Give the scammers credit, they know they will scam somebody. If you unfortunately are that person, there are some steps you can take to reduce the damage, according to the FBI and cybersecurity experts.

Report the payment to your financial institution
If you’ve spent money, immediately report the scam to whichever legitimate company or agency is in charge of the personal information you gave out. For example, if you gave your credit card to purchase a service from the scammer, immediately contact your credit card company and bank. They may be able to prevent the transaction from going through or can reverse it. If you used a credit card issued through your bank, the bank likely will reverse the charge once you report fraud, but watch your card to ensure there are no odd charges on it. Be prepared for this to be an inconvenience to you, though you may have to be issued a new credit card with a different number.

Secure evidence immediately
You should save everything. Do not delete emails, direct messages, or text threads. Keep a detailed timeline of events and phone call logs. In addition, document financials. Gather all proof of payments, including canceled checks, wire transfer receipts, or credit card statements. All of this will help authorities target the criminals who defrauded you so they can stop them from committing future scams. If you’re lucky and the scammers can be arrested, this evidence will help in their prosecution.

File official complaints
Begin by filing a report with your state’s attorney general’s office. Because scammers frequently operate across state lines, report the fraud to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at the federal level. In addition, submit a fraud report to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can contact local police, but unless the scammer is in their jurisdiction – and he probably isn’t – there’s little they can do.

Share the information with fellow writers
Doing so may be embarrassing, but you can get back at the scammers by preventing them from harming other authors if you are proactive:
• Write an article about the experience for your blog or website.
• Post the article on all social media. Add the hashtag #bookmarketingscam to it.
• Share the article with industry watchdogs such as Writer Beware.

The truth is that once you’ve been scammed, you probably will not get your money back, even if arrests and convictions are made (and that happening is remote at best). Accept your loss as a lesson learned and move on – but only after you take action such as filing complaints. Only when governments are made aware of this seriousness and vast extent of the problem will they take action. Your silence merely helps the scammer.
______________

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:

The process that scammers use brim with manipulation tactics. Such tactics are like a mini-brainwashing, as they aim to prevent you from thinking rationally so that you more easily succumb to the scam. These manipulation tactics are not unlike those used by advertisers for legitimate products and services. The difference is that for a legitimate company, you actually get something in return for your money or can get your money back. With a scammer, you’re cheated out of your money, and any products or services provided are worthless. Understanding these manipulation tactics can help you identify when they are being used and determine if the person emailing or DMing you is a scammer.

Among the scammers’ most used manipulation tactics are…

Over-the-top validation and flattery
Praising you with phrases like “I stumbled across your book, and it genuinely stopped me” or “I was struck by the intellectual boldness and cultural reach of what you have set out to articulate” helps the scammer get you to lower your guard. Our natural inclination is to believe that someone who is friendly and an admirer must be a decent person. This praise also offers the validation that many of us crave for our writing.

Urgency
Scammers create a false sense of emergency – “only a few spots left” or “time is running out” – to induce panic, which pushes you to act immediately rather than to verify the facts. When a person is panicked or stressed, the brain’s emotional center hijacks its rational thinking. Scammers rely on this cognitive overload so you focus on “stopping the bad thing” rather than evaluating the message’s legitimacy.

Authority bias
Authority bias is our tendency to blindly trust or comply with the opinions, instructions, or endorsements of perceived experts, regardless of the message’s actual merit. Scammers weaponize this cognitive shortcut by faking titles (“reader outreach specialist” or “book scout”), leveraging celebrity power (such as pretending to be a bestselling author), or using corporate-like jargon (“metadata audit” or “ranking diagnostic report”) to bypass our critical thinking.

Emotional appeal
An emotional appeal replaces valid logic with emotional triggers – such as fear (“Amazon has changed its policy, so you must now pay to keep your book being sold”), pity (“To ignore this offer is to forget all of the hard work you put into writing your book”), guilt (“How many excuses will it take before you decide your book can be a bestseller?”), or flattery (“Your novel is profoundly moving”) – to persuade or control. Scammers try to get their target to bypass critical thinking, aiming to make you react based on feelings rather than objective facts.

