Author name: VictoriaStrauss

I’m still following the news (and answering email), so I can at least share with you the publishing stories that caught my eye over the past week or so.

Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten a number of questions and alerts about author-unfriendly Terms and Conditions at Autharium, a new epublishing startup. So I thought I’d check into it myself.

Here is an example of the sort of solicitation PublishAmerica authors receive daily (if not more often).

I wasn’t optimistic that I would ever be writing a post like this, after the class action filed last year against PublishAmerica was dismissed.

However, on January 31, 2013, the Maryland law firm Z Law and the New York law firm Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart (the same firm that is currently investigating Author Solutions Inc.) filed an amended complaint (the original complaint was filed last November) against Willem Meiners, Larry Clopper, and PublishAmerica LLLC on behalf of Diana Waterman, Jennifer Grant, Danita Clemons, and the class of PA authors in similar situations.

The New York law firm of Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart LLP has opened an investigation of Author Solutions Inc. (ASI), alleging deceptive practices.

Authors using Author Solutions have complained of deceptive practices, including enticing authors to purchase promotional services that are not provided or are worthless, failing to pay royalties, and spamming authors and publishing blogs/sites with promotional material.

Over the past few years, more and more trade publishers have created digital-only imprints. Another new one just popped up in my newsfeed today: Little, Brown UK’s Blackfriars will be launching its first list this coming June.

If you have an unpublished manuscript that you’re shopping to agents and/or publishers, or considering self-publishing, there’s no need to register your copyright prior to publication.

Why?

Writer Beware has received reports that authors are receiving phone solicitations from an outfit called Close-up TV News, which describes itself as “…a premiere news magazine TV program spotlighting the most successful businesses across America. “

Recently I received a question about an apparently new Christian publisher, Blessed Hope Publishing. The writer who contacted me was suspicious because Blessed Hope had not only solicited his manuscript, but had accepted it within a matter of days.

India is a vast book market, and print is still king. So it only makes sense that Penguin (whose parent company, Pearson, acquired self-publishing giant Author Solutions Inc. last year) has just announced the expansion of ASI into India via its new “imprint,” Partridge.