Writing

How writers should deal with Internet bullying

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged Internet writing on by

There’s an old Internet saying: “Don’t feed the trolls.” It’s still excellent advice. When people communicate with you only to get you upset, the best answer is usually no answer.

Some authors have been subjected to online harassment by cultural segregationists. Their crime is to write something which is not permitted to their race or ethnic group. A bunch of racists piled on Amélie Wen Zhao for the offense of depicting a fantasy world in which slavery isn’t limited to people with dark skins. (There’s a real-world counterpart: China, which is where Zhao comes from.) Some of these bigots said that people with yellow skins shouldn’t write about slavery at all. They temporarily intimidated her into withdrawing her book from publication.
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Beware of fake statistics 1

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged research writing on by

Some research I recently did for an article turned up a statistic that would have made a nice centerpiece: 60% of small businesses that experience cyberattacks go out of business within six months! If I were a hack writer, I could just have run with it; it’s “confirmed” on plenty of websites. But it smelled phony.

First, what exactly is it counting? It doesn’t even say “successful” cyberattacks. Let’s assume it means that, though. Almost every business falls victim to some malware. The consequences can be small or huge. It might contact a server that no longer exists and do nothing. It might attempt to encrypt files for ransomware but fail. It might mine for cryptocurrency, send spam, or try to enlarge a botnet. Those are all bad but won’t usually destroy the business.

Second, how much of the correlation is causation? Small businesses have high mortality rates in general. It just isn’t plausible that cyberattacks are wiping out huge numbers of small companies.
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Medium’s new payment model

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

Just as I thought I was starting to figure Medium out, they’ve completely changed the payment model. This is what they’ll be doing, starting October 28:

1. We will calculate earnings based on the reading time of Medium members.

2. We will include reading time from non-members too, once they become members.

3. Your earnings will be updated daily, not weekly.

4. Your story stats will show new metrics to explain your earnings.

For more information, please read our blog post here. [no link]

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This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing Writing as business and tagged business clients on by | Open »

A while back, I got a solicitation from a Dan Marzullo saying, “I run a small copywriting firm and I’m looking for another writer to add to the team.” I didn’t respond, since it felt like mass marketing. Since then I’ve learned that he’s contacted other writers I know and may not have represented his conflicts of interest accurately. I recommend not dealing with him. Inadvertently violating your existing agreements can really mess up your business.

Constant Content spam

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged Constant Content spam on by

Lately I’ve been getting unwanted promotional email from Constant Content, even though I haven’t written for them or logged in there in at least two years. When I tried to “unsubscribe” (which would imply that I had ever subscribed), their website told me I wasn’t on their list.

I’ve seen indications from other writers that they’re getting spammed too. If Constant Content has started spamming its inactive writers, that suggests desperation.

The content reviewer, as seen by the writer

This entry was posted in Satire Writing Writing as business and tagged clients satire writing on by

Note to companies that purchase content: This is a satire, not a model to follow! 😊

These are from the experience of other writers as they’ve described them on forums, just a bit exaggerated in some cases. I can only speculate on what the reviewer was actually thinking, but the writer can easily imagine a professional sadist at the other end of the transaction.

If you want to cultivate a team of writers who will give you a steady stream of material, please don’t follow these examples. Most reviewers try their best, but hastily-written comments can leave writers bewildered and discourage them from fixing easily-corrected problems.
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Tips for creating topic descriptions

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

Do you create topic descriptions for writers to make proposals or submissions on? There’s an art to creating a useful description. Some common omissions regularly evoke complaints from writers. A description that doesn’t work well will result in submissions you can’t use or none at all. When you have to reject them, that sours writers who might have provided you with good material. Here are some tips, based on my experience:
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Seanan McGuire on writing

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged books fiction on by

Seanan McGuire has a good article on Tor.com on how she wrote her new novel Middlegame and on writing in general. It’s a reminder of how much of writing is just working steadily. “Every book is sit down, write, keep writing, edit, edit again, try to sell, hopefully succeed, buy some groceries, nap.”

Middlegame sounds interesting to me because of its philosophical tie to Mary Crowell’s song, “Doctrine of Ethos.”

“Files that Last” pirated on Scribd

This entry was posted in Publishing Writing and tagged piracy Scribd on by

Update: My book wasn’t exactly pirated, but involved a rather dubious maneuver on Smashwords’ part. See the additional information at the end of this post.

Just this morning I learned that Scribd hosts a pirated copy of my ebook Files that Last. I’ve submitted a takedown request. We’ll see if they do anything about it.

According to the automated email response, “Content on Scribd is uploaded and maintained by our members and publishers with no editorial approval or other intervention by Scribd’s employees. Scribd takes the rights of intellectual property owners very seriously and complies as a service provider with all applicable provisions of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) of 1998. We expeditiously remove infringing material and terminate repeat infringers when such action is deemed appropriate.”

Translation: Scribd makes no attempt whatsoever to stop pirated works from being uploaded yet claims to take copyright “very seriously.”

I put months of effort into writing Files that Last. I paid for copy editing and cover art. Scribd is siphoning money off my work, getting ad revenue, without having lifted one finger to contribute to the book’s creation.

I’m sure there are lots of other pirate sites where you can find copies of just about anything ever published. But Scribd pretends to be respectable.

As thanks for reading this, here’s a coupon code for Files that Last on Smashwords, letting you buy it for just $4.50 (regular $7.99): VN54Y. Expires May 11.

Update

Within a few hours of reporting the incident, I got a reply from Scribd. It included the following:

was delivered to Scribd as part of a content distribution agreement with Smashwords. As part of this agreement, Smashwords content is automatically added to Scribd’s BookID copyright protection system. The agreement is described on Smashwords’ blog at http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/12/smashwords-signs-distribution-agreement.html. This content was not removed from Scribd.

You can disable delivery of your content to Scribd with the Smashwords Channel Manager.

So it isn’t actually piracy, but I never agreed to let Smashwords put my content on Scribd. Smashwords is a distributor, not a publisher, as they make very clear to their writers. A “copyright protection system” sounds like DRM, and I do everything possible to keep my books from being distributed under DRM. It does nothing to hinder the crooks but keeps legitimate buyers from having “files that last.” I just logged in on Smashwords and “opted out” from Scribd, as well as a couple of other channels that didn’t look familiar. I don’t know how long it will take for the page to disappear from Scribd.