Scarcity
Scarcity manipulation artificially restricts availability, time or access to a service (“limited slots”) or opportunity (“final chance”). By triggering a fear of missing out, the scammer creates in the target a tunnel vision mindset, which bypasses logical decision-making, compelling you to act impulsively out of urgency rather than necessity.

Social proof
When individuals face uncertainty, most look to see what the crowd is doing, as this offers a sense of security and validation. Scammers weaponize this psychology by creating fake reviews and testimonials and using artificial follower counts (most of their followers are bots and other fake accounts) to create a sense that they are experienced, successful and popular. Typically none of the social proof they provide is verifiable.

Confusion
Scammers create confusion by overwhelming targets with information that sounds legitimate, as it often mimics corporate jargon (“metadata audit” or “ranking diagnostic report”). This often is done in a rapid barrage. Targets don’t know what the information means, but because it sounds legitimate, they often accept it as such. While many of these strategies are obvious in emails and social media DMs, scammers have grown increasingly sophisticated in using them. When a strategy lands them a ton of cash, they latch onto it and repeat it until it’s no longer effective. If you maintain a critical eye for these tactics, however, you can spot them and avoid being scammed.
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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:

An email pops up in your inbox saying that a book club wants to read your book. A DM appears on your social media account asking if you’ve considered making a YouTube trailer for your book. How can you tell if these are book scams or legitimate offers?

There are more than 20 different tip-offs that you’re dealing with a scammer rather than a legitimate provider of services. No single one of these tip-offs is proof of a scammer, but the more of them that you notice in an email or DM, the more likely you’re dealing with a ne’er-do-well.

Unsolicited offer
Professionals in the writing industry rarely solicit authors with cold calls, whether it be by phone, email or a social media DM. Instead, they meet each other in business environments (such as writing conferences) and then communicate. When they do meet by email, authors typically are the ones who begin communication with literary agents, editors, publishers, marketing companies and others.

Message sent at odd hour of the day
With bots and AI, messages can be sent at any hour of the day. You can eliminate some of them, however, by looking at those sent to you during the middle of the night. Would a literary agent in New York City, film producer in Hollywood, or book club coordinator in Peoria, Illinois, honestly send you an email at 1:30 a.m.? That’s very unlikely, even if the sender were located in the United Kingdom or Hawaii and you live in Texas.

Personal rather than company-affiliated email
When you receive an unsolicited email, look at the email address. Legitimate professionals almost always use a company-affiliated email rather than a free email service like Gmail. So if the email came from Brett Jordan at Ace Marketing, look for an email address like brettjordan@acemarketing.com. An email like brettjordanacemarketing02@gmail.com is a bad sign. By the way, that number is another clue that the email is bogus. Few people use random numbers in their email address.

You’re addressed with not quite the right name
Scam emails often get your name wrong. For example, they use your last name rather than your first name (“Hi Smith” for Mary Smith), combine your first or last name (“Hi Msmith” usually because this is how it appears on your email address), or use some odd derivation of your email as your name ( “Hi Marysmith27” if your address is marysmith27@yahoo.com). A human being knows not to do any of that.

Poor English
For most scammers, English is their second language. While this was a dead giveaway in past scams, AI largely has eliminated spelling, capitalization and punctuation errors as well as most odd English use. Despite that, the language of scam emails still will be stilted at times or use AI-speak, which often is opaque or pompous (“how the content is broken down visually” or “how they’re presented and structured for discovery”). Even if the email was not sent by a scammer, would you trust your manuscript to someone who doesn’t write flawless English?

Sloppy details
Since AI is writing the email or DM, you can expect it to mess up details about the sender. For example, many emails are signed by a different name than used in the email (Brett Jordan signs the email sent by jackolson@gmail.com) or the name of the “marketing company” appears in two different forms (such as “Ace Marketing Inc.” in the opening line but as “Ace Marketing Co.” in the signature block). Any time you see an inconsistency or discrepancy, consider it a red flag.

