Writers and Editors

Experienced Wikipedia writers and editors: Let me know which important pages I should add here, for the benefit of people new to contributing to Wikipedia.

• Who writes Wikipedia?
• Contributing to Wikipedia (describes the Wikipedia editing community's established practice on some aspect or aspects of Wikipedia's norms and customs)
• Frequently Asked Questions About Wikipedia
• FAQs about editing for Wikipedia
• Wikipedia Guidelines
• How do I create a new page?
• Article size
• Featured content Featured content represents the best of Wikipedia, including articles, pictures, and other contributions that showcase excellent results of the collaborative efforts of Wikipedia. All featured content undergoes a thorough review process to ensure that it meets the highest standards in order to serve as the best example of our end goals. A small bronze star (The featured content star) in the top right corner of a desktop page indicates that the content is featured.
• Citing sources Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space.
• Navigation Wikipedia is so vast that the features that usually facilitate navigating, like hypertext and a search box, are supplemented by portals and a page theme that features a toolbox, a search box, and the category of the page, on every page.
• Neutral point of view "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it."
• "Notability" guidelines
• Researching and Writing Wikipedia Articles (How Wikipedia Works/Chapter 6, Wikibooks)
• What Wikipedia is not
• Wikipedia: Teahouse (a friendly forum in which to learn about editing Wikipedia)
• Are There Rules Against Paying Someone To Write A Wikipedia Article? (Michael Wood, Social Media Today, 11-24-14) Read the full article.

Updated 5-16-23.  Let me know if any wonderful publications and other resources are left out of this informally assembled list. Scroll down for links to forums.

• Aeon ("a sanctuary online for serious thinking")
• Ars Technica
• Cosmos (the science of everything)
• Ag Insider (Food and Environment Reporting Network)
• Cosmos
• Council for the Advancement of Science (CASW) See Resources and Stories.
• Discover
• Environmental Health News (EHN, publisher of several newsletters: (Above the Fold, The Daily Climate, Good News, Plastic Pollution, Children’s Health, Energy & Health, Science Saturday, The Weekend Reader, Population Weekly, Pittsburgh Weekly)
• Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN, publishes Ag Insider)
• Food Dive (See also BioPharma Dive, Construction Dive, Education Dive, Healthcare Dive, MedTech Dive, Restaurant Dive, Smart Cities Dive, Social Media Today, Utility Dive, Waste Dive)
• GreenBiz Featured columns. See also webcasts and Video
• JSTOR
• Massive Science (New science stories every week, written by scientists themselves)
• Mosaic Longform stories about science and health. (Closed 12-10-19). No longer publishing but archive still available under Creative Commons license.
• National Geographic Magazine
• Nature (an esteemed and heavily cited science journal)
• Nautilus (each issue on a special topic, backed by Howard Hughes Medical Institute)
• New Scientist (realistic news reporting, from UK)
• Newswise
• The Open Notebook provides tools and resources to help science, environmental, and health journalists at all experience levels sharpen their skills. For example, Kathryn Schulz Paints a Chilling Picture of “The Really Big One” and Science Journalism Master Classes
• Politico
• Pro Publica (Journalism in the Public Interest) Read More 

by Melinda Clayton

If you want to use both KDP Print and IngramSpark for paperbacks, explained novelist Melinda Clayton recently on the Authors Guild forum, you must be careful to "un-check" Expanded Distribution through KDP Print. These are the steps you need to take:

