November 14, 2023 will be the 10 year anniversary of the November 14, 2013 murder of my 8 month old infant son, at BugLight Lighthouse Art Studio of Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, Maine. If you have any information about who his killer is, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207-774-9322

NEVER FORGET:

My Son Was Murdered, The Killer Walks Free, Your Child Could Be Next!


FAQ: What are the most visited pages on this website and how many visits do they get?

Several years ago, I wrote an article on how to write different types of magic uses, or rather how I personally write various types of magic users within the context of my Quaraun books. Today that page is one of my top ten most visited articles. It gets 50 to 500 views/reads/hits/visits per day depending on the time of the years and has had over 200k visits total since it was published.

Amphibious Aliens: Debunking The Atwater Family's Alien Abduction Hoax with more then 30MILLION reads since 2007 and The GoldenEagle: Debunking Stephen King's World's Most Haunted Car Hoax with over tenMILLION reads since 2007 still rank as the two most visited articles on my website, but, neither of those are writing related.

Writing Medieval Servants is my most visited writing related article with over 7MILLION reads.

This website was started in 1996 and has 1 to 3 new articles (all written by me, I am the only writer on this site) published almost daily. In 2017 we crossed ten thousand articles published. As of 2023, EACH article gets MINIMUM 10 to 70 reads PER DAY, with the high traffic articles getting 500+ reads per day.

And since December 2019, my website now gets three hundred thousand to 7 million reads per month - well over ONE HUNDRED MILLION PAGE READS PER YEAR, making it not only the single most trafficked site in the State of Maine, but also one of the most visited websites in ALL OF NEW ENGLAND!

{{{HUGS}}} Thank you to all my readers for making this possible!



 TRIGGERED! I'm a Straight Cis Woman, but I am deemed Too Gay For Old Orchard Beach, Are you too gay for the bigoted, minority harassing, white power, gay hating psychos of The Old Orchard Beach Town Hall Too? 







Copyright Question:
What are my rights as an author?

/ /


By EelKat Wendy C Allen

Author of Cozy & Gothic Fantasy, Sweet/Fluffy M/M Furry Romance, Cosmic Horror, Space Opera, & Literary SoL genres. I write Elves, Fae, Unicorns, & Demons.



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(What to do when someone wants to use your work in their book.)

"Hi

I received an email from someone asking my permission if he could use my articles (website content) to help spread the great word about my niche (coconut oil). He plans to use my articles in a hard copy book.

What are my rights as an author? Is it okay to give him permission to use several of my pages as long as he links back to my site? Or is this a no-no? What's the best way to go about this? He seems to really want to help spread the word.

Hope to hear from you soon,
-...name removed..."

As a general rule I'd say no. There are times when it is alright to say yes, but they are rare. From what you say, this guy does not appear to be going through any official channels to contact you, is that correct? By official channels I mean, he is the author of the book and asking to use your article in his book, correct?

The official way to send a request like this is an Acquisitions Editor of a Publishing House would write you a snail mail letter on official letter head. The letter would detail the book project, explain it's goals and marketing details. They would explain that the author had made a special request to include your article in the book.

There would be lots of "legal mumbu jumbo talk" written by publishing lawyers, to tell you your rights, what rights they would be buying (print, ebook, international, etc) and for how long (1 year, 7 years, life-time) they retained those rights before returning them to you (meaning you would have to take your article down off of your website, because you would no longer be the copyright holder even though you are the author, because by giving rights to the book publisher you effectively sold/rented your copyright holding to them).

Do keep in mind (and this is VERY important) that no one can publish your article ANYWHERE without you signing a copyright agreement contract, which grants them copyright permission. When someone asks to put your article in their book, what they are really asking is for you to give up your rights as an author, your copyrights, AND....

Very, very, very IMPORTANT: If you hand over something like "7 year print rights" they can print (and reprint) your article for 7 years without farther asking your permission AND if you put your article in print, they can sue you (and take everything you own) for copyright infringement, even though you are the original author, because when you gave them those "7 year rights" you handed the copyright ownership to them and you no longer have any right to use your own work.

This is very dangerous ground to walk on, because often times scam artists are well versed in these laws, yet authors are often clueless about these laws, and this is how scam artists swoop in and end up taking your life savings, your car, your house, and you could end up being the one in prison for copyright infringement, even though you are the author of the article.

This IS NOT a simple minor request this guy is asking for here. He is asking you to hand over your copyrights to him, and he is not using official channels (lawyers) to ask for your copyrights. nor is he offering you any advance or royalties (which is basically rental fees for use of your copyright.) NEVER give up your rights as an author!

The letter would also detail what kind of advance you would be receiving (about $500 is standard for using an article in a book; $2,000 to $7,000 is standard if you had written the entire book), along with what your royalty percentage is (usually .1% to 2% for minor contributors such as an article). They would also tell you the total amount of books they expect to sell in the next 3 years (most houses plan on 100,000 copies per year x .1% - 2% means you can expect to be paid about $100 to $2,000 a year for your contribution to the book.)