Name of the company aims to deceive
Scammers make up companies that sound familiar to lull you into comfortability. For example, their company name is “Amazon Kindle Network,” which sounds like it’s from the largest self-publishing company and bookseller in the world. If a company name sounds a little off, then it probably doesn’t exist. Always google the name to verify.

Sender’s name is that of a famous author or a celebrity
Would a bestselling author (especially a dead one) or a famous celebrity take the time to write to you, an indie writer? Just how did they get your book and email address anyway? Sure, it’s remotely possible – and that’s part of the emotional manipulation, that you were discovered – but remotely possible is the key phrase here.

Sender’s name isn’t real sounding
Red flag the email or DM if the person sending  has a name that is weird (“Sunshine Promise”), too generic (“Mary Jones”), or of a book-television-movie character (“Kaelin R. Veyne”). Now, these names could be of a real person, so this red flag can’t be the sole ding for presuming the sender is a scammer.

Virtual address
Scammers always make themselves hard to trace, so they give addresses for virtual offices, use P.O. boxes for their address, or offer a randomly selected residential or business address from the United States, United Kingdom or Canada. If you receive a phone call, the caller ID is spoofed.

Stock or AI headshots
To appear presentable and to hide their identity, scammers tend to use AI photos, stock photos, or simply steal a photo from someone online. You can determine if a stock or stolen photo were used simply by saving that image to your desktop then doing a Google image search for it. By the way, don’t be surprised if the stolen photo is a headshot of an amateur softcore porn star.

Over-the-top flattery
Whoever emails or DMs you often is seemingly familiar with your title and has high praise for it and your writing abilities. This praise is full of superlatives. Such flattery is almost always a sure sign of a scammer trying to gain your trust. By the way, the scammer got the information about your book not by reading it but by scraping wording from your book description on Amazon and any reviews posted there. AI simply rewrote it.

Generic flattery
Despite the warm praise, when you really look closely it, the words are fairly generic, almost is if someone just read a summary of your book rather than the actual text. The praise gives no real details about your book – and any details given almost certainly are in your Amazon book description.

You were discovered!
Scammers try to emotionally manipulate you by saying your book was discovered by a “book scout,” a publisher or a filmmaker, recommended by Amazon, or given a “favorable review” by an unnamed “industry expert.” All of this is possible, of course, but extremely unlikely. Professionals don’t have time to browse Amazon or Goodreads searching for titles they might market or turn into a film, and publishers certainly won’t republish a book that already has been published and is still for sale.

Over-the-top metaphors and similes
As AI is used to write most of the emails and DMs, you should expect that there will be some outrageous metaphors and similes (“watch the reviews thunder in like Babylon at the city gates” or “2,500+ readers who treat reviewing like spiritual warfare”) in the text sent to you. That’s because AI has been trained on marketing copy, which uses hyperbolic language.

Non-standard industry terms are used
Scammers often try to sound intelligent by using jargon. Because they actually know very little about the industry, they tend to make up terms like “book specialist,” “book expert,” “reader outreach specialist,” “book scout,” or “private circle of readers.”

Spot fees
Reputable companies and organizations don’t ask readers to pay for spotlighting or reviewing books (and certainly not at the high prices scammers ask, even with a “very special discount just for you”). Book club readers don’t expect tips from an author to leave a review (Paying someone to leave a review of your book, by the way, can get you banned on Amazon).

Pushy sales tactics
Scammers always use aggressive, high-pressure methods to force a purchase. This is done by creating fake urgency, sending constant follow-ups, or using manipulative language. While this is not atypical for sales people in general, scammers usually turn it up a notch.

