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This is based entirely on a conversation I had with a scam publisher, and responses to my blog in which that conversation appeared.

What happenned was on myspace.com, I was contacted and asked to submit a story to a magazine I'd never heard of. I checked it out and what caught my eye, right away, was the ten dollar reading fee.

I contacted the publisher who was later dubbed "King Douche" by a friend of mine(an actual friend) so I will refer to himn as such through the rest of this article. I told King Douche that it was ridiculous to have a reading fee, and I asked him what it was for.

His response was that it was to weed out bad writers. Having money means good writer, not having money means bad writer. He said that if a person isn't willing to put up ten dollars to have a story published, they won't be willing to put up $1000 to have their novel published.

It was then that I realized that I was talking to a person who knew absolutely nothing about the publishing industry.

I read his blog and he was working on an audio book short story collection that he guranteed would be downloaded by thousands of people. No small press can gurantee even one sale, so I asked King Douche how he was able to gurantee that and he became very defensive, he said that he didn't know what I was talking about.

The truth is that it doesn't cost a penny to have a book published, it costs no money to get an agent, and if you are writing short stories, odds are, you aren't working on a novel.

King Douche is an example of an obvious fraud. Not all frauds are obvious, so before you submit a story anywhere, be sure to ask questions.

Ask if it costs you anything.[Yes=scam]

Ask if you will retain rights to your story.[No=scam]

Ask if they have a readership.

Ask if they have ever published an established or popular writer, and whom.

Keep your correspondence saved so that if anything goes bad (I.E. breach of contract) you have evidence and may be able to do something about it.

Fees and lost copyrights should raise red flags in your mind.

And, last but not least, check out http://www.anotherealm.com/pre deditors/ to see if they show up as a scam.

Any publisher that tries to sell you anything is a scam. No legitimate publisher wants your money, they want your work. They'll get money from selling your work.

Learn more about this author, Alvin Spines.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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