Sometimes all it takes to succeed is to ask a simple question. Several years ago, when I was new to freelancing, I came across an ad for literature study guides aimed at homeschoolers and small schools. They looked like great guides; in fact, they looked like guides I would use with my own students and children. They looked like guides I could write.
Thanks so everybody who sent me empty-nest-syndrome support notes last week! They really did help. Ali’s leaning toward attending the nearby school for two years so I am quietly breathing a sigh of relief. But, she hasn’t signed the papers yet so I’m still a bit nervous.
Three weeks ago, I published this article: What Recession?! Plenty of Freelance Jobs for Writers!
In the article, I talked about how the media keeps telling us the sky is falling…but that every restaurant and store in our town (and other towns we traveled through, down to Virginia and back last month) seems to have a full parking lot. I received lots of emails from readers who reported the same thing in their towns.
You can read a couple of the emails I received about the article HERE.
This week, I’m going to share some links to more good publishing financial news with you…
Hi Angela,
I just read Julie’s article in this week’s WritersWeekly. Since the woman she had a contract with is a known fraud AND she requested a W-9, Julie may want to put a fraud alert on her credit report, if she’s a sole proprietor and her Tax ID is also her Social Security number. It may be nothing, but on the other hand, the “editor” went to all that trouble of asking for a W-9…so it may be worth the peace of mind.
Thanks for all you do!
Pam
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Hi Angela,
I am responding to “It Sounded Too Good to Be True” in the March 11th edition of your newsletter. One of the reasons the author thought the phony publisher was on the up and up is because the author received an official looking contract. I present a work of caution. Many identity thieves are now posing as legitimate businesses to get people’s life histories, bank accounts and social security numbers. These con artists have no problem getting this information because they have their victims fill out official looking forms.
Such a scam hit the Las Vegas area last year. This con artist was posing as a mortgage broker. He would contact people out of the blue and offer them a “too good to be true” refinance deal. He would then show up at their home with a bogus story on how he selected them for this great offer. He also had his victims fill out official looking forms. These forms had spaces for the victims to list all their bank account information, work histories, social security numbers, etc. The con artists would then tell his victims he would be contacting them in a week or two with their refinance loan. Only problem, he never re-contacted his victims.
After three weeks without contact, one family called me because of my prior law enforcement background. I advised the family to contact their bank. The loan manager at the bank could not locate any record on the mortgage broker. But, she did find some unusual activity on their bank account. Because of the loan manager’s swift action, the family was able to recover their money.
The moral of the story is be very careful whom you give out your personal information to. Be especially leery if they contact you out of the blue.
S. Patrick Culshaw
Are you an author whose book has been picked up by a small, independent press? Or was it picked up by a large press, but you’re not the “flavor of the month” attracting all the imprint’s marketing dollars? Perhaps your book is self-published?
In any of these cases, as most published authors will tell you, getting your book into print is akin to elementary school, when compared to the high-school hard knocks of trying to market and sell your book. Your book, if you’re fortunate enough to get it in the bookstores at all, is competing with hundreds of thousands of others.
How do I go about finding a legit agent? Is an agent paid up front, or
does agent take a percentage of the book sales?
Ten years ago I worked in a packing factory, I had no qualifications, just a sack full of dreams. Every day after I finished my shift I would write short stories for my own enjoyment, and gather information and anecdotes for what would later become my book, Into the Dragon’s Lair: A Supernatural History of Wales.
You’ll be happy to know that I’m not going to talk about the weather this week! 😉
Big news around the house these days is Ali (age 18) applied to two colleges and was accepted by both! One is nearby and very reasonable. The other is far away and very, very expensive.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, there is a pending class-action settlement involving authors / publishers and Google. Basically, the lawsuit was brought by authors and publishers who claimed Google violated their copyrights when it scanned books and featured them, or portions thereof, online without permission of the copyright holders. Of course, Google denies the claims (snicker) even though the books are still featured at books.google.com!
Anyway, what’s in it for you? Well, you get to decide. You can either opt-in and get $60 per book (read the fine print!) if you are the sole copyright holder of a book. Or, you can opt-out (which means you can sue Google later if you want to).
Letters will return next week.