1. Own your own ISBN (purchase at Bowker if you're in the U.S.)
2. Un-check Expanded Distribution on KDP Print, but don't un-publish your book. You want to leave it on KDP Print for distribution through Amazon; you just have to remove it from Expanded Distribution. This is because Expanded Distribution makes your book available in the Ingram catalog, and Ingram won't list the exact same book twice.
3. Send KDP Print an email asking them to remove your paperback from Expanded Distribution while leaving it with KDP for distribution on Amazon. Although you've unchecked it, emailing KDP Print speeds the process along.
4. Set up your account on IngramSpark .
5. Email IngramSpark a Title Transfer Addendum request. The link will take you to a page on Ingram that explains the process, and at the very bottom of that page is a link to click that will allow you to download and print the Title Transfer Addendum.
6. Once KDP Print and Ingram have transferred your titles from the KDP Print Ingram account to your own, you'll get an email from IngramSpark letting you know the transfer has taken place and asking you to approve your proofs. If you approve, you're all set. Your books will still be available through KDP Print for distribution to Amazon, and they'll also be available through Ingram for other stores and libraries.

Here are links to Melinda's novels and if you are thinking about self-publishing, check out her explanations on Indies Unlimited, See, for example, Do I Need Different ISBNs for CreateSpace and Ingram? (read the whole thing).

"Thirty-five countries—including the United Kingdom, every country in Europe, Canada, Israel, and Australia—support their authors with cash payments from the national government in compensation for the free library lending of their books. Over the past half-century, all these nations have established systems of Public Lending Right....PLR recognizes two fundamental principles: the need for society to provide free access to books, and the right of authors to be remunerated for their work. These principles should not be in conflict. The Authors Guild believes in both. We plan to work with the nation’s libraries to create a system that will benefit authors and libraries alike." -- James Gleick, Support of a Public Lending Right in the United States (PLR) (Authors Guild Bulletin, Winter 2018/Spring 2019)

"Paying authors for library loans is not a charity,” he said, “it’s a right: a payment for the service of borrowing an author’s work.” Robert Caro, Barbara Tuchman, and Anne Edwards were among the well-known authors who championed the cause. Preliminary bills were introduced in both houses of Congress. Eventually, in the Reagan era, the effort died.

"But overseas the evident justice and utility of PLR systems has persuaded country after country. Last year our counterparts in the U.K., the Society of Authors, led a successful effort to extend their program to include e-lending. Beginning July 1, authors became eligible for payments for library lending of their ebooks and audiobooks....

"The maximum payment to any one author would be capped: the idea is not to reward J. K. Rowling (no offense, Joanne) but to provide some much-needed help for midlist authors....

We never want to tell a library not to lend our books—love of libraries is at the core of who we are. At the same time, librarians themselves are recognizing that they need the professional author to survive... author income that once came from the use of books in classrooms has been evaporating. Expensive high-speed scanners are now standard equipment in university department offices, and university libraries increasingly believe it is their right to distribute digital copies of chapters and whole books throughout their communities. This turns authors into forced unpaid donors. A robust PLR system would restore some fairness."

• The Authors Guild Calls for a “Public Lending Right” (Nate Hoffelder, The Digital Reader, 1-16-19) "The Authors Guild was somewhat correct when they said 22,000 authors in the UK were paid up to 6,600 pounds, but what they forgot to tell you was that almost as many authors were paid zilch.

"According to UK data from 2017 (the most recent I can find), a total of 41,750 authors were listed in the PLR system when the payments went out in February. Of that number, 19,548 received nothing at all because their share was less than one pound. Another 16.654 received under 100 pounds, while 3,232 received under 500 pounds (PDF).

"The numbers are almost as bad in Canada, where 59% of all registered authors were paid less than $253.80 CAD in June 2018 (this includes the authors who were paid nothing)."

COMMENTS?

THE LEGAL SIDE OF PUBLISHING AN ANTHOLOGY:
• Understanding Copyrights for Anthologies (Susan Spann, Writers in the Storm, 11-13-15) Anthology contracts should contain at least two clear statements of copyright:
A declaration that copyright in the author's work remains the sole property of the contributing author; and
A declaration that the copyright in the anthology "as a collective work" belongs to the anthology publisher.
• NEVER grant or transfer your copyright in your work to an anthology publisher. Authors of individual works should always retain copyright on their own original Read More