by Anne R. Allen
Publishing Scammers get more brazen all the time, and there seem to be more of them every day. Sometimes I wonder if all those people who have mysteriously quit their jobs aren’t now working as con artists and phone scammers.
Just recently, the respected site Wattpad ran a contest that involved a blatant rights grab that gave them rights to any submission in perpetuity. That’s right. Not only do you have to pay to enter, but your entry now belongs to them, and they can publish it without giving you credit. Forever.
Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware was on her toes and called them on it.
When even legit companies are scamming writers, what can a new writer do?
With contests, you have to read the fine print. Most writing contests are legit. But some contests you can be pretty sure are scams from the get-go. Look out for excessive fees, rights grabs, and puny prizes. Here’s a great post from C. Hope Clark of Funds for Writers on how to tell legit contest from the scammers. And always check with Victoria at Writer Beware.
Assume All Cold Calls are Scammers
Do not trust any business proposition that comes from an unsolicited phone call.
These days, all of us should be aware that all aspects of our lives are likely to be targeted by scammers. I overheard a couple of women recently talking about how much they hate getting unsolicited phone calls.
“Those telemarketers keep calling me,” one said. “They always want to sell me car insurance.
“Yes”, said the other. “I prefer to buy insurance from a local agent.”
I wanted to jump in and shout:
“Those aren’t telemarketers! They are scammers. And they don’t want to sell you insurance. They want to steal your personal information so they can clear out your bank account.”
I didn’t, and I hope they’ll stay safely with their local agents, but they brought a problem to my attention. Lots of people — especially older ones — still think phone calls from strangers are from “telemarketers” trying to sell you stuff. Seriously, I’m not even sure there’s any such thing as a telemarketer anymore.
Pretty much everybody who cold-calls you is a criminal who wants to steal from you.
Publishing Scammers Can Use Your Words Against You
Do not give cold callers any information, ever. Don’t try to play pranks on them or say rude things. They know how to use those words against you.
Don’t even say “yes” because they may record it and use it to show you agreed to anything from a buying a ticket to a bogus cruise to letting them republish your book — at huge expense.
Yes. This happens. I know of one instance when publishing scammers phoned an elderly self-published author who had gone into memory care, and they claimed he’d agreed to let them republish his book—for thousands of dollars. They’d conned him out of his bank information and refused to give the money back.
Legit Literary Agents and Publishers Will NEVER Cold-Call You
I know authors like to fantasize that Oprah or Reese Witherspoon will call to say they’ve chosen your memoir for their latest book club read. Or that a film scout will call to say Netflix wants to make a series based on your epic fantasy novel. We know this stuff is far-fetched, but it could happen, right?
So while we’re having far-fetched fantasies, why not visualize some literary agent who works for Simon and Schuster falling in love with your indie book that had 5 sales last month? And why wouldn’t they phone you to say they want to republish it with Simon and Schuster?
Because agents and publishers don’t do this, ever. There are far-fetched fantasies and then there’s outrageous fiction.
If you have massive sales, and you’re making the national news, you might hear from them. But now days, you probably won’t. Agents want fresh stuff that hasn’t already saturated the market.
And this is important: AGENTS NEVER WORK FOR PUBLISHERS! One of the most common current scams involves a bogus “literary agent” who claims to “work for” one of the big New York publishers. She wants to republish your book and send it to her “bosses” at Random House or Simon and Schuster.
This could never happen. Agents must be completely independent of publishing houses in order to shop around and get their clients the best deal. Any agent who works for a publisher is a crook.
There are scam agents affiliated with publishing companies. An “agent” will team up with a small publishing company — usually a vanity press — and will steer all her clients to publish there. It’s an old scam, but it still surfaces in some victim’s complaints
Unsolicited E-Mails, DMs, Etc. Are Also Likely to be Scams
Be very, very skeptical If anybody approaches you with an unsolicited publishing “deal” – whether to republish your book, pay for pricey reviews and interviews, or buy advertising on a site you’ve never heard of. Some of the red flags are exaggerated praise, dodgy English skills, and of course solicitation of large sums of money.
