Two Awards Banquets

Hi, folks:

A month ago, I attended the Nebula Awards weekend in Austin, Texas. And just one week later, I was a guest speaker at the Oklahoma Writers Federation's annual conference, which included their Awards Banquet.

My new black suit and periwinkle tank top with the sparkly decals got a workout. Two successive Saturday nights watching and listening as writers were honored and received their awards. It was a great watching Michael Chabon win a Nebula to pair with his Pulitzer, and Michael Moorcock receive his well-earned Damon Knight Grand Master award for a Lifetime Achievement. My biggest personal thrill was discovering that one of my former students was a Nebula finalist in the short story category!

Since was an outsider at the OWFI Awards Banquet, I had lots of time to sit there as their awards were handed out, and ruminate on writers in general, and the differences between the two events. It struck me as I sat there, listening to these writers, who had come from all over Oklahoma, Texas, and even from as far away as Kentucky or Arkansas, that all of the OWFI writers were having a wonderful time, enjoying their fellowship. And that these people really enjoyed their writing, and had FUN with it. It was really heartwarming to sit there and soak up the "vibe" from 400-plus writers. Their enthusiasm, fellowship, and commitment was tangible; it filled the room, pervading the entire conference.

A significant percentage of these writers were published, in one venue or another. Were most of them published by NY commercial houses? No. Some were, most weren't. But that didn't keep them from approaching their writing with zest, and working hard at their craft.

Contrast that with the Nebulas. There was fellowship there, longtime friends meeting and catching up, editors taking authors to dinner, writers sharing news about the current state of the markets, etc. But there's a difference between writers who do it for a living, and writers who are writing just for the joy of it, without worrying too much about payment, or credentials, or recognition.

Where did I feel most at home? At the Nebulas, naturally. I knew many of the writers there, and enjoyed meeting some new friends. The SFWA meeting made me think about several of the "new business" items that were raised. It's great catching up with how friends and colleagues are doing, and hearing the latest scuttlebutt.

In a way, though, I found myself envying the writers at the Oklahoma OWFI Conference. I envied their joy in the simple act of creating. I envied how much fun they all seemed to be having. The Oklahoma writers weren't nearly as FOCUSED, weren't nearly as driven as the SFWA members.

Not that either group was "right," or "wrong" in their approach. Just different. But I came away from Oklahoma with a resolution to take more joy in just creating. I think it's possible to lose sight of the joy of creation when writers become too obsessed with publication.

Both awards banquets gave me a chance to watch writers being rewarded for doing what they enjoyed...what they loved to do. I think the Oklahoma writers had more FUN with their writing. Let's face it, getting published these days is increasingly fraught with anxiety and frustration. This is just the nature of the beast.

I know that anyone wanting to achieve first-time publication, or to add to a track record of publications, has to stay focused. Writers these days can't afford to neglect the business side of things -- the networking, the information gathering, the pursuit of every scrap of information that might help them in their search for publication in a world of shrinking professional markets.

BUT, dammit, let's try not to lose the fun of it all. Writing is a kick. It can impart a real creative high. It can feel really GOOD to get that sentence or paragraph or chapter tweaked into the best, most polished shape it can be. That's just as tangible a reward as a check. We shouldn't get so focused and driven that we forget about the FUN.

I'm going to try to remember that, in the coming days, weeks, and months.

-Ann C. Crispin

Victoria Strauss -- A Victory for Airleaf Authors

Last November, I made a blog entry about the victims of vanity publisher and author "marketing" service Airleaf (formerly known as Bookman Marketing), who decided to go public with their problems, which included long publication delays, non-payment of royalites, non-provision of services, and substandard quality for those services that were provided.

Under pressure from angry authors, and apparently in financial trouble, Airleaf closed its doors in December. Since then, the Airleaf victims' network, under the leadership of the indomitable Bonnie Kaye, has been fighting to bring Airleaf and its owner, Carl Lau, to justice.

This past week, they succeeded.

On Thursday, May 8, in Morgan County court, Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter filed suit against Airleaf, LLC for taking money without providing services in return. 120 authors (identified as "customers") are named in the suit. Carl Lau is accused of violating Indiana's Deceptive Consumer Sales Act, of using company assets to cover expenses not related to the business, and of continuing to solicit authors, promise services, and accept payment for months after Airleaf became insolvent. The suit seeks restitution for Airleaf authors, civil penalties of up to $5,500 per violation, and reimbursement for the cost of the investigation.

(Though 120 names are mentioned in the suit, the actual current Airleaf victim count, according to Bonnie Kaye, is 434. Why the discrepancy? Apparently the Indiana AG's office has a two-year window for filing suit, which means it doesn't have statutory authority to include any victims prior to May 2006. That doesn't bar individuals from hiring attorneys and filing suit on their own behalf--but given Airleaf/Lau's likely financial situation, it probably wouldn't be worth their time or money.)

There are many things to be thrilled about here. Vindication for Airleaf's victims, obviously (though it's very slim odds that Lau, who has threatened to declare bankruptcy and claimed to be too poor even to afford to give victims their materials back, has any assets to pay restitution, even if it's ordered). Punishment for their victimizer (along with fines and restitution, Lau will hopefully be enjoined from operating or owning another publishing business). And another precedent for official action against a scam aimed at writers (it's still difficult to get law enforcement officials interested in this issue, so every case is a major step forward).

I'm also very pleased that PW picked up the story. There's certainly much more awareness of literary scams now than there was when Writer Beware got started, but the publishing industry remains largely blind and/or indifferent to this issue, and it's encouraging that Airleaf registered high enough on PW's attention meter to rate a mention.

While kudos are certainly due to the Attorney General's office, especially Deputy AG Tom Irons, the real credit goes to the Airleaf victims, who joined together to put the scam on public view, and to lobby the authorities to take action. Their victory is yet another example of what can be accomplished when defrauded writers organize. Victim networks brought down Commonwealth Publications, the Woodside Literary Agency, the Deering Literary Agency/Sovereign Publishing, and The Empty Canoe.

