We Interrupt Your Scheduled Blog Post...

I was going to write about submissions today, but something else caught my attention several times this week, so I wanted to post a little on the subject of writer scams.

Writer scams are everywhere online - they predate the Internet, but have really exploded in recent years. Why do they work? Simple - when you are a new writer with plenty of dreams, it can feel really overwhelming to get your book out in front of people. Agents take forever, if you even get replies from them, and Big Publishers even longer, and most of us have little or no training/experience with publishing before we finish that first book/collection. And scammers know this, and they know how to talk to us in the right way to prey on those hopes and dreams.

Probably the premier, most famous form of writer scams would be vanity presses - those who promise "Become a Real Author!" (but only if you send them a cheque for $1200). Here's the skinny, folks - if it's a real publisher THEY PAY YOU, not the other way around. This is vastly different from Self Publishing, in which an author pays for services (cover art, editing, etc), but ultimately owns their own work. A vanity press really does nothing for your book but stroke your ego and take your money - lots of it. And they don't give it back. Now, with Amazon/KDP/CreateSpace, I hope we are hearing the dying howl of the vanity presses, but it's not likely. Many more aspiring authors will fall to them before they go away, sadly.

And now with the rise of agents who "facilitate" self-publishing, there might be a whole new racket for vanity press scammers. This is not to say that all agents who handle self-pubbing are crooks, but any day now we'll start seeing the crooks move that way, if they haven't already.

The Rule is: Except for putting together a self-publishing project, the author's only dealings with cheques should be signing the back of their royalties.

The second big one is Contests! Yes, there are many, many legitimate writing contests out there, with real prizes and good exposure. Some, like the RWA, do charge writers to enter. (I personally don't pay to enter contests, but paid contests might not be scams, so just do your research.) However, not all contests are legitimate. If it's a free contest, you don't stand to lose much but time, but please save yourself the hassle of entering fake/worthless contests with hefty entrance fees. Also, in many regions, it is illegal to force entrants to "buy the finalists' collection" at the end of a poetry or short story contest. Such things are scams, where they basically let everyone become a finalist so more people will be forced to buy the resulting collection. Do the leg work! Research the contest before you get excited.

Third, there are the newer vultures circling the small press/indie world: Book reviewers who are also editors. Now, naturally, many reviewers also offer editing services, and not all are scams. What I mean are book reviewers who offer to review your book (especially a self-pubbed one) merely so they can tell you it stinks - but, don't worry! "I can edit it for you for $1000!" That's the scam part. I believe many reputable editors who also do reviews make it policy not to take editing jobs from the authors they have reviewed, and vice versa. The reviewer may very well suggest you need an editor, but they are often careful to suggest OTHER editors, instead of themselves. Otherwise, it's a bit of a conflict of interest, don't you think?

Most legitimate editors allow a sampling process - you send them a sample, and they will edit it and return it, before you engage them. If you go this route, it might be a good idea to send the same sample to several editors, and compare the returned work before making a selection. And, in my opinion, accept a reviewers' suggestion that you need editing, but don't hire that reviewer to do it. Sample a few others, and then decide which way to go. As always: Author word-of-mouth is a great way to find what you need, and it's the safest way.

Then, on top of these sly jobs, we also have the occasional rumour/allegation of truly shocking instances of out-n-out extortion. There are also people burned outright by paying upfront for covers that never come, or editors that never deliver.

The above categories cover the majority of the pitfalls out there; some are ubiquitous, while others a bit less common. There are many other ways a newbie writer can lose buckets of money/time/hope/energy/reputation - ghost town sites/blogs charging for ad space, reviewers demanding payment for their condescension, display sites that charge you for profiles that no one ever visits, small pubs who are basically beards for one author's self-publishing activities, etc, etc, but those aren't truly "scams" in that they are offering some type of service, at least, and you get exactly what they promise (even if it is lackluster). And you should know what you're getting into before you hand over the money or your manuscript (always).

The Internet is a wonderful thing for the global writers' community - it brings us closer than ever before, allows for multiple genre circles to form and disseminate information very quickly, and evens the communication exchange between experienced writers and aspiring authors. But it also contains snakes of all varieties. Use it wisely - arm yourself with information, do your research, and treat your name, money and manuscript like the precious resources that they are.