Yes, there are places where you can buy a review to be posted on the website of the review outfit. Most of these are not worth paying for because nobody visits the site but other authors. But if a reviewer offers to put the review on Amazon, you are in scam territory. Plus your entire career could be ruined. Amazon has very strict rules against paid reviews, and you could be kicked off Amazon for life. See my post on. Amazon’s New Review Rules.
Educate Yourself About the Publishing Industry
The best way to stay safe when entering the publishing industry is to learn how this creaky old business works. The best place to start is at the blog of Jane Friedman.
If you want to be traditionally published, don’t self-publish hoping to be “discovered”. You’re much more likely to be discovered with a good query in an agent’s inbox. After sending lots of good queries into agents’ inboxes of course. For solid info about agents, I suggest you read the blog of Nathan Bransford and Janet Reid aka the Query Shark.
Or you can publish with a small press. But here be dragons. Watch out for vanity presses masquerading as “traditional” small publishing companies. If anybody asks for money up front, they are most likely a vanity press. They may call themselves “hybrid” presses, but the usually aren’t. I don’t recommend that a newbie go with a hybrid press. You need to be pretty savvy to tell the good guys from the publishing scammers.
Do not publish with a vanity press unless you only are writing for friends and family. The book will cost too much to make any profit and readers will recognize it as vanity-published and figure it’s not good enough to waste their time on. Also, the up-front fees for a vanity press are usually exorbitant.
Or you can self-publish because you prefer to be an independent author. Then read everything you can about marketing. I suggest you read everything you can get your hands on by David Gaughran,. Then prepare to open a business. When you are your own publishing company, you are the boss, so you need to know what you’re doing.
More Info on Publishing Scammers
I have written dozens of posts about Publishing Scammers over the years. Here are some of the most popular.
How to Tell Legit Publishers from the Bad Guys https://selfpublishingsites.com/2018/10/legitimate-publishers-or-bad-guys/
Friends don’t let Friends Fall For Publishing Scams https://selfpublishingsites.com/2021/05/publishing-scams-look-for-these-signs/
6 New Writing Scams to Look Out for in 2018 https://selfpublishingsites.com/2018/06/new-writing-scams/
Writing Scams to Look Out for in 2019 https://selfpublishingsites.com/2019/01/new-writing-scams-2019/’
10 New Publishing Scams to Watch Out for in 2020 https://selfpublishingsites.com/2020/02/new-publishing-scams-2020/
Publishing Scammers to Watch Out for in 2021 https://selfpublishingsites.com/2021/01/publishing-scammers-2021/
The #1 Mistake New Writers Make that Leaves them Vulnerable to Scammers https://selfpublishingsites.com/2019/06/1-mistake-vulnerable-publishing-scams/
Don’t Fall Prey to Publishing Scams https://selfpublishingsites.com/2017/09/publishing-scams-7-new-writer-mistakes/
You Won’t See This New Publishing Scam Coming https://selfpublishingsites.com/2021/09/warning-to-writers-new-publishing-scam/
Publishing Scammers are Proliferating like Tribbles. https://selfpublishingsites.com/2021/09/publishing-scammers-how-to-stay-safe/
5 Scams that Target New Writers https://selfpublishingsites.com/2015/12/5-scams-target-new-writers-spot/
6 More Scams that Target New Writers https://selfpublishingsites.com/2015/12/6-more-scams-that-target-new-writers/
Good luck everybody and stay safe out there!
By Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) February 20, 2022.
What about you, scriveners? Have you been approached by any of these publishing scammers? Have you heard of any new scams lately? If you got caught up in the lies of a scammer, were you able to escape before they took your money?
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Anne—Thanks for the valuable post!
World’s oldest profession? Forget sex. Scamming writers is faster, easier and much more lucrative.
