Much has been written about scams targeting writers, and while there have been many over the years—from When Words Count to the National Library of Poetry to PublishAmerica—a whole new crop has sprung up and become more prominent in the past year. These are invitations to have your book featured in book clubs, reviewed or endorsed by famous authors, or appear at literary festivals. I’m sure there are more iterations, but that’s the idea. This article on Writer Beware goes into more detail: https://writerbeware.blog/2025/11/14/if-a-famous-author-calls-hang-up-anatomy-of-an-impersonation-scam/
I had heard of many of my peers receiving scammy emails, texts, and phone calls, but it only happened to me just recently (two on the same day)–and now they’re targeting not just people who have books for sale, but short story writers and poets who are featured in anthologies. If anyone receives these, they are scams. Don’t respond:
Absolute Write Water Cooler is a great place to check for what’s scammy and what’s not. Here’s the link to their Bewares & Background Checks forum space: https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?forums/bewares-recommendations-background-check.22/
34 Orchard 
Before I even released my new book last October, I had plenty of these scammy emails come my way just for the short stories I had published in various anthologies and periodicals. They are worse the all the junk mail I used to get back before the email craze. Thank you for letting us know we’re not alone.
Oh, and sadly I must admit that I fell for the PublishAmerica scam back in 2003. It didn’t cost any fees, but it cost me the “first publication” rights of an earlier novel that wasn’t really ready yet. I’ve since gotten back those rights and re-wrote and fixed most of the mistakes of that novel, but trying to get a publisher interested in a previously published novel is not an easy task 🙂 I’m glad that there are so many voices now to warn us of those dangers; voices like yours, Absolute Write Water Cooler, and SFWA’s Writer Beware.
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Hi there! Yeah–it’s great to know we’re not alone. I just saw someone in a feed the other day say how thrilled she was to get this email. It broke my heart. I fell for a scam, too–When Words Count retreat. Fortunately, there were some serious red flags I caught before they bilked me out of $4K (biggest one was “your family and friends will try to convince you you’re wasting your money!”). It was clear from their language they were looking for victims.
Thank you for reading our blog! It’s nice to know someone’s listening out there. — Kristi
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Wow! Helpful! Wasn’t aware xoSent from my iPhone
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I’ll stick to Query Tracker, thank you.
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We love QT, @elegant!
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