Don't Fall For Author Scams!

I don’t know if authors are targeted by scammers more than any other profession, but sometimes it feels that way.
 
There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, many writers are “Newbies” who are ignorant of how the publishing industry works, That means that they don’t have the knowledge to identify a scam when they see it, which makes them easier targets.
 
The second reason is that the publishing industry has always used a lot of freelancers to provide services: editors, proofreaders, graphic designers et al. The arrival of easy to access self-publishing, back when Lulu was founded in 1998, gave those freelancers a whole new market for their skills. It also provided employees with those skills the opportunity to establish “side hustles” to earn more money outside of their normal workplace.
 
That made it very easy for scammers to use those sorts of services to disguise their scams.

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I must emphasise at this point that there are a lot of hard working people out there offering their professional skills, who do a good job at reasonable rates. Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to differentiate between them and the scammers.
 
The scams tend to fall into two types. There are the ones that rely on vanity to draw in the victim and there are those that offer a service which they either don’t provide, or which is such poor quality that it is as good as a scam.
 
Let’s start with the vanity scams.

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Let’s face it, as authors, we often think that our work doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. This is especially true for self-published authors who are struggling to sell even a few copies of their book, let alone rise to the dizzy heights of “best seller” status.
 
And that is the feeling that the scammers play on to draw you in.
 
It will often start as a DM or an email, saying how the sender works for a publishing company, or is a representative (perhaps “talent spotter”) for an agent, producer or someone else who can turn the author into the next “big thing”..
 
The DM or email will tell you that whoever sent it really liked your book and thinks it has a real chance of success and they will help you to get it into the hands of whoever they say they represent. There will be no mention of money – yet. They will often want to speak to you on the phone, because it is much harder to resist a scammer on the phone because they can be so charming and persuasive.
 
OK, let’s unpack that a little bit.
 
Firstly, it is a direct appeal to the author’s vanity (we all suffer from it, even if the amount of vanity varies). It has the author punching the air and saying “Yes, I always knew my book was good.” Essentially, most of the scammer’s work has been done just because of that reaction.

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Agents, trad publishers, TV and film companies don’t need to “reach out”  to authors to find work to publish., They are inundated with authors and script writers sending them work. Most of it is good work, too. The publishers and producers are spoiled for choice.
 
Simply knowing that can save you from the scammer.
 
There is a variation on that theme, which is the offer to get your book into one of the well-known mainstream bookstores. Barnes & Noble tends to be the bookstore of choice, probably because it is the largest chain in the USA.
 
Again, it’s not how those businesses work. The trad publishing houses are sending them a constant stream of new books, with the added advantage that the publisher is doing the marketing, so the bookstore doesn’t have to.
 
So why would the bookstores need to go through a “middleman” to put a book on their shelves that won’t have that marketing effort behind it? It would just be taking up shelf space that could be used for books that will sell because they are being marketed properly

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One of the most common things that is seen in writing groups on social media is the appeal “does anyone know anything about (insert name of business)? They have approached me offering to (insert scam)”.

​Simply asking the question means the author is suspicious
  
But they aren’t making the post in order to confirm their suspicions. They are making the post in the hope that someone will say “It’s OK, they’re legit. Go with them” Sadly, the responses almost never say that.
 
Remember the main way of identifying a scam is that if it sounds too good to be true – then it’s too good to be true.
 
The next type of scam is the vanity or “hybrid” publishers.
 
Now, I’m not having a go at hybrid publishing as a legitimate industry sector. If you are happy to pay for someone to print a whole load of copies of your book for them to end up in your shed while you try to find some way of selling them, that’s your business not mine.

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But there are a lot of scammers describing themselves as hybrid publishers with the sole intention of getting their hands on your money.

The best you can hope for is a whole load of badly printed copies of your book, the worst is an empty wallet and no books at all.
 
Do some research. Find out what others have to say about the company. Not on Facebook, but by doing real research.

​If they are scammers, there will be “red flag” posts on the internet warning about them. If they are genuine, there will also be articles about them describing their business – and I don’t mean on their own website. Someone somewhere will have posted a review saying how well they serve their customers.
 
