Writer Beware

On May 28th, I did a post entitled "Pitfalls Facing Newbie Writers." I warned against scams targeted at writers.

Fortunately, there are people out there who try to uncover these scams and educate writers: Preditors & Editors runs a site that specializes in outing scam artists. Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss have another such site, called Writers Beware. There are links to both sites in the right column of this blog under "Other Helpful Links."

Over the weekend, Victoria posted a four-part blog describing a very elaborate scam that has now shut down. The series is so detailed that it is virtually Anatomy of a Scam 101. I strongly suggest that you read it.

The easist way to avoid being scammed is to remember that the money should always flow TO the writer, not FROM the writer. If you are asked to pay fees, no matter what they're called: submission fees, reading fees, editing fees, whatever, something is wrong.

Read the series. Here's the link:

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2006/09/victoria-strauss-hill-hill-literary.html