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Please join us in welcoming Victoria Strauss to Writer Unboxed as a new regular contributor. Victoria is not only a multi-published novelist and author of short stories, she is the voice of Writer Beware–a group dedicated to empowering writers by unmasking writing scams and schemes. We’ve been fans of Writer Beware and Victoria Strauss for as long as we’ve existed here as a site, and we could not be happier to have her as a member of the WU team. Welcome, Victoria!
When I do presentations and Q&As, I’m often asked to name the most common scheme or scam writers need to watch out for.
Usually, I have to think a moment before I answer—not just because the universe of writer-focused predation is constantly evolving (for instance, there are far fewer fee-charging literary agents now than there were when Writer Beware was founded), but because the ways in which writers can be tricked and exploited are so many and various that it’s hard to choose.
These days, though, I can respond without hesitation. By far the most prevalent writer-focused scams are solicitation scams.
Solicitation scammers contact writers out of the blue with publishing-related offers that seem too good to be true. A literary agency is interested in your work! A prestigious publisher wants to acquire your book! A film producer wants to turn your novel into a movie! A marketing company can expose you to millions of potential fans!
You know the old adage, though: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In reality, these offers are not about boosting your career or raising your profile. Whatever enticing carrot a solicitation scammer may dangle before you, the real aim is to get your money.
Solicitation scams and schemes are not new. Back in the days of snail mail, costly print vanity publisher Dorrance Publishing was notorious for soliciting submissions from copyright registration and magazine subscription lists. (Dorrance has re-tooled itself for the digital age, so its solicitations now come via email.)
Profiteering contest and awards programs have also long been prolific solicitors (for instance, J.M. Northern Media, which runs multiple high-entry-fee “festivals”), as have bogus Who’s Who registries. Predatory author mill Omniscriptum regularly solicits submissions to its many imprints, and if you write nonfiction, you may have been contacted by Close-up TV News, a pay-to-play “news” program that has been chasing customers for nearly two decades.
Over the past three years, though, the volume of solicitations has exploded, driven by a huge rise in publishing-related scams from overseas, and also by the pandemic, as in-person networking and marketing opportunities for writers have dwindled and online activity has increased. Self-published and small press authors are the solicitors’ favorite marks. But any writer can be a target.
WHAT YOU MAY ENCOUNTER
Fake Literary Agents and Agencies
Real, reputable literary agents—whose inboxes are overflowing with submissions and who have no need to solicit clients–rarely reach out directly to writers they don’t already represent. For scammers, on the other hand, cold-call solicitation is their main recruitment method. And large numbers of them are posing as literary agents and agencies.
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Fake agency solicitations typically involve strategically vague flattery—your book has been noticed by an un-named committee! Recommended by anonymous book scouts! Praised by an unspecified expert!—and claims that appeal to writers’ most feverish dreams—we can transition you to a Big 5 contract! Sell your movie rights! Get you a huge advance!
The “agent” will claim to be “commission-based”, encouraging the writer to believe that no fees are involved—but in reality, it’s a referral scheme. If the writer bites, they will discover that some sort of paid service is required: editing, a marketing campaign to boost their profile, a treatment, a screenplay. And of course, the “agent” knows a “trusted company” or “recommended expert” (aka the real scammer) who can provide it.
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Note the wonky English in the solicitations above—not what you’d expect from a reputable agent, and a telltale sign of a bogus approach, since most fake agent/agency solicitation scams are based overseas (despite their apparent US and Canadian addresses and phone numbers), and are run and staffed by people for whom English is a second language.
Another telltale sign that things aren’t right: the “agent” is unGoogleable (a real agent will have an online footprint—a bio on an agency website, a Publishers Marketplace listing, mentions of sales). Here’s one inventive scammer that attempted a workaround: creating a network of fake websites and CVs for its equally fictitious “agents”.
Re-Publishing Offers
This solicitation scam focuses almost entirely on self-published writers (if that’s you, dear reader, I’ll bet you’ve gotten one of these).
The pitch here is that the scammer wants to “endorse” the writer to traditional publishing companies—but first, their book has to be re-published, because trad pubs won’t consider self-published authors. As a bonus, the scammer claims it can offer a better deal: 100% royalties, a snappier cover, bookstore distribution, and more. Of course, this wonderful service isn’t free—but not to worry, there’s a special sale/an early bird discount/a cost-sharing arrangement to lighten the load.
Of course, the whole premise of such offers is ridiculous: re-publishing an already-published book in hopes it will be published a third time makes no sense, and will not impress a traditional publisher. But the scammer is betting their target doesn’t realize that.
This solicitation is from Book Art Press, which does business under several different names:
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The cost? $3,500—pitched as half the total expense, with Book Art Press (falsely) claiming to pick up the balance.
Re-publishing scammers do generally follow through on publication (though the new book’s cover and formatting may be of poor quality, and the scammer may neglect to warn writers that their old contracts need to be terminated first). It’s in their interest to do so, because the scammer can then pressure the writer to spend even more money on overpriced “marketing” services, such as paid book reviews and vanity radio interviews. I’ve heard from authors who’ve spent upwards of $30,000 on re-publishing scams, or who were berated and browbeaten when they balked at handing over more cash.