Two new scams that have appeared recently are the “foreign rights” scam, and the “translation” scam.

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The foreign rights scam offers to find publishers overseas who will buy the rights to publish your book in another country. You pay a fee to an “agent” and they will do the work for you.

Needless to say, once they have got your money that will be the last you will see of it. They might send you an email from time to time to report “progress” but it will always say “nothing to report yet” or, perhaps, “I have a publisher interested but nothing definite at the moment.”

​They may even come back to you and ask for more money because they just need to make “one last push” to close the deal.
 
The translation scam is different because there may be a product at the end of it. The problem is that the author of the book won’t own the copyright on the product – the scammer will.
 
Under EU law, and in some other countries, if a translator makes a translation of someone’s work then they own the copyright on the translated version. The author has to give permission, but that just means saying yes in an email. In practical terms the “translator” (the actual work could be done by AI) can sell their version on Amazon and the author can’t do a thing about it and will certainly never see a penny of the royalties..
 
There is one exception and that is in Germany. There the author retains their copyright even on the translation.
 
So, the first thing to do if someone emails to ask if they can translate your book isn’t to say yes, It’s to say “How much will you pay me for the right to translate my book?”

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Scammers try to get around this by posing as a student who wants to use your book as a course work assignment, but don’t fall for that!
 
Finally, we get to the “service” scams, These are often the hardest to spot because there are so many freelancers plying their trade these days.
 
The first question any author should ask is “can I do this for myself, for free?” In many cases you can. Websites such as KDP and Draft2Digital offer a lot of helpful articles on their sites to assist with the self-publishing process. For audiobooks there are similar helpful services on ACX.

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​For those things where the author would benefit from professional assistance, such as editing, proofreading and cover design, then the warning is “buyer beware”.
 
Use trusted sites such as Fiverr to find the services you need. The reason that you can trust them is that they hold onto the money you pay until you sign off to say you are happy with the product that is provided. That means it is much harder for scammers to operate.
 
If you don’t want to use Fiverr or similar sites, then seek out recommendations from people on social media. DO NOT respond to the sorts of message that say “DM me” or “Give me your phone number”. You have no idea who you are dealing with. If someone says “I used so-and-so and they were good.” then that is different.

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Perhaps the biggest area for scams, however, is in marketing services. You just have no idea if the person you are dealing with is actually doing anything. They may promise to send out a gazillion emails to their lists or put out a post on X that will be seen by a gazillion followers, but you have no idea if it is true.
 
Even if you find their pages on X (or wherever) you have no idea if their followers are genuine or not. It is very easy to buy “followers” (fake accounts) and, of course, we all know about the bots that make up so much of social media these days.
 
And, having paid your money and your sales haven’t improved, you have no recourse simply because they won’t guarantee their services. Which means they can keep committing the same scams because they are fireproof.

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As we have said many times on this blog before, when it comes to marketing, learning how to do it yourself is always going to be the cheapest (and safest) option.

It will also be the best one because no one will market your book with the same passion for it as you have.
 
If you really want to know if what you are seeing, or being offered, is a scam, then check it out on “Writer Beware” which is a website that exposes scams targeting writers.
 
Scams Aimed At Advertisers
 
For those authors who advertise using Meta/Facebook look out for comments on your ads, DMs and emails that tell you that you have infringed Facebook’s advertising rules in some way. They are quite common, especially for new advertisers.

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They will usually say that your account is about to be closed or blocked or that your ad will be suspended or deleted if you don’t take action.

There will be a link, and it can be confused with genuine Meta URLs. Some of the communications are accompanied by the Meta logo, so it is easy to be fooled.

But, as you can see here, anyone can get hold of the Meta logo.
 
Meta does communicate with advertisers using DMs, but if the message relates to payments don’t click on links, Log in to your FB account and check your account settings. Any issues with payments will be flagged there. For ads, it is easy to check if they are active or suspended in your ads dashboard and then query the issue directly with Meta.
 
If in doubt, contact Meta direct, DON’T CLICK ON ANY LINKS. And please do your fellow authors a favour by reporting the scammer’s account and then blocking it.
 
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