Fraud is a Shape-Shifter

This week, I read an interesting—if not alarming article—by Angela Hoy, owner of WritersWeekly.com, about an online course which is teaching writers how to write ebooks and become rich. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Can you see how newbies would be attracted to the pitch of no financial investment and guaranteed success?

The instructor of this particular course informed his students that they could quickly produce nonfiction ebooks by taking information from other books on a subject and compiling it to create their own book! But it gets worse. Said instructor also advised students to create a pseudonym that would complement their topic and purchase a portrait from a stock photography website. The implication was that students could take this a step further by adding letters behind their name to establish “credibility”. Are you kidding me? As Angela states, this is fraud, folks. And any writer who attempts to do this is setting themselves up for lawsuits, which they could quite possibly lose.

Apparently, there are several websites and online courses offering writers the path to riches by pilfering other writers’ work. Unfortunately, plagiarism, get-rich-quick schemes, blatant scams, and misleading promises targeting writers is nothing new. Remember those American poetry contests who tell you how wonderful your poem is, publish it as part of a collection than sell the book to you for fifty bucks? Remember those publishers who said your work needed a bit more editing and they gave a recommendation, only that individual had a business relationship with the publisher which involved grabbing as much of your cash as possible?

Fraud is a shape-shifter. It changes form to suit the needs and opportunity of the day. It’s always there, right before your eyes, all nicely packaged in a deal that sounds wonderful. I’m betting that most of you are savvy writers who know better. But I’m also betting that most of you know a newbie who’s just starting out and wonders about these courses. Guide them down the right path, okay? You can visit Angela’s website at http://www.writersweekly.com/, or go directly to her article at http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/007184_02082012.html

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, now available for iphones, iPads, and iPodTouch at http://bit.ly/nZLlS8. Also available in paperback at http://tinyurl.com/30dlx64 and on Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/7kxuat8
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

Thumbs Up & Thumbs Down: Latest From the Writing World

Congratulations to Victoria, British Columbia author Esi Edugyan for winning the $50,000 Giller prize for her novel Half-Blood Blues. I was listening to a piece on CBC Radio this week, and heard Edugyan referring to 2011 as a year of miracles, as she also gave birth to a daughter two months earlier. Don’t we all dream of miracle years! Her novel has also been nominated for several other major prizes, so this could just be the beginning of things for her.

And speaking of miracles of a different kind, self-published author (until she signed with a big-six publisher) Amanda Hocking has now joined an elite group of authors who have sold one million copies of their ebooks. Authors John Locke, David Baldacci, and Stephenie Meyer also belong to this club. Latest stats show that twelve Kindle Direct Publishing authors have sold 200,000 copies or more, and thirty have sold over 100,000. This is still a tiny fraction of the authors who have ebooks out there, but it’s good to know that lots of people are buying books.

Now for the thumbs down news. Publisher, Little Brown has pulled the debut spy novel of Q.R. Markham from their shelves over plagiarism issues. An article in Associated Press states that the author took passages from other contemporary and classic spy novels. When this was discovered (and it’s not clear who, exactly, discovered the blunder) Markham’s contract for a second book was cancelled. What’s strange about this story is that the editors didn’t recognize any of the familiar passages until after publication. Clearly, the publishing staff weren’t sufficiently well versed in the genre to figure this out after reading the manuscript in the first place. You can read more at http://www.wtop.com/?nid=541&sid=2624620

There’s been growing debate, and even animosity, over self-published versus traditionally published authors. A flame war erupted when author Michael A. Stackpole recently referred to traditionally published authors as “house slaves”, among other things. A number of authors—most notably J.A. Konrath, Barry Eisler, Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Rusch have been touting the benefits of leaving traditional publishing behind and taking control of one’s publishing career. However, traditionally published authors are beginning to take offense and fight back with their own rather colourful words, which I won’t repeat here. I’m not taking sides on the issue, as I’m still learning publishing pros and cons from both sides. If you’d like to read more on the debate, however, go to http://www.bridgetmckenna.com/1/post/2011/11/flame-wars-and-fkwads.html

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, now available for iphones, iPads, and iPodTouch at http://bit.ly/nZLlS8. Also available in paperback at http://tinyurl.com/30dlx64
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n