to make up her mind which fraction of her vast possessions to take to the retirement community, and there's no room to put down a plate.
Move to the sun room--which is not sunny due to the fact that the curtains, which shut out most of the light, have been draped with blankets, to shut out even more light--to do some catching up on email. It's 80 degrees in here--not as bad as the kitchen, but I can't go back to the temperate zone because this is the only place I can piggyback on someone else's non-security-enabled wireless and get access to the Internet. Tap, tap, tap away at my computer, while listening to my aunt and my mom arguing in the office. My mom wants my aunt to throw out useless papers, of which there are enough in this house to furnish a Presidential library. My aunt doesn't want to. My mom gets frustrated. My aunt gets angry. It's all complicated by the fact that my aunt is getting quite deaf. Fun, fun, fun.
Around noon, go out for a run. Lovely sunny weather--around 58 degrees. Alabamians all bundled up in winter gear (I've lost count of the number of people I've heard complain about how cold it is). Me, the Massachusetts-ite, in capri tights and a sleeveless top. Freedom. Ahhhh.
Lunch in the 90-degree kitchen. My mom misses NYC, where she lives. My aunt, a Southerner to the bone, is skeptical about all aspects of the nawth. Then they start reminiscing about their childhoods, which is fun and interesting. But it's too hot, so I go off to do some drawer-mining. There are about 100 drawers in this house, and they are all stuffed full of, well, stuff. I'm hunting for things to throw away and things we can sell (money is pretty tight), but also scouting for important papers, which have been turning up in some exceedingly odd places, such as the drawer of the vanity in my aunt's bathroom (my aunt, by the way, has all her marbles and then some, but she's the most disorganized person I've ever known). I've managed to find documents pertaining to the renovation of the house in the 1980's and its subsequent placement on the National Historic Register (both important for the realtor we're planning to hire) and I've hidden them in my room so they won't vanish.
Later, run some errands. Dinner in the 90-degree kitchen--I'm a vegetarian and my aunt and mom are not, so I cook for myself. My mom tired and frustrated. My aunt sweet and cheerful. I clean up. Then, back to the sun room, to WATCH TV FOR DEAF PEOPLE! REALLY LOUD!! REALLY, REALLY LOUD!!! But I need to answer email, and it's better than the 90-degree kitchen.
Then bedtime, with my friend the raccoon. And ghostly knocking in the middle of the night. And peculiar noises as if people were banging planks together in the basement. But at least it's cool.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Tidbits
Things that caught my eye over the past week or so:
Really bad sex
I don't pay much attention to literary awards, but I always enjoy this one: the annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Awards. This year's winner: Iain Hollingshead, for a passage from his novel Twentysomething. To spare my readers who don't like this sort of thing, I won't quote the passage--but it's a good example of the extremely thin line that divides a sizzling sex scene from a silly one.
Read the shortlisted passages here. And for more fun, previous years' winners are here.
Giving, taking, and giving again
Via the Los Angeles Times: Massachusetts author Stona Fitch has founded the Concord Free Press, a nonprofit publisher with an unusual business model: "We publish books and give them away for free—online and via a network of independent bookstores. In exchange, we ask readers to make a voluntary donation to a local charity or someone in need in their community. And we ask them to pass the book on, so that every time the book changes hands, it generates more contributions."
You can order a book from the website, or from a list of participating independent booksellers (mostly in New England), and donate to whomever you choose. The press, which is supported by grants and contributions, generated more than $12,000 in donations during its first month in business. Donation recipients include charities, nonprofits, churches, food banks, and local organizations of all kinds. One individual handed $20 to a homeless person. Another gave bus fare to someone who needed it.
Mr. Fitch, who has commercially published several books, is using his own novel, Give and Take, as the press's first offering. A neat twist on self-publishing, for sure.
Hope for books in tough economic times?
Amid daily bulletins about economic crisis, and uber-gloomy publishing and bookselling news (B&N third quarter losses, Random House slashing pensions, big layoffs at Doubleday, Rodale, and others), an annual holiday shopping survey by Minneapolis's University of St. Thomas suggests that books may benefit from reduced consumer spending--at least in Minnesota. According to the survey, "Shoppers said they'll be giving more books this holiday season, as well as clothing, gift certificates and gifts of cash."
Random House is hoping for the same thing. It's launching a Books=Gifts campaign, with banner ads and video trailers featuring well-known authors.
The dreaded query letter and synopsis
I don't know about you, but I hate writing synopses more than I hate going to the dentist. As for query letters, it's been a long time since I had to write one...and I'm really really grateful.
For those who are struggling with both tasks, here are a pair of truly useful resources, put together by author Joshua Palmatier: the Query Letter Project and the Plot Synopsis Project. At these links, you can read examples of query letters and plot synopses that actually sold books. The focus is on speculative fiction authors, but the basic principles are pretty much the same no matter what field or genre you write in.
Green printing
This isn't exactly writing-related, but it's pretty nifty even so: GreenPrint, software that saves you paper and ink by eliminating wasted and extra pages from your printouts--such as the legal verbiage that's attached to some emails, or banner ads that accompany articles. The software displays the pages of the document you want to print on a single screen, with the wasteful pages highlighted so you can remove them from the print job. You can also remove stuff you don't need, such as images, to save even more ink.