But the hero of the hour, in my opinion, is Bonnie Kaye, who organized the victims' group and served as a resource for its members, facilitated the filing of reports and complaints, campaigned tirelessly to obtain official and media attention for the case, and refused to give up, no matter how many stone walls or dead ends she ran up against. Ann and I have been in close contact with her throughout the battle, and we've both been incredibly impressed with her energy and drive. Bonnie has given me permission to print the following statement:

"This victory is strictly through the efforts of the victimized authors who joined together and refused to allow Airleaf Publishing to continue defrauding innocent people out of their dreams, hopes, and money. We would like to give special thanks to Tom Irons from the Attorney General's office who took our cries for justice seriously when other government officials in Indiana refused to help us. This is just the beginning of the battle because we are determined to see criminal charges pressed against Carl Lau through the federal government. When people commit criminal acts against innocent people, they need to be punished accordingly. Even if we don't get back our money, we are determined to gain back our pride and dignity. Let this be a lesson for all predatory publishers in the future. If you can't be honest and deliver what you promise, you will be forced out of business and face the same punishments as Airleaf."

A final note: mycelium-style, Airleaf has spawned several publishing enterprises run by ex-staff--including Fideli Publishing, a fee-based publisher whose marketing packages bear an eerie similarity to Airleaf's, and Brien Jones's Jones Harvest Publishing, which also charges fees for publishing and offers many Airleaf-style services (Writer Beware has gotten some advisories about Jones Harvest's email solicitations, and Mr. Jones has recently chosen to reimburse several Jones Harvest authors who alleged performance problems). If you trace the family tree backward instead of forward, you arrive at the Big Daddy of POD vanity publishing, AuthorHouse, where Brien Jones was employed before he co-founded Airleaf's predecessor, Bookman Marketing. It's a tangled web indeed--which, sadly, is not unusual in the murky world of vanity POD.

Victoria Strauss -- Reeling in the Kids, Part 2: Operation Teen Author

In a previous post, I highlighted Aultbea Publishing, a (sometimes) vanity press that appears to have a penchant for publishing very young writers.

Aultbea isn't alone in targeting youngsters. Now there's Operation Teen Author.

"From now until May 10th," the OTA website breathlessly announces, "you have the opportunity to apply for one of the 50 places to become a best-selling author this year! Yes, while you are still a teenager!!"

All teens have to do to apply is write a 150-300 word essay explaining such important things as why they should be chosen and what they've done in life so far to demonstrate their creativity (they are advised to "be convincing"). If they're accepted into the seven-month program, they will be assigned a Team Leader who will mentor them through a series of webinars, teleseminars, e-mail exchanges, and online forums. At the end of the process, each teen will have created a 1,500-2,000 word chapter, to be included in a printed anthology called Just Let Me Be Me.

But wait, there's more. Not only will teens become published authors (although how they will become "bestselling" authors isn't exactly explained), they will learn "skills that you can apply throughout your entire life!" These include writing and editing, personal appearance ("This is far more important than you might think!"), personal promotion, how to build and maintain a website, financial responsibility (quite ironic--see below), and publishing and marketing.

Awesome!

You know what I'm going to say next, right? There's a catch.

Way, way down in the fine print at the bottom of the OTA website's index page (and also in the FAQ section), we discover that teens need to consult their parents before applying. Why? Because there's a "one time investment of $2495 for those chosen to participate."

Cha-ching!

Don't be alarmed, though. That big fat chunk of change is actually a bargain. As the FAQ explains, "This first 2008 OTA will be under priced. Programs with similar attention and length are double in price." Uh, really? Teens will also have the opportunity to earn the money back by selling the 100 books they'll receive once the anthology is published (I imagine them going door to door, like Girl Scouts), and by becoming affiliates of Operation Teen Author, which will offer "a possibility for additional income and earning money beyond the initial investment." What possibility, exactly? That isn't said. But OTA is careful to cover its butt by posting an earnings disclaimer statement--the equivalent of those little "Results Not Typical" messages that appear for microseconds at the bottom of your TV screen during diet supplement commercials.

Operation Teen Author is not just weird, it's also kinda creepy. One of the questions teens must answer in their little application essay is "How can you show your willingness to do as your Team Leader instructs you?" Are we talking about a writing course here, or a cult? Well...OTA is the brainchild of Don-Allen Renkow, who has invented something called "COnCEPT Q, a philosophy of life and a Model of Faith [which] was conceived and developed over...2 decades as a result of an inspiration received in 1986." Hmmm.

Renkow is also the founder of SabER Mountain Publishers, which according to the About Us page of the OTA website "was created to publish and promote the literary works of Don-Alan Rekow after having been turned down by various publishers." Mr. Renkow also reveals that the publisher went bust in 2005 due to "under-funding, nervous investors, uncooperative and deceptive banks, poor equipment purchased from shady salesmen, an inexperienced team and finally the unexpected death of a key person," causing one of the investors and a couple of court-appointed officials to show up with a moving team and repossess all the equipment.

Are these the qualifications and business background you want to see in someone to whom you will be entrusting your teenager, never mind more than two thousand dollars of your hard-earned cash?

Parents, don't let your children grow up to be vanity-published authors.

(Thanks to the anonymous commenter in a previous post who alerted me to this bizarre scheme.)

Victoria Strauss -- WEbook Update

My recent post about collaborative writing website WEbook identified some significant concerns about its Terms of Use. A comment on that post from a WEbook staffer indicated that the TOU were about to be revamped.

Yesterday, WEbook members received a chirpy email announcement:

WEbook aims to be the best place for new and experienced authors to publish. To make that a no-brainer, today we posted our revised Terms of Use. In between the requisite lawyer stuff, you’ll find that authors and contributors now share 50/50 in the profits of published WEbooks. And there’s more. Write and receive reactions on anything you wish at WEbook without giving up any rights to your creative genius. If your work is picked by the community for publishing, you’ll have the choice. With WEbook’s platform, engaged community, and industry-leading royalties, we hope the choice will be simple.

