The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

The Worst Things For Sale is Drew's blog. It updates every day. Subscribe to the Worst Things For Sale RSS!

In mid-2016, I wrote about YA publisher Month9 Books' abrupt decision to scale back its list, reverting rights to as many as 50 authors across all its imprints. Explaining the culling, Month9 founder and CEO Georgia McBride cited her own health problems, along with staffing issues and the company's "substantial growing pains" over the past six to nine months.

McBride's announcement triggered a surge of complaints from Month9 authors, who described a host of serious problems at the company, including late or missing payments (for staff as well as authors), problems with royalty accounting, delayed pub dates, broken marketing promises, overcrowded publication schedules, communications breakdowns, and harsh treatment and bullying by McBride.

According to authors and staff, these problems were not new or even recent, but had been ongoing for a long time. Why had authors kept silent? Almost every writer who contacted me mentioned their fear of retaliation--along with the draconian NDA included in Month9's contracts. I've rarely encountered a situation where authors seemed so fearful of their publisher.

Things quieted down after the initial flood of revelations, as they often do. Month9 survived and kept on publishing, though its list continued to shrink: between a high point in 2016 and now, the number of titles appears to have fallen about 50%. Apart from a handful of additional complaints in late 2016 and early 2017 (similar to this one), I didn't hear much about Month9 in the years following.

Until now. Over the past few weeks, I've been contacted by multiple writers who say they are still suffering from the same problems that surfaced in 2016: primarily, late (sometimes very late) royalty and subrights advance payments and statements (in many cases received only after persistent prodding by authors and their agents), and allegations of irregularities in royalty reporting.

The intimidation level, too, seems not to have changed. Most of the authors told me that they feared reprisal for coming forward, and asked me specifically not to mention their names or book titles. (Writer Beware never reveals names or other unique identifying information, unless we receive specific permission from the individual. That disclaimer is included on our website and in our correspondence.)

If you've been following the recent ChiZine scandal, you may be feeling some deja vu--notably, in the alleged existence of a toxic culture within the publisher that makes authors fearful and and helps to keep them silent. It's disappointing to learn that even if the issues that thrust Month9 into the spotlight three years ago have gone quiet, they don't seem to have eased. Writers be warned.


I wrote about Black Rose Writing in 2009, in connection with its requirement that authors buy their own books. Writers who submitted were asked how many of their own books they planned to buy; their response was then written into their contracts. (Book purchase requirements are back-end vanity publishing: even if writers aren't being asked to pay for production and distribution, they still must hand over money in order to see their work in print.)

Black Rose got rid of the book purchase requirement a few years later, and claimed to be a completely fee-free publisher. I had my suspicions that money might still somehow be involved, though...and as it turns out, I wasn't wrong.

I've recently learned that new Black Rose authors receive a Cooperative Marketing Catalog that sells a range of pay-to-play marketing and promotional services, with costs ranging from a few hundred dollars to four figures. For instance:


It's true that purchase is optional (though I would guess that authors are heavily solicited to buy). But reputable publishers don't sell marketing services to their authors--and in any case, much of what's on offer are things that other publishers, even very small ones, do for their authors free of charge, as part of the publication process.

That's not the only way in which Black Rose authors are encouraged to pay their publisher. Owner Reagan Rothe is a self-described "financial partner" in two additional businesses: the Maxy Awards, a high entry fee book competition that donates "a large part of every entry" to a charity (how large? No idea; that information is not provided); and Sublime Book Review, a paid review service.

Though Mr. Rothe's financial interest in these businesses is not disclosed on the business's websites, both businesses are clearly energetically promoted to Black Rose authors. On Sublime's website, nineteen of the first 20 book reviews are for Black Rose books. There's also this, from the marketing catalog (note the lack of disclaimer):


As for the Maxys, thirteen of the 17 winners and runners-up for 2019 are Black Rose books.

Mr. Rothe does admit his relationship with the businesses in this recent email to Black Rose authors--though only to afford them yet another opportunity to give him money:

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®


Early in 2019, seventeen writers were recruited to participate in a box set of medical thrillers, called (with unforeseen irony) Do No Harm.

The buy-in: $750, with net income from sales going to two designated charities, and participating writers receiving a pro-rated share of any net income above those contributions. The goal: through cooperative marketing efforts, to get the set on the USA Today bestseller list.

Here's how the opportunity was presented to potential participants (this is from an email that was shared with me):


In other words, right off the bat, authors were being primed not to expect to make money.