Non-credible testimonials
Should the scammer provide testimonials, all the reviews are positive, no last names are given (so that you can verify them), the images of the person giving the testimonial are AI generated, stock photos, or pics stolen from peoples’ Facebook pages/websites. Sometimes the reviews come from Trust Pilot, where reviews can be purchased and so hardly are trustworthy at all.

False claims about books they worked on
To gain your trust, scammers will lie about to whom they’ve provided services. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll likely find that the scammer says he’s been in the marketing business for five years but apparently worked on a book published in the 1990s. Or the authors’ names and book titles are not quite spelled correctly and maybe even some of the words in the book’s title are out of order.

Requests for personal information
While such requests usually don’t occur until after the scammer believes he’s gained your trust, sometimes he’ll ask for it right away. This usually isn’t an attempt to scam you out of money but is a phishing effort to steal information. The scammer may seek your credit card information (including your security and zip codes), bank account number the bank’s routing number, mother’s maiden name, Social Security number (if in the United States), and other information so they can access your financial accounts or commit fraud using your identify.

Big money promises
Scammers claim they can get thousands of people to look at your book with some simple marketing magic and that this will mean a lot of money for you as most of those people will buy your book. Even if this marketing guru is not a scammer, he just told you a lie. Thousands of impressions doesn’t net that many sales and probably not enough, in fact, to equal what you’ll spend on getting those views.

Odd signature sign-offs
Professionals don’t end their email with terms like “warm regards” or “warmly,” as if they are your friend or relative. “Sincerely” is standard, and increasingly with emails no sign-off is used at all.

Sender’s name is odd
Red flag the email or DM if the person sending it is a celebrity (especially a dead one), weird (“Sunshine Promise”), too generic (“Mary Jones”), or of a book-television-movie character (“Kaelin R. Veyne”). Now, the celebrity could be alive and those other names could be real people, so you must balance this red flag against the others listed here. 

No website
This isn’t 1998. Professionals today have a website. Most scammers don’t bother to have one; after all, their scam soon will be found out and the site will be worthless, so why put in the effort? Besides, a website would give you a number of clues that could help you suss out that whoever is contacting you is a scammer. To get around this, a scammer often will give a legitimate company’s website in their email and pretend to work for that company.

Website is by Lovable.app
Lovable is a Swedish company that provides software so you can build a website within a matter of minutes. All you have to do is enter prompts, and the software builds it for you. In many cases, the wording is generic, opaque or pompous (AI-speak) and only partial names are given. Sometimes, only the website’s home page is constructed and the other pages left blank (Remember, scammers by nature are lazy.). 

Duplicate websites
When the scammer does have a website that is found out, he’ll simply duplicate it and give it a slightly different web address. Professionals don’t keep two different, nearly identical websites promoting the same services or products and give them slightly different names. That would diffuse the effectiveness of their websites by splitting the number of people who visit them, causing both sites to appear lower on search engine pages.

“Let’s move to WhatsApp”
If the person you’re communicating with gives you this line, “I’m not on here much — can we move this to WhatsApp?” instead move to the delete button. WhatsApp is a favorite platform for scammers because places like Facebook and LinkedIn use automated systems to identify suspicious links, fake profiles, and fraudulent payment messages. WhatsApp is the Wild West of platforms, as none of those detection systems exist there. Pulling off a scam is much easier on WhatsApp.
______________

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:

Though every book marketing scam is just the Spanish Prisoner con, there are dozens of variations of it. Here are some of the most common types of scams that you’re likely to run into.

Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing representatives
A scammer claiming to be from some division of Amazon or Kindle Direct Publishing says he can boost your sales by improving your Amazon.com page, somehow manipulating algorithms to your advantage, or running ads on Amazon for your book. The scammer’s goal is to empty your wallet and if possible to gain control of your KDP account and lock you out of it so they can reap the profits from higher sales. The Truth: Amazon and its KindleDP division don’t offer or allow such services.

Bestselling author
The scam starts by creating a fraudulent bestselling author’s profile on a social media platform. You friend them, and they DM you with some questions about your writing. You’re bedazzled that a writer of such high esteem would talk to you. After a few friendly back and forths, this “bestselling author” refers you to his marketing guy, who really is just the scammer that was pretending to be the bestselling author. The Truth: Bestselling authors never personally reach out to their followers because their social media is run by an assistant or their publisher’s marketing department.

Beta reader
This scam usually occurs on social media sites in which they respond to posts requesting beta readers or simply DM authors asking what they are working on. They offer to read a few pages or even several chapters for free. Often they don’t give a real name but something untraceable (like “juliette66”) in their profile and have no website – and if they do have one, it’s generic and produced by AI on Lovable.app. The Truth: If you go for the free sample read, your manuscript won’t be read at all but simply ran through an AI, which generates a summary. You then will be pestered to pay for them to beta read the rest of your manuscript.

BookBub
You receive an email touting how BookBub is a great place to sell your book and that they can get you on that platform. They’ll fill out the paperwork. You just need to pay a fee that covers getting the paperwork done and what BookBub charges to be on their platform. The Truth: BookBub’s online paperwork is easy enough that you can fill it out yourself. There is no guarantee that doing this will get you on BookBub, as an editorial review decides which submissions to accept. In most cases, the scammer never fills out the paperwork and keeps all the money you gave them.

Book clubs
You receive an email from a book club that apparently has hundreds, maybe even thousands of members. The email author usually is some coordinator who would like to put your book on the club’s reading schedule and asks if you’re okay with that. If you are, the email’s author suggests that you leave a “tip” for each reader to ensure they write a review of your book. A variation of this is someone claims they represent a “community” of thousands of readers who meet on Facebook or Discord, and they want to read your book or meet with you. The Truth: Book clubs don’t ask authors for permission to read their books, and they certainly don’t expect tips to read or review your book.

Book conference
Someone tells you that your book has been selected to be featured at a major book conference! You’ll need to send pics of your book’s cover and yourself and some information so they can make a banner and include you in a video that oodles of people will see. The Truth: Your publisher markets your book, not a third-party with no connection to your publisher.

Book reading/signing service
You receive an email offering to set up a book signing/reading at major bookstore chains, such as Barnes & Noble. After you pay, they never set up the book reading/signing and refuse to give you a refund for services never delivered. The Truth: Barnes & Noble almost never accepts indie authors for readings and signings. They do accept bestselling authors, however – and those are set up by your publisher, who is established in the business and not a new or a hybrid publisher.

Book trailer
Someone emails you out of the blue claiming the secret to your book’s success rests in having a great video – called a trailer – introducing readers to the title, in the same way that movie previews at theaters help turn those motion pictures into blockbusters. Often those emails use the names of real production companies, and the marketer promises to get your trailer on YouTube, TikTok and elsewhere. The Truth: Legitimate production companies won’t cold call you for business. If you do receive a trailer from the scammer, it will be AI-generated and of poor quality.

DMCA notices
Scammers pretending to be law firms will email you claiming that images on your website or blog violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and that you must pay a fee for the photo’s use, even though you paid for the right to use it by buying it from a stock photo company. The Truth: If a law firm really is representing a client who wants a fee for using his photo, you will receive a certified letter in the mail or will be served a summons to appear in court.

Ghostwriting
A scammer offers to write your next book, you just tell them your idea – and pay thousands of dollars for it. Ultimately, you won’t see the book, and if you do, it will be poorly written and done by AI. The Truth: Unless the ghostwriter personally knows you, she is not going to offer to write your next book with no idea what it’s about. Authors seek out ghostwriters to take on their book project, and usually the only authors who do so are those who aren’t writers but have an idea for a nonfiction book, such as a memoir or something to support their business.

