Podcast Interview: Victoria Strauss 11/15/2023 - Writer Beware! How to identify and avoid common scams that target authors

Victoria Strauss – Writer Beware! How to identify and avoid common scams that target authors

Nonfiction Authors Association Podcast | November 15, 2023

“The permutations are endless but what ties it all together is money. It’s all about the money. It’s not in any way about the writing, about the writers, about books. And if you remember that, you’ll be safer because one of the things that I think writers get confused about when they’re offered some kind of paid service because it’s their writing, they assume they’ve been chosen, or there’s some kind of selectivity or validation associated with it.”
-Victoria Strauss

About Victoria Strauss

Victoria Strauss is the author of nine novels, a handful of short stories, hundreds of book reviews, and many articles on writing and publishing. She is co-founder of Writer Beware, a publishing industry watchdog group founded in 1998 and sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Writer Beware works to educate writers about the perils of the publishing industry, in part by documenting, exposing, and raising awareness of the huge variety of literary schemes and scams. You can find out more about Victoria on her author website, and find out more about writer scams on the Writer Beware website, on the very active Writer Beware blog, and the Facebook page.

Nonfiction Authors Podcast: Victoria Strauss

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Show Notes

Links

Writer Beware Website
Victoria’s email: beware@sfwa.org
https://victoriastrauss.com/
Blog: http://accrispin.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WriterBeware
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/victoriastrauss

In this episode…

Authors who may be targeted by a scammer.
Typical signs of a scam.
Steps to take if you get caught in a scam.
Common authors scams and businesses to look out for.
How to connect with Victoria and Writers Beware if you suspect a scam.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Carla King: Hello, and welcome to the Nonfiction Authors Podcast. I’m Carla King, your host, and before we start, I’d like to invite you to go to the Freebies tab at nonfictionauthorsassociation.com to check out our free reports. We developed these reports to help you figure out things like ISBNs, distribution, optimizing book sales on Amazon, generating book reviews, growing your email list, and we provide checklists on things like publishing and book launches.

Now, stay tuned for this week’s guest.

Hi, everybody. Today we’re talking with Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware about how to identify and avoid common scams that target authors. But first, this podcast is brought to you by the Nonfiction Authors Association, a supportive community where writers connect, exchange ideas, learn how to write, publish, promote, and profit with nonfiction books.

You can subscribe to the Nonfiction Authors Podcast on your favorite podcast app and visit our website to find the transcripts, show notes, and links to all of our episodes. Explore the Nonfiction Authors Association membership options and download free reports, search the archives, and get answers to probably any writing and publishing question you have.

I’d like to introduce our guest.

Victoria Strauss is the author of nine novels, a handful of short stories, hundreds of book reviews, and many articles on writing and publishing. She’s co-founder of Writer Beware, a publishing industry watchdog group Founded in 1998 and sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Writer Beware works to educate writers about the perils of the publishing industry, in part by documenting, exposing, and raising awareness of the huge variety of literary schemes and scams.

You can find out more about Victoria on her author website. And find out more about writer scams on the Writer Beware website, on the very active Writer Beware blog and the Facebook group. Welcome to the podcast, Victoria.

I’ve been tracking you for so long and I want to thank you so much for doing all the good work that you do. I keep pointing to you to give people an idea of the predatory publishers, literary agents, and just poor business practices, and frauds that authors need to watch out for.

I’ve seen–in my work with memoirists and prescriptive nonfiction writers, but especially memoirists–there’s a lot of scams around that genre.

I think also, because the group is older–you’re writing a memoir, so you might be a little bit older and you have money– I think that scammers target those people as well.

[00:03:04] Victoria Strauss: There’s a real elder fraud angle. I often hear from the relatives of elderly writers who’ve gotten caught up in a scam and sometimes have lost just unbelievable amounts of money.

[00:03:21] Carla King: Yeah, that’s sad. Multiple scams. Multiple scams, really? By the same people or by different people?

