Publishing and Marketing Scams

Nothing is more gullible than a new, self-published author. 

Has to be, because all any author has to do is to put a single notification on some historical fiction Facebook group site to suddenly sprout an army of supposedly new fans:

Let’s choose HARRIET, which is, as it happens, free today and for a couple of days after – 

McVeigh’s HARRIET is FREE for a LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!! Grab yours today!!!! 😊 😊

Now, any author posting this or similar, in a Facebook group full of historical fiction groupies, doesn’t want much. All we want is for a few hundred people to download it for nothing, get hooked by the story, buy all the others in the series and scribble a rave review. Simple, right?

Of course, this can, and does, happen. However, this isn’t, of course, what happens most. Instead, for every reader who grabs my freebie – today, my Harriet – I get about 97 messages like the following:

“Hi Jane Austin, Your new book HERRIOT sure looks like the goods. Wowsers!!!! Where can I get hold of one?”

You wisely ignore this and the other 96 chancers/scammers, having decided that, “Fathead, if you click on the link I provided you could get one free!!!” is not a good look for an author.

But the scammer might have a second go, normally with this gem: “I love the arc of your author’s journey and would just love to learn more. Could you add me as a friend so I could message you?”

To which the honest answer is, “No, ***hole, because then you’d just take in my friends, in hopes of eventually getting hold of their bank account passwords.” 

Again, though, you don’t make any answer, whether honest or not. You don’t rise to the bait, not even if they get practically desperate to learn about the arc – yawn – of your “author’s journey” or your “style of writing”.  (Sometimes they spell it “writing”. That’s just how excited they are about the prospect of “getting your book the attention it deserves”!!! 😊)

These scammers are mostly just annoyances for most of us to wade through, though it’s a good idea to “hide” their posts on your actual page. 

However, some newbie authors must actually take the bait, frankly, or else the scammers would give up, trot down to the nearest pub, down a beer and try to forget. 

Of course, there are also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more impressive scammers out there, and this is why every single author – whether established or not – ought to subscribe to Victoria Strauss’s Writer Beware. https://writerbeware.blog/

Victoria Strauss has made it her personal mission to research and expose every scam out there. (And yes, she’s had death threats.) She’s amazing!

Here are just a few examples (of her examples):

1. Scam publishers using the names of established publishing houses. (Or close enough: Mcmillan instead of Macmillan, HarperCollins instead of Harper Collins. Close but no cigar, that kind of a thing.)

These scammers swipe the logos of genuine publishers and then approach young/new/idealistic authors with mouthwatering but completely bogus offers to publish their book and to make them a fortune. 

They turn out to be curiously poor for big-name publishers, though, as they immediately ask the scammed author for money. Sometimes for tens of thousands.

1. There are also scammers pretending to be major filmmakers, who are fascinated by novice author’s work and wish to make a film of the author’s latest novel (as if!) 

Now one can attract adventurous souls – I have myself – who hope to flog your novel/their script to major filmmakers. The chances of this must be very close to zero, but you don’t pay them a penny and hey, if it happened, that would be very cool. 

But the odds of major filmmakers contacting an indie author with an offer to film their book… really are zero. Still, authors fall for it every day.

1. There are also scammers in Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines etc. who pretend – if you chuck $1000 at them – to be able to get your novel on the New York Times bestseller list. 

Fascinating if terrifying additional note: Buying one’s way onto the New York Times bestseller list is actually possible, but it’ll cost you far nearer $100,000 than $1000… Some authors have spent tens of thousands buying up their own books. Of course, it doesn’t do them any good, because you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

And then there are other scammers who…

Oh, hang on, wait, I’ve just got this thrilling message on Instagram. Apparently, there’s a Netflicks company in Vietnam and the owner just loves my books!!! (Can’t spell his own company name, Netflix, but hey, who’s counting???)

Really!!!! He just loves all of them!!! And he wants to make a film of my DARCY: A PRIDE AND PREJUDICE VARIATION with Jennifer Ehle as Mrs Bennet and Colin Firth as Mr Bennet and wouldn’t that just be the bestest thing ever???!!!!! Simply MUST get back to him soonest!!! Catch you later!!! Byesie-bye!!!!! (Lol.)

Yours, in hopes of having helped just one person here,

Alice

PS Support Alice’s all-new, all-singing, all-dancing Kickstarter.

PS Remember, HARRIET is free today!!!! Joint runner-up for Foreword Indies’ Book of the Year 2022, starred pick on PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, etc. etc. Basically EMMA from the enigmatic Jane Fairfax and a slightly brighter Harriet Smith’s points of view.