Who is Scamming Authors?

Exactly who is behind these scams aimed at authors? Perhaps if we knew, we might be able to block or otherwise stop them from bothering us.
 
The fact is that there actually are very few humans behind the scams. You probably can already tell that by how similar in style and content the solicitations are. Instead, blame AI-driven bots that mass email or direct message you.
 
A good number of author scams come from Nigeria, according to research done by Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware. In October 2025, she reported that several scams had been traced to the African country. When authors tracked website visitor stats, there was an uptick in traffic from Nigeria as they received batches of spammy marketing emails. In addition, after answering the emails or direct messages, many times authors were led to LinkedIn profiles of Nigerian “marketing experts.” Often the scammer asked that payment be made by money transfer or to a private account owned by a contact on Fiverr or Upwork, the latter of which is Nigerian scammers’ favorite job platform. My own research of simply googling names in the email addresses spammers use tend to verify this. Many names can be traced to LinkedIn profiles of Nigerians and Pakistanis.
 
Many of these Nigerian spammers work for transnational criminal organizations, particularly Black Axe. Interpol identifies Black Axe – which is based in Nigeria but has cells in European and other African countries – as a primary driver of cyber-enabled financial fraud worldwide. The crime group defrauds people of billions annually and are a major target of Europol. Black Axe often recruits university students to work for them, and not surprisingly, many of the scammers traced back to LinkedIn profiles are of Nigerian university students or recent graduates of those same schools.
 
Scams specifically about website and graphic design come in large part from the Philippines, according to various authors’ reports on Facebook and at Writers Beware. Most of these scammers used to work at Author Solutions, Inc., which during the mid-2000s outsourced its sales and production to the Philippines. The scammers’ proposals for republishing and rebranding already published books and junk marketing (marketing services that require very little effort to provide but rarely ever increase book sales) almost perfectly match the Author Solutions model.
 
Another major source of these scams come from Pakistan, according to Writer Beware. Many of the scammers pose as a self-publishing service provider and offer a variety of other services, such as editing, cover design, publishing packages, and more. Unlike the Philippine scams aimed at those who’ve already published books, the Pakistani scammers traditionally focus on writers hoping to publish their first book. The advantage of the Pakistani approach is that conning those unfamiliar with the publishing industry is easier than those who are familiar; finding authors who’ve already published is easier than finding those who haven’t published, however, and hence the Philippines model.
 
All of this contrasts sharply with spam and phishing attacks in general, according to AAG, an outsourced IT support services company based in the United Kingdom. They reported in October 2025 that most spam comes from five countries: Russia (24.77%); Germany (14.12%); the United States (10.46%); China (8.73%); and the Netherlands (4.75%). No doubt, some author scams originate in those countries and are run either by organized crime or by run-of-the-mill con artists looking for a quick buck. For the moment, though, most scams aimed at authors tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines and Pakistan. Expect the scams aimed at authors to spread to other countries – after all, a good con knows no national boundaries.
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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