It's cool and it works. The ad-supported World version is free to home users.
Really bad sex
I don't pay much attention to literary awards, but I always enjoy this one: the annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Awards. This year's winner: Iain Hollingshead, for a passage from his novel Twentysomething. To spare my readers who don't like this sort of thing, I won't quote the passage--but it's a good example of the extremely thin line that divides a sizzling sex scene from a silly one.
Read the shortlisted passages here. And for more fun, previous years' winners are here.
Giving, taking, and giving again
Via the Los Angeles Times: Massachusetts author Stona Fitch has founded the Concord Free Press, a nonprofit publisher with an unusual business model: "We publish books and give them away for free—online and via a network of independent bookstores. In exchange, we ask readers to make a voluntary donation to a local charity or someone in need in their community. And we ask them to pass the book on, so that every time the book changes hands, it generates more contributions."
You can order a book from the website, or from a list of participating independent booksellers (mostly in New England), and donate to whomever you choose. The press, which is supported by grants and contributions, generated more than $12,000 in donations during its first month in business. Donation recipients include charities, nonprofits, churches, food banks, and local organizations of all kinds. One individual handed $20 to a homeless person. Another gave bus fare to someone who needed it.
Mr. Fitch, who has commercially published several books, is using his own novel, Give and Take, as the press's first offering. A neat twist on self-publishing, for sure.
Hope for books in tough economic times?
Amid daily bulletins about economic crisis, and uber-gloomy publishing and bookselling news (B&N third quarter losses, Random House slashing pensions, big layoffs at Doubleday, Rodale, and others), an annual holiday shopping survey by Minneapolis's University of St. Thomas suggests that books may benefit from reduced consumer spending--at least in Minnesota. According to the survey, "Shoppers said they'll be giving more books this holiday season, as well as clothing, gift certificates and gifts of cash."
Random House is hoping for the same thing. It's launching a Books=Gifts campaign, with banner ads and video trailers featuring well-known authors.
The dreaded query letter and synopsis
I don't know about you, but I hate writing synopses more than I hate going to the dentist. As for query letters, it's been a long time since I had to write one...and I'm really really grateful.
For those who are struggling with both tasks, here are a pair of truly useful resources, put together by author Joshua Palmatier: the Query Letter Project and the Plot Synopsis Project. At these links, you can read examples of query letters and plot synopses that actually sold books. The focus is on speculative fiction authors, but the basic principles are pretty much the same no matter what field or genre you write in.
Green printing
This isn't exactly writing-related, but it's pretty nifty even so: GreenPrint, software that saves you paper and ink by eliminating wasted and extra pages from your printouts--such as the legal verbiage that's attached to some emails, or banner ads that accompany articles. The software displays the pages of the document you want to print on a single screen, with the wasteful pages highlighted so you can remove them from the print job. You can also remove stuff you don't need, such as images, to save even more ink.
It's cool and it works. The ad-supported World version is free to home users.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- FieldReport: Yet Another Update
Back in June, I blogged about the then brand-new website FieldReport, whose contest for true-life stories offered significant money prizes, but also involved significantly unfavorable terms in its submission agreement and contest rules.
FieldReport later modified its submission agreement and contest rules, getting rid of many of the terms I objected to and making things somewhat more fair and author-friendly. There were still some issues, though--as I noted in a followup post. A dialog with FR CEO Will Petty ensued in the comments section. Eventually, FR implemented still more changes to its submission agreement, getting rid of one of the conditions that I felt was most unfair--the requirement that authors pay a 25% commission to FR on any third-party sales of their FR articles, if those sales were made by them--and making it clear that FR's definition of "derivative work" did not include the re-use of FR articles or material in memoirs or autobiographies.
FR's current submission agreement and contest rules now represent what I think is a reasonable balance between authors' rights and FR's interests. That's not to say that FR contributors shouldn't carefully read the fine print--they need to be aware, for instance, that rights to contest entries are exclusively granted to FR for a term of between 18 months (if winnings are less than $5,000) to 14 years (if winnings are $100,000 or more), and that even once the term expires, FR's basic site license (which applies to all content submitted to the site, and gives FR the right to create and sell print and electronic publications containing the content) remains in force. But the problems that so disturbed me--the unclear language, the demand for copyright, the 25% commission, the iron grip on derivative works--are all gone.
While it does seem that the discussion on this blog played a part in spurring the changes, much credit must go to Mr. Petty and other FR staff for being willing to listen and to compromise.
FieldReport has been the subject of recent articles in the Telegraph, Time, and the San Francisco Chronicle--which reveal that it has encountered a great deal of suspicion because of the very large prizes it's offering. Could such a contest possibly be for real? Where was the money coming from? Most of all--what was in it for FR? If you were curious about this (I know I was), the SF Chronicle article provides some answers:
Petty explained a "three and a half point" business model for turning the prize money (which comes from investors) into profit. The first component is advertising, which he expects to generate a third of the company's revenue; second is a self-publishing service that FieldReport plans to offer next year, which would allow users to compile books from content on the site - their own or others' stories - and then buy copies of those anthologies directly from FieldReport. Enterprising members could also opt to sell these anthologies (splitting any proceeds with the writers included in their selection).
