{"id":44396,"date":"2019-02-26T13:42:49","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T18:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/?p=44396"},"modified":"2019-03-19T08:24:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T12:24:15","slug":"hot-takes-part-oh-honey-you-went-and-pissed-me-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2019\/02\/hot-takes-part-oh-honey-you-went-and-pissed-me-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Takes: Part …Oh, honey…you went and pissed me off."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dictionary,<\/a>Wow. I think I stirred the pot with my scam talk yesterday. Some scammer types aren’t happy. Which, hey, that pleases me, but on the other hand…honey, you pissed me off.<\/p>\n

Nora Roberts saw my blog<\/a> post from yesterday & emailed me about linking it to hers. No, I didn’t fangirl squeal,\u00a0 Laura. I’m getting better, I swear. BTW, did you know know Nora once complimented me on my necklace<\/a>? So we’re totally best buds now.<\/p>\n

But I’m getting offtrack.<\/p>\n

I want to talk\u00a0scammers<\/em>, not my BFF relationship with the Queen of Romance.<\/p>\n

It’s been an interesting week for me, really. Some pithy emails from various people, most of whom have never met me, being snidely condescending or outright insulting about the topics I’ve been discussing. Most of the emails, I’ve ignored, because frankly, they don’t deserve my attention if that’s going to be their attitude.<\/p>\n

I’ve deleted a couple of asshole comments at my blog, because well…I don’t tolerate assholes in my house.\u00a0 I’ve flat-out called one person out on one post because it was obvious they wanted to derail shit.<\/p>\n

Some of the crap has been insulting & disheartening, but I can’t say I’ve really been pissed.<\/p>\n

Until today. And the prick didn’t even have the balls to come outright and address his\/her comments to me.<\/p>\n

I, however, don’t have that problem.<\/p>\n

First, before we get started<\/h4>\n

Let’s touch on the definition of scam,\u00a0<\/em>from our friend, Merriam Webster<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

scam<\/h1>\n

noun<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\\<\/span>\u00a0\u02c8skam<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\\<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Definition of\u00a0scam<\/em><\/h2>\n

\u00a0(Entry 1 of 2)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n
:\u00a0<\/strong>a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Scammer<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>would be somebody who participated in such. Oh, say,\u00a0exploitive actions that engaged in dishonest tactics to deceive for financial gain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meet Frost<\/a>.<\/h4>\n

Frost clearly didn’t like my Twitter talk about scammers, especially as it relates to how they engage in the practice of selling manuscripts. See the comment left below on my BFF\/Nora’s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In reply to Nora Roberts.
\nThe link you posted above is suggesting that authors cannot sell their intellectual property (their books) to other authors and publishers. It\u2019s literally calling someone a \u201cscammer\u201d for selling the rights to some books they wrote.<\/em>
\nHow on Earth is that a scam?<\/em>
\nBy that measure, every single traditional publisher that has ever bought rights to a book (and subsequently published that title with their own cover and marketing spin) would be a \u201cscammer\u201d.<\/em>
\nThat\u2019s silly.<\/em>
\nDo you genuinely think it\u2019s a scam for someone to sell the publishing rights\/copyright for their original work to another person? If that person then packages and sells that book to the masses, is that a scam?<\/em>
\nI\u2019m genuinely open to talk if you want to have a quick dialogue about this stuff. That link you posted is just an honest author trying to sell the books THEY wrote, and some random silliness besides.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, Nora linked to a twitter moment<\/a> I’d done that was connected to my blog post Hot Takes: Part\u2026who knows? So you want to know how to spot the scammers<\/a>. The post addresses everything in that moment and then some, highlighting how some ‘authors’ buy books from other ‘authors’, repackage them with a new name & cover,\u00a0without disclosing any of that<\/em> and sell the books as new.<\/p>\n

Sidenote:\u00a0<\/strong>there’s no ‘authoring’ going on here. Not even in the form of legit ghostwriting. There’s no creativity. There’s no work. They buy a used-up manuscript, dust it off, slap a cover on it, SOMETIMES change names with find\/replace, then\u00a0SELL THE THING AS NEW<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0<\/strong>THAT IS NOT BEING A WRITER. THAT IS NOT BEING A CREATOR. THAT’S NOT EVEN ACTING AS A FRICKING PUBLISHER. THE WORDS YOU WANT ARE\u00a0AUTHOR + MILL.<\/em><\/p>\n

‘Frost’ comes in and tries to make it sound like when a legit<\/em> author gets their rights back on a backlist title, then reformats, recovers and reissues,\u00a0it’s the same thing as a scammer buying a manuscript he didn’t write, recovering, repackaging and passing it off as his own<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at a couple of things here…<\/p>\n

He’s saying people who do this…<\/p>\n

\n

Yeeesh I wonder if she paid her ghostwriter $1000 each. Anyway, buy some books. Looks like N Alleman & J Chase purchased a few. See how they changed the character names & book summary. That’s important. pic.twitter.com\/bM9fMcHrRu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Nikki (@ease_dropper) October 12, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n