That stuff about killing all the lawyers? Maybe we can let some of ‘em live.

The new TOU is here. For comparison, the old version is still available.

What has changed:

- Royalties are better. Before, WEbook paid royalties of 5% of net, allocated in truly byzantine fashion among collaborators, contributors, and non-authors who provided feedback.

The allocations process has been considerably streamlined, with project leaders receiving a set percentage and the rest divided among the actual authors on a pro-rata basis. Feedbackers have been cut out of the royalty picture entirely, unless the project leader decides to cut them in. This is good.

Rather than that measly 5% of net, WEbook now promises to pay "50% of the total Net Profit for a particular calendar quarter." 50% sounds great--but those two little words, "Net Profit," should strike fear into any writer's heart.

Here's how WEbook defines Net Profit: "...all monies actually received by WEbook from WEbook's sale of Copies of a Work published by WEbook less any applicable taxes; bad debt; returns; a 10% administrative and operational cost; and commission expenditures incurred by WEbook in making or deriving from such sales, licensing transactions, or other business dealings." Like all net profit clauses, this has the potential to considerably reduce the author's share--but unlike many net profit clauses, it's reasonably straightforward and the terms seem to be clearly defined. Collaborative or anthology authors' royalties under this new system will not be princely, but they will be significantly better than the pennies they got under the old system.

By the way, I hope the new royalty rate has been extended to the authors of WEbook's one published project to date, the collaborative novel Pandora.

- No more option clause. Before, WEbook demanded an exclusive and restrictive publication option on any work put up for public feedback and/or ratings, ending 180 days after the ratings phase concluded. Now they just reserve the right to consider publication of books voted into the top 10%.

- No more kill fee. Before, if an author chose to remove his or her work from the site after it had been opened up for public comment and/or ratings, WEbook demanded a 2.5% share of any income the author subsequently earned from the work. This provision, happily, has been eliminated. Members can now remove work at will without penalty--subject to WEbook's archival license.

What hasn't changed:

- Authors must still grant WEbook a sweeping archival license. WEbook still retains "irrevocable" and "perpetual" archival rights to all content ever posted on the site, and "has no obligation to Member to disclose any aspect of how, where, and when WEbook exercises and employs the Archival License." Years from now, your work could still be online--but you'll have no way, other than Internet searching, to find out where or how.

- Posting comments or feedback still involves a transfer of copyright. "Write and receive reactions on anything you wish at WEbook without giving up any rights to your creative genius," declares WEbook's announcement of its TOU changes. Sounds groovy--but if you decide to give reactions instead of receiving them, the situation is a little different.

Each time a member posts comments or feedback on a work during the writing stage (i.e., at any point before the work is opened up for voting), the member "immediately assigns all rights, title, and interest in and to the Feedback" to the author, if it's a single author work, or to the project leader, if it's a collaborative work or an anthology. Once a work is put up for voting, the rights assignment goes to WEbook.

In most cases, probably, this won't be a big deal. But I can imagine circumstances in which it might be--for instance, if you posted a review and then wanted to use the review elsewhere. Also, how many members will read the Terms of Use carefully enough to be aware of this provision?

What isn't clear:

- Must published authors still relinquish copyright? The old TOU made it clear that if WEbook decided to publish a work, authors had to transfer ownership of the work to WEbook. A copyright transfer makes a certain amount of sense for collaborative works, where authorship may not be directly attributable--but for single author works and anthologies, authors should be able to retain their copyrights.

WEbook's new TOU makes no reference to what rights authors will have to grant, saying only that if WEbook chooses to publish a work, "the parties will have to negotiate a publishing contract with a variety of other terms." Has WEbook re-thought its draconian copyright policy, or is it just no longer mentioning the policy in public? I can't help wondering what surprises lurk in the WEbook publishing contract.

I'd love to see one, by the way, if anyone would like to share.

Bottom line: WEbook has definitely made things better. But there's still cause for concern.

Victoria Strauss -- Precautions for Small Press Authors

With the rash of small presses, both print and electronic, going out of business lately, it's a minefield out there for authors. A recent example: Rain Publishing, a Canadian publisher with a seriously nonstandard contract that abruptly closed its doors this month, supposedly due to the ill-health of the owner. This thread at Absolute Write follows the depressing saga from start to finish.

As I've noted before, publisher closures can be a nightmare for authors. While some presses do the right thing and formally release rights before shutting down, others simply vanish, yanking their websites, abandoning their email addresses, refusing to respond to letters and phone calls--and failing to terminate their contracts. Having your rights encumbered by a still-existing contract may make it extremely difficult to interest a new publisher in your book, even if the original publisher is clearly out of business. Writer Beware has gotten hundreds of complaints over the years from writers left in this kind of limbo by collapsing small publishers and micropresses.

How to protect yourself? You never can, completely--small press finances tend to be precarious at the best of times, and even the most assiduous research may not always turn up ongoing problems. But there are some things you can do, both to avoid problem publishers in the first place, and to ensure your contract makes it possible to get free if the publisher goes bust (or if, as sometimes happens, it turns into one of those Jim Jones-like enterprises where all authors have to wear a happy face and toe the party line, and dissent isn't tolerated).

AVOIDING PROBLEM PUBLISHERS

- Be an educated consumer. Don't go into the publisher search blind. Know what to look for and what to avoid. Some resources to help:

What authors should look for in an epublisher, from the excellent Dear Author blog.

More good advice on the same subject, from author December Quinn.

Also from December Quinn: how to evaluate a small print press.

From Write4Kids: how to tell if a new or small press is legitimate.

- Research, research, research. Yes, I know, I say this a lot (most recently, in this post). But many of you aren't listening. If you were, I wouldn't get nearly so much email.

