writers.com newsletter
a monthly electronic publication from
Writers on the Net
http://www.writers.com
Vol. 8, No. 1
January 2005
IN THIS ISSUE:
AVOIDING SCAMS by Paula Guran
CLASS SCHEDULE
IN STYLE: Ayem and Peeyem
ROOTS: "books, paper, pages"
NEWSLINKS
QUOTATION
AVOIDING SCAMS
By Paula Guran
An attorney friend of mine emailed me the other day asking me if I knew anything about Such-and-Such Literary Agency. Since it was a client-related matter, I have no idea why he was inquiring about Such-and-Such, but I had heard of them -- negatively -- and told him so. I also supplied a few message boards and writers sites that mentioned the agency.
Writers can avoid most scams and other unsavory practices by being informed and using some common sense. The Web is a great help with the former, but possession of the latter may be more difficult than you think. Even a usually skeptical writer can be so wrapped up in their aspirations that they lose sight of reality.
Your authorial hopes may soar when thinking someone wants to publish (or represent or help) you. Happy juice starts drenching your brain and all traces of healthy cynicism may be washed away. But even if your heart is ruling your head, you can at least be well informed.
These Web sites all provide warnings or discussion of various ways writers are being scammed:
As for common sense, keep the following in mind:
- Does it seem too good to be true? Well, it probably is. If you
receive a communication from out of the blue, receive a phenomenally
fast reply, or what is obviously a form letter, it's highly likely you
should have suspicions. Certain phrases used in such communications
should also send off warning bells. Editor Theresa Nielsen Hayden has
written an article and a follow-up
listing "linguistic markers" that can reveal scammers.
- Have you been asked to pay for anything?
- Reputable agents (usually) and publishers do not ask for
"expenses," an "evaluation" or "reading" fee, "copying," "processing,"
or "marketing" fees. Publishers pay authors. Agents take a percentage of
successful deals they make for you. The usual commission is 10-15% on
domestic sales and 20-25% on co-agented sales. (Occasionally there may
be an agreement other than a percentage of earnings.) I include "usually" because
there are some legitimate agents
who do charge reading fees, but it is frowned upon. The Association of
Author's Representatives (http://www.aar-online.org/) canon of ethics,
for example, prohibits its members from charging a reading fee. If you
are asked for a reading fee, it should be nominal and understand it does
guarantee representation.
- Have you been referred to a paid "editing" or book-doctoring
service? (Including the publisher or agent's own services.) Have they
offered to "critique" your work for a fee?
Are there any conditions of publication? "Co-publishing,"
"joint publishing", "subsidy publishing" and other such deals are
synonyms for vanity or self-publication. You are paying to have your
book published. The only thing "joint ventures" in which you share to
"risks and rewards" of publication are no risk to the "publisher," but
they are to you.
- If you want to self-publish, there are plenty of ways of
going about it that leave you in control -- but make sure you aren't
being overcharged for printing or other services and that the quality of
the printing is up to industry standard. (Yes, you have to research and
compare - but the Internet and email make it relatively easy to
do.)
There are more subtle ruses concerning conditions of
publication, too, such as requiring you to purchase a certain number of
copies yourself or pay for particular "marketing" tools. Although
authors with an established mail list or following will probably want to
provide a legit publisher with access, there are "publishers" who won't
publish your book unless you deliver a list of email and/or snail mail
addresses of friends and family to solicit.
One of the most common (and legal) ways of taking advantage of
writers are "contests" -- often for poetry -- that include your work in
a pricey anthology you are required or requested to buy. There's no
selection or editing process involved and the resulting book exists only
because you and others have been duped. (You'll also be the only ones to
receive copies of the book.)
There are a few danger warnings you may have heard that are NOT
entirely valid. They include:
- Agents/publishers should be members of certain organizations
or on certain list. Although an agent's membership AAR (or in the UK,
the Association of Author's Agents) is a very good indication of
legitimacy, it is no guarantee. Also, some agents simply prefer not to
join and some newer agents have not yet qualified. For film agents,
however, membership in the WGA is almost mandatory simply because
studios and producers will seldom deal with non-members, even though
there is not need to prove professional competence in order to join.
And, although WGA members cannot charge to read scripts, they are free
to do so with books and book manuscripts. LITERARY MARKETPLACE is a
valuable tool, but it is a list, not the Ethics Police Report.
Legitimate publishers, agents, and others may not even want to be
listed. A listing can mean far more inquiries than they want to
handle.
- The agent has an address other than one close to New York or
California. Although there are great advantages to being located in
these two entertainment/publishing hubs, it has become less necessary to
be physically located there
- The publisher or agent does not have a "business" telephone
number; the phone is "answered" by machine or voice mail. Many agents
and small publishers work from home offices - just as almost all writers
do.)