Ruth–I fear you’re right. At $3000+ a pop, these scammers are making a lot more money than the average hooker.
Anne, there is a special place in hell for scammers, esp. the sleaze who targeted the author in memory care. I used to ask, “How low can you go?” until I kept finding out scum bucket is bottomless.
Conversely, there is a special place in heaven for guardians like you and Victoria Strauss who watch out for naive, trusting writers. Grateful for all you do!!!!!
Debbie–Thanks! Publishing scammers aren’t the only ones who target people with dementia. Well known charities and political organizations do it too. When my mom started to lose it, we found she’d written three big checks to a political candidate. They kept calling and telling her they hadn’t got the check she promised.
Hi Anne! Thank you for this. Especially new authors need to know this. I still receive calls about any one of my books and how they want to talk to me about it. I just laugh. No way would they have ever seen or read any of my books because, as a new self-published author, no one is buying them! Your advice is solid and needed.
Patricia–The ones that phone you are the worst! I’ve had them call me 5 times–always in the early morning, before 8 AM. They want to “republish” my first novel, Food of Love. They won’t believe me that It sells much better in my box set, Boomer Women, or that I’ve written 12 other books since then. They’ve found the first version, published by a defunct UK company, on some list, and because it has no sales, they figure I’m a loser who will fall for their BS. So annoying. I finally told them I’d report them to the FBI if they called me again.
Thank you for helping to keep us safe, Anne.
A magazine publisher I worked with in the past emailed me this week. She needed my help. I was flattered that she’d ask me and eager to reply. In her second email she explained that she was in financial difficulties and– Red flag. I knew it couldn’t possibly be her. I deleted the email.
It’s very wise to be caution
Leanne–Thanks for letting us know. That’s a new one, but I could imagine it would work well for some scammer. You think you’re writing to someone you know, but it’s just an imposter. So slimy!
I can’t imagine anyone falling for a phone scam anymore. How do those people get the number? We have no landline and our cell numbers aren’t listed anywhere.
Creepy that they can record you and use it against you.
Alex–Creepy is the right word. It’s pretty easy to get a phone number for a few bucks at one of those “find a person” sites. I never give out my phone number and keep it off social media, but the crooks always find me.
Sharing this one all over the place! Anne, this is the best yet. Love your words re telemarketers – thanks once again for superb info.
Melodie–Thanks for sharing. It’s so true that people who grew up with annoying telemarketers who tried to sell us aluminum siding or get us to change our landline carrier think these new cold calls are sales calls. But in the 21st century, they’re just all crooks trying to scam you.
Thanks again Anne. Sobering to think about, and having worked in telecom market research for a while I know how incredibly automated and sophisticated some of these scams are. Hey gang, it’s truly nothing personal! If you get one, chances are it’s just one stitch in an enormous net they’re throwing across an entire continent.
OTOH, submitting to agents is the strangest kind of game. If we’re honest, getting your query up to snuff, and even standing directly atop the latest trends, only gets you so far. The first query letter could score, or two thousand could get dissed. It’s a strikeout every at-bat until the last one, and from what I can tell the biggest factor is probably not that you improved your query style by another 1 or 2 percent.
That’s important because the lack of progress or a positive sign is part of what discourages writers, and leaves them vulnerable to the scammer. They sound as if they LIKE you!
Will–You’ve hit on the reason authors fall for these scams. The scammers are very good at pretending they’ve read your book and they pile on the praise. After 200 “not right for us at this time” rejections, these people seem like a breath of fresh air. These calls I get are on the robocalls that blanket a whole continent. They are targeted at the authors of specific books that aren’t selling well or are out of print. That takes some research. But unfortunately, their diligence often pays off.
I made the mistake of publishing with ASI {aka Authors House} twice. They in turn eventually sold my phone number to other scammers and when I was working I used to get a few calls a week on my work number (fortunately for me, ASI only had my work #) from them.