Helming the endeavor was a five-year-old PR company called Genius Media Inc., owned by a man called Wid Bastian (full name: Widtsoe T. Bastian). Per this long 2017 discussion on KBoards, one of Genius Media's not-so-genius MOs was to cold-contact writers by form email and offer glowingly-described Kindle Unlimited promotions. "For you, my estimate on an eBook promo is 10,000 plus downloads and 700 plus sales, positive ROI right out of the gate and huge page read income."

The cost: $2,000.

KBoards members urged caution, especially after expert analysis of Genius's claims indicated that its promotions weren't as successful as it advertised, and information offered by a writer who'd paid for a promo suggested that Genius was violating the TOS of the advertising platforms it used. Also noteworthy: this post from a writer who bought two promos from Genius, and lost money on each one. "That is what Genius Media told me to expect, that the first promo would not show a profit, but that by the second or third promo, they would show a profit." (The writer bought a third promo.)

As it turns out, these concerns were a sign of things to come.

Do No Harm was published, as promised, and made the USA Today bestseller list, also as promised. On October 3 (or possibly October 4), it was unpublished--three (or possibly four) days after the contractually-stipulated end date of September 30.

Per the contract (which you can see here), final reporting and payment was due to authors "no later than December 1". December 1 came...and went. Bastian promised anxious authors they'd get everything by December 15.

One day past that deadline, they did receive a report...but not from Genius Media. Between early December and December 16, with no notice or warning, a company called Kairos Phoenix had purportedly acquired Genius. Other than its business registration--in Wyoming, just like Genius's--and hometown--Logan, Utah, again just like Genius's--Kairos was a black box, with zero web presence. It had incorporated less than a month earlier, on November 22. (You can see the report here.)

That wasn't all that was suspicious. Here's Kairos's financial breakdown:


In other words, USA Today bestselling box set Do No Harm hadn't just failed to make a profit, it had lost money. But...where was the revenue from the $750 buy-in fees--which, with 17 authors, totaled $12,750? (Kairos's explanation: it wasn't included because it was "ordinary income" for Genius Media. "As stated in the contract, the fee was paid to 'participate' in DNH Collab by the author and for no other purpose".) Where were revenues for the days the set had been on sale past the unpublish deadline? (Kairos: "The contractual period for DNH Collab was strictly defined in the contract" as September 30, so any revenue past that date was "irrelevant".)

Equally troubling, why were there more than $15,000 in expenses--three-quarters of which were for "labor"--when the contract stipulated that expenses were not to exceed the total of the buy-in fees? According to Kairos, this wasn't really an expense cap: "This provision was specifically and intentionally included in the contract language to avoid the possibility of a 'cash call' – Genius Media asking authors to contribute more to DNH Collab to achieve the goal of making USA Today Bestseller status. No 'cash call' was ever made in the DNH Collab."

Here's the actual contract wording, though (my bolding):

For the purposes of the USA Today Bestseller Medical Thriller Author Publishing Collaborative Boxed Set program, Genius Media shall not incur any publication and promotion expenses of any nature in excess of the fees paid under the terms of its author agreements and shall have no power to obligate [redacted] or any other author for any publication and promotion expense above author fees paid whatsoever.

There's a "cash call" prohibition and an expense cap. But Kairos wanted writers to believe otherwise, so it could inflate expenses and ensure a loss.

It was obvious to Do No Harm participants that Kairos was taking the money and running--avoiding the substantial payouts it would otherwise have to make by retroactively interpreting contract language, and also enabling Bastian himself to claim he was blameless because of Genius's supposed takeover by an unrelated company. (No one was under any illusion that Kairos Phoenix was anything other than Bastian in a different guise.)

Authors were furious. On December 22, two of them, Christoph Fischer and Dan Alatorre, went public with their experience. Others posted warnings on Kairos's corporate business listing.

Do No Harm isn't the first time Bastian has run this scheme, either.


The box set in question appears to be Tales From Big Country, which was published around the same time as Do No Harm. A third set, Galaxia, was pubbed in September, with profits supposedly going to the Well Aware clean water charity. I've been told that Bastian is recruiting for other sets, including a collection of thrillers.

So who is Wid Bastian, a.k.a. Widtsoe T. Bastian?

His LinkedIn profile ("EXPOSE your new book to develop your author brand and sell more books!") identifies him as the owner of Genius Media, and also of an ebook promotion program called Book Dynamite. In an earlier profile on a freelancers' job site, he describes himself as a "published novelist and screenwriter" (more on that below) who "makes most of my daily bread as a ghostwriter." He also has an IMDB profile, presumably because of his efforts to make a film of the life of Greek Orthodox priest Fr. Themi Adamopoulos.

