'Fun' Facts for New Writers

[ubiquirk]

New writers are fresh meat  for scamming sharks who circle the waters waiting to find the next person they can take advantage of by playing on their hopes

Comments

[mundungus42]

There's another aspiring writer in my apartment complex- I should make sure he gets this list. He's an older guy who's just the type to get taken in by this sort of thing.

All this reminds me of a rather hilarious section in Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" in which a respectable publisher secretly owns a nearby vanity press. They send rejected authors to the vanity press and do an elaborate song and dance to establish themselves (and their writers) as legitimate, including wining and dining and inventing an award that they give to one of their authors every year.

[ubiquirk]

I just read an entire book on how writers get scammed, and I can see how sadly easy it is to fall into these things.

That was a hilarious part of 'Foucault's Pendulum' - I'd forgotten the fake award. Who doesn't want to hear that their work is worth publishing?

[veradee]

So true. It just has to be dodgy if you have to pay for it.

[ubiquirk]

Yep. [Great facial expression on the icon for this!]

[ozma914]

If I may add one: Never be one of the very first clients for someone who just became a literary agent after his publishing house went bankrupt ...

[ubiquirk]

Ahh, that's a good one to be aware of.

I read an entire book on this - it's sad how many things can happen.

[ozma914]

I don't know if it's common, but that's what happened to me: I submitted to the publishing company, and he had the manuscript when they went under, then decided to become an agent and contacted me. I was ecstatic, but how useful is an agent with no track record whatsoever?