The third part of the company's business plan is a "perpetual trust" that Petty said will allow users - for a $20 fee - to archive "the stories of their lives as a kind of legacy." This digital storage service has been created independent of FieldReport, so that it will survive regardless of FieldReport's long-term success as a business. The data would be publicly accessible so that, Petty said, "your great-grandchildren could conceivably look up your account (or whatever parts of that account you chose to make available to them) after you die."
The half-point in Petty's business model is a plan to expand FieldReport's ranking system to other genres of writing, including novels.
...for which the rights issues would be rather different. I'll be interested to see what kind of terms are offered if FR does indeed expand in this direction.
FR has given away $90,000 of prize money already, and is counting down to the grand prize of $250,000, to be awarded on February 15, 2009.
FieldReport later modified its submission agreement and contest rules, getting rid of many of the terms I objected to and making things somewhat more fair and author-friendly. There were still some issues, though--as I noted in a followup post. A dialog with FR CEO Will Petty ensued in the comments section. Eventually, FR implemented still more changes to its submission agreement, getting rid of one of the conditions that I felt was most unfair--the requirement that authors pay a 25% commission to FR on any third-party sales of their FR articles, if those sales were made by them--and making it clear that FR's definition of "derivative work" did not include the re-use of FR articles or material in memoirs or autobiographies.
FR's current submission agreement and contest rules now represent what I think is a reasonable balance between authors' rights and FR's interests. That's not to say that FR contributors shouldn't carefully read the fine print--they need to be aware, for instance, that rights to contest entries are exclusively granted to FR for a term of between 18 months (if winnings are less than $5,000) to 14 years (if winnings are $100,000 or more), and that even once the term expires, FR's basic site license (which applies to all content submitted to the site, and gives FR the right to create and sell print and electronic publications containing the content) remains in force. But the problems that so disturbed me--the unclear language, the demand for copyright, the 25% commission, the iron grip on derivative works--are all gone.
While it does seem that the discussion on this blog played a part in spurring the changes, much credit must go to Mr. Petty and other FR staff for being willing to listen and to compromise.
FieldReport has been the subject of recent articles in the Telegraph, Time, and the San Francisco Chronicle--which reveal that it has encountered a great deal of suspicion because of the very large prizes it's offering. Could such a contest possibly be for real? Where was the money coming from? Most of all--what was in it for FR? If you were curious about this (I know I was), the SF Chronicle article provides some answers:
Petty explained a "three and a half point" business model for turning the prize money (which comes from investors) into profit. The first component is advertising, which he expects to generate a third of the company's revenue; second is a self-publishing service that FieldReport plans to offer next year, which would allow users to compile books from content on the site - their own or others' stories - and then buy copies of those anthologies directly from FieldReport. Enterprising members could also opt to sell these anthologies (splitting any proceeds with the writers included in their selection).
The third part of the company's business plan is a "perpetual trust" that Petty said will allow users - for a $20 fee - to archive "the stories of their lives as a kind of legacy." This digital storage service has been created independent of FieldReport, so that it will survive regardless of FieldReport's long-term success as a business. The data would be publicly accessible so that, Petty said, "your great-grandchildren could conceivably look up your account (or whatever parts of that account you chose to make available to them) after you die."
The half-point in Petty's business model is a plan to expand FieldReport's ranking system to other genres of writing, including novels.
...for which the rights issues would be rather different. I'll be interested to see what kind of terms are offered if FR does indeed expand in this direction.
FR has given away $90,000 of prize money already, and is counting down to the grand prize of $250,000, to be awarded on February 15, 2009.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Again, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
You may have noticed a new look to the blog. We've been tired of the old green template for some time--plus, it wasn't so easy on the eyes. So we've upgraded to a new, more visually pleasing design--which also brings with it improved functionality, and nifty extras like the Followers display.
Via Publishers Lunch: Amazon.com and Penguin Group will sponsor a second Breakthrough Novel Award in 2009. (Hewlett-Packard, a co-sponsor of the previous award, will not return.) Here's the announcement on the Penguin website.
Once again, the winner will be published by Penguin, with an advance of $25,000, as long as he or she is willing to sign a non-negotiable publishing contract within 7 days of receiving notification of his/her win. Finalists receive an expense-paid trip to Seattle for the awards ceremony, and semi-finalists receive a review from PW (all prizes are described here). As before, only Amazon customers will be allowed to post reviews of contestants' entries.
There are some procedural changes, presumably as a result of issues encountered during last year's contest. Up to 10,000 entries will be allowed (double last year's 5,000), with 2,000 of these selected by "expert reviewers from Amazon" based on their pitch statements (a 300-word summary of the book--kind of like a query letter on steroids). 500 will be chosen as quarter-finalists by "Amazon Editors and Amazon Vine Reviewers" based on a review of 3,000-5,000 word excerpts (last year, the contest went directly to semi-finals, with 1,000 semi-finalists chosen). The quarter-finalists' excerpts will be displayed on Amazon for review and comment, and reviewed by PW (half the number of reviews PW provided last year).