Before submitting to a small press, make sure to thoroughly check it out. Google it. Write to me (beware@sfwa.org). See if it shows up on P&E, or if it's been discussed at Dear Author, Piers Anthony's Internet publishing resource, Clea Saal's Books and Tales, or Absolute Write. Contact some of its authors. Check its books' availability. Evaluate how the books are being marketed. Order a book and read it. This may seem like a lot of work--but if you don't do it and are ever caught up in a publisher closure, I guarantee you will wish you did.

- Avoid new publishers till they've established themselves. That means waiting till they've been in business for at least a year, and have put out a number of books. This gives you at least some assurance of stability and performance. It also allows time for complaints to surface, and makes it possible for you evaluate how (or if) the publisher is marketing its books. For more detail, see my previous blog post on the risks of querying new publishers.

GETTING FREE

- Make sure the contract is time-limited. That way, if the publisher vanishes without returning your rights, you won't have to wait forever to be released. Life-of-copyright contracts make things much more difficult.

- If the contract is time-limited, make sure the term is reasonable. Ten years is not reasonable. Nor is seven. In my opinion, five years is the longest term you should consider. Three years is better.

- If the contract is life-of-copyright or open-ended, make sure there's a termination clause. A good termination clause allows you to terminate the contract at will with adequate notice. Even if the publisher pulls up stakes and vanishes, you can still invoke the termination clause by sending notice to the last-known address.

- Don't give up copyright. Most writers know not to grant copyright outright. But some publishers try to play both ends against the middle by taking copyright temporarily, with the promise to return it when the book goes out of print. In those circumstances, writers may feel that giving up copyright is no big deal--after all, they're going to get it back eventually, right?

Not necessarily. Suppose the publisher gets into trouble and does a bunk. Temporarily or not, you gave up copyright--which means that you no longer own your book. The only way you can regain ownership is if and when the publisher releases copyright back to you. If your publisher vanishes without doing that, you're in a much worse situation than an author who has simply granted rights. Want to re-publish with another small press? Even the tiniest micropress is unlikely to want a book whose copyright is not free and clear. Want to self-publish? That could be a problem too. Most self-publishing services' agreements require authors to warrant that they are the copyright holder.

If this sound far-fetched, it's not. I'm seeing a fair number of small press contracts that take temporary possession of copyright, and no fewer than two temporary-copyright publishers have gone bust in the past year. One of them is Rain Publishing--which, in the first stroke of good luck its authors have had, appears to have sent out releases prior to its demise.

- Don't let the publisher claim copyright on editing. Some publishers claim that they, or their editors, hold the copyright on any editing or copy editing done by the publisher. Some go even farther, claiming copyright on editing done by you if that editing is based on their suggestions. So even if you get your rights back, you regain them only to the manuscript you originally submitted, not to the edited and published version--which, if the editing process was fruitful, may well be the version you'll want to try and re-sell.

For some publishers, claiming copyright on editing has no clear benefit. Why should they care if you use their edits, especially if the reason you're re-publishing is that they've gone out of business? For others, it's a way to make some extra income by charging departing authors a fee if they want to take their edits with them--and also, possibly, to snag a final cash infusion on the way out of business.

Victoria Strauss -- Words on WEbook (Or, Another Reason to Read the Fine Print)

Always on the lookout for strange new phenomena in the world of writing and publishing, I recently discovered a brand-new collaborative writing website called WEbook. WEbook describes itself as "an online publishing platform that allows writers, editors, reviewers, illustrators and others to join forces to create great works of fiction and non-fiction, thrillers and essays, short stories, children's books and more."

How does WEbook work? According to its FAQ page, writers can initiate public collaboration or anthology projects, to which anyone can contribute, Wiki-style. They can form groups for private collaborations, with a limited number of contributors. Or, if they' prefer to work alone, the WEbook platform can be used to produce a single author work. Completed books can then be opened up to the entire WEbook community for ratings, in order to "leverage the wisdom of the crowd to create, rate, and elevate the very best work..." At WEbook's discretion, those top-rated books may then be published.

I could go on about the tired cliches WEbook recycles (again from its FAQ page: "WEbook is the vision of a few occasionally erudite people who believe there are millions of talented writers whose work is ignored by the staid and exclusive world of book publishing"), or the dangers of putting too much trust in the Wiki model (remember Essjay, anyone?). I could discuss A Million Penguins, a wiki-novel sponsored as an experiment by Penguin UK that spiraled wildly out of control, or I could editorialize on my opinion that "the wisdom of crowds" is a contradiction in terms. Call me cynical, but I did my co-op time in the 1980's, and I don't have a lot of faith in collectives.

What I really want to talk about, though, is WEbook's Terms of Use.

According to section 5 of the Terms of Use, WEbook divides the creation of books into three stages: the writing stage (the time between a work being posted on the site and the work being opened up to public feedback or ratings; this stage includes a period of private feedback, where authors can invite selected members to review and comment); the public feedback stage (in which a work is opened up for review and comment by all WEbook members); and the ratings stage (in which the work is opened up to public rating by WEbook members for potential publication by WEbook).

During the writing/private feedback stage, authors "retain ownership of all copyrights in the Content authored by each author," and can remove their work from the site at any time. At the start of the public feedback or ratings stages, however, the author (if it's a single author work) or authors (if it's a collective work or an anthology) "immediately grants WEbook the Exclusive Option to Publish...as set forth in section 6 of this Agreement." Their ability to remove their work also becomes restricted.

What exactly does "Option to Publish" mean?

According to section 6, the option term begins when the work is opened up for public feedback, and ends 180 days after the ratings stage has concluded. During this time, WEbook can consider whether to publish the work. "Publish," as defined by section 6, means "publication of a Work or part of a Work in or as a book, an electronic book, a digital book, a magazine, a journal, a downloadable or electronically transferable file(s), an audio-book, online, a format that can be used with products such as Amazon's 'Kindle' or Sony's 'Reader' (or any device created in the future), and in any other manner that exists now or in the future that enables humans to read, hear, or view the Work."

