Watch Out For This Scam Impersonating Editors at Major Publishing Houses - Writer Beware I’ve recently gotten a slew of reports of emails purporting to be from editors at Big 5 and other large publishers, in which the supposed editor expresses interest in the writer’s work and asks whethe...

New #WriterBeware blog post: I'm getting a lot of reports of a new impersonation scam using the names of prominent editors to make referrals to fake literary agents and "book doctors"--though it comes from a familiar source and uses tried-and-true scam techniques writerbeware.blog/2026/03/27/w...

Check Writer Beware for any discussion about bad contracts. Pay attention. This is due diligence. There ARE bad markets out there. Always check. If a contract sounds off, run it by other good readers with legal background. Don't be desperate.

#writingcommunity #booksky #writerbeware #markets

#writingcommunity This is a great deep dive by Victoria into a supposed book to film adaptation company cold emailing authors. Read the article, tell your author friends that Woodside Motion, Apex Media Global and The Creative Portal are not to be trusted. #writerbeware

The Two Faces of Woodside Motion Co. - Writer Beware Last spring, I began hearing from writers who’d received the email below. (Note the phrase I’ve highlighted; you will see it again.) Judging by the number of reports I received, as well as this length...

New #WriterBeware blog post: If you're one of many who has gotten an email from a company called Woodside Motion claiming to be scouting books for possible film adaptation, and you're wondering what the deal is...here is my deep dive into what the deal is. writerbeware.blog/2026/03/20/t...

Semper Anticus Press have published just 1 book - Adam Rowan's. Rowan is pushing hard on Instagram/Bsky for #indieauthors to submit their work to him. Ordinarily, a start-up indie publisher could be given the benefit of the doubt, but the connection with pay-for-review is predatory. #writerbeware

ayup, and the second one just responded with a very floury email, containing this line: "There is a one time submission fee"

Yet another scam to rake money off indie #writers
This was "The Cambridge and Boston Book Club Spotlight"

#writerbeware

Original post on mastodon.social

I am getting emails from people claiming to be the organizers of book clubs, and inviting me to have my latest book "spotlighted". The first one was quite upfront that there would be a $150 fee, the second one was fairly effusive about my book, and has so far not made any payment demands.

I am […]

The Troubling Trend of Online Beta Reading Scams | The Novlr Reading Room Learn to spot beta reading scams spot red flags, and discover where to find legitimate beta readers who will help improve your work.

Let's talk about the beta reading scam epidemic. I've put together everything I've learned about spotting the fakes, and where to actually find readers you can trust. #writingcommunity #writerbeware

www.novlr.org/the-reading-...

Scams on Writers From The New York Times

Victoria Strauss: "the worst environment for writing and publishing scams that I’ve ever seen.”
Gift article from The New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/books/review/...
#WriterBeware

A warning from @pw.org: "We do not ask writers for money to promote their books, and we do not offer editing or website design services. These are phishing scams. If you receive an offer you are unsure about, please contact us."
info@pw.org
#WriterBeware

Authors and Authors' Estates Sue The Topps Company for Unpaid Royalties - Writer Beware This is yet another Writer Beware post about allegations of royalties long left unpaid. But it’s also about the challenges of work-for-hire arrangements, and what can potentially go wrong when intelle...

New #WriterBeware blog post: a new lawsuit over unpaid royalties exposes the challenges of work-for-hire arrangements, in context of a complicated background of repeated transfers of IP ownership writerbeware.blog/2026/02/20/a...

Another one for #writerbeware

Best of Writer Beware: 2025 in Review - Writer Beware It’s been a busy year in writing scams (but then what year isn’t?). From the new AI marketing scams, to nasty contract clauses, to publishers behaving badly, to the biggest copyright infringement…

Writer Beware's 2025 year-in-review is essential reading for authors. Victoria Strauss covers the biggest threats writers faced last year.
#WritingCommunity #WriterBeware #AuthorLife #PublishingScams

#WriterBeware
Do not fall for phony "contests" that are nothing but stings to grab ownership of your work!

As Harper's shows big names do not equal ethics!

Always read the rules carefully!

Right to first publication only for winners and everything else is your property unless compensated.