- The publisher does not use Library of Congress numbers. Many
perfectly legitimate independent presses do not bother to obtain an LOC
number.
IN STYLE: "Ayem and Peeyem"
THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE tells us: "The abbreviations a.m. (_ante meridiem_) and p.m. (_post meridiem_) often appear in small capitals...[I can't show small caps in text, but I imagine you know what they are], in which case no periods are necessary." CMS doesn't mention it, but lower case-with-periods is considered correct (a.m. and p.m.) while upper case-with-periods (A.M. and P.M.) can be considered incorrect as these are abbreviations of temporal relationships, not names. Still, depending on what style has been determined by a publication, you will find A.M./P.M. and am/pm acceptable. Few quibble with this, but do remember to be consistent with whatever style is chosen. Typographers and most copyeditors will also strictly enforce the space between numerals and abbreviations, so never attempt to slip in a "3pm" or the like.
"A.m." and "p.m." are, of course, Latin abbreviations for _ante meridiem_ ("before noon") and _post meridiem_ ("after noon"). Despite colloquial use (*I'll meet you in the a.m.*) as nouns, and they are usually considered adverbial phrases that should not be used in English as nouns meaning "morning" and "afternoon." The argument can be made that English commonly converts other types of words into nouns (this process is called "nominalization"). But, as your mother probably told you, "commonly" does not always mean "properly."
"Noon" and "midnight" are neither "ante" nor "post," so it makes sense to use the words alone (and never as 12 p.m. or 12 a.m.). It is standard to use a colon to separate hours from minutes (7:15 p.m.) and to use the numeral no zeros (7 p.m.) with the exact hour. Redundancies, such as 12 noon or 12 midnight and 7:30 a.m. this morning or 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night are to be avoided. Use noon, midnight, 7:30 a.m. today, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
ROOTS
"book, page, paper"
Although there are other meanings, "book" is most commonly used to refer to a bound collection of printed paper pages sewn or glued together along one side and bound between protective covers. The word "book" comes from the Old English "boc" and shares its Indo-European ancestry with the English word "beech." "Boc" originally referred to any written document and it may be derived from the white-barked tree itself or the idea that ancient Germanic tribes carved their runes on beechwood tablets. "Boc" is the source for "Boughton," a common English place-name meaning "farmstead where beech-trees grow."
Since the mid-nineteenth century, paper has been made primarily from wood fibers, so the connection between a tree and a product made from its pulp seems natural to us, but the word "paper" itself has nothing to do with wood.
"Paper" came into English around 1340 and was derived from the Old French "papier" which was based on the Latin "papyrus," meaning "paper plant, paper made of papyrus stalks." Latin took it from the Greek "papyros" which meant "any plant of the paper plant genus." (The plural is "papyri.") The word "page" has its roots in "papyrus," too. It's a shortening the French "pagene" from Latin "pagina," which meant "strips of papyrus fastened together."
The origin of the Greek's "papyrus" was an ancient Egyptian word that can be translated as "that which belongs to the house" -- "house" referring to the ancient Egyptian administrative system. Similarly, via Greek, we obtained the word "pharaoh." The Egyptian word (pronounced approximately as) "per-aa" literally meant "great house" and was "originally used to describe the royal court or the state itself, in the sense that the 'great house' was responsible for the taxation of the lesser houses ('perw'), which were the temple lands and private estates."
Writing sheets made from the papyrus plant were probably in use as early as 4000 BC. By the third century AD, papyrus-paper started to be replaced by European parchment or vellum. The use of other plant fibre-pulp eventually became the predominate method of papermaking in Egypt and the rest of the world. The papyrus plant itself became practically extinct in Egypt. In the 1960s and '70s, an Egyptian inventor, engineer, and diplomat, Dr. Hassan Ragab, reintroduced the papyrus plant into Egypt from the Sudan and Ethiopia where it still grew naturally. Ragab also re-discovered how to make smooth, integral sheets of papyrus. Papyrus-making continues to be a small thriving industry in Egypt. Ragab, died on 11 January 2004 at the age of 92.
QUOTATION:
"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."
-- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
Copyright (c) 2005 Writers on the Net. This publication may not be
reproduced in print or posted on the Web or used in any other fashion,
in whole or in part, without written permission from Writers on the Net.
Want to receive "Writers.com" or get rid of it?
http://writers.com/maillist.htm or by emailing writers@writers.com
"Writers.com" is produced for Writers on the Net by Paula Guran
(paula@writers.com).
home:about:classes:enroll:services:instructors:newsletter:tips:store
writers on the
net/writers.com
© 1995-2008
