Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Posts Tagged ‘Writer Beware’

Guest Blog Post: Content Mills–Just A Stepping Stone in Your Career

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Today: the second of two guest posts on content mills. In this article originally published at The WM Freelance Writers Connection, writer Angela Atkinson takes a more positive view of content mills, arguing that they can be a good way for new writers to sharpen skills and build experience. The down side: you probably won't make much money. And if you're focused on establishing a career, you need to treat them as a stepping stone, rather than an end in themselves. by Angela Atkinson I always knew I wanted to be a writer, and though I studied journalism in college, circumstances in my life pushed me toward a corporate job early into adulthood. I wrote every day back then--but it was either some corporate communication or publication, or something just for myself that I always pretended I'd work on getting published, but never did. (more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
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Guest Blog Post: Content Mills–Why Aspiring Writers Should Avoid Them

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

A content mill, if you aren't familiar with the term, is a website that aggregates huge numbers of articles on a constantly-updated basis, written by freelancers who are paid by page views or ad clicks rather than wages or fees. A few examples: Examiner, Suite101, eHow, Triond, Associated Content, Helium.

I've written on this blog about a number of content mills, focusing mainly on their Terms and Conditions and the implications for writers of the legal language contained therein. But are content mills worth writing for? Can you make money? Will they help you start or build a freelance writing career?

This week I'm hosting two guest posts that address these questions (both originally posted at The WM Freelance Writers Connection). The first is by journalist Carol Tice, who argues that content mills are not a good way for aspiring writers to establish a sustainable writing career.

by Carol Tice

As many WM readers and readers of my Make a Living Writing Blog may already know, I am not a fan of content mills. I advise the writers I mentor to avoid them, and many of my mentees approach me with the specific goal of kicking their mill-writing habit. (more...)

Tags: content mill, Writer Beware
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Guest Blog Post: The Scam of Private Label Rights Articles

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Today, Smashwords founder Mark Coker guest blogs about "private label rights" services, which make it possible for anyone to "author" their own ebooks or to populate blogs by putting together chunks of content from the service's database. The result: scads of badly-formatted, poor-quality ebooks and blogs, which are often used by SEO scammers to confuse Google Search results.

I'd never heard of these services before, and I'll bet a lot of my readers haven't either--which is exactly why I've been wanting to host more guest blog posts. Many thanks to Mark for illuminating yet another shady corner of the Internet.

Did you know for only $24.95 a month, you can subscribe to a service that gives you access to a database of thousands of articles you can turn into ebooks?

If you're too lazy or too clueless to write a real book, now you slap your name on another person's work and get rich in the process. Or, so parasitic "Private Label Rights" services are leading an ever-growing number of suckers to believe. (more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 2 Comments »

Supreme Court Reinstates Major Freelancer Copyright Settlement

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Today, by unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that tossed out a settlement reached in a landmark case involving electronic rights and copyright.

In 1999, the National Writers' Union filed suit against the New York Times and LexisNexis, among others, alleging copyright infringement due to the companies' re-use of printed articles and photographs in electronic databases (New York Times Co. v Tasini et al). The Times and other publishers argued that the right of reproduction and distribution included in collective copyrights gave them the right to digitize content without permission or payment to the authors. The NWU argued that electronic rights were separate and distinct, and that, since their contracts had not included a grant of e-rights, the Times and other publishers had violated their copyrights.

(more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
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Another Vanity Award: The 2010 Creative Spirit Awards

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Is it irony or coincidence that, only a few days after blogging about vanity awards, I should be spammed by one? Perhaps you have, too. It's an outfit calling itself the 2010 Creative Spirit Awards.

The 2010 Creative Spirit Awards™ Celebrating the Creative Spirit in Books, Film, and Music!

The March 1st Early Bird Deadline is approaching fast! If you haven’t already submitted, we invite you to submit today!

It's every Author, Musician and Filmmaker’s desire to generate notoriety, credibility and buzz about their work, and winning this significant award is the vehicle in which to make your creation stand out as the exemplary work it is. To further help winners achieve this recognition, following the close of the competition, press releases with information on the Creative Spirit Award™ Winners will be sent to key book sellers, film and music distributors, and other sales and marketing entities. Being a Creative Spirit Award™ winner will inspire confidence in buyers, distributors, readers and prospective clients that Creative Spirit Award™ winning productions are of high quality and worthy of their attention. The Creative Spirit Awards™ celebrate the individual artist as well as their work through a panel of judges who have excelled in their respective fields. As such, awards are only presented to those filmmakers, musicians and authors who create fresh, standout, and exemplary creations in their field. Each work is judged solely on its own merits and not in competition with other submissions. The Creative Spirit Awards™ honors its winners with Platinum, Gold, or Silver Awards.