So, that's my little PSA for today.

It's a jungle out there! Good luck.

A Personal Project on the Horizon

Hanging out with self-published folks. I think that's what has done this. I don't know; the Kool-Aid looked innocent enough. I guess I should have guessed by smiles on their faces as they offered it... Actually, maybe it's just that SP people seem so full of energy. Or that they've convinced me it's an outlet for a story that isn't likely to find a home any place else.

Either way, I am thinking of doing a self-publishing project.

No, I am not going to start self-publishing my genre fiction, or the new comedy I am writing. Those will still go to nice, small but competent epublishers who are willing to take them and give me the editorial and cover support I still need as a new author.

But, I have had an idea in my head for some time, and this project - a special, personal one - might just go self-published. A few years ago, a tragedy happened in my family. I won't go into details here, in case I decide to keep it private, after all. But I've been working on the story of this tragedy for some time - knowing I would write about it some fashion some day.

I have been considering writing it as a gift for my mom and dad. A short; around 20k or so. I thought to write it, convert it to PDF and get it coil bound at Kinko's for them. It's not a commercial book. I plan for it to be well-written and complete, but I had no idea of selling it.

But now, seeing the features of modern self-publishing, including "Create Space," which makes printing it in paperback a lot easier, I am intrigued. And thinking about it. Certainly, it would be more of an exciting thing for my parents in "real paperback."

So, I don't know. If I figure my way around Amazon, and get a cover art/layout, buy an ISBN some place (if I can), and hire a personal developmental editor, line reader, and proofer. Learn about the formatting (yikes!)... Maybe. Just maybe.

I'm keeping it in mind, anyway.

Help! Another Identity Crisis

I've seen these two terms chucked around, "Indie" and "Traditional." Now, I know these terms are rife with some controversy, since they were (according to interwebs lore) first coined by a shady vanity press in order to glamorize their scam. Yet, regardless of how the categories started, they have been widely adopted in the "writing world" - or, at least, in that corner which I haunt.

I have always understood it to be a matter of scale.

"Traditional" publishers, in my understanding, included the Big Companies - the brick-n-mortar, advance-granting, agent-oriented, paperback-lovin' companies that market/sell internationally and make big bucks, and all those mid-range companies run on this model in hopes of being one of the Big Publishers. We can all name several of these off the top of our heads, no doubt.

"Indie" (short for "independent") publishers, I assumed, included the small scale publishers - micropresses and self-published authors who have a smaller distribution and privately-seeded marketing budget, no agents and no advances, but royalties from sales alone. Largely, these days, this means epublishing.

This week I ran into a handful of blog comments that claimed "indie" doesn't include self-published. But, this sentiment I easily disregarded as indie authors who, foolishly, have bought into the idea that self-published means vanity publishing and terrible quality. These comments were, after all, left on a now-fairly-famous so-so review to which the regrettably deficient self-published author under review left some awful, immature and petty ravings, involving the senseless repetition of expletives. I can see why people were scrambling to distance themselves from her.

However, I then came across something a little more puzzling, and not exactly unique - and from a source I can't so easily dismiss. From a NY Times bestselling author and writer of "how to write" pieces, Bob Mayer, it was hard to ignore. This quote, which was not the gist of his point (just what struck me), is from the June 12th post on his blog Write it Forward:

I use the term indie for one who self-publishes and trad for those who are published via a traditional publishing house. I’ve copyrighted them and you need to pay me any time you use them. Joking.

True, Mayer is clearly expressing his terms as he sees them for the purposes of his post, which is an otherwise considered and useful editorial. Yet, he is not the only person defining these terms this way, and I am confused.

I consider myself an "indie author," though it seems many people do not grant me this category. However, I am not really published through a "traditional" venue, either. So, what the hell am I?

First off, why do I consider myself "indie"? Well, frankly, my publishers thus far have been pretty independent - without a big corporate source of money, no advances, requiring no agents, not having a publishing "house" as such, and focusing largely on ebooks, they seem to me to be small-scale and, therefore, not the same as those commonly recognized as traditional. They are, I believe, independently owned and operated by individual publishing entrepreneurs. I don't even think they have investors beyond their owners/managing editors.

