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New French Law Seizes Digital Rights
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware The issue of orphan works--out of print, still-in-copyright books, films, photographs, etc. whose rightsholders can't be found--is one that has been much in the news lately. Concern over a potential mon...
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Why Poets Should Not Seek Literary Agents
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Writer Beware hears from a fair number poets. Much of the time, they're contacting us to ask about self-publishing, or to check the reputation of a journal or a contest. Sometimes, unfortunately, they've ...
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Tidbits
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware The Taleist 2012 Self-Publishing Survey The recent mega-success of self-epublishing authors such as Amanda Hocking, John Locke, Darcie Chan, and Kerry Wilkinson has generated a lot of media attention over ...
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Publishers’ Desk: Display or Misplay?
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Over the past few months, I've gotten a number of questions from writers who've received spam--excuse me, invitations from a website called Publishers' Desk. Its motto is "Bringing Authors and Publishers ...
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Delmont-Ross Writing Contest: The Saga of a Fake Literary Competition
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A little while back, I stumbled on a news story about Mitchell Gross, a Georgia man who was recently indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly luring ...
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The Fine Print of iBooks Author
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Yesterday, with great fanfare, Apple rolled out two new applications: iBooks 2, with new features aimed at students; and iBooks Author, which allows individuals to create iPad-optimized ebooks. Both...
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Digital Rights Showdown: HarperCollins v. Open Road
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware One of the effects of the phenomenal growth of ebooks over the past few years has been to bring new value to the backlist--both for publishers who hold the contracts for backlist books, and authors who wa...
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BookStoreMarketing.net: Beware Spam PR Services
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Recently I've gotten a number of questions about BookStoreMarketing.net, a service that promises to promote authors' books to bookstores via a printed catalog, a promotional email, or both. Alternatively,...
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2011: A Writer Beware Retrospective
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware As we begin the new year (Writer Beware's fourteenth!), here's a look back at some of Writer Beware's most notable posts and warnings from 2011. JANUARY First One Publishing's Writing Contest...
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Happy Holidays From Writer Beware
Because even watchdogs have to rest sometimes, the Writer Beware blog will be taking a break over the holiday season. Unless there's a really juicy publishing story, we'll be on hiatus until the new year. (We'll still be answering email, so if you w...