Unhappy Returns: Harper's Bazaar Short Story Contest, America Star Books - Writer Beware I always try to keep track of the stories I write, and to update my posts when new information comes to light. Sometimes, though, it’s worth re-visiting the stories themselves–as in the two cases belo...

New #WriterBeware blog post: the return of two "bewares" that I thought had been resolved: a short story contest conducted by Harper's Bazaar magazine with author-unfriendly guidelines, and a notorious scam name risen from the dead (though with different intent) writerbeware.blog/2026/02/06/u...

Global Book Network Issues Warning on Scam Publishers Misusing Its Name - PR.com Global Book Network (GBN), a trusted publishing resource for authors worldwide, is issuing an official statement to warn the writing community of fraudulent...

💙📚My wife, author Toni Bellon received a phone call today saying they were with Global Broadcast Network and for $1400 could get her on television, pods, etc A scam!

See the press release from the REAL Global Broadcast Network and be careful
#writerbeware
#author

www.pr.com/press-releas...

Two New Impersonation Scams to Watch For - Writer Beware Impersonation scams in publishing tend to be variations on a theme, since the goal is always the same: to sell you something. In that sense, the scams below, which are aimed at tricking writers into p...

New #WriterBeware blog post: More gen AI-driven scams from Nigeria, aimed at tricking writers into paying for editing. As with other Nigerian AI scams, they're very roundabout, involving several intervening steps before getting to the editing referral writerbeware.blog/2026/01/30/t...

Best of Writer Beware: 2025 in Review - Writer Beware It’s been a busy year in writing scams (but then what year isn’t?). From the new AI marketing scams, to nasty contract clauses, to publishers behaving badly, to the biggest copyright infringement…

The Best of Writer Beware 2025 is here — all the biggest publishing scams, red flags, and industry lessons you need to know before you query or sign anything. buff.ly/xHjiffd #publishing #amwriting #WriterBeware #WritingTips #WritersLife #WritingCommunity

Best of Writer Beware: 2025 in Review - Writer Beware It’s been a busy year in writing scams (but then what year isn’t?). From the new AI marketing scams, to nasty contract clauses, to publishers behaving badly, to the biggest copyright infringement rest...

New #WriterBeware blog post: my annual look back at the topics the Writer Beware blog covered in 2025. Scams, of course, but also contracts, copyright, generative AI, and more. If you missed any of our posts last year, here's your chance to catch up writerbeware.blog/2026/01/16/b...

If a Famous Author Calls, Hang Up: Anatomy of an Impersonation Scam - Writer Beware You open your email program one morning. The usual work stuff. Some spam (annoying that it got past your filters!). A couple of newsletters (maybe later). You sip your coffee, scroll down. Wait. What’...

There's a lot of scams targeting authors going around from people pretending to be famous authors such as Stephen King or Rebecca Yarros. All you writers out there, stay vigilant!

#BookSky 📚💙 #writerbeware #scams

writerbeware.blog/2025/11/14/i...

Reversion Redux - Writer Beware In the aftermath of the recent Anthropic Settlement (more information here), many writers are making a reassessment of the necessity and value of copyright registration. Claiming a share of pay-out fr...

New #WriterBeware blog post: why writers should consider reverting their rights if they can, especially in context of the Anthropic settlement and other AI copyright lawsuits writerbeware.blog/2026/01/09/r...

Why These Contract Clauses Are Scary - Writer Beware The clauses I’m going to discuss in this post come from the contract of Shadow Light Press, a publisher of fantasy and science fiction with deep ties to the LitRPG community. The contract stirred cont...

New at #WriterBeware: I go in-depth on the most problematic clauses in that Shadow Light Press contract. This isn't just a publisher "beware": exposing bad contract language helps writers understand not just what they should avoid, but what they should demand. writerbeware.blog/2025/12/19/w...

Oh look! A #scam, in my inbox!

I checked out their site so you dont have to. It’s blank junk littered with google translate

#WriterBeware

New #WriterBeware blog post: Amazon just rolled out a new gen AI-powered feature for Kindle called Ask This Book. In effect, it's an in-book chatbot, which raises rights concerns...and currently, rightsholders can't opt out

Kindle's New Gen AI-Powered "Ask This Book" Feature Raises Rights Concerns - Writer Beware In a recent press release, Amazon noted that some new features were coming to Kindle. We’re adding new AI-powered reading features that preserve the magic of reading on Kindle. Story So Far lets you c...