Penguin editors will then winnow the quarter-finalists down to 100 semi-finalists, of which 3 will be selected as finalists (last year, there were 10 finalists). Finalists will receive detailed reviews of their manuscripts from an expert panel of authors, editors, and agents. Popular vote will determine the winner. (For full info, see the contest FAQ, and also the official contest rules).
I blogged twice about the Award last October. My reservations about people's choice-style awards for literature remain unchanged, with the additional proviso that entrants can expect to be spammed by Amazon with come-ons for its CreateSpace self-publishing service (to enter, you must first register with CreateSpace). That said, this is a solid competition with a worthwhile prize--and possible fringe benefits, as Penguin offered contracts not just to last year's winner, but to four of the finalists. Also, unlike many contests, the Breakthrough Novel Award doesn't tie your manuscript up in exclusive submission for a huge amount of time.
In fact, those possible fringe benefits may be the main reason to enter the contest. Last year's winner, Bill Loehfelm, was announced in early April, and his book was rushed to market, coming out just four months later, in August. A rush to publication isn't such a great thing; as frustrated as writers sometimes get with the year or more that elapses between contract signing and publication, there are good reasons for that long lead time. For the four finalists, whose books are due in 2009 and 2010, Penguin allowed a more normal timeline, making possible not just a more leisurely editing process, but also the important pre-book marketing that plays such a vital role in books' success. In my opinion, they got the better deal.
Via Publishers Lunch: Amazon.com and Penguin Group will sponsor a second Breakthrough Novel Award in 2009. (Hewlett-Packard, a co-sponsor of the previous award, will not return.) Here's the announcement on the Penguin website.
Once again, the winner will be published by Penguin, with an advance of $25,000, as long as he or she is willing to sign a non-negotiable publishing contract within 7 days of receiving notification of his/her win. Finalists receive an expense-paid trip to Seattle for the awards ceremony, and semi-finalists receive a review from PW (all prizes are described here). As before, only Amazon customers will be allowed to post reviews of contestants' entries.
There are some procedural changes, presumably as a result of issues encountered during last year's contest. Up to 10,000 entries will be allowed (double last year's 5,000), with 2,000 of these selected by "expert reviewers from Amazon" based on their pitch statements (a 300-word summary of the book--kind of like a query letter on steroids). 500 will be chosen as quarter-finalists by "Amazon Editors and Amazon Vine Reviewers" based on a review of 3,000-5,000 word excerpts (last year, the contest went directly to semi-finals, with 1,000 semi-finalists chosen). The quarter-finalists' excerpts will be displayed on Amazon for review and comment, and reviewed by PW (half the number of reviews PW provided last year).
Penguin editors will then winnow the quarter-finalists down to 100 semi-finalists, of which 3 will be selected as finalists (last year, there were 10 finalists). Finalists will receive detailed reviews of their manuscripts from an expert panel of authors, editors, and agents. Popular vote will determine the winner. (For full info, see the contest FAQ, and also the official contest rules).
I blogged twice about the Award last October. My reservations about people's choice-style awards for literature remain unchanged, with the additional proviso that entrants can expect to be spammed by Amazon with come-ons for its CreateSpace self-publishing service (to enter, you must first register with CreateSpace). That said, this is a solid competition with a worthwhile prize--and possible fringe benefits, as Penguin offered contracts not just to last year's winner, but to four of the finalists. Also, unlike many contests, the Breakthrough Novel Award doesn't tie your manuscript up in exclusive submission for a huge amount of time.
In fact, those possible fringe benefits may be the main reason to enter the contest. Last year's winner, Bill Loehfelm, was announced in early April, and his book was rushed to market, coming out just four months later, in August. A rush to publication isn't such a great thing; as frustrated as writers sometimes get with the year or more that elapses between contract signing and publication, there are good reasons for that long lead time. For the four finalists, whose books are due in 2009 and 2010, Penguin allowed a more normal timeline, making possible not just a more leisurely editing process, but also the important pre-book marketing that plays such a vital role in books' success. In my opinion, they got the better deal.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Some Good Reading
A midweek post to draw attention to some interesting blog posts I've read recently.
Impressed with the courtesy and promptness of that brand-new agent with no publishing industry experience? Don't be. Stacia Kane/December Quinn on how it's not about being nice.
Trying to convince yourself that fee-charging publisher isn't really a vanity press because it pays royalties, and only reputable publishers pay royalties? Thinking it's selective because it doesn't accept absolutely everything that's submitted to it? Think again. Marian Perera at Flights of Fantasy reveals five misconceptions about vanity presses.
Did the publisher that just asked you for several thousand dollars to publish your book assure you that paying to publish is a sign of your faith your own work? Or that paying to publish is the way many first-time authors get started? Be skeptical. Marian Perera again, on the many ways fee-charging publishers justify their upfront fees.
Frustrated with the agent search? Considering going it alone? Before you decide, read Editorial Ass on why you should never submit unagented to publishing companies. (Just one caveat: She's talking about the Big Guys here, as well as the larger independents. For smaller independents, it may be perfectly feasible to approach directly.)