In other words, nearly all book and serial publication rights, in all possible formats. And that's just the start. If WEbook decides to publish, the author or authors must "assign to WEbook all rights, title, and interest in and to the Content...as set forth in section 9.C of this Agreement."

All rights, title, and interest? Does that sound like a copyright grab to you? It sure does to me. Let's take a look at section 9.C (my bolding):

Member grants, transfers, assigns, and conveys to WEbook, its successors and assigns all worldwide, exclusive, and perpetual rights, title, interests, ownership, as well as all exclusive, perpetual, and worldwide subsidiary, derivative, renewal, termination, control, administrative, and transfer rights, in and to the Work/Content.

To enable WEbook to register, maintain, renew, extend, enforce, and protect its rights in the Work/Content, Member hereby irrevocably appoints WEbook its attorney-in-fact with all powers necessary to sign all such documents (including but not limited to the power of substitution). Member shall not at any time take any action contesting or in any way impairing or tending to impair any part of WEbook's exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual rights, title, and interests in and to the Work/Content.

Wow.

What do writers get for surrendering ownership of their work? According to section 7, a 5% net royalty. No, I did not mis-type that. WEbook pays a royalty of five percent of net. For collaborative works, this amount is pro-rated among contributors--which, depending on the number of contributors and the price of the book, could work out to pennies per author per book (and WEbook doesn't make a royalty payment until at least $50 is due). Single authors do somewhat better--they get to keep a whole 75% of their 5%. The remaining 25% goes to people who provided feedback, "based on WEbook's exclusive and discretionary evaluation of the significance and importance of [their] contributions."

Even PublishAmerica pays better than that.

But wait, we're not done yet. Remember those removal restrictions I mentioned? Prior to the public feedback stage, writers can remove their work from WEbook at will. Once the work has been opened to public feedback, however, and during WEbook's exclusive option term, removal is not allowed. Writers' right to removal returns once the option term has expired--but if they do remove the work, they must agree "in perpetuity to pay WEbook 2.5% of all monies received by Member from Member's sale, license, transfer, or other business transaction of the Content or subsidiary rights in the Content and/or deriving from the Content or subsidiary rights in the Content (including derivative works of the Content)." Essentially, writers must pay WEbook a kill fee if they ever sell an optioned work they removed from the site, or any part, adaptation, or sequel to it.

And we're still not done. WEbook retains "irrevocable" and "perpetual" archival rights to all content ever posted on the site, optioned or not, and "has no obligation to Member to disclose any aspect of how, where, and when WEbook exercises and employs the Archival License." So years from now, your work could still be online--but you'll have no way, other than Internet searching, of finding out where or how.

In my opinion, "rapacious" is not too strong a word for all of these provisions.

Writers using WEbook are not required to open up their work for public feedback. Those who don't will not have to worry about any of the above except for the archival license. A number of groups do seem to be using WEbook for non-publication-related activity: writing exercises, topic discussions, compiling material just for fun. But the lure of publication is strong, and this is certainly what will draw many of WEbook's users--and the site is clearly wooing such users by describing itself (as on its opening page) as an "avant-garde book publishing company [that] applies an interactive approach to the process - in every sense of the word - by using the Internet as a platform to connect truly brilliant writers to print publication."

Proving, yet again, the vital importance of carefully reading the fine print.

WEbook released its first collaborative novel in March. Pandora (currently without a sales ranking on Amazon.com, and apparently not available on Barnes&Noble.com) is described as "a riveting thriller, written by more than 30 writers and other contributors." Only 17 of these contributors appear on the book's cover (only "the most significant contributors" are so recognized, WEbook's FAQ explains). Ten other releases are apparently planned for 2008.

Victoria Strauss -- Research First, Query Next

You've finished and polished your manuscript. You've assembled your submission package. You've compiled a list of agents or publishers. You're ready for the next step: sending out your work.

So you start submitting--via email if you can, via snail mail if you can't. And you wait. You try not to obsess, but you can't suppress that tingle of anticipation whenever you open your email program, every time you fetch the snail mail from the mailbox. And then--oh joy! Requests start coming in. Requests for partials. Requests for fulls. It's time to do some research to see if those agents or publishers are reputable.

Wait. What's wrong with this picture?

Here's another version of the story. You've finished and polished...etc. Requests come in...you mail off your material. And one day, the moment you've been dreaming of arrives: you get an offer of representation or publication. It's time to do some research to see if the agent or publisher is reputable.

Uh...no.

Writers--the time to research agents and publishers is before you query, not after.

I know that many readers are rolling their eyes at this point and saying "Duh!" But if I had a dollar for every writer who has contacted me post-query to check reputation, I could go on vacation. Sometimes it's inexperience. Sometimes it's laziness. Sometimes it's just that querying by email is so easy. Once upon a time, the cost of paper and postage was a barrier to scattershot querying--but as the submission process increasingly moves online, more and more writers figure they have nothing to lose by firing off a barrage of equeries, and doing the research later.

In a way they're right. Email is free. But they're also wrong. Time isn't free, nor is emotional energy.

It's simply a waste of time to query an agent or publisher that isn't reputable. There's just no reason to do it. I mean, you're not going to sign with an agent who charges a $400 submission fee and has never sold a book, are you? You won't contract with a publisher that wants you to buy cover art and has been the subject of scathing complaints on industry blogs, will you? So why not avoid such agents and publishers right from the get-go? You'll have to spend that research time anyway, if you get a submission request--and you will get a submission request. That's the one thing you can count on with questionable agents and publishers: they'll ask for your work. Because it's not really your work they care about, just your money.

It's also a waste of emotional energy to query an agent or publisher that isn't reputable. Imagine your elation when you're asked to submit. They like you! They really like you! Now imagine the letdown when you discover that the publisher hasn't been paying its authors, or that the agent charges fees and has a sales record of exactly zero. Just like the invitation to submit, the letdown is a given if you approach non-reputable people. Why put yourself through it? Why not eliminate those people in advance?