New #WriterBeware blog post: per a report by @publisherslunch.bsky.social, Amazon's new gen AI-powered "Ask This Book" feature for Kindle is, in effect, an "in-book chatbot" writerbeware.blog/2025/12/12/k...

A scammer impersonating philosopher Jürgen Habermas tried to recruit me into a fake book-promotion scheme.

Identity theft + social engineering = modern cybercrime.

Full breakdown → rohandrake.substack.com

#ScamAwareness #CyberCrime #WriterBeware

Royalties in Arrears: Mango Publishing / Blushing Books / Bottlecap Press - Writer Beware Publishers do a lot of bad things (as the archives of this blog attest), but among the most infuriating–and, often, the hardest to remedy–is the failure to pay authors the money they are due. Non-paym...

New #WriterBeware blog post: Among the most frequent publisher complaints I receive: non-payment of royalties and failure to provide sales reports. A look at three recent offenders, who collectively owe thousands that it seems unlikely authors will be able to recoup writerbeware.blog/2025/11/21/r...

The Misleading Truth About IngramSpark’s Wholesale Discount **The buttons in the featured image are my own design! Shop them here. I've been an indie (aka self-published) author for seven years. It's been a difficult yet rewarding journey, and I'm always learn...

HUGE eye-opening article from @author-sara-a-noe.bsky.social about IngramSpark's deceptive discount practices.

#SelfPublishing
#WriterSky
#WritingCommunity
#IndieAuthor
#WriterBeware

onthecobblestoneroad.com/ingramspark-...

More in-depth link to this scam in particular: writerbeware.blog/2025/09/19/r...

Link to Writer Beware website (you can also sign up for their newsletter, which I find interesting and helpful): writerbeware.blog (3/3)

