Firstly - About Kris
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance, and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists all over the world and have been published in 14 countries and 13 different languages.
This post was written by: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
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Aug•
29•12
From
the beginning, I have warned readers of this blog away from services
that promise to publish your e-books for a percentage of the royalties. I
haven’t done so in a while, and I really need to again.
These businesses will harm you and your career. Best case, they’re run by well-intentioned idiots who have no idea how a business works. Worst case, they’re scams.
Most of the ones I’ve seen are scams.
This particular topic came up this week in a strangely roundabout way. I have my Facebook e-mail notifications shut off, but every now and then one slips through. On Thursday, I got one in which a friend of mine mentioned me and Dean in a comment on a bestselling writer’s post. I was rather stunned that my friend, also a bestselling writer, knew the bestselling writer in question. My friend’s a military sf guy, and she’s a romance author. Neither reads each other’s genre. But, I figured as I clicked on the link, that shouldn’t get in the way of friendship.
His comment was rather strange. It said that he had self-published five e-books and he would never, ever pay anyone 15% of those royalties. Then he told the bestselling romance writer to look at my blog and Dean’s blog for his reasons why.
When I clicked on the link, his comment was gone. There were 30-some other comments, but none from him, and none negative.
The post he was responding to was also strange. It purported to be from the bestselling romance author. She listed a service—which shall go nameless here—that was now e-publishing her backlist. She recommended everyone use it because “e-publishing isn’t as easy as everyone makes it out to be.”
Okay, fine. I know that for some people the learning curve is high and it frightens them. I know that others simply don’t have the time to spend on indie publishing. I figured she was one of those.
But as I scrolled through the comments, I noticed something else strange. She responded to every five comments by linking to that e-publishing service’s website. The language of her posts was odd as well. It was riddled with typos and other mistakes that she didn’t make anywhere else on her Facebook page.
And the posts didn’t sound like her.
I never did find my sf friend’s comment. Someone had deleted it. If anyone had responded to it by agreeing with my friend (and I have no idea if anyone did), then that comment was gone as well.
It wasn’t until I dug into that e-publishing service’s Terms of Use that I figured out what was going on. The bestselling romance writer didn’t write that post on her Facebook page. The e-service did. They handled all social media related to books for the author.
Here’s the thing that started me on a slow burn, however. The original post mentioned the e-service six times. It never once mentioned the title of any book by the bestselling romance writer.
Those of you who have writers among your Facebook friends should understand how fishy this is. After all, when we writers have a new book out—or a backlist book out—we mention it. We put a link to the place to buy the book. We might even mention who published it, but never ever do we mention the publisher without mentioning the book.
For more on this informative post by Kristine, visit her blog - HERE
Kristine on Facebook - HERE
Kristine on Amazon - HERE
Rusch won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2001 for her story "Millennium Babies", the 2003 Endeavour Award for The Disappeared 2002, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for "Recovering Apollo 8" in 2008.
She is married to fellow writer Dean Wesley Smith; they have collaborated on several works.
She edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for six years, from mid-1991 through mid-1997, winning one Hugo Award as Best Professional Editor.
Rusch and Smith operated Pulphouse Publishing for many years and edited the original (hardback) incarnation of Pulphouse Magazine; they won a World Fantasy Award in 1989.
These businesses will harm you and your career. Best case, they’re run by well-intentioned idiots who have no idea how a business works. Worst case, they’re scams. book covers
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