It is your right as the author of your article to be paid royalties whenever someone publishes your article ANYWHERE online or offline, but you can lose that right if you don't read all the fine print to the copyright law, contracts, and agreements before saying "yes" to someone's request to republish your work. Some publishing houses like Harlequin and Avon have eletronic contracts now, but by law you can request a paper contract mailed to you for signing and they will mail one out. It is your right as an author to request a hard copy to sign in person and no legitimate publisher is going to refuse to send one out.

Never trust a publisher that handles contracts and agreements via email and doesn't have the option to mail you a hard copy to sign in real ink. There has to be something in writing to make it legal, however, agreeing to an email is legally binding enough to cause you a $30,000 headache and a lot of months in the courthouse should you try to back out of the deal. Never sign anything or agree to anything until you have had a copyright lawyer and a publishing lawyer read the documents and go over what every line means with you.

Getting your article into another author's book can be a really good deal, more often than not though it will cause you far more harm than good. It's tricky business getting into these sorts of multi-authors in one book agreements. If not done with a lawyer over your shoulder every step of the way, you cold easily sign away and give up your rights as an author without even knowing that's what you had done!

Do know that it is INCREDIBLY RARE for a publishing house to contact you. So rare that most times you are contacted by a publishing house, you should assume it a scam and have your lawyer reply to the contact for you.

Included with the letter would be a bunch of legal documents, including a contract for you to sign (with your lawyer) and notarize, before sending it back to them.

As you did not mention receiving any of this, I am assuming you are dealing with a self-publisher? This is shaky ground. It could be okay or it could be a scam; most likely it's just someone who really has no clue what they are doing, and if they are not up on the legal issues enough to know how to contact you properly, they likely are also not up on the marketing issue enough to sell more than 100 copies of the book a year.

I often work with self-publishers and it can be a good thing if they actually know what they are doing and are running their self-publishing business professionally. Unfortunately, few fall into this category. There are only 2 times when I would recommend you work with a self-publisher on a deal like this:

1) You know them personally - they are a relative, friend from high school, co-worker, etc. Someone you know and trust and see face to face every day.

From what you say it sounds like this guy is a complete stranger to you. When it comes to publishing NEVER work with a stranger who's credibility you are uncertain of. EVER! A lot of authors get scammed this way. I've heard of authors losing $20,000, $200,000, and one who lost their home because of getting into deals like this that turned out to be really shady. In each case it started out simple, "Hey, I want to use your article in my book" but than the publisher would start asking for money "Hey I need $5,000 to run an ad for the book", etc. This is a VERY common scam.

2) You have heard of the author: you've read their books, you've seen them around on social networks, you know their product, you know they are running stable legitimate publishing business. (And they would have contacted you using official documents as described above.)

From what you say, this does not sound like what is happening.

So, yes, in your situation, I believe the best answer is NO, do not agree to his offer. It's too risky. You have too much to lose and there is nothing you will really gain.

Tell him, that after he publishes his book, to send you a free copy and you will read it and write a review for it on your site, in exchange for his putting a link /mention of your website in his book. This is a far better way for the two of your to "boost readership" to each other.




*source: I'm the editor-in-chief of a publishing house






The Space Dock 13 WebRing










What do you want to become? 
What did you do today to step closer to that goal?
Whatever you do, be your best at it!
And remember to have yourself a great and wonderfully glorious day!

~EK
EelKat.com
pinterest.com/eelkat/






By EelKat Wendy C Allen




Eye of the GrigoriIf you ever made fun of or had any part in the destruction of my farm, and the illegal selling of half of my land to Colliard, you shall lose your land.
tent2.JPGIf you ever made fun of or had any part in my being homeless since 2006 - YES, I AM still homeless in 2023, you shall become homeless.
eelkats_house_before_after.jpgIf you ever made fun of or had any part in the backhoe driving over my house, you shall lose your house.
home again the return of the goldeneagle dodge 330If you ever made fun of or had any part in my car being cut in half, you shall lose your car.
volvo-art-car-eelkat-Dazzling-Razzbury-3-artist-wendy-c-allen-painting3.pngIf you ever made fun of or had any part in my becoming crippled, you shall lose your health.
If you ever made fun of or had any part in the murder of my son, your child shall die an equally horrible death.

Evil men go out of their way to try to drive a person to suicide.

Are you an evil man?

Are you sure you're not?

How many people have YOUR hate filled words killed?

Next time you go to do a mean thing to a fellow human, stop and really think about the consequences of your actions.

Did you ever notice how every one has a story to tell about me, yet not one of them ever speaks the truth?

What lies has YOUR gossiping tongue spread about me?

Did you know...

October 16, 2006, bomb blew up my house because of YOUR lies.

August 8, 2013, the house which replaced the one the bomb blew up, was driven over by a backhoe.

November 14, 2013, my 8 month old infant son was murdered because of your lies.

November 14, 2013, I was beaten up, paralized for 5 months, spent 18 weeks relearning to walk, I'm now crippled for the rest of my life, because of YOUR lies.

Are you proud of what you have done?

Enjoy your eternity in Hell. You earned it. You've certainly worked hard for it.

~EelKat


If you have any information about any of these events, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207-774-9322