One of the effects of the phenomenal growth of ebooks over the past few years has been to bring new value to the backlist–both for publishers who hold the contracts for backlist books, and authors who want the freedom to exploit a new range of rights.

Recently I’ve gotten a number of questions about BookStoreMarketing.net, a service that promises to promote authors’ books to bookstores via a printed catalog, a promotional email, or both.

As we begin the new year (Writer Beware’s fourteenth!), here’s a look back at some of Writer Beware’s most notable posts and warnings from 2011.

Because even watchdogs have to rest sometimes, the Writer Beware blog will be taking a break over the holiday season.

A couple of weeks ago, I began hearing from self-published and small press authors who’d been approached over the summer by a Turkish publisher called Arvo Basim Yayin.

Like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Dymocks is a major book vendor. Unlike Amazon and Barnes and Noble, it doesn’t have its own ereading device–so D Publishing does not resemble the free, direct-to-device self-pub services offered by Amazon and B&N.

Writer Beware has learned that Pearson Education, a major education services company (and the parent company of trade publisher Penguin), is currently requesting vastly extended licenses for copyrighted text and images that it has received permission from rightsholders to include in its print textbooks and other publications.

KDP Select goes much farther: it makes Amazon, in effect, your publisher while your book is included in the program, and potentially has an impact on other work you are or are planning to publish.

It’s unfortunately very easy for writers to buy into these faux numbers–whether out of fear, or inexperience, or simply because they vindicate writers’ own frustration with rejection.