As most of you know, yet another lawsuit has been filed against Author Solutions, which owns AuthorHouse, Xlibris, iUniverse, Trafford, Wordclay, and others. The lawyers are seeking class-action status, of course. I have provided a break-down of the highlights from the lawsuit HERE. Today, I'm gonna rant... …
Now, I have nothing against erotica but I do know I wouldn't want the most romantic moment of my life splashed on the cover of a book containing phrases like "out comes his stone pillar of a (part of the male anatomy)" and "my quivering flesh, open and available." You get the picture, right? …
It's been another three years since the last update so we thought we'd pop into their forums once again. Unfortunately, there are still plenty of complaints (new ones, of course)... …
It's considered very bad form to send free copies to a bookstore or library.…
Oh, yes! We know you've been waiting for this!! Today, I'm going to share another installment of our popular column, World's Worst Book Proposals and Query Letters. Featured below are real quotes from query letters and book proposals submitted to us over the past few weeks... …
Each week, while researching freelance job listings to feature in WritersWeekly, I see "employment ads" from folks who have a "great book idea," but don't want to write the book themselves. Some of them offer an hourly rate (that's fair, as long as the rate is respectable), while others offer promises of future fame, glory, and a small percentage of the royalties... …
An author recently sent in the following when asking about his book sales... …
What she sent wasn't a screenshot of a "sale" at all. It was just a picture of the ranking history on Amazon.…
For the past six weeks, we've spent every spare moment judging the hundreds of entries submitted for the WritersWeekly Winter, 2015 24-Hour Short Story Contest. In case you're not familiar with our quarterly contest, this is how it works... …
An writer recently asked me to go to a website and "vote" for her. She wanted me to have our readers also click to vote for her, even asking me to post notices on Facebook and Twitter. I receive those types of requests all the time and, frankly, they're insulting... …
Losing money on your book because it is returnable? Changing it to non-returnable takes six months.…
On occasion, we hear from authors who are accusing their distributor of theft because their Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com "ranking" moved...but their actual sales numbers did not. Several years ago, one author claimed she was owed millions because her Amazon ranking was...in the millions. As you've probably guessed, this is a common problem. New authors often try to use bookstore rankings to estimate their sales and that doesn't always work...especially if those authors don't understand how the rankings are calculated... …
Last weekend, I received the email below. It was, by far, the nicest email anybody has ever sent to me. It made me cry... …
Slick sales talk and false praise will always draw in a certain percentage of the gullible population. For vanity publisher salespeople, it can be difficult to find folks who are in the process of writing a book, or who are considering writing a book. But, after someone has published their book, it's very easy to find those books and, subsequently, those authors online. I'm not going to tell you the simple method these folks use to find these authors because I don't want to give other scammers any ideas. I can tell you, however, that it's very easy, and only takes a few seconds. Unfortunately, new authors are frequently the target of spammers and scammers. Many authors report receiving spam from a variety of firms shortly after their books were released. And, it happened again this week. One of our authors asked about terminating their contract. They said they were contacted by a "reputable publisher." I first assured them our contract at BookLocker.com is non-exclusive, and can be canceled at any time. But, I've seen this type of victimization of authors before so I, of course, searched for that firm's name on Google. I wanted to save this particular author from the heartache others have endured. What I found didn't surprise me... …
I received an email from a writer who wrote seven articles for a website. She stopped at that point. She wanted to wait until she got paid for those before starting on more. And, she waited, and waited. It's now four months later and, not only has she not been paid for the original articles, but the publisher already published her work, and, according to the writer, has now refused to remove her articles from his website... …
I'm swamped! Our son, Matt, is arriving tomorrow, followed shortly thereafter by my cool step-mother-in-law, Rita, and then more fun family! So, this week I'm sharing a few of our popular articles... …
Should you publish your print book or ebook first? Or, should you publish them simultaneously? …
The good news is, they probably don't really have a copy of your book. They may simply be tricking people into downloading a virus. …
Today, I'm going to share another installment of our popular column, World's Worst Book Proposals and Query Letters. Yes, we can learn from others' mistakes! Featured are real quotes from query letters and book proposals submitted to us over the past few weeks... …
