Month: April 2011

Posted on

Notes Schmotes.

argue

The dichotomy of having a great manager who gives excellent feedback and a personal disagreement of notes given on a project is causing me to have lockjaw of the keyboard. In other words; “I don’t wanna do it and you can’t make me.”

My manager single handedly helped improve a different project based on her notes and even though I disagreed with some of them, I incorporated the notes and the end product was better.

So am I just feeling the same rebellious authoritarian control impediment I have with my work, or do I really disagree with the notes?  As someone who has work starting to make the rounds out there, I am really struggling with this.

When do you know?

When do you trust yourself, your work  and disagree with a note?

Tell me. When does this happen?

Quickly, before I faint from locking my knees.

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Finding Work.

tvA quick note about networking.

Keep in mind that actors and other entertainment industry related individuals besides producers and production companies are willing and able to hire screenwriters for work. I recently completed a paid assignment that included writing a treatment for an actress who had been asked to submit a reality show idea for the Oprah Winfrey Network. Not completely confident in what a treatment entailed or writing the entire thing, the actress hired me to do the dirty work.

We found ourselves on the same wavelength, discussed what she wanted the show to be like and I set to work writing a treatment she could submit to the agent. I wish her luck because I genuinely like her idea and if she gets brought into the office to pitch the idea further, she’ll take me with her and what writer hates that?

Don’t be afraid to turn over every stone when you’re building your portfolio.

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Adding to the white noise.

Publish America scams Writers. What's new about that?

Re: Publish America

I have no personal experience with this self-publishing company, however I do know a few people who have used their services. The overall opinion I’ve gathered is the writer has learned some sort of negative lesson from using Publish America’s services and went to a different company for their second novel.

I’m adding noise to the growing dissension of authors hoping the search engines pick up my entry as one more article begging writers to stay the hell away from this company.

For this entry, I’m specifically referring to their current scam going on right now.

Here’s what’s happening:

  1. A customer/author of Publish America pays 99$ (or 119$) to have their novel submitted to Amazon Studios (a new contest started in November, 2010)
  2. Publish America uploads their novel to the Amazon Studio’s website. (studios.amazon.com)

Here are the issues I have with this arrangement:

  • It is FREE to enter the contest at Amazon Studios, so why is Publish America charging authors to do this?
  • Amazon Studios is a SCREENPLAY contest and wants nothing to do with novels. They are two totally different types of media.
  • No one is converting or will convert your novel into a screenplay for the measly payment of 99$. It takes months (for experts) and a lot of money to adapt a novel. Publish America doesn’t have enough monkeys behind the mirror to handle the projects they’ve charged an author to convert a novel on their behalf (if that is indeed what they may have promised to authors).
  • If Publish America has misrepresented themselves to the authors, that is illegal behavior.
  • At this point, Publish America refuses to reimburse writers who have realized they were scammed.

I urge any writer connected to this issue to write Paypal (the company authorizing the charges for these services) and recommend Paypal freeze Publish America’s paypal account until Publish America refunds the writers who want their money back, or until it’s determined what Publish America is doing is not breaking the Paypal terms of service. Somehow, I think scamming authors might upset Paypal, but you never know. Paypal isn’t a golden child either.

Or better yet, organize and start a class action law suit. You deserve better and you shouldn’t allow yourself to be abused in this manner. Don’t take a “non-refund” as the final word. Writers, especially new ones are easy targets. Once you’ve learned a lesson from this, please let it be your last and remember the age old motto: If it seems too good to be true ___________ fill in the blank.

If you are a customer of Publish America and you would like to follow this scam from its discovery to its current state of affairs, here are a couple links to get you started.

Recent media uncovering this scam can be found here:

One of the first announcements of the scam:
http://theauditorz.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/scams-and-flams/

Recent update on the scam:
http://theauditorz.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/the-revenge-of-scams-and-flams/

Great places to report fraud:

BBB
RipOffReport.Com
Internet Crime Complaint Center
The Consumerist

URLS of the products in question:

http://www.publishamerica.net/product37377.html
http://www.publishamerica.net/product37376.html