What Authors Can Do about Book Publishing Scams

Have you been scammed yet? In the past 18 months, AI technology has triggered a pandemic of book publishing and publicity scams that target aspiring and even mainstream authors.

According to Kelly Burke, a leading Guardian Australia investigative reporter, scammers use AI to troll through millions of book titles, identify low-selling authors almost instantly, and then issue persuasive, highly personalized pitches urging them to part with their money in exchange for phony services and campaigns.

ASJA is hosting a webinar to warn and inform book authors about the subject, “True Fakery: What Authors Can Do About Publishing Scams” on Wednesday, May 13, 1:30-3 p.m. Eastern time.

The event—which I am moderating—features four of the best book scam detectors in the publishing business, including one who’s been scammed. The experts will discuss how to detect and protect yourself from online scammers and seek legal resolution if you have been scammed.

The book scammers webinar is free for ASJA members, $20 for nonmembers. Get more information and register here.

How Book Scammers Operate

A new wave of AI-fueled publishing fraud “lifts directly from the lonely hearts playbook,” Burke writes in The Guardian. “Rogue publishing schemes – most operating out of South Asia, the Philippines and Nigeria – have become the new romance scams, substituting the promise of true love for the dream of literary recognition.”

Today’s scammers produce faux websites that copy mainstream publisher sites to a “T.” They lure unsuspecting authors to submit their books to non-existent editors, frequently dressed as attractive, 30-somethng AI-generated models who are gifted, invariably, with easy to pronounce Anglo Saxon names. They also persuade authors to pay for such frauds as “book returns insurance” and fictitious “author licenses.” 

Book marketing bots target authors with virtually flawlessly written solicitations and “guarantees” of thousands of book club readers and elevation to best seller success.

Last year, Writers Weekly, a long-running U.S. website for freelance writers, identified as many as 2,500 scam publishers. Scammers have bilked authors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for vanity media placements, low-viewership interviews, placement in book fairs that don’t exist, and fake book-to-film contracts, among other swindles.

“There have always been scams but they have been relatively easy to identify,” said Kathryn Goldman, an intellectual property attorney and founder of Baltimore’s Creative Law Center. But the days of scams with impersonal solicitations, spelling errors, and bad formatting are over.

“With AI, [fraud] has absolutely exploded,” Goldman told Burke in the latter’s Guardian article. “It’s easy to set up these websites. It’s easy to create fake people. It’s easy to create fake videos. New authors just don’t have that level of sophistication to keep up with the scams that now are out there.”

May 13 Webinar Speakers

Burke and Goldman both will share information and advice at ASJA’s May 13 webinar. Burke was the first to expose the Melbourne Book Publisher and First Page Press publishing scams in Australia and the UK, and continues to interview victims. Goldman will discuss the legal implications of scamming and what authors can do to stop scammers.

Other speakers include:

• Victoria Strauss, a fantasy and sci-fi author, publishing scam investigator, and proprietor of the Writer Beware website, where she chronicles current scams and traces perpetrators back to their origins. Strauss will share her own experience as the target of AI scams and how she coped.
• Cybercrime expert Christopher Kayser, President and CEO of Cybercrime Analytics, a Calgary-based cybercrime consulting and research company. Kayser’s book, “Cybercrime through Social Engineering – The New Global Crisis,” describes the roles that emotion and AI-based persuasion play in socially engineered cyberattacks.

How to Prevent Being Scammed

Prevention is the best way to fight scams. Blow the scammers off in email. Delete their messages. Demand a face-to-face Zoom call for verification.

Almost all scammers won’t show up online, but some with unusual hubris do.  Last year, for example, the FBI investigated and arrested three people involved in a $44 million scam to defraud 800 elderly authors with fake book-to-movie deals.

You too could be scammed—don’t let it happen!

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ASJA member Arielle Emmett, Ph.D., is a writer, visual journalist, and traveling scholar specializing in East Asia, science writing, and human interest.