Curious about how bookstores decide which books to order? From Jane Smith's How Publishing Really Works blog, a short explanation of the book-stocking policies of UK chain bookseller Waterstone's, from former Waterstone's staffer Sally Zigmond.
Thinking about parlaying your blog to writing fame and fortune? Via Galleycat: only two percent of bloggers earn a living from their blogs. More from Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, and how Writer Beware Blogs! compares:
- Median annual revenue among bloggers surveyed was $200 (revenue for the Writer Beware blog: $0).
- As tiny as bloggers' median annual revenue is, men STILL make more than women (grrr).
- The majority of bloggers have advertising of some sort on their blogs (to avoid any possible conflict of interest issues, the WB blog does not host ads or accept ad revenue).
- More than 133 million blogs have been established since 2002 (yikes).
- Only 5% of these (or 7.4 million) were updated in the past 120 days (the WB blog updates at least weekly, and often twice a week).
- 59% of bloggers have been blogging for more than two years (the WB blog started in September 2005, so it's just over three years for us).
- Half of all active blogs attract more than 1,000 monthly visitors (average monthly visits for the WB blog: 15,800--which sounds more impressive than it is, because only about a quarter of those visitors stick around to read).
- 57% of US bloggers are male; in Europe and Asia they're 73% (being a natural contrarian, I love it when I don't fit the stats).
- More women than men have personal blogs; more men than women have professional blogs (yay, bucking the stats again: neither Ann nor I have personal blogs; our only blogging is professional).
- One in four bloggers spends ten or more hours blogging per week (I probably average five or six hours, including research).
Impressed with the courtesy and promptness of that brand-new agent with no publishing industry experience? Don't be. Stacia Kane/December Quinn on how it's not about being nice.
Trying to convince yourself that fee-charging publisher isn't really a vanity press because it pays royalties, and only reputable publishers pay royalties? Thinking it's selective because it doesn't accept absolutely everything that's submitted to it? Think again. Marian Perera at Flights of Fantasy reveals five misconceptions about vanity presses.
Did the publisher that just asked you for several thousand dollars to publish your book assure you that paying to publish is a sign of your faith your own work? Or that paying to publish is the way many first-time authors get started? Be skeptical. Marian Perera again, on the many ways fee-charging publishers justify their upfront fees.
Frustrated with the agent search? Considering going it alone? Before you decide, read Editorial Ass on why you should never submit unagented to publishing companies. (Just one caveat: She's talking about the Big Guys here, as well as the larger independents. For smaller independents, it may be perfectly feasible to approach directly.)
Curious about how bookstores decide which books to order? From Jane Smith's How Publishing Really Works blog, a short explanation of the book-stocking policies of UK chain bookseller Waterstone's, from former Waterstone's staffer Sally Zigmond.
Thinking about parlaying your blog to writing fame and fortune? Via Galleycat: only two percent of bloggers earn a living from their blogs. More from Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, and how Writer Beware Blogs! compares:
- Median annual revenue among bloggers surveyed was $200 (revenue for the Writer Beware blog: $0).
- As tiny as bloggers' median annual revenue is, men STILL make more than women (grrr).
- The majority of bloggers have advertising of some sort on their blogs (to avoid any possible conflict of interest issues, the WB blog does not host ads or accept ad revenue).
- More than 133 million blogs have been established since 2002 (yikes).
- Only 5% of these (or 7.4 million) were updated in the past 120 days (the WB blog updates at least weekly, and often twice a week).
- 59% of bloggers have been blogging for more than two years (the WB blog started in September 2005, so it's just over three years for us).
- Half of all active blogs attract more than 1,000 monthly visitors (average monthly visits for the WB blog: 15,800--which sounds more impressive than it is, because only about a quarter of those visitors stick around to read).
- 57% of US bloggers are male; in Europe and Asia they're 73% (being a natural contrarian, I love it when I don't fit the stats).
- More women than men have personal blogs; more men than women have professional blogs (yay, bucking the stats again: neither Ann nor I have personal blogs; our only blogging is professional).
- One in four bloggers spends ten or more hours blogging per week (I probably average five or six hours, including research).
Friday, November 07, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Zimbo Books Fiction Competition
Have you recently received an email from Zimbo Books about a new, big-money literary contest? If so, you aren't alone. This company appears to be engaging in a sizeable spam campaign. I've gotten a number of questions, and there's discussion in many writers' forums. Zimbo even spammed me--at my Writer Beware email address, no less.
According to the email announcement,
Zimbo Books is pleased to announce the Zimbo Books Fiction Competition 2008 commemorating the launch of Zimbo Books. This exciting competition as described in the competition rules has 2 major benefits:
* A prize pool of USD $100,000 with a first prize of USD $80,000.
* The next four runners up get USD $5,000 each.
* One year's subscription for all Authors to sell their books online via Zimbo Books (value USD $45).
