I see writers are finding fake books attributed to them for sale on Amazon - again. If this happens to you and you're a member of The Society of Authors or your local equivalent, let them know at once. Writers' organisations can get through to key Amazon people direct and the more evidence they have of a problem, the more likely they'll get it resolved.
@JoBlakely indeed, and her post has prompted a number of other authors I know to share the same thing is happening to them. Since Amazon is brushing them off with nonsensical 'legal reasons' for inaction, one effective tactic will be to get writers organisations involved.
A year or so back I treated myself to an original of a @tomgauld cartoon, and each time I look at it (above my desk) it still makes me smile.... so I thought I'd share it with you all. Enjoy!
@ChrisMayLA6
My grandfather's excuse whenever he'd dozed off in an armchair was that he was 'thinking deeply' - 'accessing subconscious insights' would have pleased him greatly!
Hmm, only 26 followers after being on Mastodon since November 2022? Ok, here is my intro again: (ex) Full stack web developer with Bread and Roses Creative, full time artist (now) and food critic (currently) with Chuck Eats KC. Kansas City-based web dev since the dawn of browsers (1995). Focus these days is one creative stuff: writing, food criticism, photography, streaming, art, and making fun videos.#Artists#Intros#Writers#FoodCritics#Fediverse#WebDev
@thepoliticalcat Red horse-chestnut tree in Loose Park, KCMO. I found out recently that iPhones have a feature in the camera that identifies birds and plants.
We've been housesitting on and off for 5 years now. And along with pets, we care for a bunch of old, and often very eccentric, houses with little quirks that we've learned to acclimatise to quickly.
Which is why, when a lovely British crime fiction author drove up to meet us in person for the first time yesterday and needed to use the loo, we directed him upstairs and forgot to tell him "Whatever you do, DO NOT pull the toilet door fully shut or you'll be trapped in there for all eternity."
So... anyway... Last night, we locked a famous British crime fiction author, who we'd just met, in the loo and had to completely dismantle the door...
Being British and of the stiff upper lip variety, he did not yell or try and beat the door down.
In fact, it took me looking at the clock after THIRTY FREAKIN' MINUTES and saying "He's been a little while--OH FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK" at the top of my voice and sprinting to the top of the stairs to hear the odd plaintive rattle, while Tony went to find a screwdriver.
I would like to state categorically, that we did not deliberately try and lock a beloved British author in our bathroom. It's the house's fault. Not ours. Honestly. I haven't even read Stephen King's Misery the whole way through!
(I'm not really sure he believed us, but he let us buy him dinner at the pub to make up for it, so that's okay I guess.)
Jewish #writers & other artists and thinkers write an open letter on how criticism of Israel is not antisemitism: “we find this rhetorical tactic antithetical to Jewish values, which teach us to repair the world, question authority, and champion the oppressed over the oppressor.” They also liken it to an “an insidious gagging of #FreeSpeech.”
Ugh! I found someone had scanned and uploaded a copy of my book to the Internet Archive, without my permission. When wanting to find a review to recommend a book to someone, I found that copyrighted book there, so looked for mine. I still own my copyright. This interferes with me creating an author-preferred edition (instead of the publisher's vision) as planned.
In their terms of service, you will find:
While we collect publicly available Internet documents, sometimes authors and publishers express a desire for their documents not to be included in the Collections (by tagging a file for robot exclusion or by contacting us or the original crawler group). If the author or publisher of some part of the Archive does not want his or her work in our Collections, then we may remove that portion of the Collections without notice.
You can only contact the Internet Archive through email as their telephone number is voicemail. AFAIK their website doesn't list take down procedures.
I have emailed them a takedown demand, with their identifier for my novel, and left the same message on their voicemail.
Please boost so your circle of followers will see this, especially if they are authors.
PS: Yes, they consider themselves a library. I don't mind if they loan an original paperback from Del Rey in paper form. I don't give them permission to scan and then display, or display someone else's scan of my book.
I'm seeing a lot of people selling advice for writers--plot structure, how to get published, how to self publish, etc--and it mostly looks like a huge scam, a way to get you to give them money that will not put you one inch closer to your goal.
Truth is, it's an industry that might decide it can make money off you, and talent/skill == success.
AHHH So excited to introduce my first ever shirt designs featuring quotes from my poetic texts.
I used Printify as print-on-demand climate friendly ethical provider for my designs and they are now available for purchase 🥺 This line is from my text "Emotional Responsibility", a text about transphobia and my non-binary identity.
Shirts here: https://skalys-merch.printify.me/products
So excited to introduce my first ever shirt designs featuring quotes from my poetic texts.
I used Printify as print-on-demand climate friendly ethical provider for my designs and they are now available for purchase 🥺 This line is from my text "Sorry", about mental health healing in context of family relationships, I added it here too. ❤️
Shirts here: https://skalys-merch.printify.me/products
'The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY on Thursday will present "The History and Legacy of the Center for Black Literature: An Online Exhibition" to celebrate the launch of the organization's digital archives. '
@NickEast@writers@writingcommunity@writing@humour We're watching an anime and we're like, "it's about time to lose somebody, isn't it?" and a character says something and we're all "Oh, no! Flag! Flag!!" and, yep, the music turns ominous.