GB–Author Solutions, and all its evil spawn, like Author House, network with other scammers, mostly in the Philippines. They share the phone numbers of their victims and won’t stop harassing them. I know several authors who get calls day and night trying to bully them into junk marketing schemes-even years after publication. And Author House is still out there, drawing in prey. I don’t blame you for falling for their line. They are very convincing. And their books usually look very nice. But they charge so much, nobody can afford them.
One of my chief regrets is that Findaway Voices markets my audiobooks through a reputable partner with the unfortunate sounding name Authors-Direct. Hate that!
Will–Silly name. People know they never let the author direct. 🙂
Good afternoon, Anne and Ruth. I get more Nigerian Prince emails than publishing scams. And when I get a prince offer, I immediately refer them to Sue Coletta. Outside of the King Of Africa recently following me on Twitter, things have been pretty tame around here but thanks so much for keeping the scammers in the spotlight.
Garry–I get a lot of those too. My spam filter usually blocks them, but there are dozens in the spam folder. Often from the widow of Moammar Gadaffi. 🙂 Some of them are so hilarious I save them for a book I’d like to write called “This is Not Spam.”
Thanks Anne, our tender egos make us easy targets, that’s for sure! And thanks for the links to Query Shark and Nathan Bransford, both new to me and now bookmarked. I could spend hours reading Query Shark feedback!
Tamsin–Query Shark is pretty ruthless, but she gets her point across. Nathan is more nurturing, but he’s a former agent who made some big deals in his agenting days and he knows his stuff. He also has a great book on how to write aa novel.
Thanks for the warning, Anne! I don’t recall ever getting a phone call from a publishing scammer, but I get lots of emails from people who want me to pay them to review my books, promote my books, or enter my books in their writing contest. It’s depressing that so many folks fall for these scams.
IMHO, skepticism is a good character trait.
Kay–You’re very smart to see all those emails are from scammers. As I said, they may review your book and put it on their website. But nobody visits their website, so your money is wasted. A lot of them are just bogus. Some just want a copy of your book to resell on ebay.
Absolutely right! Assume all cold callers (and emailers) are scammers. If a caller doesn’t obey the laws governing the “Do Not Call” list, Robocalls and CANSPAM, why would you expect them to obey a contract or verbal promise?
KGrant–You’re so right. They’re probably disobeying the law, so why would you trust them?
Hi Anne,
Thank you for your advice. Another place to watch out for scammers is Facebook. I receive a ton of ads on how to make my book an NYT bestseller, how to make six figures writing novels, how to write a best-selling novel in one week, just to name a few. Naturally, this info will cost you hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Legitimate companies are advertising there, but one must be extremely cautious.
Rita–Thank you!! I forgot to mention Facebook ads. It used to be we mostly got scammers in Messenger, but now they’re buying ads and we know FB will take money from anybody. Some of the writing ads are for publishers I know are bogus and contests that are scams. Thanks for bringing that up!
Thank you for such a valuable post. I had dealings with an agent who wanted me to publish with a hybrid publisher. She said it was a new company. The publisher asked me for more money than I could afford, so I cut ties with both. As it was my first book, I was very tempted. I have no reason to believe this was a scam. I contacted the agent in the first place, but it might have been.
I also received an email telling me I’d won a contest. Since I never entered any contest, this was obviously a scam. Have any of your readers had this one?
VM–Those people who tell you “You’re a winner!” of a contest you never entered are hilarious. They used to tell people they’d won a cruise. I didn’t know they’d moved on to writing contests, but it makes sense.
As far as that agent, she could just have been new, without any decent contacts. I had one of those for a while, until I caught on. And I had a friend who had a well-known. respected agent who tried to place with a notorious vanity press. I don’t know if the agent was losing his marbles or what. A good agent who can’t place your book with a good publisher will say so and terminate your arrangement.
Isn’t it a shame these folks have decided scamming is an acceptable use of their energies. What a heartbreak. Thanks for another fine post.
