Almost all scams aimed at authors are the traditional Spanish Prisoner con. This con involves convincing the mark (the person who will be conned) that if they put up funds now, they will receive a greater monetary reward at the end. It comes from the 1800s – though probably is older – when the mark was told that a wealthy individual has been imprisoned in Spain. That wealthy individual is relying on a friend (the trickster or in today’s terms the scammer) to raise money to pay for his release. The trickster asks the mark for money with the promise that upon release the wealthy individual will not only pay it back but offer a reward for helping him. The mark gives money, but the trickster is never heard from again. Sometimes, though, the trickster doesn’t immediately go away but asks for more money to secure the release of the wealthy individual.

Book marketing scams essentially follow the same pattern. The scammer offers a big payback if you spend a little money now. The process generally consists of six steps.*

Step 1. The Hook
Via either email or on social media, you receive a marketing offer that promises to deliver incredible results or you are asked questions about your book and writing and then your marketing activities. This is the solicitation phase. The scammer merely wants to establish his authority (such as by impersonating a bestselling author or holding some important-sounding marketing title like “literary scout”) as well as pique your interest while feeling you out to determine how to navigate you through the scam.

Personalized praise often is given during the solicitation if you receive an email (but if you’re being DM’d on social media it will come after a few innocuous questions). For example, the scammer will tell you how your book “immediately stood out” or how it “lingered in my mind and deeply touched my heart long after I finished reading.” The goal is to get you to let your guard down first by being friendly and by stroking your ego.

Step 2. The Pitch
The scammer describes what they offer. It might be a book trailer, a book club invite, featuring your book at a book conference, getting you more reviews, or a dozen of other services that supposedly will increase your book sales. Typically the pitch appears at the end of the email or after you’ve exchanged a few friendly messages via a social media DM.

Step 3. The Soothing
Either because you’re getting suspicious or because the scammer’s offer is a bit vague, you start to ask questions. The scammer expects this and so has some stock responses, all employing emotionally manipulative tactics, to keep you moving toward falling for the scam. You’ll notice that most of their answers are politely evasive – instead of directly answering “What is your education level?” they’ll respond with “I’ve found that a degree doesn’t mean one has the skills to do a job” – or they may simply ignore it. Their answers often possess a bland corporate tone (using phrases like “integrated event protocol” or “technical optimization”), which is a good indication that AI is generating the answers. Also dropped during an answer will be a casual, almost hidden, mention of fees though none were indicated before; in fact, the initial solicitation likely implied that there would be no cost.

As you ask questions and express concerns, the scammer will sympathize with you about your doubts. For example, “I understand your concerns” or “There are a lot of scammers out there!” He’s trying to show that he’s on your side and even your buddy. This helps assuage your suspicions and keeps you on track to fall for the scam.

Step 4. The Ask
Next the scammer asks you to go all in on spending money for the pitched service. The services you will receive often are vague (“an audit of your account”). This may involve some pushy sales tactics (“limited slots” or “final chance”) to get you to make the purchase. If you’ve gone this far, the scammer knows that you believe you need the marketing he’s offering (And since you don’t need it, he also knows you know little about marketing your books so can be easily fooled). If the scammer thinks you’re a sucker, he’ll even adjust the original proposal so that you’ll pay more.

Step 5. The Handoff
Once you agree, you are moved over to another person, often on a different platform, like Fiverr or Upwork, where you can make your payment. Don’t be surprised if the person you’re paying has a bank account in Delaware (an easy state to register shell companies and anonymous corporate structures so a popular location for fraud networks), is on a platform like WhatsApp where tracing payments is difficult if not impossible, or that the person you’re paying has a Nigerian name.

Step 6. The Theft
After you’ve paid, one of three things will occur:
• You’ll receive a shoddy product, such as an AI-generated trailer or an online interview in which the book club attendees are all bots.
• You’ll be asked for more money, maybe because the “marketing team” has determined the service you paid for, while helpful for your book, won’t be enough to generate the sales your book “deserves.”
• You’ll be ghosted, meaning none of your inquiries about when you’ll receive your services are ever answered, and possibly even the scammer’s email or profile will have been deleted.

A variation of this step involves you handing over log-in information to your Kindle Direct Publishing account or to your website, all under the guise of “optimization.” The scammer then locks you out of the account by changing your passwords and collects your royalties or uses your website for other scams.

These are merely the general steps in the scam, of course. Based on your response, the scammer can employ a variety of tactics all aimed at getting you back on track in this process so that you ultimately reach Step 6.

*Credit goes to Writer Beware for coming up with five of the steps, though I’ve slightly modified their descriptions and added a step (“The Soothing”). These changes are based on my personal observations and research and the experiences of my editing clients as they’ve dealt with scammers.
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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.

Check out my book about marketing scams aimed at writers:

While Bluesky so far has been a fairly scam-proof social media platform – thanks to its ability to create sharable moderation lists that block bad guys – that strength is being tested. Book marketing scammers, knowing that many authors have left Xitter and Facebook, have been trying to find ways to infest Bluesky, and their first large scale attack appears to be underway.

It’s the proliferation of Beta Reader/Editor profiles.

Here’s how the scam works. The scammer sets up a profile declaring they are a beta reader/editor, and sometimes they even offer other services. All of the profiles use similar scripts by posting a few of the same questions and professing their love of helping authors improve their work. None of the profiles contain a link to their website or give their real name, something a legitimate beta reader or book editor would do.

