Why Author Scams Will Never Stop

I'm no great intellect. I'm not a soothsayer, but my super-power is being dumb once, too. Way back when, I fell for a scam and though it pained me to admit it, I wrote about it on this blog.

I fell for the whole spiel, but not before doing what I thought was my due diligence. The "talent agent" who contacted me was a real person and a real talent agent. The person who emailed me, though, wasn't her. After confirming that "Hope" truly was legit, 🙄 I responded to "her" query about my book (a novella, no less) being adapted for film. She referred me to her project manager and said he'd be in touch. 

I waited with anticipation for him to contact me. When he finally called, sure, I noticed that "Timothy" had an accent, but he was calling from California, which is a melting pot, so, i set aside any concerns. Timothy told me that I was one of three finalists for a film adaptation, and he offered me tons of money if I became the winner. He even offered to pay for my trip to LA for the final investor presentation. My head was spinning! I was so excited, I barely slept that night.

Just one thing: I needed to have a cinematic book trailer, and I didn't have one. Timothy was great, though. He recommended a company that would only charge me $3,000 to make one. Oh, no! Three thousand dollars? I debated whether to withdraw the money from my retirement account...then I looked at Creative Trailer House's videos. That was the time, sadly, when the light bulb finally clicked on.

Yes, you can read all about it here.  

Sure, I'd wondered how a novella could be turned into a full-length movie, but I wasn't a screenwriting expert. They just work their magic!

In my weak defense, this all happened at a time before author scams exploded, and even before scammers began using AI. Thankfully, I've since educated myself. 

Thus, on X yesterday an author posted:

"I was emailed by a literary agent. I did some research to see if they weren't being impersonated. The only thing wrong so far is the agency phone number. It isn't the same as the agency's. Everything else seems to check out. I'm not sure what to do. Any advice?"  

Mine was the first "mean" response. Other replies were excited for the guy, and I thought, oh, man. 

I wrote:

"Did you query them? Literary agents get so many submissions, it's very rare that they reach out to someone who hasn't contacted them first."  
 

Even before my unfortunate experience, I knew that literary agents don't cold-contact authors. Shoot, they often don't even respond when you query them!

I tamped down my response, obviously. I chose not to say, "C'mon! Don't be a dumbass! (like me)" If you're newly published, how are you supposed to know about these things?

It's natural to ask why nothing can be done about the proliferation of author scams. The answer is, in a nutshell, a lack of law enforcement jurisdiction. Most of these scams originate overseas, primarily in The Philippines (which my scammer called home) and Nigeria. And it's not one lone guy working from his home PC; there are whole boiler rooms set up for these operations.  

Also, payments made to these scammers are often viewed as a civil matter, not a criminal one, so even if jurisdiction existed, law enforcement wouldn't place a priority on them. Perhaps a class action suit could be filed, but again, little to nothing would result from one.

The advent of AI only made it easier for these scammers to appear legitimate.

My gmail author account is quite good at sliding these emails directly into my spam folder, but not always. I've begun receiving messages under my personal email, which makes me wonder how the scammers managed to connect me to my books, since I publish under a pen name. My real name's not impossible to find, obviously, but it leaves me uneasy.

So, if one pops up in my in-box, I immediately eye it as a scam attempt. I also get these messages through my website contact form, so the first place I look is at the sender's email address. Trust me; anything sent from a gmail account is a scam. It just is. A true business has its own website address attached to their employees' email accounts. (And look, a true literary agent or talent scout or whoever else is tangentially related to book publishing isn't going to contact you. That's not how it works.)

The most common pitches I receive:

1. A so-called real (but not the real) author contacting you just to shoot the breeze  

2. Fake literary book clubs

3. Senders offering to increase my book's visibility 

4. Offers to appear at book festivals

5. Offers to create book trailers

6. Offers for radio interviews

7. Fake literary agents using a real agent's name

There are others, of course. This list was compiled from a scan of my spam folder.

Also, if the sender directs you to their website, take a hard look at it. Most of these are fly-by-night operations, many with placeholder text that no one bothers to replace with real text. (That's known as Lorem Ipsum.) The photos of "employees" are stock photos or are AI-generated. The company lists no phone number and rarely a physical address. 

My biggest recommendation for authors is to subscribe to Writer Beware. You don't have to subscribe, but if you do (it's free), you'll get every new article delivered to your in-box. Otherwise, just go to the site and do a search for your particular situation. Writer Beware is invaluable. Author organizations like ALLI and The Writers Guild can be helpful, too, but no one spells everything out like Victoria Strauss, plus she really digs into personally investigating these scams.

Finally, we authors need to accept a bit of the blame as well. We're so eager for any kind of recognition, especially someone telling us they love our book (which they didn't read, by the way) that we want to believe. Yep, we're emotionally vulnerable. Scammers know it and they exploit it. 

The chance of us missing out on a true opportunity by ignoring these emails is approximately .0000001%.  

Who ever said a self-published author's life was easy?