Don't underestimate the power of desperation, either. Suppose you get all the way to the offer stage before you decide to research the agent's or publisher's reputation. Suppose you discover that there are problems. Suppose you've been querying for a while, and this is the first offer you've received. Will you do the right thing and say no? Maybe you think you will. But I've heard from too many writers who allowed the joy of validation, or the hope that they would be the one exception to a publisher's or agent's history of failure, to overcome their good sense. Saying "no" isn't easy, even when the warning signs are right before your eyes.

So don't waste your time. Don't squander your emotional energy. Don't risk putting yourself in a situation where desperation or frustration or just the need for recognition may drive you to make a bad choice. Research first. Query next.

Victoria Strauss -- Tidbits

Items that piqued my interest over the past couple of weeks.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest Winner

Sauron...excuse me, Amazon.com has announced that the winner of the Breakthrough Novel Award is Bill Loehfelm, author of the mystery novel Fresh Kills. Loehfelm wins a $25,000 publishing contract with Penguin, which will issue the book via its Putnam imprint on July 31.

As with the first First Chapters competition, the rush to print is no doubt intended to beat the public's short attention span and take advantage of the publicity generated by the award. According to PW, Penguin hopes to have a galley on hand at the upcoming BEA.

Russell Grandinetti, Amazon Vice President for Books, said that "the contest received a tremendous response, and hit its cap of 5,000 submissions two weeks before the deadline. Submissions came from 18 countries and every state, and more than 30,000 Amazon.com customers downloaded excerpts of the submitted novels." Will that translate into sales for Mr. Loehfelm? Only time will tell.

Congratulations and best of luck to Mr. Loehfelm.

New Imprint from HarperCollins

Robert S. Miller, founder and president of Hyperion, is moving to HarperCollins to start a new imprint with, according to the announcement from Harper, "the aim to combine the best practices of trade publishing while taking full advantage of the internet for sales, marketing and distribution." Details are preliminary, but the imprint will focus on short, lower-price nonfiction hardcovers, will pay low or no advances, and will be dividing profits 50/50 between publisher and author rather than paying conventional royalties. Books will be issued simultaneously in multiple formats, with ebook and audio versions possibly offered along with the hardcovers at no extra cost. The imprint will also aim at selling books on a nonreturnable basis.

At first glance, this is reminiscent of the Macmillan New Writing experiment, which publishes novels from unagented debut writers on a no-advance basis. In fact, there's not a lot of similarity. Other than not working with agents and not paying advances, Macmillan seems to follow the basic trade fiction publishing model. Harper's experiment sounds far more, well, experimental, jettisoning not just advances, but traditional payment structures and bookselling protocols. Significantly, also, it does not exclude agents.

This story has received a fair bit of news coverage, and has spurred much buzzing in the writing community (along with some unfounded rumors, such as the notion that Harper will be eschewing bookstore distribution and selling the books solely online). Given that many things are likely to change as the new imprint shifts from concept to reality, it's premature to do much commenting at this point. But it will be fascinating to see how this shakes out.

PFD goes POD

Troubled uber-agency Peters Fraser Dunlop recently announced that it will be entering into a POD arrangement with Lightning Source to re-publish out of print works from clients and clients' estates. (According to The Guardian, the books will be sold on Amazon.co.uk, so the recent flap over BookSurge shouldn't be a factor here.)

Quoted in The Guardian, PFD's Marcella Edwards describes the plan as "a logical way of plugging gaps that publishers can't fill," and claims that PFD is not turning into a publisher. But the UK's Society of Authors is not amused. According to Kate Pool, the Society's deputy general secretary, "An agency sitting back and saying you can find this book listed on a website is very different from trying to find a publisher who'll take these titles on and bring them back into print. The agents' role is to go out and get the best deal they can. [PFD] seems to be taking 90% of the money for no work."

I agree. Agency as publisher? It's a huge conflict of interest. If an agency can re-publish out of print works itself and reap most of the profits (according to a The Guardian, authors will be paid a flat 10% royalty), what incentive does it have to market those works to other publishers? At what point might it start to seem appealing to offer a publication option to all clients, rather than just those with OP books?

PFD isn't the first to make this move. Richard Curtis's Ereads offers a similar program--and faced similar criticism when it started up.

Magic Lantern

One of the strategies often advised for agent-hunters is to find books similar to theirs in theme, subject, tone, style, and/or genre, and try to find out who agents them.

This is much more difficult than it sounds--not the agent-finding part, which is relatively easy for resourceful search engine users, but the book-identifying part. Genre isn't so hard, nor is theme or subject--but tone and style? How do you quantify something so elusive? And supposing you can, how do you identify similar books?

Here's an intriguing possibility: Booklamp, "a system for matching readers to books through an analysis of writing styles...The technology behind BookLamp allows you to find books that are written with a similar tone, tense, perspective, action level, description level, and dialog level, while at the same time allowing you to specify details." So if you think your manuscript has something of the feel of Kafka, only more humorous, you could plug those specifications into Booklamp and it would, theoretically, spit out a list of matching books.

Kewl? Sure. On the flip side, though, Booklamp presents some knotty copyright issues. In order to make those matches, Booklamp must presumably scan entire books into its database, which it may or may not have permission to do--much like Google and its Google Books Project. Except that unlike Google, Booklamp doesn't list the books it has scanned, so authors who may not want their books to be part of such a system have no way of discovering whether or not they are.

On its FAQ page, Booklamp claims that its use of the copyrighted material is transformative and/or covered by fair use. Booklamp is in beta at the moment, but if it goes live, I expect those claims will be tested.

Victoria Strauss -- The Authors Guild on Amazon/BookSurge

I received this email from the Authors Guild today, with permission to re-post.

*********
Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to staff@authorsguild.org.

Setting the Record Straight on April 2nd...

It's rather a tradition here at Writer Beware to make a joke post on April Fool's Day. I think this is the third or fourth time I've done it.

To me the idea that PublishAmerica could actually acquire DISNEY was so patently absurd that the joke would be obvious. Apparently, however, there are a number of folks who just didn't get it. To those individuals, I apologize for spoofing them, seeming self-centered, conceited, etc.

