Estimated reading time: 20 minutes

Writing a book is a real achievement. Many authors have been working on their book over a lifetime and are eager to see their work in print and to be read. Unfortunately, scammers are pros at exploiting that strong desire to be published, manipulating authors wanting to give birth to their project. You can avoid a publishing scam simply by increasing your awareness. Publishing scammers may present themselves as professional editors, publishing houses, literary agents, marketing and PR specialists, book consultants and/or publishing advisors. The fake movie director looking for a new story is surprisingly common. But in the main, it’s a  fast-talking but polite sales person  from  the back-blocks of Manila in the Philippines working for a North American company and hungry  for his next  pay-check.

They often promise a bestseller status, attractive opportunities and quick results. However, these benefits  come with a large cost. This could be a large sum or even signing a contract that strips the author of their rights. A common technique is exclusive printing rights – the book production looks cheap but the author must print with the scam company at enormous cost.

I am writing this post to scream ‘writer beware’!

Introduction

What Every Aspiring Author Should Know

A self-publishing company’s own book where they ignore their own poorly written advice.

For as long as people have dreamed of publishing a book, there have been people looking to take advantage of that dream. Publishing scams are not new and long before AI and online platforms existed, authors have been targeted by these predators that promise their success in exchange for money. At Green Hill we get at lest one phone call weekly from an author who has been scammed. These people are out-of-pocket, stressed and desperate for help. Some of them talked to us early in their search for a supplier but were unfortunately wooed by impossibly cheap deals and impossible to keep promises – tricked by a commission hungry hard selling and unscrupulous salesperson. Today though, it can be harder to identify what is real and what is not. These scammers have polished websites, emails that sound authentic, a large social media following. But under all of this their goals are always the same: to persuade authors to hand over cash in exchange for services that either do not exist, or fail to live up to what they promise. For authors trying to research and find a publishing pathway that suits them, it can be very hard to know how to identify potential scams.

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1. No physical address or staff

Most scammers don’t have an physical office or staff (beyond 1-2 people).

If they provide an address, make sure its not just a post office box. One UK company operates out of the prestigious London suburb of Kensington. When I attended the London Book Fair in 2019, I stayed in Kensington and thought I’d investigate. The “office” was down a side lane, and a further side lane where the bins were kept, up an external staircase into a landing where there were 20 post boxes at the entrance to a grubby paint chipped corridor. There were tiny 1920s offices behind doors that seemed to have had twenty coats of paint. I knocked on the door (painted black and yellow and decorated with peeling rock band promotional stickers) but no-one answered.

There are a lot of Australian based companies that operate out of “holes-in-the -wall” too. While everyone has to start somewhere – while we’ve now got professional well equipped offices (Green Hill did start in my house) it is a factor to consider. Ask for their address and look on Google to see the street frontage of the building.

More importantly, if the company has no staff you can be certain that quality and timeliness will be negative factors in producing your book. No staff means outsourcing things like book design. If book design is outsourced it usually means you will not be able to discuss design direct with the designer. It is a flawed process of ‘Chinese-whispers’ where you explain the book concept to one person, who has to relate that to another.

The cheapest way to outsource book design is in Asia or South America. The outsourcing issue becomes magnified if the book designer is in Bangladesh or Mexico with all the unavoidable language and cultural issues. One Canadian company outsourced design of a childrens book to India. The book about the adventures of an Aussie dog, featured an Indian looking rural house complete with an Indian mother in traditional dress, the Australian snake rendered as Asian cobra.

The bottom line is if a company is small with perhaps 1-3 staff, there won’t likely be sufficient specialised expertise. If its a one person company run by an editor, will they have the expertise for cover design. If a graphic designer is the principle, do they understand book distribution? Probably not. See how Green Hill is set up

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2. Unsolicited Contact

Always be cautious if someone (whether it be a “literary agent”, “editor”, or “publisher”) reaches out to you and offers you publishing services. This often happens even when a manuscript has not even been submitted.

Unfortunately at Green Hill, we’ve had to become adept at smashing the illusions of Australia authors who have been offered scriptwriting services of “leading Hollywood scriptwriters” who will present their script to “leading Hollywood film producers”.

Authors can be flattered when out-of-the blue they get an email from the USA. These scammers are extremely skilled at harvesting emails from the internet and then pitching to authors. Often these offers are from well disguised Nigerian crooks, but they can come form scammers based in Sydney or New York.

Emails that begin with phrases such as “We discovered your book online and believe it has bestseller potential” are very common among these scams and are used to prompt contact.

It is rare that any legitimate publisher would approach an author this way unless they have had a conversation with them prior.

