Archive for 2013

Awards Profiteering: The Book Festival Empire of JM Northern Media

If you’re a writer, I’ll bet you’ve been spammed by JM Northern Media.

Don’t recognize the name? Maybe these will ring a bell. The Los Angeles Book Festival. The Hollywood Book Festival. The Paris Book Festival. The Beach Book Festival. The Halloween Book Festival. Animals, Animals, Animals Book Festival. And at least nine other annal festivals, all owned and operated by JM Northern Media (click the Properties tab).

2 Moon Press–Update

Last summer, I wrote about a police investigation of Michigan-based pay-to-play publisher 2 Moon Press, which closed its doors in May amid competing claims of wrongdoing by its former and current owners.

Tools for Writers: Rafflecopter

A long-standing practice in book promotion is giveaways, particularly since book giveaways may help drum up reviews as well. You can conduct such giveaways in a simple fashion, asking people to leave a comment on a blog post or social network page in order to be entered.

Odyssey Writing Workshops Online Courses Announced

All Odyssey Online courses involve live online class meetings, so students can ask questions and participate in the class.  Each course is designed to provide intensive focus on a particular aspect of fiction writing and challenging homework assignments to help students improve their skills.

Changes to Nebula Award Rules

In an ongoing effort to ensure the Nebula Awards are administered to promote the best in SF literature, and to be transparent and manageable, the SFWA Board has voted to make a small change to item 12.3 and add an item 12.4 to the Nebula guidelines.