Our daughter, Ali, is on the President’s list at her college, and just completing her first semester. She’s in the culinary arts program and must obtain an externship working in a restaurant kitchen for the summer. Needless to say, she’s been pretty busy sending out cover letters and resumes for about three weeks now.
We’ve been getting more inquiries from disgruntled CreateSpace/BookSurge authors lately. From what we can tell, a service claiming to be “free” (if you follow all their rules and specs to the letter) can sure be expensive. Some authors are spending hundreds to thousands of dollars to get their books published there. Here are some comments from recent CreateSpace / BookSurge authors who have approached us about moving their books to BookLocker…
Letters will return next week.
Much of the work that keeps me busy as a full-time writer comes from ghostwriting and co-authoring. Being willing to ghost is what helped me make the jump from article writing to book authoring.
Whenever I am faced with a potential project that will involve putting my words to work for someone else, I take the time to analyze it from several different vantage points. I essentially apply the following filter of “Six P’s” to the project. These filters have served me well. If you are considering ghosting work, I suggest that you first answer the following questions…
I have a (specific term from my book title) trademarked and the word will be part of my forthcoming book’s title. I recently noticed a church using my trademarked term on a project they’re promoting.
How do I delicately handle this? Do I gently ask them to stop? It’s a church doing really good things but not in the way that I’ve used my book. The name has been officially trademarked and I really want them to stop using it.
SEVENTEENTH COMPLAINT about Kim Kleeman / Shakespeare Squared / ShakespeareSquared.com / The Shakespeare Squared Foundation – Writer alleges publisher offered to pay her old invoice if she did additional work for them.
COMPLAINT about Trula Breckenbridge / trula.org / MSPmedia / mspmedia.net,Indie Publishing & Production,Futuristic Motherhood anthology / futuristicmotherhood.com – Writer alleges she’s owed $100.
FOURTH COMPLAINT about Anthony Lamont West, a.k.a. Anthony West, Anthony L. West / GLANCE Magazine / glancemagazine.com – Former employee makes numerous allegations.
We left Liberty Harbor RV Park on a sunny, beautiful afternoon, intent on arriving in Connecticut before dark. When we’d arrived at Liberty Harbor, we’d simply gotten off the freeway, gone under the overpass, turned left, and driven a mile or two. When we departed, the GPS led us a completely different way, seemingly into a nearby neighborhood. Before we turned right, onto a residential street, Richard noticed there were two fire trucks blocking traffic. If we’d turned, we’d have been stuck there for hours.
We kept going straight and ended up in a grocery store parking lot. That was easy enough to get out of and we waited a moment for the GPS to give us an alternative route. We ended up in that neighbor again, albeit on a different street, a very narrow passage with endless cars lining both sides. I remember passing the freeway at one point, going right under it, and wondering why the GPS was sending us a different way. It was a Saturday and there were lots of people outside enjoying the weather. There were also lots of junk cars, tattoo parlors, liquor stores, and other unsavory things that made us start to feel a bit nervous. At one point, men got out of two cars right in front of us, blocking traffic. They each went to houses on different sides of the street. We had no choice but to stop and wait. I heard a woman yell outside, “Leon, move your (BLEEP!) car!”
Read more HERE.
This week’s Maxism:
“When I jump up and down, I can hear lemonade in my stomach!”
Hugs to all!
Angela
P.S. DON’T FORGET! THE SPRING 2010 24-HOUR SHORT STORY CONTEST IS THIS SATURDAY! Each contest is limited to 500 entrants so don’t delay if you want to participate.
1st Place: $300
2nd Place: $250
3rd Place: $200
Entry fee is $5. You can see the complete list of 85 prizes and sign up here: https://www.writersweekly.com/misc/contest.html
So, you sued that deadbeat publisher in small claims court and you won. Congratulations! After the satisfaction of winning settles in, you start to wonder when he’s finally going to pay you. You do some research and discover there’s still really no way to force him to send you a check.
This week:
The Writer’s Weekly article about copyright infringement put me in mind of a few times it has been done to me, and, as well, the problems created by non-journalists using the Internet without benefit of instruction.
