Sitting in for Angela and Brian today is award-winning and bestselling author David Atkinson. Thanks, David!

As a new and not-so-new author, you will find yourself facing multiple scam emails, texts, direct messages and the occasional phone call from scammers. Writing, especially in the self-publishing space, is the new Wild West.

Almost all of the scammers tend to use Gmail accounts, which is a dead giveaway, as no large organisation would use Gmail for business purposes.

Here are some of the most prevalent scams targeting our industry that I’ve come across recently:

The Netflix/Paramount/Universal book committee.

A producer reaches out to you, offering to include your book on the agenda for the next Netflix book adaptation board meeting. Eventually, they ask for lots of money.

The Book Club/Book Festival scam.

A ‘book’ club person reaches out to you, gives a generic description of your book (from the blurb, or written with AI), and asks if you want to be featured in their book club. Eventually, fees are requested. There is NO book club with thousands of readers waiting to read your self-published book. The book club might genuinely exist, but this scammer has nothing to do with them. It’s an impersonation scam. Book clubs don’t charge authors to feature their books. They use the same tactics to try to scam you into paying them to “feature” your book at a well-known book festival. Your book will never appear at that festival.

The Big Publisher/Literary Agent reach-out scam.

(I get about three of these a day, but the number is increasing.) First of all, has your self-published book sold more than 50,000 copies? If not, then any publisher/agent reaching out to you is 99.999999999% likely to be a scam. Publishers are swamped with submissions; they do not have time/or need to trawl through Facebook looking for authors. They usually ask for ‘reading fees.’

The Podcast/Radio/TV show.

Another variation – YOUR BOOK HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR A PODCAST WITH (insert famous person), anyone from Dua Lipa to JD Vance. The scammers don’t work with those podcasts. They take the author’s money and disappear.

The Library Scam.

Someone reaches out from various library organisations (which do exist) offering to get your book featured in library reading days, etc. – they won’t.

The Famous Author.

(I get about five of these a day.) A ‘famous’ author reaches out to you, saying they want to connect. The actual scam usually involves introducing you to their ‘marketing guru’ from Nigeria, who is responsible for their success. The famous author impersonator and the marketing guru are usually one and the same. They use a realistic fake website.

The Introduction to another scammer.

One of the more tedious setups. (I see about fifty of these a day; they’re everywhere!) The poster usually drops into ongoing posts on social media and offers to introduce the original poster, or those participating in the discussion, to their publishing guru or marketing specialist.

The book contest.

In the last month and a half, I’ve won three major book awards – despite not having entered any contests at all! They send a congratulations email and demand $15 for a badge and $25 for a small plastic trophy to ‘display on my shelf of joy’ as one scammer called it! As well as being crazy, it devalues every book contest winner I see now, since I have no idea whether they won anything.

Visibility/reviews/cinematic book trailer/marketing tips/organic traffic/website review (offer to build).

These are all very similar. The scammer messages you by various means and offers the above. Mostly it’s just an attempt to extort money from you for non-existent services.

Post your cover/describe your book/what you need help with/what is the one thing you wish you’d known before publishing?

These are all posts on Facebook from scammers who, as soon as you answer, will hit you up with direct messages for services you don’t need.

The After-Service Amazon Book Review Blackmail play.

Scammers email/direct message you saying they have spent xx amount boosting your book on Amazon, etc., then demand payment from you, or they will drop 450 one-star reviews on your Amazon book page. (They can’t and don’t.) But it’s very nasty and can be upsetting for newbies.

RELATED

• How I Chose the Right Publishing Partner – by Chris Emery, Author of The White House Usher
• 11 Ways to Know If a “Publisher” or Other Service Provider is an Overseas Scammer (You’ll probably only need to check #1 to prove it!)
• Scammers Are Offering to “Help” Scam Victims Get Refunds…For a Fee, of Course
• SCAM ALERT! Writers Press Publishing House Caught Faking Relationship with Traditional Publisher!
• A Scammer is Impersonating Macmillan Publishers
• ANOTHER IMPERSONATION SCAM! WARNING about the FAKE BookEnds Literary Agency AND the FAKE WriteLux – by Stephen Bye

David Atkinson is an Edinburgh-based writer. His first Romantic Comedy, Love Byte, published by Buried River Press, was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelist Association award. The follow-up book, SQUEEZED, was well received, as was The Second Life of Nathan Jones, published by Harper Collins. Future Proof was released in late 2023 and has amassed over 4700 great Amazon reviews, over 7 million KU page reads, and over 100,000 physical sales. The follow-up, Future Perfect, will be out early next year, and his next romantic comedy, Quiet Kisses, will be published by HarperCollins in spring 2027. David lives in Edinburgh with his wife, two teenage daughters and a mad labrador called Bea. You can connect with David on Facebook. 

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