The official contest rules reveal that the competition is for unpublished book-length manuscripts of between 50,000 and 300,000 (!) words. Entries must be accompanied by a synopsis of no more than 750 words. Zimbo takes no rights to submitted manuscripts--though by entering, you grant it the right to list and sell your book on the Zimbo website (more about that below). The entry deadline is April 21, 2009, so there's plenty of time to enter. And get this--if you refer another writer to the contest, you can get a referral fee of $15.
Wouldn't it be nice to win $80,000? Or $5,000? Or even net a few $15 referral fees? I could use some extra cash, and I'm sure you could too. But wait. It's not that simple. There are some factors to consider first.
- The entry fee is a whopping $85. Contest fees don't automatically tag a contest as disreputable, but for a book contest (as opposed to a screenplay contest, where entrance fees tend to be high) $85 is way too much. (For instance, the Atlantic Writing Competition, sponsored by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, charges $25. The San Diego Book Awards Association charges $15. There are many others.)
Zimbo reserves the right to reject entries "that it deems, in its sole discretion, to be inappropraite [sic], for any reason whatsoever", in which case your fee will not be refunded. Zimbo also reserves the right to cancel the competition "in the event an insufficient number of entries are received"--in which case, you get a refund of $40 (the difference between the entry fee and Zimbo's regular $45 "publishing" service). There are no details on what would constitute "an insufficient number."
- By its own admission, Zimbo is not a publisher. "Zimbo just allows you to sell your books. We are not publishers." (While it's nice of them to clarify, alert writers may already have inferred this from the number of typos and other errors on the Zimbo website). A literary contest conducted by an organization unrelated to publishing or book selling is not likely to provide a step up in your writing career, even if you win.
So what is Zimbo, if it's not a publisher? An ecommerce website "where products and members interact." If this reminds you a bit of eBay, that may not be an accident: Zimbo's parent company, Technocash Pty Ltd., is "a licensed financial institution providing payment solutions" that "presently provides Australian collection services for hundreds of non-Australian eBay sellers." In addition to selling other products, you can sell your book by paying Zimbo $45, for which it will turn your ms. into a pdf file and list it for sale.
- Speaking of which, just by entering the contest, you agree to let Zimbo list and sell your manuscript from its site for one year. Here's Zimbo's explanation of why this is peachy super-keen:
How does Zimbo Books compare to having a book published?
Zimbo Books is much better. For a start you don’t need a publisher to start selling If you are one of the very few lucky authors to get your book published, the time taken to get the book to market is often more than a year. No waiting with Zimbo Books. Plus you get much more money with Zimbo Books for each sale. Many authors get a royalty of 10% paid by the publishers. But it is 10% of the wholesale price not the retail price. For example, if the book has a retail price of $30, it could have a wholesale price of $15 and the 10% royalty is $1.50 – compared to Zimbo with a net sale amount of $7.
Oy. If this inaccuracy-laden rationale doesn't turn you off, consider whether you really want an uncorrected pdf file of your book out there on the Internet. Consider whether you want to possibly put your first publication rights in jeopardy by agreeing to what will almost certainly be perceived by agents and editors as cut-rate self-publishing. Consider that, if you do manage to place your book with an agent or publisher before the year is up, they will probably want you off the Zimbo site--but there's no provision that I could find to allow you to cancel your Zimbo listing before the year is up. Oh, and the listing is automatically renewable. So unless you do cancel, it won't expire.
- So far, a full list of who will be judging the contest is not available. A contest's prestige rests in part on the qualifications of its judges--which you can't assess if you don't know who they are. A short bio of one judge has recently been posted, but while this gentleman is admirably accomplished in his own field, it's unclear how he is qualified judge a literary contest.
- Contest entrants must agree to parent company Technocash's privacy policy, which allows Technocash to disclose personal information to third parties., "Sometimes we provide personal information about customers to organisations outside of Technocash. Generally this will only occur when the organisation or other entity helps us with our business. For example: outsourced service providers including mailing houses or telemarketing agencies; authorised representatives of Technocash; other financial institutions; credit reporting agencies; and our accountants, auditors or lawyers." Since the contest entry form requires contestants to provide not just their email addresses, but their phone numbers and street addresses, I suspect that entrants should be prepared for an increase in spam, junk phone calls, and/or junk snail mail.
Bottom line, in my opinion: Zimbo's competition is not a real literary contest, but a moneymaking venture (the $85 entry fee) in support of another moneymaking venture (I'm guessing that the contest is intended both to bulk up Zimbo's inventory of electronic books, and to promote its $45 "publishing" service). Even if that weren't the case, the enforced publication provision should be enough to make careful writers think twice.
Oh, and that fat prize money? It's listed in US dollars, but according to the fine print, "As Zimbo Books is based in Australia all credit/debit card transaction [sic] are processed in the AUD equivalent."
According to the email announcement,
Zimbo Books is pleased to announce the Zimbo Books Fiction Competition 2008 commemorating the launch of Zimbo Books. This exciting competition as described in the competition rules has 2 major benefits:
* A prize pool of USD $100,000 with a first prize of USD $80,000.
* The next four runners up get USD $5,000 each.
* One year's subscription for all Authors to sell their books online via Zimbo Books (value USD $45).
