Victoria Strauss's avatar

Victoria Strauss

@victoriastrauss.bsky.social

3214 followers 321 following 630 posts

Adult/YA novelist, fanatical gardener, co-founder of SFWA's publishing industry watchdog group Writer Beware. Talking about scams, publishing, & items of writerly interest (plus the occasional cat pic) writerbeware.blog victoriastrauss.com

Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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This is the NYT’s takeaway from that interview? Not regretting canceling my subscription.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Yes, the Post is bad too, but less so. I want to keep at least one big paper and I value its climate coverage.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Agreed. I struggled with the decision, because journalism is so much under threat these days, but there really seems to be an agenda with the Biden coverage, and I just couldn't overlook it anymore in favor of the parts of NYT that are still valuable.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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New Writer Beware blog post: The Curious Case of Fullers Library and Its Deceptive Link Requests. A bogus library turns out to be a clever link building scam. writerbeware.blog/2024/07/05/t...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Just canceled my long-standing NY Times subscription. Looking at its coverage of Joe Biden, not just over the past week but the whole of this year, it's like Hillary 2016 but worse. Can't help wondering if there's been an editorial decision that Trump will win & they need to insulate themselves

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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My garden today

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Heigh ho, another day, another fake literary agency. ImplicitPress Literary Agency has all the signs: solicitation, fake publishing offers, a crack "team" of stock images, a website rife with uncorrected typos, and a web domain just 22 days old www.implicitpressliteraryagency.com

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Adding shit to a shit day: Dude in a van just rang my doorbell & tried the "your husband hired us to fix your gutters" scam on me. Though hubby sometimes arranges things w/out telling me, I knew he'd never hire this particular company. Sent Dude away in short order. Good luck scamming a scam hunter

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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I published this post about UK fee-charger LR Price Publications' delays, bullying, & threats last December. As of now, I've gotten 87 author complaints (& there are more on social media). One of my most updated posts ever. Behold the latest shenanigan: writerbeware.blog/2023/12/01/a...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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The right to say no is literally what establishing a rights framework is about. But it seems like we’ll have to agree to disagree.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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I agree the lawsuits are necessary, but there’s no guaranteed outcome. I believe one, at least, has already been dismissed, or dismissed in part. Lawsuits also take lots of time, during which common practice sets its own, not necessarily good, precedents.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Tell that to the authors who've had their work used w/out permission. Right now, you can't say "no" because there's no mechanism for you to say _anything_ regarding the use of your rights by AI companies. This kind of resistance to creating a rational rights scheme just baffles me.

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Reposted by Victoria Strauss

Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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WriterBeware is blogging at Writer Unboxed this week, with a post on what to do if you've been scammed: suggestions for getting your money back, reporting the scammer, and seeking legal advice writerunboxed.com/2024/06/28/c...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Agreed, but it's happening anyway. And writers need to figure out how they will function in that reality. Figuring out how to keep some degree of control and get paid for use of their work is one way of doing that.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Maybe, but if there's no accepted way for you to control and profit from those rights, you can expect them to continue to be stolen from you. The whole point of creating an AI rights scheme is to enable creators to have a voice in the process.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Very true. I just read an article about what it’s doing to the electrical grid.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Illustrators, have you received an email from Art Lab Agency praising your art & asking if you'd be interested in working together? They disclose that it's "not a free service" but that's putting it mildly: what they're pitching is a "mentorship + representation program" costing £3500.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Here's my fairly skeptical blog post on American's Next Great Author--an idea that keeps popping up and keeps failing: writerbeware.blog/2022/07/15/a... Haven't heard anything about Big Sea Books, though--I'll check it out.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Scammers often buy domains for the sole purpose of sending out scam emails.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Scammer (I'm not sure which one) impersonating the New York Times. Here's a link to the "application form" mentioned in the email; note the fake @newyorktimesbooks.com email address docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Scam alert: Ghostwriting scam Prime Publishing House is sending solicitation emails, falsely claiming that real authors have used its services (several have reported this to me). Always beware of solicitations, and for more on ghostwriting scams see my blog post writerbeware.blog/2022/01/24/h...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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My Emily adapted to her harness right away (she’s an indoor cat with weight issues and we wanted to give her more activities). Now she asks me to go walkies, which really just means a saunter around the garden so she can sniff things and try to eat leaves.

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Reposted by Victoria Strauss

Jason Sanford's avatar Jason Sanford @jasonsanford.bsky.social
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My new Genre Grapevine is out, covering the RWA declaring bankruptcy, how Babel winning the Xingyun Award is a rebuke of Hugo Award censorship, Hugo statues not being delivered to Winners, PenguiCon punishing a victim of harassment, and more genre news and info. www.patreon.com/posts/105441...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Sounds like a premise for a horror movie. Or maybe a new type of superhero

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Reposted by Victoria Strauss

Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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If you get a call from Octagon Library or Richmond Indie Books (both purportedly in Virginia) asking about book orders, be wary. Not sure what the scam is--maybe phishing, maybe fake checks--but Octagon doesn't seem to exist & Richmond Indie has extremely sketchy website www.richmondindiebooks.com

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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New guest blog post at Writer Beware: Disney, Books, and the Copyright Claims Board. Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today takes a look at the recent resolution of one of the CCB's longest-running infringement cases writerbeware.blog/2024/05/31/g...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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When they aren’t paying their writers, though…

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Per @publisherslunch.bsky.social , independent publisher Polis Books will close down soon, with books either "re-homed" with new publishers or rights reverted. Problems appear to be of long standing; Writer Beware received several complaints of royalty payment issues in 2022.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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I remember seeing the fire on TV--it's one of those events, like Jonestown, that stands out in my memory because it was so shocking and horrifying. There's an excellent documentary about it called Let the Fire Burn.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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New Writer Beware blog post: A critical look at contracts from startup comics creation platform Dashtoon, which has been approaching authors with offers to license books for adaptation writerbeware.blog/2024/05/10/c...

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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That's what I was thinking--next work first refusal clauses where "next work" means any work and authors are bound for the duration of the contract. It would be great if those would go away.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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I'm really interested also, would love to see a deep dive into the implications by someone with the right expertise

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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When I posted this earlier today, a couple of people raised the question of whether independent contractors (writers) are covered, as opposed to just employees. Rule is over 500 pages so obviously I haven't read it all (!) but its definition of "worker" specifically includes independent contractors

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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I'm not sure, but you're not the only person who has raised this point. Need to do some more checking.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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I generally agree. I tend toward pessimism in general, but it really does seem that authors always come in last.

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Victoria Strauss's avatar Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.bsky.social
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Writers take note: a recent FTC ruling bans non-compete clauses, which often appear in publishing contracts (& often bar you from pubbing a similar work for duration of contract). Rule is set to go into effect this year (though will likely be delayed by legal challenges) www.ftc.gov/news-events/...

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