Just for the record, everything I wrote up until the point where I mentioned Atlanta Nights and Touchstone happens to be true. After that, it was a complete fabrication, cooked up in my febrile little brain, intoxicated by the rites of Spring and a warm April 1st.

-Ann C. Crispin

Some Really Bad News...

You folks know I'm a private person. I don't usually write about what's going on in my life. That's not the purpose of this blog. But I just got some very bad news, and I feel I need the support of my friends...and you, the supporters of Writer Beware, have always been people I've regarded as friends.

Until this morning, everything was going so well...I was energized and excited by my two new projects. But now...everything has fallen apart. I'm afraid my writing career may be over. You see, I had signed last year to do a very important project for Disney. I was so proud to be chosen from among many writers in my genre to be the first writer contracted to do a full-length Pirates of the Caribbean novel. I LOVED those movies, and it seemed like a dream come true that I'd get to be the first writer to write a full-length novel in that universe. Even when I found out I wouldn't get to meet Johnny Depp, I just nodded and kept smiling. (Can't blame a girl for trying, can you?) My Disney editor was wonderful, and the project, though challenging, held out hopes for being a bestseller.

And as soon after I signed the contract for the Pirates of the Caribbean novel, another completely unexpected offer dropped into my lap, to occupy my time in 2009. It seems that the publicity surrounding Atlanta Nights, as well as all the steamy sex scenes in jail cells and at funerals had caused Touchstone to option the book for a major motion picture to appear next year And I was the writer they signed to do the novelization!

But now all my hopes are dashed, lying in ruins. My agent just called to give me the BAD NEWS. It seems that Disney has been acquired by a new, up-and- coming publishing company, one that wouldn't hire me on a bet. One that has good reason to detest both me and Writer Beware. Matter of fact, I'm their Public Enemy No. 1.

It's only a matter of time before they see my name on those contracts and pull the plug. PublishAmerica would never allow me to write for them in a zillion years. Woe is me...

-Ann C. Crispin

Victoria Strauss -- Use BookSurge or Die?

A flurry of reports since yesterday (originating with Angela Hoy at WritersWeekly, picked up by numerous blogs and several newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal) have broken the news that Amazon is apparently seeking to force independent POD-based publishers to use its BookSurge POD service.

According to Hoy,

Reports have been trickling in from the POD underground that Amazon/BookSurge representatives have been approaching some Lightning Source customers, first by email introduction and then by phone (nobody at BookSurge seems to want to put anything in writing). When Lightning Source customers speak with the BookSurge representative, the reports say, they are basically told they can either have BookSurge start printing their books or the "buy" button on their Amazon.com book pages will be "turned off."

Hoy found this so hard to believe that she called a BookSurge representative who'd recently been trying to contact her. She says that he confirmed it. As an alternative, he suggested that authors of POD books could use the Amazon Advantage program (where you offer your own books for sale, and Amazon takes a 55% cut plus an annual registration fee).

On hearing this news, I immediately checked my calendar, wondering if perhaps I'd lost a few days and it was actually April 1. I mean, can you say "restraint of trade?" Not only would this enable Amazon to profit twice by basically disallowing the competition, it would be a huge burden for Lightning Source customers, who'd have to transfer their digital files to BookSurge. And since BookSurge doesn't have an arrangement with Ingram, they couldn't simply switch--if they wanted to keep their Ingram distribution, they'd still have to maintain files with Lightning Source. If indeed Amazon intends to implement this policy, it would seem to be inviting a lawsuit--not to mention, an enormous backlash of anger and ill will that could turn into a PR disaster.

The whole thing seems so bizarre to me that I'm reserving judgment until there's some response from Amazon. It's always possible that there has been a misunderstanding of some kind, or that this is a BookSurge initiative rather than an Amazon company policy. Hopefully, Amazon will have the sense to back away from it. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few days.

Victoria Strauss -- Kissed Publications: Hidden Costs

If you've recently seen a call for submissions from Kissed Publications for its three-part After You've Done All You Can anthology of Christian short stories--such as this one, or this one--you may have been tempted to try your luck.

You might want to think again. There's a $100 (that's right, two zeros) submission fee per story, which you don't find out about until you've sent away for the guidelines. According to the guidelines, the fee will be refunded if your work is chosen for the anthology (though see below). If not...sayonara, one hundred bucks.

While legitimate contests often charge small reading fees to fund prizes and cover administrative costs, reputable publishers don't. A reading fee that's not associated with a contest is a strong warning sign of a publisher that, at best, is not terribly professional.

Author compensation for the anthology is equally peculiar. Contributing authors receive 100 copies of the finished book (customized with their name and photo on the back cover), which they can then sell at the list price of $14.95. All sales proceeds are theirs to keep--a potential profit, the guidelines helpfully point out, of $1,495. This is the only "payment" they get: there are no royalties, in other words. Still, the books are free, except for shipping costs. Or are they? The way the guidelines are written makes it sound as if they are, but remember that submission fee refund promised to contributing authors? There's enough ambiguity to the wording that I'm guessing that the books are the refund.

So we know how authors will make money (or not, as the case may be). How does the publisher make money? Well, there are the $100 submission fees from the writers who don't make it into the anthology. Writers can buy additional books at a discount if they feel they can sell more than 100 (pre-orders are encouraged). And for any books sold via regular channels, the publisher gets it all.

To be fair, there's some real expense associated with this project. The anthology will consist of three volumes of 12-15 stories each, so assuming that all three volumes appear, the publisher will have to pay, at minimum, for 3,600 books. Still, like so many noncommercial publishing "opportunities" these days, much of the financial onus is on the authors. And for authors who pay that outrageous reading fee and don't get chosen, it really is a losing game.

Kimberly T. Matthews, Kissed Publications' owner, also bills herself as a literary agent.

