I'd like to add a few comments about this site.
1) Yesterday (9/22/09) I found the first four chapters of my book, "Love Slave for Two" (writing as Tymber Dalton) published by Siren-BookStrand (which is currently hovering in the top 10 in erotica on Amazon Kindle -- I mean, what kind of MORON do you have to be to try to pass yourself off as the writer of a bestselling book??? And mine wasn't the only bestseller they tried to claim as their own writing.) posted on the site by a user. Also posted were complete books, chapter by chapter, from other publishers like Loose ID, Cobblestone Press, New Concepts, and Total e-Bound Publishers, among others. Everything in that user's account was illegally posted. How did I discover this? The nimrod used, verbatim, the cover blurbs. Took me all of 5 minutes to find each book's rightful author and publisher and start contacting people. I filed a report with them (they don't have a flag button on content, which they should) and within a few minutes, my work was off the site, then after I sent them more emails showing that all the content in the user's account was illegal, they pulled the account. So kudos to them for that.
However, they need to seriously revamp their technology. I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that Scribd now has a feature to check submissions to see if they're verbotten? Maybe it's not Scribd, I don't know, but I remember running across one site while tracking down illegally posted files a few months ago that apparently does search for stuff like that to help keep illegal postings down.
2) However, Booksie.com gets a #fail from me on their terms. Any aspiring writer who signs up for their site best carefully read their member agreement before they post writing there:
http://www.booksie.com/about/terms.html
Specifically, the following:
Booksie's USE OF CONTENT SUBMITTED BY WRITERS & RIGHTS OF WRITERS
1. By submitting material to any public area of the Site, you automatically grant Booksie a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the submission in connection with the Booksie Website and Booksie's (and its successor's) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Booksie Website (and derivative works thereof).
2. You grant Booksie the right, at no charge, from time to time to edit, copy, distribute or make generally available to the public the titles of submitted work, your pen name, and/or short excerpts from work posted to the Site by writers for the purpose of promoting your work, Booksie or the Site.
3. You acknowledge and agree that Booksie may preserve work you post to the Site and may also disclose such work if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process; (b) enforce the Member Agreement; (c) respond to claims that any work violates the rights of third-parties; or (d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Booksie, its owners or operators or third parties.
Now, I'm not a lawyer and I don't claim to play one on TV either. However, the fact that they can "preserve" work on the site means you can't REALLY delete it, am I right? Also, you're granting them a right to "edit" your work (#2)? Um, HELLOOOOO??? I don't care what reason they give for it, that's wrong. I also don't like #1, granting them a transferable license and the right for them to create "derivative" works.
Um, sorry, HUGE #fail from me.
I'm sure some will argue that those terms are specifically regarding allowing them to display content on the website. But, ya know, they don't say that clearly enough for my tastes. They do have the "including without limitation" part in the first clause and that bothers me.
I did sign up for an account there yesterday for the purpose of tracking down the joker posting my work (and what burned my bacon even more was the fact that they were accepting kudos from people, not just on mine, but on other books as well, for the writing and making comments like they were the original writer) but maybe with the exception of promotional blurbs, I don't see myself using that site for ANYTHING.
So here's a warning to others, especially new writers. If you're looking for feedback, try to find it in critique/editing forums with some measure of control, like the Internet Writing Workshop or any other number of places where you have a good idea of who is looking at your work.
