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Guest Blog Post: In Praise of Ripening
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware When I began doing research for the Writer Beware website in 1998, Marcia Yudkin's invaluable article on recognizing writing scams was among the first resources that I discovered. In this week's guest blog ...
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Pearson Buys Author Solutions
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Last March, word went out that self-publishing giant Author Solutions Inc (owner of AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, WordClay, Palibrio, and several others, and contractor for the self-pub...
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Rights vs. Copyright
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware You may have noticed that there were no posts last week. Apologies! I've got a humongous workload, and have had to cut myself off from the web almost entirely in order to deal with it. I thought I...
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More Money-Wasting “Opportunities” for Writers
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Following on my last post about how authors can waste money on promotional strategies, here are some more cash-sucking “opportunities.” Book Your Trip to Hollywood, from Outskirts Press Self-publishing service Outskirts Press–home of some of the sillier “book marketing” services–is taking advantage of one of writers’ most fevered pipe dreams with its new Book Your Trip to Hollywood service. Of course, the press release doesn’t put it that way: These services solve a real problem for many authors who dream of making it big in Hollywood. In fact, just getting Hollywood’s attention is nearly impossible, but with the Book Your Trip to Hollywood suite of services from Outskirts Press, authors receive turn-key, full-service assistance with the push of a button. And with each option, authors receive the feedback and/or participation of a real Hollywood producer and production company; the final results are added…
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Author Solutions Introduces BookStub
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Author Solutions has just introduced a new marketing service called BookStub, which it describes thusly: Loyalty card-sized BookStubs display your cover on the front side and ordering instructions on the back side. Once you distribute a BookStub, the reader can visit your title’s detail page, add your e-book to the cart and check out with a digital copy of your title. Basically, it’s like a plastic business card, with a scannable QR code that enables would-be readers to use their cell phones or tablets to access your book’s order page, and a promotional code that lets them download the book for free. I have to say that this seems like a pretty cool idea. Freebies can be a really effective marketing tool, especially for authors with multiple published books, stimulating sales not just of the free title but of other titles by the…
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Author Solutions Introduces BookStub
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Author Solutions has just introduced a new marketing service called BookStub, which it describes thusly: Loyalty card-sized BookStubs display your cover on the front side and ordering instructions on t...
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Publishers Weekly Moves Into Self-Publishing
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware A couple of years ago, I blogged about the launch of PW Select, an online supplement to the regular PW magazine. PW Select, which is published quarterly, allows self-published writers to buy brief listing...
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Two Surveys
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Two fascinating surveys appeared this week. They look at opposite ends of the writing business, but dovetail in interesting ways. (This is going to be a long post, so please bear with me.) The Writers' Wo...
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e-Publishing Revo: It’s a New Electronic Self-Publishing Service, But There’s a Catch
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Zooming into my inbox last week: a press release for a brand-new ebook self-publishing service called e-Publishing Revo. Per the website: What makes e-Publishing Revo different from the rest? 1. Perman...
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Vetting an Independent Editor
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware I often receive questions from writers who are looking to hire an independent editor to polish their manuscripts, either for self-publication or for submission to agents and publishers, and want to know w...