Once upon a time…
Shouldn’t all cautionary tales start off in this way? Because it’s a cautionary tale that brings me to you today. This is the story about my brush with a scammer – someone who wants to take a writer’s hopes and dreams off them, all the while slipping their hand into your pocket and running their sticky little fingers through your wallet.
Being approached by a publisher…?
Last week I received an interesting email from a publisher. Yes, a publisher! It was a name I’d never heard of before, so of course I did my due diligence. The publishers are, in fact, legitimate, which is why I won’t include their name here.
I was already laughing at their audacity when I realised the name of the publishers is the same as a satellite suburb of Melbourne, something that the 0.1% traitorous part of my brain told me was a plus. A quick Google finds them situated in America. My brain calculates that as another plus, maybe two, namely wider audience and more potential readers.
You know where this is going. Right from the first line I was 99.9% suspicious, too. But that tiny, traitorous 0.1% kept pumping, slyly whispering in my ear… oh, ooh, it could happen. This is what scammers count on and why it’s so important to avoid author scams.
Of course, it couldn’t happen. No publishers contact writers out of the blue, even to only open a conversation, as this email suggested they were doing. Writers are the ones who contact editors and publishers, not the other way around, especially unpublished writers like me.
I was confused that the email quoted parts of my story, Hawker’s Road: The Hangman’s Noose, including the strengths of my two main characters and the story’s main themes. It even touched on my childhood, growing up on an isolated island. My own words were being quoted back to me. So, how did they know so much about my story and about me?
How scammers get information about authors
It’s simple, as my friend and author, Sandy Curtis, pointed out when we talked. All they had to do was Google author pages. Eventually my site would have popped up to the top of their list and they could set their sights on me, unpublished apart from short stories and poetry, and someone they imagined might be unsuspecting and desperate to see my work published.
Except, I’m not. I’m not unsuspecting. I’ve read the scam warnings about offers that sound too good to be true. And I’m not desperate. I’m willing to work to get my story honed to its best, and in front of traditional publishers, editors and agents.
What other signs are there of scammers?
But, apart from knowing that this is not the way writers come to publication, how else can you tell that you are being targeted by scammers? It’s all about the email address. The scam email address had included the name of the legitimate publishers, but the end of the address was different, directing it to the scammer’s email. You’ve seen them on spam that comes to your computer with promises of great bargains. They appear okay until you give them a good hard look.
As for their spiel, all they had done was feed my words, about characters and themes, into AI and quote them back to me, all in glowing terms. And let me tell you, my story sounded great! And my story is great and I think it deserves to be published, but until I get it in front of real publishers or agents who request to see it in the traditional manner, it’s staying on my hard drive. My money is staying in the bank!
Happy reading and writing everyone!