The official contest rules reveal that the competition is for unpublished book-length manuscripts of between 50,000 and 300,000 (!) words. Entries must be accompanied by a synopsis of no more than 750 words. Zimbo takes no rights to submitted manuscripts--though by entering, you grant it the right to list and sell your book on the Zimbo website (more about that below). The entry deadline is April 21, 2009, so there's plenty of time to enter. And get this--if you refer another writer to the contest, you can get a referral fee of $15.
Wouldn't it be nice to win $80,000? Or $5,000? Or even net a few $15 referral fees? I could use some extra cash, and I'm sure you could too. But wait. It's not that simple. There are some factors to consider first.
- The entry fee is a whopping $85. Contest fees don't automatically tag a contest as disreputable, but for a book contest (as opposed to a screenplay contest, where entrance fees tend to be high) $85 is way too much. (For instance, the Atlantic Writing Competition, sponsored by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia, charges $25. The San Diego Book Awards Association charges $15. There are many others.)
Zimbo reserves the right to reject entries "that it deems, in its sole discretion, to be inappropraite [sic], for any reason whatsoever", in which case your fee will not be refunded. Zimbo also reserves the right to cancel the competition "in the event an insufficient number of entries are received"--in which case, you get a refund of $40 (the difference between the entry fee and Zimbo's regular $45 "publishing" service). There are no details on what would constitute "an insufficient number."
- By its own admission, Zimbo is not a publisher. "Zimbo just allows you to sell your books. We are not publishers." (While it's nice of them to clarify, alert writers may already have inferred this from the number of typos and other errors on the Zimbo website). A literary contest conducted by an organization unrelated to publishing or book selling is not likely to provide a step up in your writing career, even if you win.
So what is Zimbo, if it's not a publisher? An ecommerce website "where products and members interact." If this reminds you a bit of eBay, that may not be an accident: Zimbo's parent company, Technocash Pty Ltd., is "a licensed financial institution providing payment solutions" that "presently provides Australian collection services for hundreds of non-Australian eBay sellers." In addition to selling other products, you can sell your book by paying Zimbo $45, for which it will turn your ms. into a pdf file and list it for sale.
- Speaking of which, just by entering the contest, you agree to let Zimbo list and sell your manuscript from its site for one year. Here's Zimbo's explanation of why this is peachy super-keen:
How does Zimbo Books compare to having a book published?
Zimbo Books is much better. For a start you don’t need a publisher to start selling If you are one of the very few lucky authors to get your book published, the time taken to get the book to market is often more than a year. No waiting with Zimbo Books. Plus you get much more money with Zimbo Books for each sale. Many authors get a royalty of 10% paid by the publishers. But it is 10% of the wholesale price not the retail price. For example, if the book has a retail price of $30, it could have a wholesale price of $15 and the 10% royalty is $1.50 – compared to Zimbo with a net sale amount of $7.
Oy. If this inaccuracy-laden rationale doesn't turn you off, consider whether you really want an uncorrected pdf file of your book out there on the Internet. Consider whether you want to possibly put your first publication rights in jeopardy by agreeing to what will almost certainly be perceived by agents and editors as cut-rate self-publishing. Consider that, if you do manage to place your book with an agent or publisher before the year is up, they will probably want you off the Zimbo site--but there's no provision that I could find to allow you to cancel your Zimbo listing before the year is up. Oh, and the listing is automatically renewable. So unless you do cancel, it won't expire.
- So far, a full list of who will be judging the contest is not available. A contest's prestige rests in part on the qualifications of its judges--which you can't assess if you don't know who they are. A short bio of one judge has recently been posted, but while this gentleman is admirably accomplished in his own field, it's unclear how he is qualified judge a literary contest.
- Contest entrants must agree to parent company Technocash's privacy policy, which allows Technocash to disclose personal information to third parties., "Sometimes we provide personal information about customers to organisations outside of Technocash. Generally this will only occur when the organisation or other entity helps us with our business. For example: outsourced service providers including mailing houses or telemarketing agencies; authorised representatives of Technocash; other financial institutions; credit reporting agencies; and our accountants, auditors or lawyers." Since the contest entry form requires contestants to provide not just their email addresses, but their phone numbers and street addresses, I suspect that entrants should be prepared for an increase in spam, junk phone calls, and/or junk snail mail.
Bottom line, in my opinion: Zimbo's competition is not a real literary contest, but a moneymaking venture (the $85 entry fee) in support of another moneymaking venture (I'm guessing that the contest is intended both to bulk up Zimbo's inventory of electronic books, and to promote its $45 "publishing" service). Even if that weren't the case, the enforced publication provision should be enough to make careful writers think twice.
Oh, and that fat prize money? It's listed in US dollars, but according to the fine print, "As Zimbo Books is based in Australia all credit/debit card transaction [sic] are processed in the AUD equivalent."
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Victoria Strauss -- Ding Dong, BookWise is Dead
Via Lee Goldberg--multi-level marketing scheme Bookwise, which I blogged about in 2006, is no more. BookWise applied the Amway principle to bookselling, encouraging its Associates not just to sell the books they bought from the company, but to sign up other Associates and receive a percentage of their income.
