Scams

Florida Sues Writers Literary Agency

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The Florida Sun Sentinel reports that the state attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Robert Fletcher, aka Writers Literary Agency, for defrauding authors:

The so-called Writer's Literary Agency used more than 20 websites and related companies to collect money from writers, who paid fees from $89 to $600 for critiques, editing and marketing of manuscripts, according to the Attorney General's Office.

The state's lawsuit says few books were ever sold as the result of company owner Robert Fletcher's efforts.

More than 175 complaints were filed from around the world about Fletcher, who admitted to having no background as a literary agent and to using at least 10 aliases in his businesses.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent Fletcher from future business ventures in the literary field, restitution for his victims and fines.

This is great news. You may recall that Fletcher unsuccessfully sued Writer Beware for exposing his activities. It would be nice if other state attorney generals were as aggressive about shutting down scam literary agents and vanity press "publishers." Even so, I'm hoping this will have a chilling affect on similar activities by others who prey on aspiring authors.

Writer Beware Kicks Butt

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The Bookseller reports that a judge has thrown out a lawsuit by so-called "literary agent" and vanity press "publisher" Robert Fletcher against Writer Beware and ordered him to repay Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin  all of their legal costs. 

Judge Thomas Connolly, who ruled that Fletcher and his company were liable for the costs, said: "The plaintiffs have exhibited extreme bad faith in bringing this frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose [of] causing great expense and harassment to Crispin and Strauss… The court concludes and finds that this case was brought in bad faith by the plaintiffs."

The judge added that Fletcher's purpose was "not to prevail in the lawsuit but just to bankrupt the defendants".
[…]Fletcher claimed the blogs "alleged fraud, misrepresentation and dishonesty towards authors" and were "defaming and libeling" by "publishing warnings to potential authors of the fraudulent practices of LAG and Fletcher". Fletcher operates a fee-charging literary agency/writers' consultancy under a variety of names.

I hope this will serve as a warning to others like Fletcher, and there are many of them out there, who think they can intimidate Writer Beware and prevent them from warning writers about deceptive publishing practices. 

It's also my hope that more organizations will join the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Mystery Writers of America in sponsoring Writer Beware…and that the support of major writers' organizations will frighten off scammers from filing frivolous lawsuits against the site.  

MWA Teams with Writer Beware

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The Mystery Writers of America announced today that its co-sponsoring Writer Beware. I’m sure it will be no surprise to regular readers of this blog to learn that I spear-headed this effort.  I’m thrilled that we’re able to help support Writer Beware…and I hope it leads to other professional writers organizations following our lead. Here’s an article I wrote for the MWA newsletter about it:

The Mystery Writers of America is joining the fight against writing scams by contributing $1000 towards Writer Beware, a website & blog created by the Science Fiction Writers of America to expose fraudulent publishing practices and educate authors on how to protect themselves from being swindled.

“We are pleased to be able to support the important work that Writer Beware is doing on behalf of all writers, professional and aspiring, by exposing scams aimed at defrauding authors,” said Frankie Bailey, the MWA’s executive vice president.

Writer Beware’s website, which was launched by SFWA in 1998, can be used by20any writer anywhere, regardless of whatever genre, fiction or non-fiction, that they work in…or their professional standing. And Writer Beware blog offers up-to-the-minute information on specific scams and schemes, along with essential advice for writers. They also help authors who have questions about individual agents, publishers, or contests.

“We are not only showing our support and making Writer Beware stronger, but sending a message to scammers that we won’t stand by and let them take advantage of authors,” said Lee Goldberg, the MWA board member who will act as the MWA liaison with Writer Beware.

“It’s vital that organizations like SFWA and MWA team up on these kinds of challenges,” said Russell Davis, President of SFWA. “We can accomplish far more working together than we can working on our own, and I hope other organizations will see this as an invitation to join in these types of group efforts.”

I will be reaching out to the International Thriller Writers and the Romance Writers of America to ask them to join us in supporting Writer Beware and fighting scammers.

UPDATE: Publishers Weekly has picked up the news…which is great. The more word spreads about Writer Beware, the less likely it will be that people will be taken advantage of by scammers.

The Independence Fallacy

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I have to point you to two terrific blog posts from Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss, who tackles the fallacy behind POD companies calling themselves "independent publishers"  and their customers calling themselves "independent authors." The POD companies are eager to cast themselves as the equivalent of indie movie-makers. But the comparison doesn't fit. Indie film-makers and musicians don't pay someone to package and market their work, they do it themselves. Victoria notes:

If you sign a contract with a self-publishing company, you are not an independent writer, no matter how emphatically the self-pub company says you are.

