I am swearing off, forever, penny-a-word publication. FOR EVER. If I relapse, everyone reading this blog has permission to slap me.
My latest publication, from penny-a-word publisher Living Dead Press has managed to get in hot water through pure ignorance. They made a post to Shocklines promoting the book. However, it was soon noted that The Book of the Dead is the name of a seminal Skipp and Spector zombie anthology from the 90s. Charitably, I could say that LDP is paying homage to the older anthology, but much more likely, they just didn't know about it.
And it turns out they included a pair of stories that include references to George Romero's X of the Dead films, for which they did not seek out or receive permission. Which it treading on intellectual property, and actionable.
LDP's response? They've already deleted their posts on Shocklines (preserved in a Tomoview thread) as well as the Amazon review that mentions the film tie-in (which can be found on the Shocklines thread).
This tempest means that this anthology is not going to get read. My story is not going to get read. And my publishers have managed to piss off John Skipp, who I met at NECON less than two weeks ago, and was a tremendously nice guy.
This is what I get for not listening to Brian Keene's advice. I need to value my writing more, and not sell it to clowns.
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