An announcement on the BookWise website says only that "BookWise & Company has merged with iLearningGlobal and is no longer in business." iLearningGlobal, according to its website (which doesn't mention BookWise or the merger), is a "mentoring community" that "has brought together the top trainers and speakers in all areas of self development, personal improvement, business training, life skills, tax and financial strategies, and much more."
If you're puzzled by exactly how iLearningGlobal, with its focus on audio, video, e-books, webcasts, and other aural and visual media, dovetails with BookWise, a MLM scheme focusing on printed books, don't fret--you just need to look a little deeper. Like BookWise, iLearningGlobal is an MLM scheme, founded by MLM guru Brian Tracy. Over August and September 2008, BookWise Associates have been transforming themselves into iLearningGlobal Marketers. For instance, this happy former BookWise Associate. And this one. And here's an example of the iLearningGlobal sales pitch from yet another one.
In my original post on BookWise, I got some flack from BookWise loyalists for saying this:
"Despite BookWise's noble mission statement (The Mission of BookWise & Company is to increase literacy, reading and access to great books through neighbor-to-neighbor book selling. We champion the spirit of the corner bookstore and embrace the values of the independent bookseller with a passion for great literature and the personal connection with friends who love to read), it's not hard to see that the main incentive for those who join the club won't be books, but the promise of cash. That's the lure of multilevel marketing schemes: not the product, but the scheme itself, and the opportunity to sell it to others."
Gee. Ya think?
Not all of BookWise is gone. In early 2008, it branched out into vanity publishing with WriteWise, an expensive ($6,995) publishing and "mentoring" program that paid fat commissions to BookWise Associates who got writers to sign up. WriteWise appears to have survived the merger.
Just for kicks, I took advantage of the free download offered on the WriteWise website: 5 Secrets Every Author Needs to Know. I mean, I've published a few books, right? But being an author is a lifetime learning experience, and I could always use a few pointers. There are indeed five secrets, each one of which includes the words "make millions" or "make money." (For instance, Secret #5: "Hire Someone to Write Your Information Product, so You Make Millions." Gosh, I wish I'd thought of that.) The article, authored by Richard G. Allen (a former BookWise board member) finishes with a pitch for WriteWise:
If YES is your final answer to these three simple questions, then you have pre-qualified yourself for accepting my offer and joining WriteWise--destined to be rewarded with:
- A bestselling book.
- Millions of dollars.
- Many friends and followers (those with whom you share your information).
- A life you love each and every day.
- A world made better because of you.
I am giving you the most effective way from just wanting to be an Information Millionaire to Being One!
Ugh. I've got to go take a shower now.
An announcement on the BookWise website says only that "BookWise & Company has merged with iLearningGlobal and is no longer in business." iLearningGlobal, according to its website (which doesn't mention BookWise or the merger), is a "mentoring community" that "has brought together the top trainers and speakers in all areas of self development, personal improvement, business training, life skills, tax and financial strategies, and much more."
If you're puzzled by exactly how iLearningGlobal, with its focus on audio, video, e-books, webcasts, and other aural and visual media, dovetails with BookWise, a MLM scheme focusing on printed books, don't fret--you just need to look a little deeper. Like BookWise, iLearningGlobal is an MLM scheme, founded by MLM guru Brian Tracy. Over August and September 2008, BookWise Associates have been transforming themselves into iLearningGlobal Marketers. For instance, this happy former BookWise Associate. And this one. And here's an example of the iLearningGlobal sales pitch from yet another one.
In my original post on BookWise, I got some flack from BookWise loyalists for saying this:
"Despite BookWise's noble mission statement (The Mission of BookWise & Company is to increase literacy, reading and access to great books through neighbor-to-neighbor book selling. We champion the spirit of the corner bookstore and embrace the values of the independent bookseller with a passion for great literature and the personal connection with friends who love to read), it's not hard to see that the main incentive for those who join the club won't be books, but the promise of cash. That's the lure of multilevel marketing schemes: not the product, but the scheme itself, and the opportunity to sell it to others."
Gee. Ya think?
Not all of BookWise is gone. In early 2008, it branched out into vanity publishing with WriteWise, an expensive ($6,995) publishing and "mentoring" program that paid fat commissions to BookWise Associates who got writers to sign up. WriteWise appears to have survived the merger.
Just for kicks, I took advantage of the free download offered on the WriteWise website: 5 Secrets Every Author Needs to Know. I mean, I've published a few books, right? But being an author is a lifetime learning experience, and I could always use a few pointers. There are indeed five secrets, each one of which includes the words "make millions" or "make money." (For instance, Secret #5: "Hire Someone to Write Your Information Product, so You Make Millions." Gosh, I wish I'd thought of that.) The article, authored by Richard G. Allen (a former BookWise board member) finishes with a pitch for WriteWise:
If YES is your final answer to these three simple questions, then you have pre-qualified yourself for accepting my offer and joining WriteWise--destined to be rewarded with:
- A bestselling book.
- Millions of dollars.
- Many friends and followers (those with whom you share your information).
- A life you love each and every day.
- A world made better because of you.
I am giving you the most effective way from just wanting to be an Information Millionaire to Being One!
Ugh. I've got to go take a shower now.
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