She goes on to note:

If you are a true self-publisher–if you've handled every aspect of publication on your own–then yes, you can accurately call yourself an independent author.[…]If you've used a print-on-demand self-publishing company, you've granted it a limited license to your work, you've chosen from a pre-determined package of services, you're dependent on whatever distribution the company provides, and you probably don't own your ISBN number. Also, since most self-pub companies reserve the right to discontinue publication for any reason, you don't fully control your work's availability, and since most pay a royalty, you don't control its income, either. In other words, you are not independent.

By the way, there's some very good news coming soon about the future of Writer Beware that will make it even stronger.

Lightsword Becomes a Vanity Press

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Now that Lightsword Publishing has gone bankrupt, crippled by revelations of fraud and incompetence, disgraced "publisher" Linda Daly has reconstituted the company as a vanity press operation. Here's what she's written on her Lightsword Digital site:

Currently, LSP Digital is NOT accepting submissions. In early Spring
of 2009 we look forward in updating our guidelines for submission
requirements along with a complete outline of any and all fees for
publishing with LSP Digital, LLC.

Now that's chutzpah. 

You Don’t Pay Agents

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Author Alison Kent tipped me to this terrific blog post from Jennifer Jackson, her agent:

Just in case there is someone out there reading this who doesn't already know: Reputable agents work on commission. Commissions are based on selling your work. They make money if you make money. It's a motivational system.

This is something every aspiring author needs to know. Any agent who asks for a reading fee, a submission fee, or any other kind of fee is a fraud.

Harvesting More Suckers

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Brien Jones is at it again…the vanity press huckster is offering to sell your self-published book to Hollywood using all of his amazing connections (which, translated, means he's going to attend "The Great American Pitchfest" like hundreds of other wanna-bes).  Victoria Strauss at Writer's Beware has the scoop on Brien's pitch, which sounds an awful lot like the scams run by Bookman/Airleaf, his former employer, which I first blogged about back in 2005.. Airleaf has since been shut down by the Indiana Attorney General.

Light Goes out at Light Sword

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73537Victoria Strauss at Writers Beware is reporting the long-expected news that sham publisher Light Sword, which defrauded authors and was run by the talentless Linda Daly (pictured on the left) and the convicted felon Bonny Kirby, has filed for bankruptcy. Daly has also filed for bankruptcy, but it may be a lame move to keep her sham publishing operation going:

Daly's personal bankruptcy petition, which Writer Beware has seen, makes no mention of her interest in LSP Digital, or of the contracts in her/the company's possession. Also, while the bankruptcy petition for Light Sword Publishing (which Writer Beware has also seen) claims that Light Sword has had no income for the previous 12 months, LSP Digital was only incorporated last June. So what happened between December 2007 and June 2008, when Light Sword was still Light Sword, and was still publishing and selling the books that are now with LSP Digital?

Is Daly hoping that she can solve her personal and corporate credit problems by declaring one publisher bankrupt while continuing to operate the other? I can't help but be reminded of literary scammer Martha Ivery, who declared bankruptcy for her vanity press Press-Tige Publishing, but attempted to shield Press-Tige's assets by transferring them to a "new" publishing company called New Millennium. The bankruptcy trustee in her case wasn't fooled.

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Let's hope the same is true with the trustee in the Light Sword case. But it won't be too hard for him to see the truth. Daly is so inept that the web address for LSP Digital is Lightswordpublishing.com.

Bonny Kirby, Daly's publishing partner, is also the advertising director at Affaire De Coeur Magazine, which heaped glowing praise and cover stories on Light Sword …without any reference to her personal and financial connection to the sham publisher. These ethical lapses are exactly what you'd expect from a woman who is currently on probation for writing bad checks and third-degree felony theft.

I hope the fall of yet another POD scam will teach aspiring authors to be more careful about who they get into business with.

I’m a Woman…and a Publisher?

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Bonnie Kaye's Jones Harvest Fraud Victims site and Jones Harvest Fraud Victims Blog must be doing some good because she's certainly rattled Brien Jones, the founder of the sleazy vanity press. 

