A So-Called “Author” Tried to Trick Me…and Failed MISERABLY!

A So-Called “Author” Tried to Trick Me…and Failed MISERABLY!

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A so-called author submitted a manuscript to BookLocker. We are very particular about what we publish. Over the years, some journalists and other folks in the writing and publishing industries have tried to trick us by submitting fake manuscripts. They assumed we were just another author meat market, and that we’d accept any manuscript, despite the claims on our website. They were wrong. Dead wrong.

Well, it happened again.

The “author” submitted a 5-page manuscript. There was literally one sentence on each page. So, it was actually a 5-sentence manuscript.

I told him that, for books targeting an adult audience, our absolute minimum is 48 pages. I didn’t expect to hear from him again because he’d already been caught. But, he wasn’t done yet! 😉

One day later, he uploaded a new manuscript, and it was a freakin’ miracle! It was 245 pages!!!

Now, many of you are thinking, ‘He used AI.’ And, that’s what I thought at first as well. Until I opened the file…

He’d put all five of his sentences on one page, and then he copied and pasted the exact same sentences onto 244 more pages.

I wasn’t born yesterday, dude! He received a sharp rejection, and I admonished him for wasting my time and his.

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