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Aug 27, 2018 · Self-publishing is a free service available to all new authors. You can use Amazon KDP, Apple, Nook, Smashwords, and Draft2Digital, to name a few of the many reputable self-publishing services. With these companies, you can publish a book with only a minimal investment in preparing your book.
Aug 13, 2020 · These fake agents are a front for Limelight Press and Media Agency, which is a scam (click the Overseas Scams link, above). Such scammers routinely use entirely fake offers from Big 5 publishers to trick writers into buying re-publishing and other largely bogus services–up to and including fake phone calls from people purporting to be from the publisher.
Aug 21, 2019 · 2. 'Literary agents' promising book deals. Another kind of scam you might be dealing with is an agent scam. If a literary agent unsolicitedly contacts you to offer you a book deal with a publisher or asks you to pay a reading fee, your spidey sense should be tingling pretty hard.
- By Anne R. Allen
- Phishing Scammers Are Stealing Manuscripts
- How to Stay Safe
- Never Pay An Agent An Upfront fee.
- Real Publishers Don’T Make Offers on Books They Haven’T Read.
- Traditional Publishers Aren’T Paid by Authors; Authors Are Paid by publishers.
- Million-Dollar Advances Mostly Go to A-List Celebrities
- Agents Rarely Solicit Unpublished Authors
- Book Review Scams Are Everywhere
- Beware Junk Marketing Packages
2020 was a terrible year in so many ways. But one group seems to have thrived: the scammer community. Publishing scammers are everywhere now. I hear about new ones every week, each more heartbreaking than the one before. And more outrageous.
Yes. This is happening. It’s a bizarre and complicated scam targeting traditionally published authors, often famous ones. But unknowns have been hit too. Authors will get an email that appears to be from their agent or editor, asking for the latest draft of the WIP. But it’s not from the agent. It’s from a scammer. The unsuspecting author doesn’t k...
Plenty of scammers show up in my own inbox. I usually know enough to send them directly to spam, but I know some writers will be caught by them. And it only takes a few successful hits to keep these crooks going. Here are some basic things you need to know to stay safe. And so does your sweet next door neighbor who’s got a half-finished memoir and ...
I thought fee-charging scam agents disappeared a decade ago, but they’re ba-a-a-ck. The old-school scammers set up “agencies” that either charged reading fees and “copying and postage” fees, or they had cozy relationships with “editing” companies and demanded the author pay a hefty fee for a bad edit. The contemporary scammers are much bolder. They...
If the only reason a company contacts you is that you put the word “writer” in your profile, then be prepared to meet a publishing scammer. I saw a sad little post on Facebook a few months ago from an author who was over the moon because a publisher had approached her saying they were interested in “her book.” She was surprised they didn’t know it ...
Yes. We live in the age of self-publishing and “hybrid publishing.” Unfortunately, a lot of iffy presses pose as “self-publishing assistants” or “hybrid publishers” when they’re just overpriced vanity publishers. There are some very good companies that offer self-publishing services. Companies like BookBaby and Lulu offer excellent formatters and d...
If anybody approaches you with promises of an advance with more than three zeros after it, do some serious investigating. Especially if you don’t have an agent. Memoirs especially don’t tend to sell in large numbers, so unless your book is a high-concept novel or a biography of a major celebrity, be very wary. Some of these scammers are promising u...
Yes, I do know of authors who have been solicited by legit agents, but they were journalists or well-known short story or essay writers who were multi-published in venues other than books. They were not newbies. Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware warned us in December about one of the current scams that snags the dewy-eyed newbies. They approach a w...
Authors are obsessed with book reviews, especially on Amazon. That’s probably why solicitations by paid book review services are the most common scams I find in my inbox. Most of the contemporary scammers have the sense not to promise Amazon reviews any more, because Amazon now has fierce penaltiesfor paid reader reviews. (Paid and exchanged review...
These have been around for at least a decade, and they’re still going strong. (Edit 2/5/21: a reader recently reported a nasty junk marketing company called Book Writing Hub. Our reader paid over $5000 for “marketing” that was not only junk, but nearly non-existent.) There was a time when Tweeting your book title might grab the attention of a possi...
May 25, 2024 · Beware of expensive vanity publishers and scam agents who prey on new authors. Publishing a book today is easy with free online self-publishing services. Some are not entirely free, but most are very cheap. However, this low-cost simplicity has made it a goldmine for shady agents and predatory publishers to mislead new authors trying to publish ...
Oct 15, 2024 · Great Writers Media. July 27, 2023: During the pandemic, Great Writers Media, a seemingly legitimate company, contacted an author with promises of a traditional contract and exposure to Hollywood film makers. Intrigued, the author was passed around different marketing and publishing agents, all appearing friendly and helpful.
Feb 16, 2020 · Update March 10, 2020. Watch out for a new scam publicity company called “Author Capital.”. Today I heard from mega-selling author Catherine Ryan Hyde, who had been approached by somebody from Author Capital who tried to sell her bogus book promotions.
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