Gary McGath

About Gary McGath

I am a freelance technical writer in Plaistow, NH.

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.

Twitter notes

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged publicity social media Twitter on by

Since I’m promoting self-published work, I should work on my visibility on Twitter. That’s what everyone says. Don’t look for expert advice here, since I haven’t topped 500 followers. However, I’ve been making an extra effort lately, and I can offer some notes on how it’s worked.

Not that I like Twitter very much. It’s manipulative, giving publicity boosts to some tweets and accounts while leaving others in the shadows. Whether “shadowbanning” is real may be a matter of how you define it; certainly some users find themselves consigned to low visibility. Twitter is a game where the dealer hides the cards and doesn’t tell you the rules.

But if you play, you can improve your visibility. The first step is to link to your profile a lot. Probably I need to do more of that.
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The Faust legend 2

This entry was posted in History and tagged Faust history magic battery on by

In The Magic Battery, I play off the legend of Faust. There are many well-known versions of the story, including Marlowe’s play, Goethe’s play, and Gounod’s opera. Liszt was fascinated with the story and wrote a Faust Symphony as well as the Mephisto Waltzes. My treatment is a free one, but it starts from what’s known of the historical Faust. Or should I should say historical Fausts?

Sculpture in Auerbachs Keller

Sculpture above Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig, depicting a scene from Faust

Johann Faust was born in 1466, or maybe 1480. His name is sometimes given as Georg or Johann Georg. Several towns claim to be his birthplace. Could there have been two Fausts, both with a reputation for magic and born over a decade apart? This might explain the part of the story where he becomes young again.
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Update #2 on Constant Content

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

The situation with Constant Content remains the same. Payments to writers are long past due, and I’ve seen no indication anyone has been paid recently. Some people have received an email instructing them to set up payments through Stripe. Others say they haven’t received it. They can’t find this information on the website. I used my old account to log in and couldn’t find any information indicating a change of ownership or payment method.

The writers’ FAQ says, “Payment is made the first week of the beginning of each month.” It doesn’t say the first full week, so I take that to mean writers should have been paid last week. Comments on Reddit and elsewhere indicate that’s been their past practice. I let the following Monday go by to be generous, but I’m still seeing no reports of people getting paid.
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Update on Constant Content

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

There’s a tiny but important change to constant-content.com: The page footer now says it’s “A Division of Moresby Media Inc.” As I mentioned in my earlier post, the footer previously identified RevenueWire as the parent company. The FTC fined RevenueWire for helping shady “tech support” companies to scam people.

Writers are saying that Constant Content has sent out an email telling them they will soon be getting payment through Stripe. Others say they didn’t get the email. It’s plausible that the mail had trouble with spam filters; bulk email promising payment tends to be viewed as spam. Alternatively, CC may be sending the mail out in batches.

Setting up to receive payments by Stripe is straightforward; payments can go to a bank account or a debit card. However, it’s not available in all countries, and that could be an issue for some writers.
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The return of lily-white writing? 1

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

Boskone 58 pocket program coverBack in the “Golden Age of Science Fiction,” all the leading characters were light-skinned by implication. Well, all the human characters. The aliens were often green or blue. It wasn’t that the authors set out to portray white-only casts or mentioned every character’s appearance; it was just the default, and most writers (themselves light-skinned) rarely thought about it.

The situation slowly changed. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, published in 1959, presented a thoroughly international and multi-ethnic military. We’ve reached the point where characters of all physical types and ethnic origins appear in SF. It’s happened in nearly all kinds of fiction; I’m focusing on SF because it’s what I’m familiar with.

But now there’s a nasty push back. Some people want fiction re-segregated. At first I thought it was just a fringe movement with no significance, but it’s gaining in influence. I keep seeing would-be writers apologetically posting to Reddit, asking whether it’s OK for their stories to have characters whose skin color doesn’t match their own. The responses are overwhelmingly “yes,” so it’s still on the fringe, but it’s a toxic idea that needs firm rejection.
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Is Constant Content imploding?

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

A content mill that writers have never thought much of may be imploding. In May, the FTC fined Constant Content’s parent company, RevenueWire, for participation in scams. Writers for Constant Content are now reporting that they aren’t getting paid.

A Reddit post dated July 8 says:

I joined Constant Content this year and sold my first 2 articles in April. I didn’t get payment on the 1 May for the articles and contacted support on 16 May to query this. I received a response a few days later and was asked to verify my PayPal address. I did this on the same day but didn’t receive any response or payment.

I sold another article in May and still didn’t receive any payment by 1st June. I sent emails on 6th June and 1st July with no response to date.

The user is brand-new on Reddit and has no track record, so take it for what it’s worth, but a reply from a very experienced user says:

Yep, they’ve missed the last two payouts apparently for losing their payment processor. I’ve been there since 2009 and this is the first time it’s happened. It’s disappointing. I stopped uploading to them until they fix it but someone dug up that they got fined by the FTC for allowing their payment processor to be used by Indian call center scammers so idk what’s going to happen.

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Writing accurately about exponential functions

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged mathematics writing on by

“The number A is exponentially greater than the number B!” What does this mean? Nearly nothing. If it has a meaning, it’s that there’s some number x such that Bx = A. But that’s true of any two numbers, as long as they’re both greater than 1 and A > B. Please don’t use that expression in your writing.

You could also say that A is “linearly greater” or “quadratically greater” than B. They’re just as true and just as meaningless. “Exponentially greater” sounds more impressive because exponential curves rise really fast. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of cases followed something close to an exponential curve. But a single data point doesn’t establish a curve.
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More ways to order The Magic Battery

This entry was posted in My writing Writing and tagged Kindle magic battery on by

I’ve been working on making The Magic Battery available in more ways.

Discount codes work only with Smashwords, sorry. To give a discount for the Kindle version, I’d have to enroll in KDP Select, and I can’t enroll because Amazon doesn’t have an exclusive on the book. Smashwords offers lots of download formats, including ones you can put on a Kindle. Again, the dollar-off discount code for June on Smashwords is RW83R.

It’s your choice how you want to buy it. The Kindle version has nice-looking drop caps at the start of each chapter and some other nifty features.

If you got the book a while back, check the Smashwords page for an update. I’ve fixed some minor errors.