Most authors are stupid. It\u2019s not something we wish to hear, but it is true. Oh, we may have the story to end all stories inside of us and may well have written it. A token few of us may have bothered to learn enough about the publishing business to put our work through multiple rounds of professional (not uncle Bob or your friend Suzy) editing before putting our work out there. That, however, is as smart as most of us get. If you believe you are the exception to the rule, then, most definitely you are deep within the rule, not the exception. As they say in the grift world, \u201cyou\u2019re the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming to grips with the reality that everyone is a mark is the first step to becoming successful, or at least less of a victim. Way back when Linked-In was a relevant site, before it went the way of MySpace countless other \u201chot\u201d sites we\u2019ve all forgotten about, I used to belong to a writers group on there. It was just a moderated forum where writers would exchange ideas about publishing, writing and the self-publishing world. Yes, we had a few agents and lawyers who hung out there, but it was mostly writers with a few books under their belt and a whole lot of people who wanted to have a few books under their belt. Well, before the group got overrun by spam and people trying to turn these marks into cash. I had always known there were organizations willing to prey on fledgling writers but until I saw all of them fighting to get into the group, I had no idea just how many and to what lengths they would go.<\/p>\n
Another thing which shocked me is just how gullible as a group writers are. Time after time we had people coming into the group who had been scammed by infamous scammers. By infamous I mean that even the most casual of searches in the usual places would turn up a litany of shady and\/or outright criminal activity associated with those organizations and\/or individuals. Then, reality set in. Far too many people have been sold the Amazon bill of goods. There is this \u201cphilosophy\u201d out there that they can \u201cget an Amazon lottery ticket which never expires for free.\u201d They all bought the white elephant before the auction even started.<\/p>\n
Before you even think about releasing your work anywhere or doing business with anyone in the publishing\/writing world, at a bare minimum, you need to look them up on Writer Beware<\/a>.\u00a0 I am always stunned at the number of people I encounter who claim to be authors and have never heard of this site. Slimy agents, fraudulent publishing houses, its all there. Granted some of these places change their names and relocate often to escape criminal prosecution, so simply not finding their current name on the site isn\u2019t a gold seal, but if you find them on here…<\/p>\n While we could fill hundreds of posts talking of publishing industry slime that is not the point of this post. Here is a couple of other places to look at:<\/p>\n Bad Literary Agents – How to Avoid Bad Book Agents<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n