#WriterBeware #bookclubemailscam #ScamEmails #publicserviceannouncement

If a Famous Author Calls, Hang Up: Anatomy of an Impersonation Scam You open your email program one morning. The usual work stuff. Some spam (annoying that it got past your filters!). A couple of newsletters (maybe later). You sip your coffee, scroll down. Wait. What’s this? An email from…Suzanne Collins? _The_ Suzanne Collins? This can’t be real, you think. Why would Suzanne Collins be contacting you out of the blue? And why is she introducing herself as if she were an unknown writer querying for her unpublished manuscript? It’s all fake, of course: an impersonation scheme that’s yet another example of the AI-driven scams from Nigeria that are inundating the writing world. This is a complicated, layered fraud, with two distinct versions and two different endpoints. But they both start the same way. ### Version one: Famous Author ==> literary agent ==> editor/manuscript evaluator It arrives via email, DM, Messenger, or website contact form: a friendly missive from a well-known or even extremely famous author, professing interest in you and your writing and expressing a desire to connect. This improbable outreach ranges from somewhat credible, as in the example above, to oops, forgot to input the prompts: If you respond, there’s an exchange of messages–just some friendly chat about writing or publishing, with Famous Author asking leading questions, such as “are you querying right now?” or “do you have a website yet?” Eventually…surprise! Famous Author wants to refer you to their literary agent! In this example, Lois McMaster Bujold is being impersonated by a fake X account (Ms. Bujold is aware). Like the Famous Authors, the recommended agents are real–though the Gmail addresses the impersonators provide for them are not. If you bite (and at this point, many writers smell a rat and back out), it initiates the second stage of the scam, in which the “agent” responds warmly with an invitation to submit (for verisimilitude, this often involves multiple steps, with an initial request for chapters followed by a request for a full). In short order, an offer of representation arrives…but there’s a catch. The manuscript needs “refining and polishing” or a “light rework”. Happily, the “agent” has someone in mind who can help. You’ve now arrived at stage three, the money grab. The “alpha reader” is called Charlotte Sarah (dumb names are a feature of AI scams), a “seasoned editor” with no resume, no client list, no portfolio, and no web presence beyond a website created with a free online web builder (all warning signs of a fake business). I reached out to Charlotte myself, in the guise of a clueless newbie author, and on her request sent the trunk manuscript I use for these occasions. After some back and forth (another marker of Nigerian scams is the scammer’s willingness to engage in multiple email exchanges that would be a total timewaster for anyone not using AI), she provided me with a price, along with an email address to use for PayPal: The email address traces to an e-commerce website based in Nigeria. (I’ve also seen that address used by one of the “tipped reader” book review scammers. If an operator is running one of these scams, they’re running all of them.) Other iterations of the scam don’t even bother giving the “editor” or “evaluator” a name–just a generic Gmail address, such as manuscriptevaluationexpert@gmail.com or bookeditor@gmail.com. ### Version two: Famous Author ==> marketer In Version Two, the goal is a marketing referral. Famous Author engages in the same type of approach and casual chitchat, but skips the intervening step of impersonating an agent, sending the writer directly to the marketer. The marketer recommended by Fake Pat Barker: Amelia Harrington, Book Specialist. Here’s Amelia’s website, which has all the same warning signs as Charlotte Sarah’s. (Bonus: bogus testimonials.) If the author reaches out, Amelia quickly proposes a suite of marketing services. As always, payment must be sent to a third party. Amelia prefers bank transfer to Wells Fargo, a bank frequently used by Nigerian scammers: Here’s Abdulkudus Abiodun Imran. What happens when you hire Amelia? As it happens, I heard from one writer who did. They reported spending over £2,000 on services, including a video trailer, social media posts, email blasts, and a follower-building effort. Amelia really did deliver those items, taking over the writer’s social media accounts to do so–but they yielded little engagement, and the writer later discovered that most of the follower accounts were fake or inactive, and the the email blast receipients consisted primarily of random addresses with no relevance to the writer’s book. The writer wound up having to delete their social media accounts. ### Alternate versions: Famous Author doubles as marketer or editor Like any popular recipe, the Famous Author scam has alternate versions. Sometimes Famous Author offers marketing services themself. I don’t have examples of these solicitations but I’ve heard from multiple authors who’ve discovered that they are being impersonated for this purpose. I also haven’t seen any examples of this version, but I can believe it’s happening: Here’s a weirder variation. It lacks the Famous Author element but it’s a fake agent referral so I’m including it. You get an email from someone you never heard of with an urgent recommendation that you submit to a literary agent RIGHT NOW! The agent is a real agent, but with the predictable bogus Gmail address or a false submission address. In the two examples of this variation I’ve seen so far, the scammer registered a fake domain using the agent’s name. ### A Possible Original Test Case for Nigerian Scammers? There are currently (as far as I know, anyway) four distinct categories in the wave of Nigerian scams that is assaulting writers of all kinds: a general marketing scam, where a purported marketing expert emails with a pitch for PR or “visibility” services; a book club impersonation scam, where the invitation to appear involves a fee; a “tipped reader” scam where readers who are really AI bots claim to provide book reviews for tips; and the Famous Author impersonation/referral scam described above. They emerged this past spring/summer, and have been ramping up and morphing ever since. However, I think they were around quite a bit earlier (though nowhere near as aggressive and massively prevalent as it is now), in the form of a similar, though considerably less elaborate, author impersonation/marketing referral setup that began popping up on social media more than a year ago. I wrote about it in September 2024. At the time, I suspected it was an overseas scam (as most writing/publishing scams are these days) but there weren’t any breadcrumbs tying it to any specific country. My guess now is that it represented the vanguard of the Nigerian writing scam industry, its first dipping of toes into the water. Kind of like how you can look back at those odd, isolated reports of illness that precede the emergence of a pandemic and say Oh. That’s how it began. I have a growing collection of editors and marketers connected with this scam. Watch for an upcoming blog post how to unmask them. ### Share this: * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky * Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Click to print (Opens in new window) Print * Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest * Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp * More * * Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window) Telegram * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * ### Like this: Like Loading... ### _Related_

Scammers gotta scam.

#WriterBeware #Writing #Writer

"This is a complicated, layered fraud, with two distinct versions and two different endpoints. But they both start the same way."

writerbeware.blog/2025/11/14/if-a-famous-a...