Those pesky terms and conditions are something we all need to be reading. Especially if you write something online and it can be used for a book or monetary gain later on.
Case in point: True Mom Confessions. Two Tennessee bloggers are taking on the case.
Kat Coble breaks down the situation.
Few things strike a raw nerve in me more than seeing Lazy Books published. NOTHING makes me angrier than THIS.
This woman is having a major publishing success–a half-page interview in EW for a first time author is serious gold–and talking about writing her book.
She is a blogger. This “book” she has “written” consists of cherry-picking the best comments from her blog. Except it isn’t even a blog anymore. It’s worse. It’s one of those crappy forum things where people can go and tell their stories.
Her “writing” of her “book” is nothing more than getting other people to take their time, effort and experience, post it to her site and then she chooses it for her “book”. It’s lazy writing. Hell’s Hindparts, it’s not even WRITING. It’s theft of intellectual property.
Aunt B. says your writing is yours and gives several examples of what could happen
Usually, frankly, your intellectual property isn’t worth much, if anything. But it’s still yours.
And there are folks who like to make a living off of other people’s work (it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the woman listed as the “author” of True Mom Confessions: Real Moms Get Real writes for the Huffington Post). Don’t make it easy for them. Your words belong to you and you have a right to benefit from them before anyone else does.
Read the Terms of Service on places. Make sure your words stay your own.
What say you?
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