Protecting your PayPal account

A fellow freelancer, Amy Derby of Write-From-Home.com, blogged a couple of days ago about her PayPal account being hacked. The hacker paid themselves thousands of dollars, and PayPal never questioned the transaction (though they froze Amy's account afterward). As a result, Amy hasn't been able to access the money she ought to have in her bank account, and has had a multitude of overdraft and related fees to contend with.

Although most of the fees were recoverable, dealing with the fraud has been a nightmare for Amy. Her warning to other freelancers (many of whom use PayPal as well) inspired this post.

Here are some suggestions for protecting your PayPal account from similar intrusions:

1. Use a secure password. I know, your dog's name is easier to remember, but it's also easier for someone to guess. I personally prefer to use words in combination with numbers or symbols, usually with the numbers and symbols mixed in (or replacing letters) to make it more difficult to guess.

The PayPal site agrees:

We recommend that your password is not a word you can find in the dictionary, includes both capital and lower case letters, and contains at least one special character (1-9, !, *, _, etc.).

2. Change your password frequently. I know PayPal and similar websites already say this, but I also know that many people don't take it seriously enough. Some businesses require that their employees change their login passwords once a month, and I think that's probably a good rule of thumb for PayPal accounts, too.

3. Use a different password for your PayPal account. After doing some digging, I found a blog post that claims hackers can hack less secure systems to get your password, and then use it to access your PayPal account.

A while back, one of the email subscriptions I belong to sent emails to everyone saying that their system had been hacked, and suggested that everyone change their passwords if they use the same ones elsewhere — but if they hadn't notified us, I could well have been in Amy's shoes myself.

4. Use PayPal's Security Key. The PayPal Security Key is a little keyring device that displays a "temporary 6-digit security code every 30 seconds." When you sign in, you also have to enter the code that is currently displayed on the device. Presumably, hackers won't be able to get in (though I wonder if they can duplicate the codes if they know the algorithms the specific device uses).

The Security Key is only $5, and sounds like a great investment. However, I'd still suggest using the other three tips in order to maintain the highest level of protection possible for your PayPal account.

No Child Author Left Untapped

On Monday, Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware posted on a disturbing trend that has been growing recently: The tendency of vanity presses to prey on child authors. Her post got me thinking, for two reasons:

1) Because I also started writing novels as a teenager,

and

2) Because I have had firsthand experiences with one of the child authors she mentioned in her post, Adora Svitak.

In regards to #1, I agree with Victoria Strauss completely when she says that some youngsters may be able to write beautifully, but most don't have the maturity to deal with the publishing industry. We're talking about an industry that can be pretty cutthroat — there is a lot of competition and a lot of rejection, whereas most children and teens are still at the point where social rejection is the end of the world. Plus, they lack both the experience needed to know the publishing industry's standards, as well as the maturity to learn and apply those standards.

Of course, as with any rule there are exceptions, but I am pretty certain I wasn't one. I wrote my first novel at age 14, and I know looking back at it that it was not and will never be publishable. My second novel was better, but it is my third novel — written when I was 15 — that I think has the most potential. However, even that one needs work — revisions and corrections that I don't think I would have seen the need for earlier in my career.

In spite of the fact that I once complained about my parents not encouraging and helping me to pursue publication, I think now that I wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe I haven't published a novel yet, but I'd rather get there on my own two feet than to have my work sell because I was some kind of child prodigy, an oddity and a fascination.

Which brings me to #2: My experiences with Adora and Joyce Svitak. I got involved almost exactly two years ago, when Adora's book, Flying Fingers, was first published. Joyce advertised looking for reviewers, and being a little naive about how the industry worked, I agreed to work with them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I got burned.

Victoria's post about Aultbea and their child authors made me start thinking about the situation with the Svitaks for the first time in many months. It occurs to me that Adora was not the only one whose work was being exploited — by looking for writers to work for free and betraying our initial agreement regarding my review, Joyce was also taking advantage of other writers. This makes me wonder: Is it only the vanity publishers who are guilty of exploiting children's talents? Or are some of the parents equally as guilty?

UPDATE: First Chapters Writing Competition

Just yesterday, I posted regarding a book competition for unpublish romance novel writers, Gather.com's First Chapters Writing Competition. Although a representative of Gather.com had asked me to post on the contest, my biggest point in the post is the need for writers to thoroughly research contests before submitting.

One problem I've seen before is contests taking all rights to all submissions, whether or not you are a winner. I think contests like those are simply attempts to get a whole bunch of copy for free.

The other thing I was concerned about with First Chapters is the requirement of posting your chapters online: online posting can be counted as first publication, ruining your chances of selling first rights to your work. The exception is if the work is posted in a membership-only forum -- that's considered pretty much the same thing as emailing your work to a select group of friends or a writers' group. Fortunately, in this case the contest submissions are open only to Gather.com members, so I decided the contest was "safe."

However, I have an update on the First Chapters Writing Competition. While reading Writer Beware this morning, I noticed a post regarding the contest. While Victoria Strauss found no problem with the rules of the First Chapters Writing Competition, she did note that there have been some problems lately with Simon & Schuster contracts. Since by submitting to the Gather.com contest you are promising to give Simon & Schuster first dibs on your book until you are eliminated, this could be a problem -- after all, if they know they have you between a rock and a hard place, how willing to negotiate will they be?

Please keep this information about Simon & Schuster in mind if you decide to submit to the First Chapters Writing Competition!

Avoid contests that take all rights to ALL entries - regardless of whether they're winners!

Today I spotted an announcement for a contest, posted on someone else's blog. The contest is the Lady Speed Stick (R) 24/7 National Day Diary Contest, sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive Company. The idea is to submit a diary of a 24-hour period.

Here's the catch: Simply by submitting an entry, you are giving up all rights to it, whether it wins or not! As far as I'm concerned, that's just wrong. Writers should be able to retain their rights to their work if they don't win. After all, they might want to tweak it and resubmit somewhere else.

My advice of the day: Don't submit to any contest (or publication) that takes all rights to ALL submissions! Think about how low your odds are of winning or being selected for publication. Chances are you won't win or get published, and they'll get your rights for free. It's just not worth it!

Writers Weekly 'Whispers and Warnings' needs your input!

This week's Whispers and Warnings section of Writers Weekly is asking for input from readers! The publisher of Haute Living Magazine is flat-out refusing to pay one of his writers, because he claims that her work wasn't good enough and she missed deadlines - yet he accepted the work, published it, and kept assigning her more! Angela Hoy has asked her readers to provide their input on the situation, since apparently this deadbeat needs extra convincing that if he uses a writer's work, he should pay for it.

Please contact Angela with your opinion - let's show this publisher that what he does to one writer, he does to us all!

Update on Pre-Press Company, Inc.

About two months ago, I posted a link to another writer's blog entry, warning about a company called Pre-Press Company, Inc. that was currently refusing to pay her. They did eventually agree to pay her part of what they owe her... But, perhaps unsurprisingly, two months later Pre-Press Company, Inc. still owes her half of the agreed-upon amount.

I don't know about Kathy Kehlri, but as far as I'm concerned, they had a chance to prove themselves to be an honest, reputable employer - and they blew it. Then again, I'll bet Kathy probably agrees with me - otherwise she wouldn't have posted another "screw you."

I have no respect at all for a company that neglects to pay its writers, and then tries to bully them into not telling other writers that they're not good for their word. I mean, you have to wonder how many other writers Pre-Press Company has intimidated into keeping silent.

It's everyone's own decision, of course - but I'd say that Pre-Press Company is one employer that writers ought to avoid like the plague.