Search Results for: market report

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

The publishing news of the week–maybe of the year–is the collapse of Borders, the USA’s second largest bookstore chain.

New language in the termination provision of the Harper’s boilerplate gives them the right to cancel a contract if “Author’s conduct evidences a lack of due regard for public conventions and morals, or if Author commits a crime or any other act that will tend to bring Author into serious contempt, and such behavior would materially damage the Work’s reputation or sales.”

I don’t often write posts like this, because it’s really like shooting fish in a barrel. And there are so many red flags here that savvy writers may wonder why I bother. But there are a lot of new writers searching for agents, many of whom are probably new to Writer Beware, and may not yet be clear on what to watch out for.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t self-publish if you want to (though I would urge you to do so on the basis of knowledge rather than hype), or that self-publishers can’t become successful (clearly, they can–something that has always been true, for every possible value of success). I’m just saying that it’s risky to assume that others’ success stories will apply to you.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

One of many reasons I enjoy Twitter is that it’s relatively free of the spam that clogs other modes of online discourse. Oh, there’s the occasional author Twitspam (writers: Twitspamming is not, I repeat, N…

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

An article from Courthouse News Service (a nationwide newsletter for lawyers focusing on civil litigation) caught my eye this morning:
A retired lawyer claims he wrote a book investigating the death of Prin…