Book Order Scams and Fake Reviews

Scammers are nothing if not inventive. As writers become wise to their techniques, they invent new ones.

Here are two newish frauds that appear to be on the rise. As with most writing scams these days, they target self-published authors.

The Book Order Scam

I’ve written before about book order scams, in the context of scammers impersonating bookstores such as Barnes & Noble with out-of-the-blue emails promising bulk purchases and big royalties. All the author has to do is pony up thousands of dollars or pounds to cover printing and/or shipping costs (the relevant note here: bookstores do not print the books they sell, and they typically order from the publisher or publishing platform, rather than from the author).

This newer version of the book order scam is somewhat different, arriving not from a bookstore impersonator, but from the self-publishing service provider the writer has hired to publish and/or market their book. That provider isn’t a true self-publishing company, though, but rather one of the many ghostwriting scams that waylay would-be indie authors in order to defraud them.

Here’s how it works. As the writer’s book nears publication, or perhaps just after the book has been uploaded to KDP or IngramSpark (publishing scammers often do actually publish clients’ books, the better to soften them up for the sales pressure and fake offers that are the real goal), the writer is presented with a fabulous opportunity: a bulk order from bookstores! Thousands of copies! Huge royalties! Guaranteed to be paid whether the books sell or not!

There’s just one catch: the author has to cover printing costs. Or shipping costs. Or something of that nature. But it’s all good: those royalties are guaranteed, remember? Plus there’s a special, discounted printing price, and the scammer will contribute a sizeable portion of the expense–all ensuring a hefty profit for the author.

Here’s an example of one such “distribution agreement”. (Click on the images to see them larger; you can also download the entire agreement here.) The purported book order: 5,000 copies, to be placed in 300 physical bookstores and libraries. The purported sales revenue: $81,250. The purported printing fee: $35,600. The author’s “investment”: $17,346. The promised “net royalties”: $45,650. The “profit”: $28,304.

Authors who aren’t entirely blinded by the promise of nationwide availability and big payouts might notice a few oddities. No stated royalty percentage to explain the “net royalties” calculation, for example. Full details on how the author should pay their share of printing costs (via unreversible wire transfer, naturally–always something to be wary of)–but nothing on how the author will receive their royalties (check? Paypal? Direct deposit?). And wait a minute–the “net royalties” figure doesn’t match the payout schedule. Maybe that’s not bad, though: the payout schedule promises a much larger sum.

Not all scam book order agreements are as elaborate as the one above: they don’t always include the faux cost breakdown, for instance, or the author may be promised a lump sum payment rather than a staggered schedule.

Regardless, it’s all lies. Ghostwriting and other self-publishing/marketing frauds, which operate largely overseas and use platforms like KDP and IngramSpark to publish clients’ books, have no access to the distribution channels that can reliably get books into brick-and-mortar stores. The goal, as so often with writing scams, is to deceive the writer into paying for something that will not and cannot be delivered.

As the promised royalty payments, inevitably, don’t arrive, the scammer strings the author along with promises and excuses–often for months, as the author refuses to give up hope and the scammer works to keep them on the hook. Sometimes, if the scammer senses that the writer is on the verge of bailing or contacting the authorities, they’ll pay out a few thousand dollars to quiet things down, or send a shipment of books, or provide a photoshopped image to make it look like the book really is on store shelves. All of this buys the scammer time to ply the author with even more high-pressure sales pitches for hugely overpriced (or entirely fictional) products like book fair presence, book insurance, international copyright certificates, and more.

For authors who buy into a book order scam, whatever they pay for the non-existent books is often just the start of their losses.

You’ll notice that the name of the service provider in the agreement above (Authors Book Publishing) is different from the name of the payee (Nextzen Minds LLC). The agreement’s document properties window reveals yet another name, The Writers Tree.

This is typical of ghostwriting scams, which operate multiple business names under the aegis of one or more parent companies that, like Nextzen Minds, blandly pose as IT or web design services. It’s all designed to obscure origins and operators.

I’m always hesitant to say “never”, because there are so few absolutes in the business of publishing and in its shadow companion, the industry of writing scams. But the realities of digital publishing and distribution, which make it possible for physical stores and libraries to order self-pubbed books on request, also make it highly unlikely that any self-publishing company or platform–whether scam or legit–will have the capacity to distribute paper books in bulk to physical stores and libraries nationwide.

If the service or platform you’re using proposes such a thing–and especially if you’re required to pay upfront–it’s extremely probable that it’s a scam.

Fake Reviews

Fake reviews–sometimes just a few lines, sometimes elaborate essays with stars and number rankings–arrive unasked-for, attached to a complimentary email claiming that a book has been “discovered” by book scouts or book evaluators. Or they’re included as part of a pitch for a package of publishing and marketing services, to show how much the service provider believes in the author’s book.

Undoubtedly produced by feeding book blurbs and other info into chatbots, they are essentially bait: affirmation and flattery designed to induce the author to reply, so they can be subjected to aggressive sales pitches for whatever the “reviewer” is selling.

Here are a couple of examples, both sent out by scammers on this list. They’re not just book reviews–they’re PROFESSIONAL book reviews! So much better than just the regular kind. In each case, the end goal is the charging of some sort of fee. You can see the bait aspect more clearly in the second review, which repeatedly mentions traditional publishing (the scammer purported to be able to get the author a deal with a Big 5 house.) I’ve removed references to authors, titles, and other details that could identify the books.

Here’s another, sent by a scammer impersonating a freelance editor named Alexis Stratton (the real Alexis has confirmed this for me). Notice, despite the insertion of specific details, how generic it is.

I’ve gotten multiple reports of “Alexis’s” email reviews; they’re not all as elaborate as this one, but they all have the same purpose: to elicit a response, at which point “Alexis” proposes to sell the author various services, such as writing query letters, creating “publishing assessments”, and the like. One author paid $4,500 for website creation and other items, only to receive…nothing.

We shouldn’t have to always be so suspicious of unexpected outreach. But that’s where we are these days. That gushing out-of-the-blue review or fan letter may be exactly the day-brightening surprise it appears to be…but there’s also a non-zero possibility that it’s a prelude to a scam.

So be on your guard.