The Street Smart Writer: Self Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World

303 Pages·2006·1.63 MB·English

by  Jenna Glatzer

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Veteran writer Jenna Glatzer teams up with publishing attorney Daniel Steven to
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expose the scams and unsavory deals writers are likely to encounter along their Street-
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path to publishing succeTshse. Street-Smart Writiesr a n essential reference for
all writers to getting published without getting swindled. S
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Readers will learn how to spot a bad agent or manager and hire a good one,
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avoid scam contests and bogus publishers, and find solutions to the most vexinge
publishing problems. e Smart
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“ A greatbookforwriters lookingforno-nonsense,easy-to-understand -
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informationabouthowtodiscern legitimateopportunitiesandservices
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fromthoselookingtotakeadvantageofinexperiencedwriters.”
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—Kristin D. Godsey, Editor, Writer’s Digest magazine r
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“ Bothnewandexperiencedwriters will benefitfromthisbook.”
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—Kelly James-Enger, author ofS ix-Figure Freelancing:
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The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money
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“The Street-Smart Writeris averysmartbookindeed.”
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—Jim Macdonald, author ofT he Apocalypse Door,S ysop of SFF.net
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“ While thepenis mightierthanthesword,manywriters lack ashield. Self-Defense Against
The Street-Smart Writeris thatshield.”
—DaveKuzminski,Editor, Preditors & Editors™ Sharks and Scams
“ Shouldberequiredreadingforeveryprofessionalwriter.”
in the Writing World
—Gregory A. Kompes,Editor, The Fabulist Flash
ISBN 0-9749344-4-5
$16.95
JENNA GLATZER and DANIEL STEVEN
$22.95 Canada

the
Street-
Smart
Writer
Self-Defense Against
Sharks and Scams
in the Writing World
Jenna Glatzer and Daniel Steven

To Travis Tea
Nomad Press
A division of Nomad Communications
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Copyright © 2006 by Jenna Glatzer and Daniel Steven
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote brief passages in a review.
The trademark “Nomad Press” and the Nomad Press
logo are trademarks of Nomad Communications, Inc.
Printed in the United States.
ISBN: 0-9749344-4-5
Questions regarding the ordering of this book should
be addressedto Independent Publishers Group
814 N. Franklin St.
Chicago, IL 60610
Nomad Press
2456 Christian St.
White River Junction, VT 05001
www.nomadpress.net

Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Agents and Managers: Hone Your Shark-Spotting Skills ..................4
Chapter 2
Agents and Managers: How to Spot a Good One ...........................25
Chapter 3
Paying to Publish: Vanity and Subsidy Presses ..............................38
Chapter 4
What to Do If You’ve Been Screwed ................................................63
Chapter 5
Trouble Spots in Book Contracts ......................................................68
Chapter 6
After-Publication Rip-Offs for Book Authors .................................93
Chapter 7
Vanity Poetry Contests ..................................................................108
Chapter 8
Deceptive Contests for Novelists, Short Story Writers,
Screenwriters, and Others .............................................................122
Chapter 9
Crash Course in Copyright ............................................................140