Googling "Creative Spirit Awards" reveals that many blogs and websites have posted this announcement, some with approving commentary. But a visit to the Creative Spirit website turns up a number of red flags. (more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 1 Comment »

Beware of Fake Awards

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Here's a story that, for sheer weight of irony, I wish like anything I'd been the one to break. But author and publisher Michael N. Marcus beat me to it, in a recent post on his Book Making blog. Everyone loves an award, right? Awards acknowledge excellence and achievement, raise the profile of the awardee, and garner the respect of peers (that's the theory, anyway). There are plenty of big prestigious awards whose names everyone recognizes, and lots of small, semi-prestigious awards that may be recognizable only within a particular niche or audience, and vast numbers of tiny, all-but-invisible awards that may make you feel good, but will provoke stares of incomprehension if you mention them to someone else. There are also--you guessed it--vanity awards, where the goal isn't to recognize excellence, but to entice entrants or winners to hand over cash to the awards sponsors. (more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
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Inspired Living Publishing: Another Vanity Anthology Scheme

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

by Victoria Strauss

Here's an email solicitation currently doing the rounds, from Linda Joy, President and Founder of Aspire Media Inc., and Publisher and Editor of Aspire Magazine:

Will 2010 be YOUR year to embrace your wisdom, step forward and claim your dream of being a published author? If you answered YES then YOU may be one of the over 40 co-authors that I, along with my team of experts, will be working with this spring to bring your collective wisdom to the world!... Now, in a personal project of mine I will bring the same passion and commitment that I've brought to Aspire, to bring YOUR story, wisdom and insights as a co-author in my upcoming anthology: A Juicy, Joyful Life: Inspiration from Women who have Found the Sweetness in Every Day

The email includes a link, the clicking of which takes you to Inspired Living Publishing, publisher of the above-referenced anthology, first in the Inspired Living series. Here, "inspired, engaged entrepreneur[s]" who are "ready to move forward with the vision for your business and your desire to be a published author" can sign up for "updates on this exciting new opportunity." (more...)

Tags: Writer Beware
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MyFreeRead.com: Not Quite What It Appears

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Earlier this week, I received an email from a company called MyFreeRead.com, enticingly titled, "Authors: We Want Your e-Books & Articles!"

Dear Authors, We want your e-books -- and we'll pay you for them!! * e-Books * Newsletters * Excerpts from books * Self-Published Articles Now, there's a new idea... actually get paid for writing your e-books and articles! We're launching a brand new website, where visitors can download free e-books on everything from running a business to fixing a car... and WE PAY OUR AUTHORS US $0.20 every time an e-book is successfully downloaded!

Gee, 20 cents a download--who could resist? Me, for one. I might have written this off as just one more random spam--but then I began hearing from writers who'd gotten the very same email offer. The volume of questions began to suggest a sizeable spam campaign, which always gets my Writer Beware radar twitching. (more...)

Tags: victoria strauss, Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 2 Comments »

DOJ Weighs in on Amended Google Book Settlement

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Last September, the US Justice Department urged the courts to reject the Google Book Settlement, citing concerns about class action, copyright, and anti-trust laws. The DOJ's brief put the Settlement's approval process on hold, and forced the parties back to the negotiating table--resulting, in November, in the filing of an Amended Settlement. New deadlines were set for authors and for the filing of objections, and the Fairness Hearing (to determine if the Settlement will stand) was postponed to February 18, 2010. On Thursday, in a statement of interest filed with U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin in New York, the DOJ indicated that, while it continues to believe that the Settlement could provide a major public good, and acknowledges that the Amended Settlement Agreement includes "substantial" changes, it's still not satisfied. (The filing can be seen here.) The DOJ's strongly-stated concerns fall into the same areas it highlighted in its previous filing. (more...)

Tags: Google Book Settlement, Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 1 Comment »

Are You a Published Author? Now You Can Tell the World!

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Hey, Published Authors: Feeling artistically discouraged? Critically devalued? Culturally marginalized? Alternatively, are you just so full of self-admiration and self-confidence that you could absolutely pop?

A Customized Author Plaque from ZLS Publishing (“The Authorpreneurial Publisher”) might be just the thing. (more…)

Tags: Writer Beware
Posted in SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 1 Comment »

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