If you’re an aspiring writer and you are considering writing a book in hopes of obtaining riches, be careful what you ask for. There are many hidden fees buried deep within book contracts that you may not be aware of if you (or your attorney) don’t go over that contract with a fine tooth comb.

The emergence and growth of social networking websites such as Twitter.com and Facebook has given book publishers new sources of revenue by fleecing unsuspecting authors.

Shanae Hall, who authored the book “Why Do I Have To Think Like A Man?”, writes:

Good Morning Sandra,

My name is Shanae Hall, I am the author of the book “Why Do I Have To Think Like A Man?” This was the book that gave Mary Harvey the courage to speak up. I’m sure you remember. Anyways I am writing you because I need your help putting our publisher (Farrah Gray publishing, who has also published Don Lemons, flavor flav and a few others books) on BLAST!! He has refused to pay us a dime or give us our rights back to our book, prior to the law suit we requested that he sign back our rights to us and that he could keep the money that he stole. Initially he agreed to do so, but later backed out of the release agreement. The primary reason for this law suit is because he billed us $92,000 for tweets and facebook fans that he said we acquired because of the book. When proof of expenses paid were requested of course nothing was sent over to back these extraordinary charges. And second because our royalty statements were grossly inaccurate and incomplete. We currently have a law suit pending in Los Angeles that he doesn’t want to be served the paper work for (I have attached the law suit paper work as well as the fee sheet proving the bill for tweets and Facebook fans, and [?]) . As my mother/co-author Rhonda Frost explained to him. “You are stealing from two single mothers we are not going to let this go away w/o a fight.” Thank you for helping me/us put his lying, want to be a celebrity, fraudulent ass on blast.

Shanae

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