Genius Media's website has been taken offline, but traces remain in the form of cached pages, and here's how it looked in January 2016, courtesy of the Internet Archive (more recent versions haven't been archived). The company has a D+ rating from the BBB. Bastian also owned or was an officer with at least three other companies during the early to mid-1990s: Off & Flying, Prospex Interntaional [sic] (yes, it really was registered with a typo in the name), and Nevada Pension Investment Fund. Both Off & Flying and Prospex had their statuses "permanently revoked" a few years after incorporating. All three are long dead.

There is also a Widtsoe T. Bastian who pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts including embezzlement, money laundering, and bankruptcy fraud in US District Court in North Carolina, and in 2005 was sentenced to one hundred and forty-four months in prison and restitution of more than $3,000,000. Nothing I can find online directly connects Widtsoe T. Bastian of Genius Media to Widtsoe T. Bastian of North Carolina, so it may be a different person. But Widtsoe T. Bastian is quite an unusual name, as a websearch will make clear.

Finally...I can't say "what goes around comes around", since this pre-dates the ripoff that's the subject of this post, but it certainly seems like a case of advance karma: Bastian's own 2010 novel, Solomon's Porch, was published by none other than Tate Publishing & Enterprises, a notorious vanity publisher that scammed thousands of authors and a multitude of staff, and whose owners pleaded guilty in 2017 to an array of felony charges very similar to the ones described in the previous paragraph.

Tate authors suffered terribly at the hands of their unscrupulous publisher, but Wid Bastian is one Tate author I can't feel all that sorry for.

UPDATE 12/31/19: PACER was down yesterday, so I wasn't able to do a case search. I did so this morning, and here's what's there for Widtsoe T. Bastian:


Some of the listings are redundant, and several cite court documents without any links to those documents. But there's enough available to paint a tangled picture of a 1995 Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Nevada involving several companies in addition to the three mentioned above (the case was finally closed in 2002); a 1999 indictment in Nevada "on charges related to the operation of [Bastian's] venture capital firm"; failure to appear in a Nevada court in 2001; and a 2002 arrest in North Carolina, leading to the plea of guilty on 13 felony counts referenced above.

In 2012, Bastian was placed on probation or supervised release, and jurisdiction over his case was transferred to US District Court for Utah. His probation ended on May 4, 2015.

UPDATE 2/21/19: I'm featuring this comment from yesterday, as it's more indication of a pattern (the commenter has shared documentation with me that confirms what they say below):

In 2013-15, I hired Mr. Bastian as a ghost writer and later co-author of a novel we wrote together called Henry and Tom, sold through Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).

In mid 2015, Mr. Bastian embezzled money from a joint bank account we opened to pay for marketing campaigns for Henry and Tom. Rather than pursue embezzlement charges, I hired an expensive lawyer in Washington DC to transfer all rights for Henry and Tom to me in exchange for a $4K payment to Wid and a non-disparagement clause for both of us. This seemed at the time like the most expedient and cost effective way to deal with all the problems Mr. Bastian had caused.

I thought this matter was concluded until recently when Amazon/KDP informed me that a debt collection firm had placed a lien on Henry and Tom due to a bankruptcy filed by Wid Bastian/Genius Media Inc. KDP is currently sending my royalties to the collector per the lien. I have filed formal complaints with Attorneys General in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York in an attempt to have the lien removed in states where the debt collectors are registered. I have also filed formal complaints against Wid and Genius Media Inc. with the Attorney General of Utah and the County Attorneys Office in Providence, Utah.

I think blogs like this are creating awareness of the depth and extent of Wid’s continuing criminal activities so we can all work together to stop him from doing this to others and get him to face justice.

You'll note a reference to a bankruptcy. Wid Bastian filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition on January 13, 2020.


A number of victims of his box set schemes are listed as unsecured creditors; if you're one of them, you should have received a snail mail notice, but if you haven't, and are wondering if you're included, here's the Certificate of Notice, with all Bastian's claimed creditors.

The bankruptcy filings also confirm what everybody already knew: Kairos Phoenix was Wid Bastian. The reason he set up this company probably won't surprise you, either.

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware®

When is a literary contest not a literary contest?

When its purpose is to make money for the contest sponsor. Alternatively: when its purpose is to assemble a list of likely customers.

