Writing: Writer Beware

Continuing my exploring of writing resources found during my prison stay, here is the site Writer Beware. Set up as a blog, the posts are about copyright rip-offs and pay-to-play scams as well as bad contracts. 

The post Another Reason to Just Say No to That Offer to Re-Publish Your Self-Pubbed Book interested as I have a friend who has self-published.

But there's another reason to just say no--and it could impact more than your bank account.

Suppose your book gets re-published, but you realize you aren't receiving royalties or royalty reports. Or there are errors that need to be corrected, or services you paid for that aren't being delivered, or you have concerns about quality. Suppose, when you start asking questions, your re-publisher stops responding. Suppose you discover that the email address you've been using no longer works, and the phone number you've been calling has been shut off. Suppose you look for your re-publisher online, and find that its website has disappeared. 

These are common situations. Re-publishing scammers routinely ghost writers they decide are inconvenient (or tapped out financially), and frequently shut down under one name as complaints accumulate, only to start up under another. Meanwhile, your book is still for sale all over the internet.

Suppose, then, you decide to terminate your service agreement or publishing contract, get your rights back, and have your book removed from sale. Maybe there's language in the agreement or contract that lets you cancel--but how do you cancel if phone numbers are dead and all your emails bounce? Maybe there's no provision for termination by the author, something you didn't worry about at the time because you didn't think there would be an issue...but that means you can't go to retailers like Amazon with the argument that your copyright is being infringed because the company ignored your contractually-guaranteed right to terminate.

The post goes on to explaining how to protect one's work.

This site deems to be most useful for those writers publishing their work.

It is now part of my blog list. 

sch

12/16/21