And why am I seemingly not "indie"? Because I do publish through companies not belonging to me that employ editors not controlled by me, and, especially, because I do not "self-publish." I guess. (Insert "head scratching" emoticon here.)

Now, I suspect the easy argument is that these companies could become traditional-scale in time, and that Harper-Collins might have started out as a micropress (I really couldn't tell you if it did or not, actually). Also, more obscurely, the concern might be that these publishers, be they ever so humble, might be creatures similar to the "gatekeepers" that indies dislike so strongly, and that signing with these epubs might be "compromising my artistic vision" in a way that self-pubbed writers don't have to. Finally, I reckon the royalties thing is the kicker - as long as a middle man is getting a cut, I guess (according to some) I am not truly "independent."

Well, colour me confused. I can understand the arguments and points above, but they never occurred to me naturally. I had to ponder them.

But, the point of all this is - Even if I concede that I am not "indie" (which I don't, really), I am left with a dilemma. What am I? In this recurring rhetoric of "indie" vs "traditional"... which am I? Am I an "us" or a "them"? In a greyzone, worthy of the attention of neither?

True, we shouldn't think in those terms of narrow categories, but such is what we have to work with in the seedy underbelly of starving author forums. So, where do I land?

It would just be nice to know.

Author Leanne Dyck on "Publishing a Book"

Mark Twain did. Why would you? Why did I self-publish?

My reasons were two-fold: to retain control and for educational purposes.

1999 was a tremulous year for me. The death of my mom sent me into a deep depression. Seeking a place to heal, my husband and I moved to Mayne Island. It was on this magical island that I began to rebuild my life. I longed to learn more about my new home and found Marie Elliot’s writing. Her article “The Japanese of Mayne Island” seeded my imagination and I began to write Maynely A Mystery.

As I wrote, my vision for this book grew clear. I knew who my target reader was and I felt I knew how to reach them.

I grew wary of involving someone else in my plans. Would they love this book as much as I do? Would I have to compromise my vision? Fearing the worse, I felt self- publishing was the only solution.

The longer I considered this route the more benefits I saw. I’d never written or published a book. Self-publishing would educate me on all aspects of the industry from designing the cover to marketing.

In June 2009, I self-published Maynely A Mystery. My target readers did find me.

Here’s a review:

‘Rumours of gold, a secret lover, ghosts and other mysteries create a labyrinth of intrigue as Maynely A Mystery traces the lives of the story’s animated eccentric characters. Author Leanne Dyck knows her craft, her audience, and her setting. Her novel provides a voyeuristic glimpse into human character and island life.’
- Terrill Welch (Leading Raspberry Jam Visions: Women’s Way)

Maynely A Mystery is sold in bookstores on Mayne Island, Salt Spring Island, and McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I’m thrilled at the success my cozy mystery has achieved.

Would I self-publish again?

Yes, but…

It’s expensive. It costs approximately seven dollars to print each copy.

There is, of course, a solution to print –ebooks. Ebook printers such as Smashwords take a percentage of sales.

The other problem I encountered in self-publishing was marketing. I didn’t hesitate to think outside the box. I organized a book launch/party. I contacted magazines, radio stations, ezines, and book reviewers. I visited bookstores. However, with my limited resources and sales skills I meet roadblock after roadblock.

Frustrated, I sought an alternative. Where did this search take me? Please read my next post, on Thursday...

***

Ever since Leanne Dyck was old enough to hold a pen, her dream to write a book. Leanne began her career by writing short stories, flash fiction, poems, as well as articles for knitting and business magazines. Her work appeared in Island Writer--the literary journal of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. She read her work over the radio and at the Abbotsford Tradex. These early successes lead her to self-publishing. June 2009, Leanne published a cozy mystery--MAYNELY A MYSTERY. (Soon) Leanne's paranormal psychological thriller THE SWEATER CURSE will be published by Decadent Publishing.

You can learn more about her and her work at her website or blog.