Publishing and Literary Scams

The Misdirection

Every author wants to know that their work is seen, read, and loved. Scammers aware of that desire have begun to flood authors’ inboxes, claiming to be high ranking editors, agents at big-name companies, or admiring book clubs. They praise the author's’ themes and emotional pull in a couple effusive paragraphs. The request for money, whether for promotion, reprinting, a processing fee, or something else altogether, might not come until the very end of the email or after a few pieces of correspondence. Hopefully this page will make clear how to spot and avoid these scams.

Common Inquiries and Offers

Publishing-related scams can take many forms, but some are more common than others. One is the development of a professional relationship with an agent, expressing interest in publishing or promoting your work. Such inquiries look like they come from big brands like Bloomsbury or Hachette Book Group, often signed with a name that corresponds to a real employee.

Other emails offer smaller-scale promotion. They come from book clubs, reviewers, or marketing professionals, once again under the guise of legitimate brand names. They may offer positive blurbs, a cover redo or republication a year or two after your book is published, or a feature in a book club’s reading list. Requests for funds from such solicitors are often for things that don’t actually exist, such as “book returns insurance,” “author licenses,” or requests for you to cover refreshments or administration for a book club event.

Details in Language

Even if an email appears to come from a reputed publisher or organization, a variety of clues can reveal a scam. A big one is the type of praise included. Long emails with the first few paragraphs dedicated to praise is, unfortunately, a common giveaway. The email might praise your themes and your emotional narrative without giving concrete details, or only include details that can be found from blurbs about your book. The inquiry might cultivate a sense of urgency - the book club is impatient or the agent needs to know whether they’ll be taking you on as a client. Multiple agencies have expressed that they will never send a cold call email, and agents rarely have the time for the lengthy, elegant praise these scam letters include.

How to Check the Scam

If the email still looks highly convincing, here are some other ways to check if it’s legitimate:

Examine the praise

  • Run a description of your book through AI and ask it to “write something that will hook this author.” Compare the product to the email you received.

  • Many people write with sets of three. But if your work is beautiful, evocative, and heart-wrenching, your characters are unique, creative, and complicated, and your plot is riveting, well-structured, and dynamic, that’s a little much.

Examine the sender and signature

  • Check if the email address ends in Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. If so, it’s a scam. Likewise, any major company will likely have their singular email address format available to view on their website or staff page.

  • Google the name of the sender and the company they claim to be from, with all of the spelling exactly as written. Add “scam” or “reviews” to the end of the search.

  • Look up the area code of the phone number provided. A legitimate phone number will be based in the U.S., and likely in the city of the business’ biggest office.

Examine the website

  • The website domain given in the email might be just a smidge different from the business’ actual website - e.g. SimonandSchuster.com (legit) vs. SimonandSchusterUS.com (scam).

  • The website may have blatant typos or errors, even if it looks legitimate.

  • Run the web address through WHOIS, a site that tells you when a domain was created and where. If it says a Bloomsbury domain was, for example, created three months ago in Nigeria, that site would not be trustworthy.

  • Check scam-tracking lists like Writer Beware and WritersWeekly that keep track of scam sites targeting authors.

When in doubt, reach out to the company claiming to email you. Don’t open any attachments or respond to the inquiry.

Additional Resources

Some publishers have created fraud resources. Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins are among them. Their resources include an email to contact with news of fraudulent impersonation, fake email addresses associated with their names, and literary agencies that they do not work with, despite what scammers claim. Their lists of scammers are not exhaustive, but they are certainly helpful. Other sites like Luminare Press have guides for authors on how to detect and avoid literary scams, with examples of emails that look trustworthy but are fraudulent.