CS–I agree. It’s heartbreaking. I hear from people who’ve fallen for these lies every day.
Gadaffi’s dead? I gotta get out more often.
Unless I recognize the phone number, I no longer answer my cell phone. I keep my home phone turned off unless I want to make a call. Too many telemarketers/scammers. It is a shame that anyone gets scammed when they get older. I’m getting older so it is particularly threatening. The world is a Darwinian place.
Ann–Unfortunately these people all target seniors. They know older folks tend to be less skeptical and will try to be polite. Predators always look for victims who won’t fight them right away. It’s tragic.
I also wanted to mention, but my original reply glitched at it was supposed to be attached to another comment and I didn’t want to run the risk of this comment being spammed out, is that I now troll those scammers from my unused Yahoo e-mail. Quite a few of them respond to e-mail shaming them for what they do and one went on a two page diatribe about what they’re not; how good they are; even how bad Writer’s Beware is, etc. etc.
GB–These guys troll the Internet for forums and websites where people out them as scammers. Their response is often an ad hominem attack on the whistleblower. I’ve seen them accuse Victoria Strauss of heinous crimes. They are so ridiculous.
Such great information which I have shared on social media, Anne.
Here in the UK, we do have the Telephone Preference Service which folk can sign up to, to stop cold calls coming through. Unfortunately, it only applies to companies based in the UK, so folk can still get cold calls from firms outside the UK, but it does help stop a lot of calls.
As a blogger, I receive scam emails almost daily, especially from companies and individuals who promise to get my blog up the SEO rankings. My advice to any blogger and writer getting these sorts of emails and requests is to mark them as spam, delete them and then block them.
Another scam I have seen are people setting themselves up as blogging and SEO experts and promising their victims huge amounts of traffic and revenue. They’ll take your money, delete their blog, and set the scam blog up again under another name. My advice is that you don’t need to pay for blogging and SEO advice as there is so much free information out there from the experts.
Hugh–Thanks for stopping by! In the US, they’ve tried to fight spam phone calls with the Do Not Call list and NoMoRobo, but neither of them work anymore. I guess the scammers find a way around them.
I get those SEO emails all the time. Ridiculous since my book, The Author Blog was named one of the top SEO books of all time. I sometimes go over to their websites and see their blog has an Alexa rating somewhere in the high millions. They’d kill for my traffic. Or yours. I didn’t know that was because they delete the sites so often and restart them to hide out from their victims. Total slime.
Anne, thank you for keeping us updated on the latest & greatest scams. Hackers and scammers exhaust me. It’s a shame, because now, I see a new name in my inbox and automatically assume the worst.
Happy birthday, Anne! Hope you’re off somewhere, having a blast. 🙂
Sue–Many thanks. It’s been a blast! With lots of cake. 🙂
Sue–You’re right. A new name always raises my hackles. But sometimes its a legit guest or a book fan, so I have to open them and see. These crooks are exhausting.
They use bots to call random numbers. They don’t have to “get” your number.
Barb–Most phone spam is robots, but the sophisticated publishing scammers are high-powered sales people who know your name and the title of one of your books. That’s how they get you. People think this person actually loves their book.
Sorry, my response was not about reaching someone specific but about reaching any random mark.
Got an email today from “Sweetspire Literature Management” offering me an interview with some “celebrity” I’d never heard of. Needless to say, I reported it as spam. They’re wasting their time with me, the older I get, the more skeptical I get. I fell for all sorts of scams in my naive 20s – not anymore.
Annabelle–We were all newbies once. We’ve earned our skepticism the hard way. The interview with a celebrity is a scam I heard of a couple of years ago. But it sounds like it’s still around. Good you knew better than to fall into their clutches.
Our Telephone Preference Service list seems to work well, Anne. We’ve had a big reduction in the number of spam and cold calls since I added our landline number to the list.
Companies who continue to call numbers on the list now face big fines. And it’s very easy reporting them.