Chapter 10
Special Screw-Overs for Screenwriters .........................................150
Chapter 11
Monstrous Magazines and E-zines ...............................................162
Chapter 12
Dealing With Deadbeats ................................................................190
Chapter 13
Costly Courses and Shady Seminars .............................................202
Chapter 14
How to Know When They’re Really Using You ............................214
Chapter 15
Spotting False Credentials .............................................................223
Chapter 16
Protecting Yourself From Threats and Lawsuits ............................230
Chapter 17
“They Stole My Idea!” and Other Things Not to Worry About ...244
Appendix of Forms
...............................................................257
Form 1: Literary Agency Agreement .............................................258
Form 2: Interview Release .............................................................262
Form 3: Permisssions Agreement ..................................................264
Form 4: Contributor’s Agreement .................................................266
Form 5: Trade Publishing Agreement ............................................269
Form 6: Film Option and Literary Purchase Agreement ..............284
v
Acknowledgments
Lauri Berkenkamp is the only editor who will dish about American Idol with
me, and that’s not even my favorite thing about her. I’d tell you how great she
is, but I’d use up my quota of adjectives for the book. If only it weren’t for her
one tragic flaw: not letting me put a shark bite on the book cover.
Somewhere along the way in my writing career, I earned the title “writ-
ers’ advocate,” but I’m not the first to deserve that title. My scam-hunting
hero is Victoria Strauss, an author who’s been fighting injustice on behalf
of writers for almost a decade. Not only is she tireless in her efforts, she’s
a remarkable human being who is as classy and caring as she is devoted.
A. C. Crispin, James D. Macdonald, Dave Kuzminski, Teresa Nielsen
Hayden, and C. E. Petit are all well-deserving of respect and appreciation
for all they’ve done to help keep writers out of trouble. You’ve been my role
models and, I’m honored to say, my friends.
Thank you to my co-author, Daniel Steven, for your enthusiasm, insight,
and dedication to this project from the start. Your wisdom added much to
this book.
The rest of the thanks belong to:
• The folks on the AbsoluteWrite.com forums, for the constant
amusement and camaraderie. Thanks, in particular, to the
moderators, who set terrific examples.
• The Cletians, who are so close to world domination. You are my
sanctity.
• Professor John Schulz, who told me to “be tough as nails, but never
lose your sensitivity.”
• Amy Brozio-Andrews, my right-hand woman.
• The Glatzers and the Policastros for their never-ending support and
love.
• The writers who psychically email me just at those moments when
I’m ready to throw in the towel, to let me know that I made a
difference.
• Everyone at Nomad Press for being terrific to work with.
• Anthony, who says “I love you” a hundred times a day and always
finds my shoes.
v
Introduction
I wish there were no need for this book. Truth is, when my publisher
approached me with the idea for this book, I was hoping to say, “Sorry,
there’s not enough material on this topic for a whole book.” But after reflect-
ing on it for, oh, ten minutes, I realized I could write a book the length of
War and Peace about scams and unsavory characters in the writers’ world.
And that made me realize I had to do it.
The first time I got scammed, I was a ten-year-old budding writer. I had
written a poem that I was very proud of, from the point of view of a dying
fetus. (Clearly I was a tortured artist in the making.) I sent the poem to a
contest I’d found that advertised in the back of a magazine. It offered a big
financial grand prize and the possibility of publication.
Imagine my delight when the organization running the contest wrote to
tell me that my poem was selected as a semi-finalist based on its fine liter-
ary merit! As such, it was selected for publication in a gorgeous hardcover
anthology of award-winning poetry. I could pre-order my copy right now.
“Mom!” I screamed down the hall. “I’m going to be a published writer!
I need some money!”
Reality took a while to sink in, and in the meantime, I entered many
more contests of the same caliber.
But my writing career began in earnest when I was 21. By then, I thought
I was wise enough to sidestep the potholes in the publishing pavement.
Apparently not, because my first “agent” rooked me out of $250, another
turned out to be the laughingstock of the industry, and several of my
early publishers got away with stiffing me out of the fees they had prom-
ised me.
Along the way, I started AbsoluteWrite.com, which became the most
popular online magazine for writers. I also started a message board
where writers could report their experiences with deadbeat publishers,

producers, agents, contests, editors, publicists, and so on. What I found was
that the same companies that had rooked me so many years ago were not
only still in business, they were thriving. And what was worse was that the
scams were obviously multiplying.
Perhaps because would-be scammers saw how profitable others had
been when they preyed on the dreams of unsuspecting writers, whole new
categories of rip-offs against writers were born. The Internet seemed to be
a birthing center of some of the most insidious and deceptive practices, and
unfortunately, despite the individuals and writers’ organizations working
hard to bring down the unscrupulous companies, or at least warn writers
about potential pitfalls, the scams remain on the rise. Now they’re just even
more cleverly worded and harder to spot from a distance.
Because I’m now well-published and well-known in the online writing
community, writers frequently come to me for advice when they’re unsure
of whether or not the company they’re dealing with is legitimate. It breaks
my heart when I have to tell them that someone who’s shown an inter-
est in their work has a bad agenda. Often, it’s so exciting for writers to
find anyone who takes an interest in their work that they remain blind to
warning signs, even when they seem, to an outsider, to be flashing in neon
colors.
Scammers seize the opportunity to take advantage
of a writer’s weakness: hope.
I don’t need to tell you that writing is a competitive business, and that
there’s usually a lot of rejection along the path before a novel is bought, a
screenplay gets produced, an article is published, or a poem winds up in
The New Yorker. Scammers know this, and they seize the opportunity to
take advantage of a writer’s weakness: hope.
Writers dream. We dream of making it to best-seller lists, of our future
Academy Awards speeches, of our Nobel Prizes. We also dream of sharing
our stories with the world one way or another, and maybe even getting
paid to do so. It’s common understanding that we need to pay our dues to
get there, so when someone—anyone—tells us our work is good, we tend
to latch on and let the praise cloud our judgment.

We want to believe that people have good intentions. And, just to put
things in perspective, the majority of industry professionals I’ve dealt with
throughout my writing career do have good intentions, and my experi-
ences have been positive the vast majority of the time.
However, just as in any other field, there are sharks. There are even
people who don’t mean to be sharks, but are so clueless about the busi-
ness that they’ll do you more harm than good. And there are businesses
that exist “on the edge”—fulfilling some sort of legitimate role for writers,
but misleading writers along the way about the limits of what they offer
and the downsides of working with them. My co-author, Daniel Steven,
has seen firsthand the financial and emotional wreckage caused by these
sharks, semi-sharks, and fellow travelers.
That’s what this book is all about—the sharks and how to avoid them. In
these pages, you’ll find descriptions of various species that could maim or
even kill your writing career. You’ll learn what to watch out for as well as
what sorts of questions to ask. You’ll learn how to spot a good offer, what
to do if you’ve already been scammed, how to research a company or indi-
vidual, and much more.
I hope it will help you navigate a clear path toward your writing goals.
The more education and knowledge writers acquire about this industry,
the easier it will be to knock the scammers out of business—they’ll have no
one left to fool! So let’s get started, and get you on your way to a successful
writing career.