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3. High-Pressure Sales Tactics

Publishing scammers often try to have authors make quick decisions in offer to get the scam underway. It is common to hear things such as “We have limited spots”, “This is only available to be redeemed today”, or “Your manuscript is important and needs to be published immediately.”  An all time classic is the “let me ask my manager” line that goes as follows:

“Let me see if I can arrange a discount for you, give me a minute to discuss with my manager. Hang on for just 60 seconds please, I’ll see what we can do.”

” Great news, I’ve arranged for you a $2,150 discount, but you’ll need to accept now. We won’t be able to hold that.”

Publishing is never a process that should be rushed. Reputable companies allow authors time to go through contracts, ask questions and receive advice on the best way forward.

Once you’ve enquired with a scam company, expect to get dozens of phone calls and emails over many months or even years. And expect for the discount to evaporate with unknown additional costs during the process of producing your book.

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4. Missing services

Some scam companies request large payments but provide little to no detail about the actual services they are offering. These services can be absent from a proposal, contract or invoice. They are elements of any publishing project that are essential to give your book the best possible chance of success.

The contract you sign is important. Look for signs of ambiguity and even spelling mistakes. Most of the scam company contracts are legally sloppy copies from internet sites, most definitely not crafted by a lawyer. Some scammers don’t have contracts because this can slow things down when they are in for the quick kill. A contract should detail not only what you get, but how you pay for it and how the publishing company operates – often described as Terms of Service.

Warning signs can include: no clear explanation of editing, design or distribution, generic service descriptions with no timeline or deliverables, and contracts that focus heavily on payment instead of obligations, legalities and deliverables.

Missing services can be factors key to the failure of the book. If a company run by a graphic designer offers a book deal, they will almost certainly not be skilled in distribution – for example production of sophisticated Thema metadata to make sure the book sells through findability. This service might simply be absent in the contract and because the author isn’t aware of the importance of proper distribution, the publishing process is fatally flawed by omission.

Authors should always know what they are paying for or entering into before committing to any services. It is also extremely important to obtain advice on contracts.

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5. Useless offerings

The opposite of missing services is the provision of useless or ‘hollow’ offerings. Often the essentials are replaced with flashy sounding ‘benefits’ that are next to costless to implement and don’t work to help you publishing project.

Often a scammer’s proposal is padded-out with useless and ineffective gimmicks. The things offered as part of scammers book publishing packages are seemingly and increasingly ridiculous.

.A common one is free book printing – a ‘hollow’ offering. There is no such thing as free book printing – you will pay  for book printing one way or another. It’s just included to provide the illusion of a bargain. The naïve author might think “they are a publishing company and can print books for next to nothing”. This couldn’t be further from the truth because printing remains an enduring cost of the publishing process.

Book trailers, where a  30 second video is produced for “just $250”, taking the producer 10 minutes or less, often using AI, is more negative than positive in promoting your book.

Similarly  reviews done for a fee and flagged by a special decal on the cover of the book, scream  ‘fake’ to readers in the know. The only exception is a Kirkus Review which can have fidelity. The book to movie script conversion offering is ridiculous but many Australian authors fall for it.

These are all offerings promoted by scam companies. As soon as you hear the word “free” you know you are in the middle of being scammed.

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6. Bad Reviews or unverifiable track record

A good publisher should be able to show evidence that their quality of work is good. If you cannot find books that have been produced by them, authors they have worked with before, reviews and testimonials from real clients and evidence of books being available for purchase it is important to investigate further.

Green Hill has had a couple of negative reviews but they turned out to be from bitter competitors who have had their authors migrate their business to us. These are commonly on blog sites where negative reviewers remain anonymous or are not verified in any way by anybody.

See Green Hill’s record here: 5 star Google reviews

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7. Quality of Design

Scammers  outsource the design work of the book to the cheapest locations they can find – The Philipines, Pakistan, India, Mexico – anywhere the pay rate is lower than $7 per hour. The ‘designers’ are often ex office workers, shop assistants and labourers – anyone who knows the basics of a computer. The designs are amateurish.

AI designed covers have legal and copyright issues and can look terrible.

Unfortunately many Australian companies that aren’t scammers, suffer from the poor design syndrome. Authors that have low visual literacy – often stumble into these companies, and as a result receive very poor design work. They aren’t scammed financially but their books fail. This is a difficult one because some authors might be great storytellers, great writers and great book promoters. But they might not be skilled to distinguish between what book looks good and what doesn’t.  A simple test is to  look at the covers Penguin or Allen and Unwin produce and line the publishing companies books alongside.

Green Hill book design work is showcased here.

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