And now we can also add mobile numbers. Just a shame it doesn’t stop cold calls from outside of the UK. But fingers crossed that it will one day.
Hugh–Another reason to love the UK. I lived there for a couple of years and it was amazing hoe people are taken care of by the government.
I feel there may yet be another scam to add to the growing list, I was followed this week over on twitter by Elegant Literature, yes they have a website, but have no Masthead, no About Page, no who’s who and yet, they are asking only NEW writers for money to join ($9.99 a month) to enter their great contest.
Check them out at: https://www.elegantliterature.com
Alex–This isn’t exactly a scam, but it’s obviously a bit dodgy. Basically you’re buying a magazine subscription (FREE to members! Right.) A very expensive magazine subscription, that is guaranteed to have only the work of beginning writers. Many magazines require that you buy a subscription to enter their contests. But these people will provide you with a community. The whole “buy into a writing community” thing is worrying to me. There are a lot of them springing up. Some are outrageously expensive, and I can’t see they do much for your career. I’d definitely give Elegant Literature a pass.
I am a retired fellow, and I’ve just completed my first book. I’ve gotten emails, phone calls, gone to Zoom meetings, and more. So far, the “offers” to “help” me publish my book have come with a price tag..about $21,000 total so far. I’m scratching my head for what to do next, and this post has been most helpful. Thank you!
Tom–Check out our page called “HOW TO GET YOUR BOOK PUBLISHED”. You’ll find lots of advice for the new writesr, especially if you want a traditional publisher. Don’t pay anybody to publish you unless you want to self-publish. Then use an outfit like Bookbaby, Smashwords, or D2D. Anybody who contacts you will be a vanity publisher. Real publishers don’t have to solicit authors. It’s never a good idea to go with a vanity publisher. Not only will you overpay, but your book will cost so much you’ll never get in bookstores.
That is helpful. I appreciate it!
I am ashamed and disappointed beyond belief that my own country has so many of these scammers. As a Filipino writer myself, this is just heartbreaking.
woops! my laptop glitched out when I posted this… I meant to reply to “Author Solutions, and all its evil spawn, like Author House, network with other scammers, mostly in the Philippines.” So sorry for any confusion
Ms. Write–This is not the fault of the Filipino people. Author Solutions is an American company that moved to the Philipines and taught all their employees to make big money scamming writers. So when Author Solutions dissolved, those employees set up their own companies. There are dozens, if not hundreds of them now. That’s why so many of the worst offenders are in your country.
I got a call from Sweetspire Literature Management that sounded so off.
This call comes out of nowhere from some guy asking about a book that I know another author who uses this name wrote (it was why I originally published under a pen name).
After some querying, he apparently got my contact details (house phone & email) through “Media Outlet Publishing”. Even though I told him repeatedly that I never contacted anyone, he kept going on about there’d been multiple recommendations, or whatever, and he’d need my book details so he could set up some sort of marketing plan.
When I said I didn’t need help, he suddenly turned condescending (scoffing, little laughs, the whole spiel) and signed off with “best of luck to you”.
Then, I get a passive-aggressive an email with “this is to confirm that we are pulling out the recommendations for your publications to distributors and book stores”.
Aldrea–Thanks for letting us know about this one! It’s new to me, although the basic scam isn’t. I’ve had calls from people claiming they “love” one of my books that’s been out of print for a decade and want to promote it. But pulling this stuff when it’s a book that somebody else wrote is hilarious. And all the nasty snark and passive aggressive emails are new too.
And oh, my their website is a hoot. I really want to be represented by somebody who could write this sentence. I wonder if it came out of Google Translate? “Whether it’s biographical in nature or a converted fiction, to a full color interior or a black and white manuscript, we are the team to help you towards adequately publishing and ultimately marketing your literature, your human expression.” Yup, I’ve always dreamed of being adequately published. Especially my a converted fiction. Thanks for the laughs! I hope Writer Beware is onto these folks.