Take the online book competition (or book literary contest, or books competition--it doesn't seem to have an actual name) recently announced by Legaia Books, a publishing and marketing scam I've featured on this blog. Here's one of the solicitation emails that are going out:


Sound tempting? Here are all the reasons to kick this "contest" to the curb.

1. Legaia is a scam. This company--which claims a North Carolina address but really operates out of the Philippines--exists to rip off authors. That's really all the reason you need to give this contest a miss...but let's move on.

2. It's a scam within a scam. Legaia's contest has all the elements of a profiteering awards program--a different kind of scam, whose template Legaia is borrowing as a way to make some quick bucks and boost its customer list. Here are the markers:

• Solicitation. See the email above.
• A fat entry fee. You have to dig into the contest guidelines to find this: $40 for entries now, $70 for entries after May 11.
• Policies designed to maximize entries. Most profiteering awards programs offer dozens or scores of entry categories, in order to attract the largest number of entrants and thus the biggest pot of entry fees. Legaia's contest doesn't have categories--but it's "open to all aspiring and established authors", which, combined with what is doubtless a sizeable email solicitation campaign (Legaia is a prolific spammer), is basically the same thing.
• Mystery judging. The prestige of a literary competition is tied, in part, to the reputability of its judges. If the judges' identities aren't revealed, you have no way to know whether they have any credits or experience that would qualify them to be judges. They could be just the contest sponsor's own staff--or no one at all. Legaia's guidelines include multiple mentions of "judges" but, in true scam contest style, no names.
• Opportunities to spend more money. This is where entrants' email addresses--which are required for entry--come in handy; non-winners will almost certainly be solicited to buy Legaia's publishing packages and other services. (Contest guidelines also invite entrants without a book cover to "call us for a professional book cover.")
• Worthless prizes. Profiteering contest sponsors avoid cutting into entry fee income by offering "prizes" that cost them little or nothing to provide. Legaia is no exception. Given that its services are overpriced and substandard, a "Free Book Publication Coupon" is more like a lump of coal than a Christmas present. The "Seal Awards" aren't actual seals--just digital images. Winners are promised a "pitch program" that will expose them to "literary offices and film productions"--despite the fact that Legaia can't cite a single "literary office" or film studio that has ever picked up a book thanks to its (likely nonexistent) efforts. As for the "Marketing Platform worth $15,000"...Legaia offers only junk marketing ("marketing" that's cheap to provide, can be sold for giant markups, and is not effective for book promotion), so the actual worth is closer to zero. 

3. You have to work. In addition to submitting "your (a) manuscript, (b) synopsis, (c) book cover (front and full)" the contest guidelines indicate that there will be a public voting phase (see #7 and #8), which means you will have to bug your friends and family and annoy your social media followers with multiple vote-grubbing posts and announcements. Additionally, you must create a "pitch to the judges" which is "one of the criteria in the second phase of the contest as indicated in Rule 8". You have the option of making a video or using Legaia's "Free Pitch Template," whatever that is; the guidelines offer no guidance on length, content, or anything else.

4. Nobody has heard of it. The supposed benefits of a contest win or placement are often touted by sketchy contests or awards as one of the benefits of entering (not to mention a justification of a big entry fee). You'll be able to tag your book as an "award-winning book" and yourself as an "award-winning author". It'll impress agents and editors! It'll bring visibility to your work! It'll increase sales!

Most contests, however, don't have the prestige or name recognition to accomplish any of that. Agents and editors are well aware of how many dodgy contests are out there competing for writers' money; "I won Grand Prize in this contest you never heard of!" is unlikely to impress them. As for readers and book buyers, how much they care about award and contest wins is an open question--especially, again, where they've never heard of the award or contest. Is it worth $40 (or $70) to you to test that question?

5. A serious lack of literacy. Both the email solicitation reproduced above and the contest pages on the Legaia website are littered with grammatical and other errors (like its many brethren--see the sidebar--Legaia is based overseas). This really shouldn't need saying, but the sponsors of an English-language contest for English-language books should be able to demonstrate a good command of English.

Any one of these factors should be enough to at least cause you to give this contest the side-eye. Taken all together, they add up to a giant, screaming red flag.

My own feeling about literary contests is that they are mostly a waste of time (even if not of money). Scams and exploitation abound in this space (if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know how many posts I write about problem contests). Even where the contest is legit and doesn't have "gotchas" in its guidelines, those that can genuinely benefit your writing resume are a tiny minority. Again in my opinion, writers' time is better spent on publishing or submitting for publication.