Once you follow the profile, within a few hours you’ll receive a chat message or request. Sometimes if you post that you need a beta reader or edit, they respond. From there, the pattern is the same as any other book marketing scam – the scammer tries to be friendly so you let your guard down and then attempts to convince you to use their services.

Most of the time the beta reading is free (as beta reading should be, otherwise it’s an edit), but the scammer never actually reads your book, Instead, your manuscript is copied and pasted into an AI program, which writes an analysis of the piece. You then receive this analysis with glowing praise but a warning that you need an edit to fix some problems. This is when you spend money. You’ll never see an edit, however, and if you do, it’ll be done by AI. The scammer then deleted that profile or you’re simply ghosted when inquiring where your edited manuscript is or about the poor job they did. This scam is common on Xitter and Facebook.

Should you ask to see a website or if the scammer gives one in their profile, you’ll typically be sent to a generic AI-generated one on Lovable.app or are sent to a Fiverr or Upwork account, favorites of scammers because getting your money back once spent there is difficult. Many of Fiverr and Upwork accounts indicate that the person who owns them is in Nigeria, a hotbed for transnational criminal organizations that commit cybercrime. If you continue to interact with them, the answers by and large will be generated by AI.

I’ve been able to trace a number of these scams on Bluesky specifically to Nigeria. When I ask for the beta reader’s name, they typically give one that has a clearly fake account on LinkedIn (AI photo, no experience, recently posted, location in Nigeria or a country where Nigerian crooks have cells), and their name matches those used on other email addresses or social media accounts that others already have identified online as a scammer.

Should you encounter one of these profiles on Bluesky, don’t interact with it. Instead, click the three dots on the top right side of their profile and hit “Report Account” on the dropdown menu. Report the account as “Misleading” and then as “Scam.” Next, block the account. If you keep a moderation list for scammers, add it them the list. This helps Bluesky identify and delete scammer profiles while protecting other authors from falling for it.

If you need a beta reader and an editor to read your work, there are dozens of legitimate profiles on Bluesky. Such accounts give the person’s actual name, which then can be googled. You’ll likely find that author or editor has published a book and has a number of other social media accounts in which their pictures match. Beta readers never charge for their services beyond a trade of “I’ll beta read your book if you’ll beta read mine” – and if they do charge, they’re no longer a beta reader but an editor. In that case, they should have a website that isn’t generated by AI. Legitimate editors are upfront about their prices, their experience editing, and provide testimonials from real people who in turn can be cross-referenced by googling their names. Scammers don’t go through the trouble of doing all of this because it isn’t worth their time – after all, once they scam a few authors, at least one of those authors usually post that a scammer runs the website, rendering it no longer is effective in conning others.

When encountering these beta reader/editors, I do a quick check to see if red flags pop up that they are a scammer. If they fail the test, I then add them to my Marketing Scammers list, which if you are Bluesky you can subscribe to (for free!).

Of course, saying that authors don’t have a lot of money is done tongue in cheek. The fact is many authors have day jobs or are collecting retirement benefits. We authors may not be wealthy from our books, but most of us have enough disposable income that scammers are betting they can convince at least a few of us to part with some cash. And it’s apparently working or scammers would have given up by now.
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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.

Check out my book about marketing scams aimed at writers:

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.

Check out my book about marketing scams aimed at writers:

That scammers would target authors surprises the heck out of most of us who write. After all, authors rarely make much money from their books, and one of the plethora of reasons many of us write is because we want to make more money! So why target someone who doesn’t have money to part with?

The fact is that authors actually make great targets for scams. There are a number of reasons for this.

Chief among them is emotional vulnerability. Authors often pour their hearts and souls into their creations. This emotional investment leaves us eager to accept validation from prominent and reputable sources, believing that our work has finally been recognized and appreciated. The scammer merely needs to appear legitimate, and he has an in on parting us from our hard-earned money.

Another major reason is the desire for visibility. The intense yearning for recognition and visibility compels many authors to pursue opportunities that enhance their exposure, including awards or participation in book clubs. We’re always looking for the marketing secret that brings our book to prominence. This quest often leads us to take significant risks in hopes of gaining the acknowledgment we seek. Given this, after scammers praise our book, they offer an opportunity to be seen by readers.

In addition, many writers, particularly those who are new to self-publishing and especially family members who’ve inherited copyrights, often suffer from a lack of industry knowledge. For example, many don’t realize that reputable publishers and filmmakers compensate authors rather than require payment from them. For others, social media that they never use, like TikTok, seem mysterious with no entry point, and they don’t understand how to get their book to go “viral” using that platform. Scammers twist around how the profession actually works to trick us.

Lastly, scammers are increasingly leveraging AI technology to create and distribute a large volume of personalized and sophisticated scams, including fraudulent emails that appear to come from reputable sources like Amazon and actual publishing companies. This tactic allows them to target authors on a massive scale – and there are millions of indie and aspiring writers – making the scammers’ deceptive efforts more effective as it becomes a number game. If they send a million emails but only get 10 authors to each spend an average of $1000, the scammer has made $10,000. Now send 7 million emails with the same results, and their theft exceeds the annual median income of an American employed full time. Spending a few days getting those 10 authors is quite lucrative.

Of course, saying that authors don’t have a lot of money is done tongue in cheek. The fact is many authors have day jobs or are collecting retirement benefits. We authors may not be wealthy from our books, but most of us have enough disposable income that scammers are betting they can convince at least a few of us to part with some cash. And it’s apparently working or scammers would have given up by now.
______________

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.

Check out my book about marketing scams aimed at writers: