The official blog of Writer Beware® shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news, and commentary. Writer Beware® is sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association.
Today, while helping a writer who had been scammed by Bouncin’ Bobby, I exchanged a series of emails on what real publishing is like, what real agents are like, and why it’s important to write and submit in a professional manner. While this exchange was going on, this writer asked me to look at theRead More
…are the scammers themselves. It’s true. Writer Beware has proof that if we mention a topic in here, or put an agency on our 20 Worst Agents List, the scammers read about it and react. Several of the scammers who are currently on the 20 Worst Agents List have changed their names, probably as anRead More
Re: Ann’s musings on writers who become scammers…how about scammers who become writers? Remember crazy conwoman-turned-literary agent/fake writers’ conference organizer Melanie Mills, a.k.a. Elisabeth von Hullessem, a.k.a. Lisa Hackney, currently going by the rather unwieldy sobriquet of Raswitha Elisabeth Melanie Mills (Remmi for short)? Remember how, having finally been extradited back to Arkansas from CanadaRead More
The story so far: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. In our eight years of running Writer Beware, Ann and I have seen a lot of scams. Hill’s (since we don’t know his real name, I’m going to continue to call him that) is one of the cruelest. All scammers promise the possibility of success,Read More
The story begins: Part 1. And continues: Part 2. The news about Hill & Hill’s closure broke on two fronts: in private email from Claire Ashton to Hill clients, and on Absolute Write, with this post from someone calling himself privateeye. The post contains damaging, if vague, allegations about the operation and a number ofRead More
For context, see Part 1. Hill’s scam was an elaborate one, featuring personal contact with clients and voluminous written documents. On intake, clients received a detailed assessment of their manuscripts, covering elements such as target audience, plot structure, and grammar. Some of the assessments I’ve seen were individual, but most were based on a templateRead More