That said...if you still are attracted by contests, there are resources on the Contests and Awards page of Writer Beware to help you research ones that won't rip you off. Also be sure to use the search box in the sidebar to search this blog for any contests I may have written about, and feel free to email me with questions.

Above: A new sticker to accompany my new pin! For worthwhile and obvious reasons, Emerald City Comic Con was cancelled this past week. (It’s been tentatively rescheduled for August.) So, like many folks for whom that convention is a tentpole of their business year, I did all the usual prep for the show, but didn’t […]

Hamilton Leithauser “The Garbage Men” “The Garbage Men” has a sort of shabby grandeur to it, particularly in the contrast of the unrestrained clattering percussion and a sampled horn loop that’s like a very rough approximation of a sentimental string arrangement from an old Hollywood film. It sounds like a guy stumbling around drunk through […]

Alexandra Savior “Bad Disease” Alexandra Savior belongs to a long tradition of torch singers, but the sound and lyrical concerns of “Bad Disease” place her in the overlap of a Venn diagram of Portishead and Lana Del Rey. I know it can read like a backhanded compliment to say an artist sounds like two others, […]

In October, the Supreme Court heard a case that was painfully ironic, considering the Kavanaugh hearings the nation had just been subjected to: a challenge to the United States’ extremely restrictive sex offender registry laws. While opinions on the case Gundy v. United States, which challenges the Attorney General’s ability to retroactively impose registry requirements, have yet […]

The last few weeks have seen Virginia racked by government scandals, including Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring’s histories with blackface, and allegations of sexual assault against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax. Democratic Party leadership has since swiftly called for the resignations of Northam and Fairfax — demands that some on both sides of the aisle […]

lol at the boat owners telling me "the best days of boat ownership are the day you get it and the day you sell it"

same-night delivery, nice

That does it for regular comics for 2019! I'll be running some bonus strips funded by my Patreon supporters through New Year's day, then regular comics will resume. Happy holidays!

Nerds

Belgian waffles may be about to become more environmentally friendly.

A hedge fund manager in Hong Kong has publicly apologised after a parody video of him licking his finger and wiping it on a hand rail in a metro car went viral, sparking anger in the city which is grappling to contain an outbreak of the new coronavirus.

A British vicar got more than he expected from his first attempt at an online sermon when he leaned too close to a candle on a cross and his sweater caught fire.

Chewy and Miley, both two-year-old Schnauzer dogs, are getting their hair cut at a groomer in Bangkok for the first time since the new coronavirus outbreak began in Thailand in January.

Dork Tower is 100% reader supported.  Join the Army of Dorkness today, and help bring more Dork Tower to the world! By becoming a Dork Tower Patreon backer, you get our everlasting gratitude (and also swag, commentary, bonus strips, and more swag), but, critically, you’ll help us reach our next goal – three comics a week! WE ARE […]

  Dork Tower is 100% reader supported.  Join the Army of Dorkness today, and help bring more Dork Tower to the world! By becoming a Dork Tower Patreon backer, you get our everlasting gratitude (and also swag, commentary, bonus strips, and even more swag), but, critically, you’ll help us reach our next goal – three comics a week! […]

Ireland’s 7,000 pubs, 50,000 staff and millions of customers are in crisis. Time for some blue-sky thinking…

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

If it’s a balmy evening and you hear buzzing in the sky over Rathdrinagh, a townland in the middle of Ireland, the odds are that it’s not bees but beer.

Specifically, a drone carrying bottles of beer, and maybe a bag of crisps. “Bottles of Heineken usually, or sometimes a few cans of Bulmers,” said Avril McKeever.

Continue reading...

Cities like Barcelona want to use crisis to allow people to rent properties at decent rates

Airbnb has revolutionised travel and since it was founded in 2008 hundreds of thousands of property owners have used the holiday accommodation platform to make ends meet, make a living and, in some cases, make a killing.

But while hosts, as they are known, are wringing their hands over the collapse of the travel industry and their loss of income, many city authorities are rubbing theirs at the prospect of thousands of holiday lets returning to the traditional rental market. Cities complain that the highly profitable holiday lets have driven up rents and forced out residents with the knock-on effect that local businesses no longer have a community to serve.

Continue reading...

We want to see your photos, videos and audio of what it is like doing your job on the frontline

Staff working for the NHS have expressed concern about the lack of protective personal equipment, with photographs circulating on social media of staff creating their own makeshift items, including with clinical waste bags.

We want to see healthcare workers’ photos, videos and audio of what it is like doing their job.

Continue reading...