Victoria Strauss -- Copyright Scam: US Copyright Registry

If you're a writer, you probably have a website. If you have a website, you may recently have been emailed an official-looking WEBSITE COPYRIGHT LICENSING NOTICE from the US Copyright Registry, informing you that your website "has not been protected and is now available for copyright registration."

Reading on, alarmed website owners discover the following (all grammatical and other errors faithfully reproduced):

IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT LAW, TITLE 92, Sec. 106 to 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: Rights of attribution and integrity: the author shall have the right to claim authorship of that work, and prevent the use of his or her name as the author of any work which he or she did not create.

Be advised: Protecting a website is the responsibility of the owner of the website and must be registered through the United States Patent and Trademark office to legally prevent others from infringing on the owners rights and copying a website. It is the responsibility of the website owner to complete registration to protect their intellectual property and bring suit in federal court for infringement and obtain statutory damages up to $150,000.

Say what? The US Patent and Trademark office? What's that got to do with registering copyright? Also, the US Copyright Law is known as Circular 92, not Title 92, and the "rights and attribution" language quoted above applies to the visual arts, not written text--such as that on a website.

The email concludes, ominously:

You are required to advise the US Copyright Registry of your intent to license this website if registration is administered through the UCR as this is your final notice.

Note: you may disregard this notice. If you disregard this notice or fail to reply: UCR and the United States Patent and Trademark office will NOT be liable for infringement of your website, interruption of business activity or business losses.

To avoid this dreadful fate, all you have to do is call an 800 number and mention the official-looking tracking number provided in the email.

All of the above was enough to get my scam sense tingling. A visit to the Registry's website--which offers misinformation such as "Copyright Registration is required to legally prevent others from copying your website" and touts the use of its seal, which "helps prevent potential infringers from copying your work"--confirmed my hunch, as did a quick bit of Googling. I was curious, however, about costs.

So I called.

The phone menu offers several options, some of which have nothing to do with sales but all of which lead to a salesperson. I dealt with a pleasant young man, who immediately asked for my tracking number. As it happens, I didn't have one, since I'd heard about the Registry from someone else. No problem; all I had to do was provide my URL.

A few minutes on hold, and then he returned to tell me the good news--US Copyright Registry could indeed register copyright on my website! If I signed up today, I'd receive my certificate of registration from the Library of Congress within 6 to 8 weeks.

"Wait a sec," I said. "Library of Congress? Your email said the US Patent and Trademark Office."

"Oh," he said, flustered, "well, you know, it's both of them."

"Both of them? You mean they both issue a certificate?"

"Uh, no, it's just one certificate. But it comes from both offices."

I decided not to torture him further. "So how much will registration cost me?"

"Based on your website's size"--which he had no way of assessing, considering that all he'd done was access my Whois information--"it'll be a total of $350."

"Is that a one-time fee? What if I add new material?"

"Well, then you'll need to re-register. Most of our customers re-register once a year."

"And what would the cost be for that?"

"$350, or maybe a bit more if the website got a lot bigger."

"The same $350? So I don't get a customer discount?"

"Uh, no. We don't do that. So...can I sign you up?"

I told him I needed to mull it over and would call back. Somewhat to my surprise, he didn't try to pressure me with limited time offers or horror stories about infringed websites.

Not once did he ask me if I was the copyright holder, or if I had the right to register copyright for my website--despite an entire section of the US Copyright Registry's website describing the circumstances under which website owners may not be copyright holders. I would love to know if the registration certificate the Registry sends out is bogus--or indeed, if they send any certificate at all. Sadly, I don't have $350 to burn.

There's no way to know how many people will fall for this. Given the general level of ignorance regarding copyright, however, as well as people's entirely unfounded terror of intellectual property theft, I'd guess that the money is rolling in.

For the real scoop on copyright, check out Writer Beware's Copyright page.

Victoria Strauss -- Ways Not to Publicize Your Book: Spam Campaigns

Today I got yet another email promoting a book whose author or publisher has signed up with mass email marketer (read spammer) Media E-blast. I get these on a semi-regular basis, probably because I'm a book reviewer.

"E-marketing has been a long term goal for many companies, whether it be a religious organization, record companies, artists, national and independent, and small, medium or large businesses in the world today," says Media E-blast's About Us page. "Media E-blast LLC E-MARKETING solutions will not only help you make money but it will also get your name out there to a specific target market." Costs aren't listed on the site--presumably, they are tailored to the campaign--but perhaps the author on whose behalf I was blasted today took advantage of the "March Madness" sale--Reach 500,000 subscribers! Only $125 per blast!! Limit 3 per customer!!!

If I'm any indication (and I can't be unique), many of those subscribers are involuntary. Some target market, huh? Authors and small publishers--spam campaigns are not a good use of your publicity dollar.

Here's why you should not E-blast me (or use any other kind of mass email campaign, such as those offered by some self-publishing services).

- It pisses me off. I'm always happy to consider a request to review--but I want you to approach me personally. I want you to be at least somewhat familiar with my reviews, and to have a credible reason to think I might be interested in your book. I do NOT want to get an email that says "Dear Reviewer," or an E-blast that has no content other than a link I have to click, or a request for a review that's obviously inappropriate for the magazines I write for.

- I'm not your target market. I'm not any spammer's target market. My spam filters are pretty efficient--your E-blast will go straight into my Junk file. Unlike some people, I actually look at my Junk file, because sometimes Writer Beware documentation gets caught in there--but very probably, that's only reason I will ever know about your E-blast.

- I didn't give anyone permission to E-blast me. If you think that services like Eblast are subscription-based, think again--these services build their lists by harvesting email addresses off the Internet, just as other spammers do. As far as I'm concerned, there's no difference between your book E-blast and a penis enhancement spam.

- Did your E-blast campaign include me? Shit. Now I'm on a dozen other lists, and I'm getting E-blasts for beach rentals and consumer goods. Before, I was only irritated with you. Now, I hate you.

The E-blast ad that precipitated today's rant: Son of Hope by David Berkowitz. Yes--that David Berkowitz.