David Gaughran writes a wonderful blog for writers. You should all subscribe. It’s a rare rare day that I don’t find something of interest in his well-researched posts.

Today he takes on the evil “we want to help you publish your book” folks at Penguin/Random House, Writers Digest, etc etc.

For myself, I’ve given up on Writers Digest – I used to get it as a baby writer and it was a bit helpful then, but now it seems more like a shill for various rip off writers companies. Their information is available in multi-spots elsewhere, and heck, I could write many of their articles, so it is less than helpful to me. And now Gaughran reveals that they, and several other places of note, have a whitewashing strategy regarding these publishers – they will not allow any negative commentary about the huge sums these pirates charge authors ($1000’s to “get on YouTube”?). Some help for writers, eh? Half of their advertising pages are filled with such tripe, so I suppose it is unsurprising.

Guess we know where all that money is going.

My biggest shock from the article came from the fees charged by these companies for book signings at Toronto’s Word On The Street. Check it out.

And follow his blog. You won’t regret it.