Ingram catalog listing
To get your book carried by bookstores or libraries, your book needs to be listed on Ingram or distributed by a major publisher. Scammers will say they can get your book into the Ingram catalog that bookstores and libraries order from. To do that, they need some money for the service or a copy of your formatted book. The Truth: Besides helping you part with money, the scammer is also interested in gaining control of your book. They can get it listed on Ingram by publishing it through IngramSpark – but you’ll never see the royalties or have access to the account where your book was published. If you want to get into Ingram’s catalog, you can upload the book yourself at IngramSpark all for free.

Literary agent
This is a variation of the bestselling author con in which a scammer pretends to be a literary agent and recommends an editor whose work will ensure that your book can be sold to a publisher. That “editor” really is just the scammer pretending to be a literary agent answering from a different email address. Sometimes real agents’ names are used so that if you google their name, the scammer appears legit. The Truth: Literary agents don’t reach out to authors; authors approach literary agents for representation. 

Literary award submission
A scammer emails you and says your book has been nominated for an award! Finally, you think, the recognition I deserve. You’ve never heard of the award before, but an award is an award, right? There’s just one hitch: You need to pay money to enter your book into the award competition and hence receive the award. It covers the cost of printing and mailing the certificate and the contest judges’ time. The Truth: While there are legitimate contests that you pay to enter, you do so when entering the contest, not as an afterthought once you’ve “won.” For awards of real stature (such as the Edgars or a Hugo), editors in those genres typically nominate the book or short story for the award.

Literary service
You want to publish a book, but the process is confusing or was a disaster the last time you did so. Lucky you, someone has just sent an email offering to handle the whole process for you – editing, self-publishing tasks like formatting, cover design, and uploading it to Kindle Direct Publishing, and even marketing! The price is high, but rest assured, the emailer tells you, their work will ensure your book is a bestseller. The Truth: You’ll never see any of this work done, and if you do, it will be sloppy with much of it (such as the cover) done by AI. Real editors, book and cover designers, and marketing people may run promos for their business, but they receive more than enough work that they don’t need to cold call potential clients by phone, email or DMs.

Made-up products
Self-publishing a book is a steep learning curve, and there’s plenty of confusing information out there (Get a copyright! vs. You don’t need one!; Get your own ISBN vs. Use Kindle’s free one!; Buy a barcode vs. Take Kindle’s free one!). Scammers take advantage of this confusion by creating fake, meaningless products that sound like something you need or that will boost sales of your book. For example, they offer “book licensing,” “book returns insurance,” and an “international book seal.” The Truth: Other than an ISBN, there’s nothing you need to buy to publish your book (Though you might contract for some services, specifically manuscript editing, formatting the book so that Kindle Direct Publishing or IngramSpark can print it, and cover design).

Marketing agents
A scammer claiming to be from a marketing company tells you how your book has caught their attention and has so much potential to be a bestseller but needs some marketing to give it that boost. A variety of different marketing services could be offered depending on what iteration of the scam is being currently in use. Once you pay for those services, the scammer either disappears or provides some worthless marketing material. The Truth: Real marketing people don’t reach out to authors; authors reach out to marketing companies for help. Any marketing person who is good at the job doesn’t need to cold call.

Podcast interviews
Many authors and lovers of books host legitimate interviews of authors that then are posted on the host’s website. It’s a great way to get prestige. Then one day, out of the blue, you are asked to be on such a show! By the way, there is a fee for being interviewed. Certainly it’s worth paying for the exposure! The Truth: If a podcaster reaches out to you, it’s because you’ve done something big like hit No. 1 with your book or because you have a mega number of followers on social media. And a legitimate podcaster never charges. After all, your interview actually helps them sell their books, services, or advertising spots.

Producers and filmmakers
Scammers pretending to be Hollywood producers or other filmmakers say they’re interested in making your book into a movie or a television series, especially on Netflix. Of course, you’ll need to pay them for the adaptation and licensing rights or will need to pay for a book trailer to be made to convince the higher-ups at corporate to give the green light on your book-to-screen project. Once you pay, though, nothing ever comes of it. The Truth: If a producer truly is interested in your book, he’ll contact your literary agent and will pay for the rights to your book, not the other way around.

