Tips for Writers

Writer’s Tips – Plagiarization, Signing Contracts, and Book Covers

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For this week’s edition of Writer’s Tips, I found some helpful and informative articles around the web on how to deter copyright thieves from our writing, caveats when signing contracts, and a wonderful article from Andrew Joyce, guest writing at The Story Reading Ape’s blog on why it’s important to have a great book cover.

 

The ‘cut and paste’ thief and what to do if you find your work being plagiarized

https://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-cut-and-paste-thief-and-what-to-do.html

 

Another informative post from Hugh Roberts – How to discover if your work is being plagiarized and how to go about rectifying

https://hughsviewsandnews.com/2019/05/13/how-to-help-stop-somebody-stealing-your-blog-posts/comment-page-1/#comment-80843

 

Great info from Alex at Standout Books on learning your rights when it comes to signing contracts.

https://www.standoutbooks.com/legal-obligations-self-publishing/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=21603&tl_period_type=3

 

By now I’m sure most of you know how important a book cover is for selling books. I’d say that the three most important things in getting someone to plunk down cold hard cash for one of your books are: 1) word of mouth, 2) your book cover, and 3) your blurb. However, you’re not going to get any word of mouth unless you first sell a few books, and to do that you’ll need to have a dynamite and unique cover … and a great blurb. But the cover has to come first. .

https://thestoryreadingapeblog.com/2019/05/12/book-covers-guest-post-by-andrew-joyce/

 

©DGKayewriter.com

32 thoughts on “Writer’s Tips – Plagiarization, Signing Contracts, and Book Covers”

    1. Thanks Marian. I read a lot of newsletters daily. I take what I think would be relevant for my writing friends and keep in a folder for the next writing tip post. 🙂

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  3. Thanks so much for including a link to my recent post about how to help stop someone stealing your blog posts, Debby. Having had it happen to me three times (and I was somebody who thought it would never happen to me), although having copyright notices will not stop every thief, it will stop some.
    I’m pleased to say that I have been successful in all three cases where I’ve had my stolen work being removed from the offender’s blog. In one case, the offender’s blog was removed entirely. I must thank WordPress for having such an excellent process in place that helped me reclaim work that was mine.

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  5. WordPress provides great support in keeping the stealers and spam droppers ay bay. One such thief deleted the post that was stolen from my blog when I warned, pleading innocence about copyright notice.
    Thanks for posting these meaningful shares Deb.

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  7. It amazes me how much plagiarism and theft there is of written material. People can be really unkind, greedy, and disrespectful. Combatting it can be a full-time job! Thanks for the great links, Debby. 🙂

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  8. Thanks for these tips, Debby. I suppose I’m lucky in that I haven’t had my work plagiarised (that I know of anyway) as of yet. Do you still belong to the ‘Blasty’ site?

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    1. How do we know this for sure? It’s a big wide web. If our books are stolen why wouldn’t our content be? Remember how many books we found stolen with Blasty? I had resigned on for another year and was still getting a ton of blasts. It just ran out and I’m not renewing again. Cyber crimes run amok with stolen content. 😦

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  9. You keep finding the good ones, DG! If I ever get rolling again this year, I have a cover design I need to redo for that first short story collection. My DIY honestly speaking does suck–price was right though. In other words, you get what you pay for. LOL.

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  12. Hi Debby – when things go wrong .. they can be a right pain to sort out and get back … I’ve seen it happen to a few – so unfair. Thanks for the tips etc … always useful to know about … cheers Hilary

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    1. Thanks Hilary. It’s amazing we struggle to sell our books among millions of others, yet, no problem for people wanting to steal our work. 😦

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  15. It’s good to know we have ways to combat plagiarists and thieves, but what tiresome work it is. Thank you so much for scouting the net for these valuable tips! The book cover article I’ll be reading closely–I can’t always rely on DIYs in Canva. 😉

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    1. So glad you found these useful Kate. I read many newsletters and save the ones to curate for a post that I know will be helpful to other writers. 🙂

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