Well, it happened again. An author accused us of not paying royalties on friends and family book sales...that never occurred. He was unable to provide copies of receipts from the loved ones he claimed had purchased his book. In addition, he refused to provide any information about the purchases, nor the buyers, nor the stores where the purchases had (not) occurred. Even though he had zero receipts, and even though he didn't forward any correspondence to me from those individuals, and even though he could not or would not give information about even one "missing" sale, he insisted I get the money... …
There are three types of book cover design services in the self-publishing industry... …
After reading the entries for each contest, we can see how difficult it is to come up with a unique plot when working with an assigned topic. But, inevitably, a few writers do manage to successfully break away from the pack...…
What happens when a POD publisher goes out of business? Authors are left floundering, their pockets empty, and with no book on the market.…
Sometimes you just gotta rant! At BookLocker.com, we have published more than 6,000 print and electronic…
According to TechRadar, the “dedicated e-reader may have a limited lifespan.” It seems folks are opting…
Today, I'm going to share another installment of our popular column, World's Worst Book Proposals and Query Letters. Yes, we can learn from others' mistakes! Featured below are real quotes from query letters (and two book proposals) submitted to us over the past few months... …
This author wanted to move their book elsewhere after getting upset with his current publisher. That author admitted up front that the graphics in the book were pulled from the Internet without permission... …
Are you thinking about participating in the 24-hour short story contest, but don't know what to expect? Here's how it works... …
For the past six weeks, we've spent every spare moment judging the hundreds of entries submitted for the WritersWeekly Summer, 2014 24-Hour Short Story Contest. In case you're not familiar with our quarterly contest, this is how it works. On the date of the contest, at start-time, we send out the topic for that specific contest to all registered entrants, while also posting it on WritersWeekly.com. Entrants must be registered before the contest begins and there is a limit of 500 participants per contest. Entrants then have 24 hours to write and submit their stories via email. The stories "must deal with the topic in some way to qualify" and they must not exceed the pre-assigned word count, which is announced with the topic. After reading the entries for each contest, we can see how difficult it is to come up with a unique plot when working with an assigned topic. But, inevitably, a few writers do manage to successfully break away from the pack. …
Here's the problem. When the author signed our contract, he didn't tell us somebody else owned 10% of his rights. Thus, he lied when he completed our contract, stating he owned all rights to his work... …
There's an outfit online that's sending out emails, trying to get authors to "give away" the rights to their book manuscripts. They claim they're a charity. Pshaw!!! Don't give it away your hard work for free! That would be ludicrous... …
This is a an example of the types of emails we occasionally receive from authors. They're greatly abbreviated, of course. This type of offensive correspondence can, of course, result in a breakdown of negotiations, or not receiving a contract offer at all. And, just because you've already been offered a publishing contract doesn't mean you can't lose it through bad behavior... …
It happened again today. I asked an author for a short description of her book for Ingram, the world's largest book distributor, which sends an automated feed to the online and physical bookstores. The feed is used to create book listings on sites like Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and other stores. The author responded right away. This was last line of her description - Read on as justice is served and police take down the vicious killer. Yep. She gave away the ending. Who wants to buy a book if you already know what's going to happen? Giving away the ending will definitely hurt future book sales! …
Good news! You just landed a traditional contract for your self-published book! Better news!! Your current self-publishing service (a POD publisher) has a 30-day termination clause. That's good because the traditional publisher offering you a nice advance isn't going to want to wait for you to get out of another contract. Some traditional publishers require proof that an author's book is no longer under contract elsewhere, and no longer for sale. In fact, if you can't provide that proof, they may rescind their offer, and offer that contract to a competing author instead. Guess what? If you're an Xlibris, AuthorHouse, or Trafford author, terminating your book isn't as simple as their "30-day" contract termination clause may appear... …
You're depressed. You're confused. You're thinking about giving up writing altogether. Why? Because the only people who have bought your book are your mom and your Aunt Bertha. With more than a million books published each year now (most of those self-published), there is lots of competition. However, many authors earn enough in book sales to feed their families. How do they do it? Some of this may be hard to hear (I mean read) but, if you clicked on this article, you're obviously seeking the truth. So, here it is... …
The Summer, 2014 Short Story Contest will start at 12:00 p.m. (noon) on Saturday, July 19th. Rather than sweating and getting a sunburn, spend the day in the cool air conditioning, and come play with us... …
