Scamming Revisited

I’ve decided I am not quite done writing about my scam experiences. It appears they come in different flavors. I am getting one or two of them a week. I must be on the sucker’s list.

Previously, I wrote about my experience with the book club/promotion deal. I have inquired into “individuals” who offer to promote one of my books for a fee. None offer references or have a website.

I recently got an offer from a real publisher. It was a long, detailed email, which had the feel of legitimacy, offering a “partnership.” At the bottom of the email was the name of the co-founder of the company, with the usual contact information, including the website address.

I clicked on the address, and up came a big red box that said, “Scam Alert! We do not offer partnerships.” Of course, when the scam started, the publisher was not aware, and things looked legitimate. But even now, the unwary might be fooled if they don’t do their research.

Not unlike the scammer proposing to be a real publisher, I got an email that bore a real author’s name: a prolific, award-winning British fantasy writer, who simply complimented me on Sword of Trueterra, giving me an at-a-boy. Nothing more. Nonetheless, I was still suspicious. I returned the compliment and thought this author might get back to me and “suggest” he could help me get the book out into the world. That did not happen. Maybe it was simply a real at-a-boy.

Still, I feel cautious after reading on The Authors Guild site, which keeps an updated list of author scams, the following:

“May 23, 2024: We recently received a report about scammers impersonating bestselling authors in order to scam other authors. The author who alerted us discovered a Facebook page in the writing service category called a “verified fan club” that was pretending to be them and engaging with their followers. Another author reported paying the person behind the Facebook page $499 for a foreword, supposedly written by the bestselling author, with whom they thought they were speaking.”

I will also mention a site I came across while researching author scams. WritersWeekly is an online magazine for freelance writers founded in 1997 and associated with the self-publishing company BookLocker.com. While some people feel they are a little dodgy themselves, they do have an exhaustive and highly opinionated list of scammers.

Oh, and Writers Beware almost goes without saying; it’s probably the premier site for scammer information.

You might also visit Absolute Write Water Cooler, which has a list of scams and lots of other useful information for authors.