In today’s digital landscape, where the allure of self-publishing can be irresistible, an unsettling truth lurks beneath the surface. Ever stumbled upon an enticing ad that promises to transform your literary dreams into a cash cow—only to blush later at how easily you fell for it? If you’ve ever found yourself questioning such offers, you’re not alone. In this eye-opening piece, Angela Hoy and attorney James M. Walsh peel back the layers on a shocking scam targeting aspiring authors, revealing just how these devious entities are siphoning off substantial sums under the guise of legitimate services. With their clever tactics and false promises, these scammers prey on the hopes and aspirations of writers, often resulting in devastating financial consequences. Want to arm yourself with the knowledge to avoid being ensnared in their web? Let’s dive in! LEARN MORE.
The firms listed above are REALLY located in the United States!
Attorney James M. Walsh and I have been working together for the past few weeks exposing scam publishing companies that are running countless ads on Facebook. In the coming weeks, we’re going to share facts, screenshots, disturbing conversations with these scammers, and much more, right here on WritersWeekly.com.
Today, I’ve giving you an overview of what’s to come because we couldn’t wait even one more minute to warn all of you about this elaborate scam that is funneling authors’ money to companies in South and Southeast Asia, and beyond! I have been contacted by numerous very intelligent authors who have been (or who have almost been) fooled by this type of scam!!
1. Just because an ad looks legit on Facebook does NOT mean you can trust it. Facebook has refused to remove an ad by these scammers.
2. Many of the ads offer a ridiculously “too good to be true” price. They have all their services listed (editing, cover design, formatting, marketing…the list goes on and on and on) and they say it’ll cost only $199, $299, or $399. You will NEVER get those services for that amount of money! Not even close! They will use extortion to get you to pay more and more money (thousands and thousands) while they dangle that non-existent book in front of you.
3. They claim to pay 100% royalties. NO THEY DON’T!!! They say that just to get you to sign up, and give them your social security number, your credit card numbers, and your bank info. Cha-ching! Once they have all of that, you are COMPLETELY SCREWED!!!
4. All of these scammers publish U.S. addresses on their websites, and what appear to be legitimate phone numbers. The addresses are for “virtual offices” (companies let you pay them to pretend you have an office there), and actual phone numbers (where you’ll be talking to someone overseas).
5. The representatives that do talk to authors on the phone almost always have foreign accents…but not all of them!
6. The representatives emailing authors often have errors in their messages (typos, spelling and grammatical errors, and bad syntax, meaning they are not native-English speakers). However, some of them are simply copying and pasting form responses to questions so they may not have errors in their messages.
7. The employees’ names are fake, American-sounding names.
8. Many of these firms actually pretend to be Amazon. They will lie through their teeth about that and Amazon is currently suing several of those companies. Just last week, James and I helped a law firm have three overseas scammer websites shut down WITHIN 4 HOURS!!! More on that later.
9. Almost all of these scammers have the same typo in their ads. Despite the fact that I have mentioned the typo in literally hundreds of comments on Facebook under the scammers’ ads, it remains! Oh, and Facebook actually stopped me from posting under those ads for five days when I was exposing the scammers! Remember, Facebook makes money from those ads!
10. Almost all of these scammers have the same type of website design.
11. Almost all of these scammers have covers stolen from other authors/publishers on their websites. (The scammers make it look like they designed those covers when they did not).
12. The scammers have publishing company names that try to trick you into thinking they are located in the United States. While there are a few exceptions, if you see any publishing company name with a U.S. state name in it, or America, American, United States, etc., RUN!
Likewise, some of these companies use famous author names to make themselves sound legit. One example is Hemingway Publishers. Attorney James M. Walsh has a tasty tidbit about them that he’ll be sharing with all of you here in the near future!
And, some of the scammers are using real names from actual traditional publishers, and those ARE ALSO fooling authors!
13. That all of this means is that there are one or more scammers operating under dozens or hundreds of names. They’re savvy, they’re smart, they’re very coercive, and they want to fool YOU and every other author into sending massive amounts of money to their criminal enterprises while they prey on your ego.
James and I will be right here next week with more specifics on what our investigation has uncovered, and we’ll be providing NAMES! HINT: One of the scammers threatened to have James “arrested,” and said he was calling the cops. One told me it was “illegal” for me to post under their Facebook ads. We’re still laughing about those!!!
RELATED
HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK?
Angela is not only the publisher of WritersWeekly.com. She is President & CEO of BookLocker.com,
a self-publishing services company that has been in business since 1998. Ask her anything.