As an added risk, these companies often go out of business without warning or notification, leaving authors high and dry.
Impersonation
Not satisfied with creating their own fake agencies and publishers, some solicitation scammers impersonate real, reputable literary agents, publishers, and film production companies.
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Unlike fake agents, these individuals and companies can be Googled, with impressive results, as in the example above. But a closer look will usually reveal discrepancies. The well-known agent is using a gmail account (wouldn’t they use their agency’s own email protocol?). The Big 5 publisher’s email address looks authentic to a casual glance, but a letter has been added or transposed. The independent press’s logo is correct, but its name is mis-spelled. The successful movie producer’s email includes grammatical errors, incorrect word usage, and/or weird sentence constructions.
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These too are referral scams. On receiving the submission, the scammer will claim that editing is needed—and of course they know just the company to provide it. Or if a screenplay is required, and the writer doesn’t have one on hand (as is likely in most cases), there’s a “trusted literary firm” that will create it for them—and can deliver by the very tight deadline! (If by chance the writer has already paid for editing, or does have a screenplay ready, these will inevitably fail to meet the scammers’ very discriminating standards.)
Fees from impersonation scammers that have been reported to me: screenplay creation: $10,000. Developmental editing (pitched as something demanded by traditional publishers before submission): $3,000. Paid reviews (ditto): $800. Book insurance to indemnify publishers against losses (ditto—also, there’s no such thing): $1,500. A marketing campaign to raise the author’s profile and impress publishers: $1,400 (the author paid, and got nothing).
Marketing and Promotion
Have you recently received an unexpected email offer to launch a press release campaign for your book? Or create a “cinematic book trailer”? Or reserve a slot on a radio show with an amazing host? Or obtain professional reviews? Or optimize your website? Or include your book in a national magazine? Or take your book to Hollywood? Or stock your book in a real physical bookstore? Or exhibit your book at an upcoming book fair?
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This and more is what I call junk marketing—junk because such methods aren’t very effective for book promotion, and also because they are cheap to provide and are sold at a huge markup. Costs range from several hundred (for press releases) to many thousands (for the kind of book fair display in the solicitation above), making junk marketing insanely lucrative for the companies that sell it–which is why so many do.
Not all are scams. But junk marketing is never a good use of money, even where it’s reliably delivered—and so many marketing companies are scams that you can’t be sure you’ll get what you pay for, or that you won’t receive a product that’s substandard, or that you aren’t being soaked for a service that would cost much less if you bought it on your own (Kirkus Indie reviews, for instance, which some marketing scammers sell for two or three times the actual cost).
Super-cheap promotional services are another common marketing scam, and they too are prolific email solicitors.
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Many of these bargain basement outfits charge no more than $25 or $30, but it’s still a waste of cash, with the promised promotion consisting largely of canned tweets and posts blasted out to social media accounts with low user engagement. And that’s if they don’t just take your money and do nothing.
Editing and Ghostwriting
Ghostwriting/editing scams—which charge thousands of dollars to write and/or edit a book, and also sell publishing, illustration, marketing, and other services—are on the rise. If they get hold of your email address, you can expect to receive “offers” like this one several times a week:
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They also regularly troll writers’ groups on Facebook.
Ghostwriting/editing scammers maintain often-enormous networks of interrelated websites, selling the same suite of services under dozens of different names. Like the other solicitation scams described above, they are based mostly in the Philippines, and their websites show it, with frequent grammatical mistakes and English-language errors (not the greatest advertisement for an editing or writing service). Blatantly fake “portfolios” of bestselling books by well-known authors encourage writers to make false assumptions about the scams’ credentials. Some even go to the trouble of creating rosters of fictional staff.
As with any scam, you may not get what you pay for—and if you do get it, you may be disappointed. I’ve never heard from anyone who has gone all the way through the bookwriting process, but I have heard from writers who bought editing services and received edited or copy edited manuscripts full of errors, or who are still waiting, months after signing up and paying, to get anything at all.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
I’m sure that much of what I’ve discussed above will seem so obviously bogus that no sensible person would fall for it. And indeed, most writers who receive these solicitations will immediately recognize them as scams.
But people do fall for it. And like the Nigerian email scammers, solicitation scammers only need a small number of targets to respond in order to make money.
Awareness is your best defense. Not every unexpected email you receive will be fraudulent—but given the sheer number of solicitation scams, and the enormous volume of emails and phone calls they generate, it’s safest to treat any publishing-related contact or offer that arrives out of the blue as questionable—at least until you’ve done enough research to definitively determine otherwise.
This list of publishing, marketing, and fake agency scams, which I regularly update, can help you identify known predators, as can the Writer Beware blog, where I often write about them in detail. You can also email me at beware@sfwa.org, and I’ll tell you if I’ve gotten any reports or complaints.
It may seem like there’s no end to the schemes, scams, and pitfalls that target writers—but the more you know, the easier they are to recognize and avoid. Hopefully this article has added to your store of knowledge. Thanks for reading…and be careful out there!
Have you ever gotten a solicitation like the ones above? What was the offer? Did you realize right away it was bogus, and if so, how?