Unethical Practices plus #QuestforOh blog tour #IWSG #booksky #authorsky

This month’s question is about unethical practices in the publishing industry. I’m not sure I’m qualifed to answer, but when has that ever stopped me?

This is my Insecure Writers Support Group post, in which we share our successes and failures as writers, our insecurities, in fact. Anyone can join in, just sign up at the IWSG Sign-up page, write a blog post on the first Wednesday of the month, and go back to that sign up page to link with everyone else–or a goodly sample. Our host is Alex J Cavanaugh, and cohosting this month are:

 Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim! 

And I’d like to thank Alex and Louise (Fundy Blue) for featuring my new book on their pages today. I’ll try not to talk about it too much! And thanks you to Sally Cronin (Smorgasbord) for tomorrow’s mention. If you’d like to join in, read the bit below today’s question and/or check the resources page here.

Question of the Month

 What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?

IWSG August 25

The short answer is, I don’t know. To me there are a huge number of unethical practices that have grown up since I reached retirement age; through greed, carelessness, and disregard for common courtesy, in all businesses. I don’t class myself as retired. You might have guessed that…

e.g.

• asking for submissions and not acknowledging them; not giving a yes/no answer; these are just rude.
• stealing writers’ and artists’ work through plagiarism, copying, pirating, and failing to acknowledge sources [I haven’t found the owner of that picture for my new Corsair cover yet; I suspect it’s been deleted]
• Using AI to research the details and possibilities for your world-building, and saying you didn’t use AI to write your book (you used a dictionary and thesaurus). See this post and see what you think… I find it very interesting that my comment on this post has been removed, presumably by Jane Friedman, who had herself been a victim of online theft.

I had an experience of something that I thought unethical a few years ago. I did a paid-for blog tour with someone, who had been used by other authors I knew, and they had an okay experience. From memory the terms included at least twelve blog stops. I had a long chat with the tour owner about whether my book was suitable. It was 3rd in series, and did she have people on her list that blogged about scifi books? I did about four unique blog posts, and four interviews, and four variations of ‘ten things about’.

An unethical blog tour host?

I did get about twelve blog stops. Three were from genuine people, one was an intro from the tour organiser. At least six were suspicious. Well, I thought they looked good, until I looked further. They rarely had social media links. Comments were turned off. They didn’t seem to have a named owner’s presence. One review site was said to be picked up by the New York Times or similar (I forget the detail). But they all featured those ‘unique’ blog posts and the ‘ten thing’ posts. And their previous post to mine was a ten things post from another book tour … and the previous … and the previous… it was the same for at least seven of the tour stops. FB and (Twitter) followers were low, if they existed… and it seemed to have been going on for several years.

I started to write an email to the tour host asking if she had checked these blogs out, then stopped, and saved it for my records. I became confident that these blogs all existed to fill her blog tours. All those articles written for these specific blogs, that went nowhere, weren’t shared on social media, just helped the tour owner fulfil her list. I thought, should I out her? If I did it would only get nasty. I haven’t seen any tours from her for some time now, so maybe someone else did. I did think of making it into a short story, though. Maybe I will.

As that poster goes… I’m an author. Don’t upset me or I’ll put you in a book and kill you.

Talking of Blog tours…

Would you like to join my Blog Tour?

You’ll see Alex has kindly featured Quest for Orichalcum today. Fundy Blue, also (thanks Louise!) There’s plenty of time for you to join my tour and get some easy copy. If you want to post before next Friday (15th), you can offer your readers a chance of winning the rafflecopter. Post any time you like. If you’d like to review it, ask for an ARC.

You can take any of the material on my promotion page here, and pop it on your blog. Let me know when, and I’ll add it to my list, and come and visit. I’ll definitely interact with anyone who comments 🙂

The Quest for Orichalcum – an asteroid miners’ memoir

Publishing 12th August 2025, ebook only (for now).

The Quest for Orichalcum tells how it all started – the revolution that transformed the galactic economy, let alone space travel. How did a postgraduate student–a refugee from an obscure planet–change galactic communications? Why did a talented software engineer take up asteroid mining? Which girls influenced their choices in life? And did Lars really kill a man in cold blood?

Lars and Gina: A short extract from the book (300 words)

The hotel met with her approval, but the room did not, despite it being a two room apartment, with a large bedroom and a small lounge, plus bathroom. It had a balcony that overlooked the pool and the beach, and a view across the bay to hills beyond.

“What’s wrong with it?” Lars asked.

“Only one bed.”

“It’s big enough to share. It’s huge, in fact. But if you don’t want to share, we can take it in turns.”

“I’m not sleeping on sheets you’ve already sweated in!”

“Well, don’t. Sleep on the floor!”

She swept into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

A knock on the suite door revealed her deliveries had arrived. “Thank you. Please put them by the bedroom door.”

Lars counted the packages, then found the delivery note. He rummaged though the stack to remove a set of kitchen knives, a personal lightweight emergency abseil kit, and a set of climbing pitons. How had she fitted those into a fifty credit limit?

He checked again. One-fifty credits, and the pitons were free with the abseil kit. How had she slid that past him? He shook his head, and decided not to ask, just to remove the goods. 

Gina came to the door wrapped in a towel. Her hair wrapped up in another. He took a peek inside the bathroom and realised there was a door direct from the bedroom. Just in case they were entertaining someone, he supposed.

“Ah, my shopping. Good.” She moved most of the pile through the door with her foot, and grabbed the rest without losing her grip on her towel. “Shall we go swimming when I’ve unpacked?”

Lars took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes.”

It looked like he was sleeping on the sofa.

The Quest for Orichalcum chapter 17

© J M Pett 2025

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Enter the Giveaway!

This will be the last Rafflecopter I run – EVER. So make the most of it. Rafflecopter are hanging up their wings, due to increasing technical issues, as I heard, but I don’t fancy using another system as I use it so rarely these days. Thanks for 15 years of fun, Rafflecopter team!

Entries close at 11.59 15th August, New York time. Open for entries in all countries and states where this type of raffle is legal. Some additional entry options may be added: please check back if this is important to you.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Visit the other tour stops

Thank you to everyone taking part!