business

Barnes & Noble data breach

This entry was posted in Administrative and tagged Barnes & Noble books business on by

Barnes & Noble was hit with a cyberattack that may have exposed customer information, though they say payment data isn’t affected. Customers have reported being unable to access their Nook library. It looks as if either the breach made systems malfunction, or B&N has taken some servers offline while going after malware.

I mention this since some of you may have purchased The Magic Battery or Files that Last from Barnes & Noble. Hopefully all will be well soon.

California governor signs bill exempting freelance writers from AB-5

This entry was posted in Writing Writing as business and tagged business California writing on by

Governor Gavin Newsom of California has signed a bill exempting freelance writers and some other businesses from the draconian restrictions which state bill AB-5 had placed on contract work. Previously, AB-5 had limited writers to 35 articles a year to the same customer. That made it impossible, for instance, to contract for a weekly column.

California may be an insane place, but sanity prevails now and then.

Is Constant Content stiffing its foreign writers?

This entry was posted in Writing Writing as business and tagged business Constant Content scams writing on by

The news for Constant Content’s foreign writers doesn’t look good. This Reddit discussion, as of the time I’m writing this post, suggests that no one is getting paid. (The company is based in Canada, but it doesn’t treat US writers as foreign, and at least some of them are getting paid.)

Constant Content is months behind in paying these writers. Its website still doesn’t acknowledge the existence of a payment problem. Its FAQ contains blatantly false information, still claiming “Payments are made through Paypal.” It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the company’s only guiding principle is what it can get away with.

Constitutional challenge filed against California AB-5

This entry was posted in Writing as business and tagged business California on by

The ride-sharing service Uber and the courier services company Postmates have filed a lawsuit to keep California’s AB-5 from going into effect. The complaint says that the legislation is “irrational and unconstitutional statute designed to target and stifle workers and companies in the on-demand economy.” The impact on contractors “irreparably harms network companies and app-based independent service providers by denying their constitutional rights to be treated the same as others to whom they are similarly situated.”

As I noted last week, this legislation is very bad news for freelance writers in California. Hopefully the courts will strike it down.