[00:03:31] Victoria Strauss: Different people running the same kind of scam. One of the things that makes for a successful scam is having a good grasp of writer’s psychology. The most successful scammers are the ones that don’t only appeal to the hopes and dreams, but try and establish personal relationships with their victims and get into their personal lives.

[00:04:00] Carla King: What are some typical signs of a scam?

[00:04:05] Victoria Strauss: One of the most common signs right now is an out of the blue solicitation for marketing, or to republish your book, or to represent your manuscript to traditional publishers, reputable companies, reputable agents, reputable Publishers.

Reputable PR companies don’t generally cold call writers, but for the most common scams right now, that’s the main way that they get clients. And if you self publish, you’re especially a target, because the struggle for readership and exposure and sales is really difficult, and these are scams that promise they can transition you to traditional publishing, or get your book out there for people to notice, get you lots of sales.

Any kind of out of the blue publishing related solicitation these days probably is. For literary agents, any kind of upfront fee. For publishers also, there are real genuine hybrid publishers that charge fees and aren’t scams, but there are also a lot of scam publishers that charge fees, so it can be hard to tell the difference.

[00:05:42] Carla King: Hybrid publishing, also called custom publishing or subsidy publishing, is a legitimate way for you to publish your book and hand it off to somebody. And it costs about $4,000 at the very lowest end, but mostly about $8,000 to $15,000. But, I’ve been shocked at people who are telling me they’re getting calls and they say, ‘Oh, they’ll do it for $35,000 or $55,000.’ I’m just like, ‘Oh, my gosh no, no.’

[00:06:18] Victoria Strauss: And whatever price they quote initially, you wind up spending much more because there are always add ons and extra services.

[00:06:31] Carla King: And I know when we’re poking around the web–and I’ve done this before, I poked around the web and I say, ‘Okay, I want to see this self publishing guide from this company, a self publishing guide from that company.’

So then I’ve got my email out there and all of a sudden I’m getting phone calls, right? I personally haven’t gotten a phone call from a legit company. Is there any legit company who’s going to call you after you put in your email address?

[00:07:01] Victoria Strauss: Probably not. If you’re looking for assisted self publishing there are definitely non-scam companies that advertise on the web but they do sell their customer information and I think many of the scammers buy those leads. Anytime you give out your phone number or contact information you run the risk of scammers getting hold of that information and you’re targeted with sometimes really high pressure type sales calls.

[00:07:40] Carla King: I have one company who continues to call me after several years of me asking them to take me off their email list. And I’ll just name that company–it’s the Author Solutions tribe with XLibris and Trafford and Author House and Balboa and all of their self publishing imprints.

It’s tough. They really tug at your heart string. ‘Your book could be a Hollywood movie. Just for another $50,000, we can get it in front of the screenwriters.’

[00:08:10] Victoria Strauss: Yeah. And don’t get me started on Author Solutions. They really pioneered these kinds of hard sell sales tactics and overpriced, junkie marketing services that cost a fortune and don’t do too much for you. And I am positive that they sell their customer information.

[00:08:36] Carla King: Some of the scams that I’ve been seeing lately center around literary agents. Reaching out to people and they feel very honored because that’s the dream, right?

[00:08:48] Victoria Strauss: You can never say never, but literary agents really don’t, as a rule, cold call writers or reach out to them directly.

They’re swamped with submissions. They don’t have much reason to go out there and look for more clients because the clients come to them. Any out of the blue phone call or email that you receive from someone saying they’re a literary agent–sometimes it’s an impersonation. Sometimes it’s a fake agency that’s a front for a marketing scam or a publishing scam.

And if you respond to this wonderful offer of representation, you’re told, ‘Yeah, it’s commission only, you don’t have to pay a cent, but in order to get this service, you have to buy this or that other service,’ which conveniently they know where to refer you to do that, and that is the scammer for which the fake agency is a front.

I would say by far the greatest number of emails I gather is from people who’ve been approached by fake literary agents.

[00:10:07] Carla King: You also have a section on your website that has suggestions for legal recourse should you actually get caught in one of these scams. Besides getting a lawyer, is there any easy thing you can do to get money back to help with rights or anything that you’ve given up?

[00:10:33] Victoria Strauss: Generally speaking, rights are not a concern with most scams because they’re not interested in your work, just your money. So you don’t need to fear that they’re selling your book rights in some obscure foreign country, or that they’re going to publish your book under somebody else’s name.

They really just have no interest in your work. They only want what you can pay them and if you don’t pay them, they have no interest in you.

If you pay by credit card, file a chargeback dispute, you may be able to get some money back that way. Never pay by wire transfer or bank apps like Zelle, because those transactions are not reversible, usually.

If you wire money, you probably lost it. Many scams come from overseas, so they’re very difficult to pursue legally. It’s one of the things that enables them to be so brazen, because their location insulates them from consequences. I always encourage people to report scams, as widely as possible.

On the Writer Beware website there’s the BBB, there’s the internet fraud consortium, there’s the FBI, your state attorney general.

A single complaint is probably not going to do anything, but if there’s a volume of them, it may spark somebody’s interest.

There are several fraudulent publishers that have gotten put out of business that way. So it’s always worth making a report. If nothing else, other writers may see and be cautioned.

Fake literary agency scams are mostly based in the Philippines. They do a lot of soliciting. They do a lot of the impersonations that are going on. They may take money and run, or they may publish a book, and then you never hear from them again, you never get royalties for sales statements. It’s a type of scam that’s extremely prevalent right now, but it’s only one type of scam that you may encounter.

If you contact us with the name of a company or an individual and there’s something about them in our database, we’ll let you know.

[00:13:15] Carla King: And you blog about those sometimes too. And I just want to say that, it’s interesting because I do know of custom publishing services who are in the Philippines who are great.

It’s a global world now. I’m living in Chiang Mai, Thailand for a while right now. And there are a bunch of really legit people here who are doing things. It’s the lower cost of living. And they can afford to undercut European and American prices.

[00:13:45] Victoria Strauss: Yes, there’s a very particular reason that all these scans are located in the Philippines, and it is because Author Solutions, sometime in the mid 2000s, outsourced a lot of its production and sales work there, and some enterprising people saw, ‘Well this is a lucrative business, we will set up on our own, except much more exploited, much more overpriced, etc.’ And as the businesses prospered, other people saw how well they were doing and got involved.

So there are now hundreds of these companies, and it’s like a little business niche there, but it all stems from the outsourcing work done by Author Solutions, and also Tate Publishing, and some of the other pay to publish U.S-based companies.

So yeah, you’re absolutely right. There are great services located overseas. I don’t mean to say that an overseas company is necessarily dishonest or a scam. It’s just a very particular phenomenon–these publishing marketing companies in the Philippines

[00:15:10] Carla King: Wow. So they were trained because they were outsourced employees or consultants.

[00:15:15] Victoria Strauss: Yeah, and it’s an entrepreneurial thing. It’s a way for people–probably in underpaid jobs, and Author Solutions call centers–to take the initiative and have their own businesses, make their own money. The problem is many of these businesses are fraudulent.

[00:15:41] Carla King: And you’re right, there’s a little recourse. If the money goes out of the country, it’s really gone. And those are just standard phishing anti-phishing techniques. It’s to look at the email address, and to look for the spelling errors, to look at the price and not jump in. And look at, also, that heartstrings marketing, right?

[00:16:06] Victoria Strauss: ‘We’ll take your book to Hollywood, we’ll make you a bestseller.’ If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. And also, sometimes just doing a web search will give you a lot of information. If there are, because many, let’s say less than optimal companies, have a lot of complaints online.

[00:16:30] Carla King: They do. Sometimes I’ve researched a company and the Writer Beware site has popped up. So yay, thank you so much.

You really have been on the front lines for us all these years. You’ve actually brought in the FBI and brought in law enforcement to shut these places down and you’ve been doxxed and threatened and everything. It must be a little frightening.

[00:16:55] Victoria Strauss: Yeah, it certainly isn’t pleasant to be sued or to get death threats or have your home address on social media. But I’m sometimes surprised how little of that I’ve suffered over 20 years in doing everything that I do to expose scammers. I’ve been Incredibly supported by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. I absolutely couldn’t do it without them. They help with legal defense. I’m able to go to them for legal advice. They support Writer Beware publicly and behind the scenes. It really enables me to do what I do.

[00:17:44] Carla King: It’s a wonderful service. But as you said, you can’t keep up with it all, so if a company or an agent or the service is not on your Writer Beware watch list, or you haven’t blogged about it yet, does that mean they’re reputable and you can trust them?

[00:18:03] Victoria Strauss: No. Writer Beware has limited person power, and it’s impossible to catalog all of the schemes, scams, and pitfalls that are out there. So if you don’t find it on Writer Beware, you definitely can’t assume it’s danger free.

The more you know about how publishing should work, the easier it will be for you to recognize a bad actor when you encounter one. So educate yourself.

[00:18:41] Carla King: Thanks for that. I’m all about education. And I do find, in general, that the people who get caught in these scams are people who rush in without learning about how publishing works. So that is an awfully good point.

[00:18:56] Victoria Strauss: That’s often true. Or people who’ve just been submitting for years. And especially people who self published and maybe had unrealistic expectations of what it could achieve. And frustration drives a lot of mistakes, I think. It drives people into the arms of scammers often.

What I blame them for most is the junk marketing. The email campaigns, and the paid reviews, and radio interviews, and all of that is such a waste of money. And that’s one of the things that the overseas scammers have emulated–is these junk marketing techniques. Except so much more expensive and often not even delivered.

[00:19:50] Carla King: We didn’t talk about radio scammers. So radio interview scammers, podcast scammers? I have not run across those.

[00:20:02] Victoria Strauss: There are a lot of radio hosts where you have to pay to participate, partly because the radio hosts are paying to have their show. There’s a particular group of hosts that resell the services, except at a giant markup and with really deceptive advertising about what you get for your money.

What you get for your money basically is a video clip, and it may air online. But it’s on some streaming station somewhere, and who knows if anybody sees it. And also paid reviews are another bracket. There are several paid review services that work extensively with scammers that resell their services.

[00:20:54] Carla King: And we’re not talking about the paid versions of Publisher’s Weekly reviews, or Forward Reviews, or Clarion Reviews. We’re talking about very different operations. So there are legit paid reviews for the trades and very not legit.

[00:21:13] Victoria Strauss: And also scams that sell the legit services for two or three times what they actually charge.

[00:21:22] Carla King: Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Okay. So they collect your information and your credit card and they send it to Forward or Clarion and double or triple the price.

[00:21:34] Victoria Strauss: Right, and Kirkus charges $500, the author pays $1,500.

[00:21:42] Carla King: Oh my, okay. So that means that you can’t–if you’re looking at a Kirkus Review solicitation, you have to say to yourself, ‘Go to the Kirkus website and see how much it actually costs.’ And that might be the solution for some of these issues. Go to the actual website and see if that offer is on their actual website.

[00:22:06] Victoria Strauss: Yeah, and it amazes me sometimes how willing writers are to accept and face value whatever it is they’re offered. If you were hiring someone to redo your kitchen, wouldn’t you research them and ask for references? Writers often just don’t apply any of those kinds of common sense strategies to research what they’re being offered.

And I think a lot of it has to do with what you said. There are so many people who rush into it. They don’t know anything about it. They don’t know anything about publishing. If you don’t know a lot about publishing, it may seem perfectly normal to pay for all this stuff: Fee for service.

[00:22:56] Carla King: That’s true. And things like ghostwriting do cost a lot of money, $10, $20, $30, $50,000 and more for ghost writing, but we’re not talking about a ghost writing service here. We’re talking about publishing, which really–unless you have a highly formatted book and it’s complicated and it’s hard cover and it’s color–it shouldn’t cost more than $8,000 to $15,000 to outsource the whole production and publishing process.

[00:23:25] Victoria Strauss: And often it’s all the bells and whistles that are added on, like …

[00:23:30] Carla King: The reviews, the marketing, it’s the promotion, it’s the radio talks, it’s the get it in front of an agent for a traditional publisher, it’s a get it in front of the the podcasters.

[00:23:42] Victoria Strauss: Whoever is offering the service has six different websites that they own, that they post features on, so you can get a feature on the website, or you can get it a proprietary review and if you don’t know who’s looking at these websites you have no idea if there’s any if they offer any real exposure.

The permutations are endless but what ties it all together is money. It’s all about the money. It’s not in any way about the writing, about the writers, about books. And if you remember that, you’ll be safer because one of the things that I think writers get confused about when they’re offered some kind of paid service because it’s their writing, they assume they’ve been chosen, or there’s some kind of selectivity or validation associated with it.

And if you just remember–if you’re paying for a service, you’re a customer, you should behave like one.

[00:24:56] Carla King: Very wise words. Thank you for that. I have so much passion around this and I just don’t know how you kept it up for so long. It’s nice that you haven’t gotten discouraged and just quit because it is a lot to keep up with.

[00:25:12] Victoria Strauss: I can foresee the time when it will just be too much and it interferes in my regular life, because it is quite consuming. And it is endlessly fascinating, also–just the techniques that the scammers use and the psychology. And there’s always a new development. But at some point, I’m going to have to stop. I don’t want to be doing this 20 years from now.

[00:25:44] Carla King: I wonder, has any of these scams ended up in one of your books? As a character?

[00:25:51] Victoria Strauss: No. I don’t like to write about real life. I’m in real life. When I write about imaginary realms, it’s an escape for me.

[00:26:02] Carla King: That’s why you’re a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It looks like you do have a staff–like a few people to help you. I was looking on the site.

[00:26:13] Victoria Strauss: They do more of the public-facing stuff. I do the behind the scenes stuff and maintain the blog, which I actually enjoy. I never run out of things to write about, which is mind boggling after all this time.

I really do see progress, because when we started, there was very low awareness of scams, not just among writers, but in the publishing industry as a whole. You know, it was in this rarefied realm that just really wasn’t affected, but that’s less true now, and especially now that there’s so much impersonation going on.

So you now see literary agents with warnings on their websites. Several of the big publishers have fraud warnings. So there’s a much greater Level of awareness, and I do think that Writer Beware has been instrumental in that.

[00:27:13] Carla King: We all as authors–especially the services companies– I’m sure they appreciate you so much for helping separate them from the scammers.

What is the best way for authors to connect with you if they suspect a scam? Of course they should comb through the website, use the search button, and look at your blog, and maybe go to your Facebook group. Is maybe the Facebook group the first stop? Or is your email the first stop? What do you suggest? I know you must be just overwhelmed with emails all the time.

[00:27:50] Victoria Strauss: I can’t always get back quickly, but I always do respond.

[00:27:56] Carla King: Thank you so much for being on the podcast today, Victoria, and we’ll provide links in the show notes, and keep up with you on the Writer Beware blog.

[00:28:06] Victoria Strauss: Thank you so much for talking with me and giving me the opportunity to get the word out. Really appreciate it.

[00:28:17] Carla King: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Nonfiction Authors Podcast. You can find the transcript, show notes, and links for this episode on the courses and events tab at nonfictionauthorsassociation.com.

Quotes from our guest

“One of the things that makes for a successful scam is having a good grasp of writer’s psychology. The most successful scammers are the ones that don’t only appeal to the hopes and dreams, but try and establish personal relationships with their victims and get into their personal lives.”

“Generally speaking, rights are not a concern with most scams because they’re not interested in your work, just your money. So you don’t need to fear that they’re selling your book rights in some obscure foreign country, or that they’re going to publish your book under somebody else’s name.”

“‘We’ll take your book to Hollywood, we’ll make you a bestseller.’ If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. And also, sometimes just doing a web search will give you a lot of information. If there are, because many, let’s say less than optimal companies, have a lot of complaints online.”

“The more you know about how publishing should work, the easier it will be for you to recognize a bad actor when you encounter one. So educate yourself.”