Brien, you may recall, is a former top exec at the Bookman and Airleaf vanity presses, which defrauded scores of gullible, aspiring authors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars before they were shut down. Today he's posted a new rant on his Jones Harvest blog defending himself against Kaye and the legions of bloggers who are warning people to stay away from his latest vanity press scheme, which seems to prey primarily on the elderly:

I also understand cowardly women like Victoria Strauss, Julie Neidlinger and Lee Goldberg and their lies. After all they’re not saying anything bad — just repeating what they were told. And what do you know! They all have their own publishing companies too! 

As far as I know, I am neither a woman nor a publisher. But you can't really expect a guy with Brien's shady vanity press past to concern himself with facts. It's clear that the only fact he is interested in is whether or not his elderly clients have any credit left on their Visa cards that they can spend on his false promises of publishing success. 

I have blogged about Brien and his vanity press scams here for years…not based so much on what other people have said, but on the sleazy solicitations the moron has actually sent to me and the outrageous promises he's made on his websites.

Kaye's efforts brought down Airleaf and exposed their rampant fraud … with luck,  she will accomplish the same with Jones Harvest.  Keep up the good work, Bonnie!

UPDATE 12-31-08: Brien Jones has, apparently, sobered up and removed his rant from his blog. But you can still see it here on his BonnieKayLies blog. I've also saved it here  as service for students studying to be mental health professionals. 

 UPDATE 12-29-08: Flights of Fancy blogs nails Brien Jones for their amateurish covers and using his receptionist to write the rave reviews that are used as blurbs on his customers books.

UPDATE 12-28-08: Victoria Strauss at Writers Beware discusses Brien's latest rant. 

UPDATE 12-28-08:  Brien Jones has launched a new site, BonnieKayLies, where he cross-posts his rants from the Jones Harvest Blog. I was scrolling through his blather when I came across his remarkable take on Kaye's efforts to expose the fraud at Airleaf, which eventually led to the Indiana Attorney General shutting down the scam:

In my opinion Bonnie Kaye wanted her books published and sold for free. That’s what she did to Airleaf Publishing. Bonnie Kaye didn’t complain then. Why would she? Then when Airleaf didn’t pay HER enough Bonnie Kaye started a vicious campaign against them (thankfully long after I resigned my position there.)

When Bonnie Kaye was done with Airleaf what happened? The owner walked away scot-free, ‘thanks for all the swell money.’ The people that were there when it closed started their own companies. The only real result of Bonnie Kaye’s campaign was over 1000 authors lost the books they paid to have published.

Then along comes me and Jones Harvest Publishing. ‘Well’ Bonnie Kaye says, ‘let’s try it again.’

Uh-huh. In other words, Brien and his friends at Airleaf did nothing wrong. I guess Brien didn't read the Attorney General's report on the Airleaf  fraud. Maybe that's why he hasn't learned from his mistakes and seems intent on repeating them.

You’re So Vain

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There were several interesting and informative blog posts on the web this week about self-publishing. 

After publishers rejected his thriller, CNET columnist David Carnoy spent $5000 to self-publish it through Booksurge, against the advice of his agent. He notes that:

The average self-published book sells about 100-150 copies–or 2/3 to 3/4 of your friends and family combined (and don't count on all your Facebook aquaintances buying). I don't have a source for this statistic, but I've seen this stated on several blogs and as a Publishers Weekly article titled "Turning Bad Books into Big Bucks" noted, while traditional publishers aim to publish hundreds of thousands of copies of a few books, self-publishing companies make money by publishing 100 copies of hundreds of thousands of books.

But that reality check didn't stop Carnoy, who does such a good job listing all the substantial pitfalls of self-publishing that I wonder why he bothered to go that route and what he hopes to gain. 

Author J. Steven York points out that vanity presses stress the difficulty of selling your work to a real publisher as a good reason to pay to be published. York concedes that it's true that getting published is hard:

It takes time. The deck is stacked against you, and a lot of the publishing process exists primarily to keep the flood of dreck out, sometimes keeping good books and writers out in the process. If it bothers you, and it probably does, I've got two words for you. Boo. Hoo. Like many things worth doing, getting a book published is work. It requires patience, resilience, and determination. And despite all this (and this is what the vanity publishers don't tell you), it beats the alternative.

[…]If selling your book to a legitimate publisher is too too hard for you, then going to a vanity press won't solve your problem, it will multiply it.

York lists many of the same pitfalls as Carnoy does. In a later post, he takes issue with some of Carnoy's conclusions and challenges the columnist's rationale for self-publishing his novel. York makes a lot of excellent points. His two posts should be required reading for anyone contemplating self-publishing their books.