Representation to trade publishers
A “sales rep” from a marketing company emails you to say that your book is really good and that they can get it sold to a big time publisher. You just need to pay a fee for them to be your representative, and you should have a big book deal in a matter of weeks. The Truth: Literary agents – not sales reps or marketing people – sell your books to publishers, and they don’t charge you a fee but take a percentage of what the publishing house pays you when they purchase the rights to your book. Very rarely do literary agents ever seek an author’s book to represent; instead, authors pitch their books to a literary agent.

Reviews
Every author knows the value of reviews in making sales and boosting your book’s visibility. Scammers know this, too, so will promise to get you dozens of reviews on Amazon or Goodreads – but at a price. The Truth: If the reviews do appear once you’ve paid, they will be generic sounding (as they’re written by AI) and come from reviewers who’ve not made a verified purchase. Always remember that paid reviews violate Amazon’s policies, and your book could be taken down for having them.

SEO support
Someone pretending to be a marketing or website guru tells you that you can improve your ranking on Google or get more hits on your Amazon page if you work on your search engine optimization. They’re not wrong that optimizing your SEO is a good idea. The problem is that they want far too much money to do that. Not only that, they want your website/Kindle sign-in info so they can make those changes. The Truth: This is just a way for the scammer to steal your account. Anyone can read a couple of articles online about SEO and improve their website and book description on Amazon themselves.

TikTok video
Every author dreams of their book going viral, and what better way to do that than through a video on TikTok, the viralest of the viral? Because TikTok feels mysterious and inaccessible to many, especially those who grew up in the era before the Internet, an offer to feature your book on TikTok or to make a TikTok video about it instantly appeals to authors, many of who are willing to open their wallets. The Truth: Presuming the scammer even delivers on the services, the video will be made using AI and will offer only generic statements about your book. The scammer’s TikTok page is followed mainly by fake accounts that the scammer set up, so almost no one who sees the video actually buys books.

Website design/development
You receive an email or phone call or DM saying that a great looking website is important to your book’s success. That’s true enough. The person reaching out to you proposes building a new website for you or redesigning your current website. The cost often is high, but the promise of high book sales makes it sound all okay. The website you get (if you even get one) will be designed using AI … and if you hand over the sign-ins to your website for a redesign, you can bet the password will be changed so you’re locked out. Now the website you’re paying for is being used to sell porn or fraudulent services. The Truth: This is just another way for scammers to steal your account. Legitimate, skilled website designers receive enough work that they don’t need to cold call clients.

Writing certificate
Want to become a better writer? Learn how to edit or design book covers or build websites for authors? One day you decide to respond to an advertisement on social media (probably Facebook) to learn how to do just that. Once you complete the course, you’ll receive a certificate! The Truth: You probably won’t receive a certificate or even a course, and if you do, the course provides very little useful information while the certificate is meaningless. What counts in the writing business is real-world experience … Did you go to an actual school for this and get a job afterward to do what you studied? Did you prove yourself by writing books that sell in which you also did the formatting, cover design, and website build? Did you write four horrible novels, gradually getting better each time, so that the fifth one was publishable?

Website/social media promotion
Visibility is key to book sales, so who wouldn’t grab at the opportunity to appear on another person’s website or appreciate that someone is posting about your book on Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, TikTok or Bluesky? The problem is when you need to pay for someone to post your book on their website or social media pages. The Truth: Sometimes the website posting is free, but you’ll then be spammed with emails encouraging you to buy a promotion package to ensure you get more visibility. As for the social media promotion, the marketer’s followers almost all are entirely fake accounts, so no one actually sees your book.

This list is hardly exhaustive, and it never can be. As new promotion strategies and social media arrive on the scene, scammers will come up with new cons revolving around those techniques and platforms. But the one thing their cons always will have in common is that you must pay for something you think will make your book a bestseller, and you’ll either never see those services rendered or if they are they’ll be useless.
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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: