Advice Against Scammers in Publishing

 Advice Against Scammers in Publishing

Some of you may have read my blogpost concerning my experience with a fake literary agent. This blogpost is to give further advice to avoid being scammed. I will repeat some of what was said previously because every little bit helps.

1. No reputable agent charges you money. An agent is paid when you are paid.

2. There is no such thing as freelance literary agent.

3. Beware of agents providing services other than representing your books. The exception is if they are an editorial agent which is an agent who helps polish your book for submission. This isn't the same as what I experienced with Beatrice Sampson. Beatrice provided marketing and promoting services. She didn't utilize the resources I purchased from her properly and thus lied about their effectiveness.  

4. Whoever you work with in publishing should be flexible and accommodating enough to do a Zoom call. I had an editor make an excuse about privacy in regards to this. The editor is running a business which means they should be willing communicate in whatever way a writer is comfortable.

5. No one running a business should be using a friend or family member's PayPal account. It's completely unprofessional.

6. Authors are expected to have a social media presence these days. If you are working with an editor, agent, promoter, or publicist they should be easy to Google. Matching a face to the name is very important. The person you work with should have an ease to find website.

7. I understand protecting yourself is important, but working with someone who doesn't use their real name is bad. I was always told if you have to sneak or lie, then you're doing something wrong.

8. Chances are whatever you click on from a scammer will hack everything you have. Once you end the relationship with scammer have your phone examined. Go to your bank and credit card company and close old accounts. Open new accounts. Get yourself a new debit and credit card. Change all your online passwords. These measures if done quickly and efficiently will save you a headache.

I hope all of this helps. Good Luck!  

A Review of The Last Argument of Kings

 A

Review

of

The Last Argument of Kings

By Joe Abercrombie

5 Stars

Abercrombie topped off The First Law trilogy with a good one. The story contained the same amazing humor as the first two books. I was blown away by every chapter. I highly recommend reading this trilogy, especially book three.

Bad Agent Alert and Advice Against Scammers

 I began writing eleven years ago with the dream of becoming a traditionally published author. I was met with rejection for years until ending up with a publisher. This didn't work out so I switched to self publishing. It was within the first week or two of 2025 that everything changed. At least I believed it did!

I was introduced to a freelance literary agent by someone impersonating an author. The agent did more than represent authors. She did marketing and promotion. This lead to a book trailer for my novella The Discarded Knight and an email campaign. I was then emotionally manipulated from that point on. The payments began to add up. I told the agent I couldn't pay more, but received hints no more services would be provided without payment. This was all before signing with her.

I know how a relationship is supposed to go between an agent and author. Money flows to the author and the agent gets paid only when the author does. I was foolish enough to believe the rules were different with a freelance agent. Its hard to explain.

Time progressed to submitting to publishers. I know now how agents do this and the person pretending to be one was going about it the wrong way. I quickly terminated the contract only to be threatened soon after. This agent is now on a watchlist. Her name is Beatrice Sampson. She runs Beatrice Literary Haven.

This person threatened to come to my home and place of work. She bullied me with the possibility of arrest. I did nothing wrong. I took steps to protect myself and severed ties with Beatrice.

Here is what I learned from this experience.

Agents must have an online presence.

Freelance agents are scammers.

Anyone publishing professional using someone else's PayPal account to receive payment is no good. If you plan to run a business you should have your own account.

People make mistakes with their sentence structure and grammar. In this case when speaking with a publishing professional those mistakes shouldn't be consistent and obvious. They are in profession made up of writing and books.

No travel is required to negotiate a book deal. As a general rule of thumb most business in publishing can be done by email or Zoom.

If you do not know what a publishing professional looks like or sounds like then run.