Writer Beware

Latest Posts

A New Scam to Watch For: “Pre-Paid” Agent Commissions

Header image: the word "scam" spelled out in red dice, in front of other, blurred multi-colored letter dice against a black background

MAR 28, 2025March 28, 202513 COMMENTS

As I've discussed to my readers' exhaustion, as well as my own, impersonation scams are rife these days. Scammers are impersonating real, reputable literary agents, publishers, editors, film production companies, bookstores, and organizations with out-of-the-blue phone and email solicitations purporting to offer representation, or publication, or a big budget movie--but in reality, the goal is to steal writers' money by convincing them to pay large fees for fake, unnecessary, or wholly fictional goods and services.

Often, scammers impersonating Big 5 publishers create fake publishing contracts, either to string the writer along or as an incentive to pay exorbitant fees. That's where you'll find the latest scam ploy, the pre-paid literary agent commission.

Here's the relevant clause from a Penguin Random House contract fabricated by Calyx Literary Agency, which (falsely) claimed to have submitted to PRH on the author's behalf (you can see the entire contract here). Supposedly sent by Jessica Willow, PRH Contract Associate, the contract promises a "total contract price" of $230,000.

PUBLISHER COMPLAINTS

Author Complaints at Clear Fork Press

MAR 21, 2025March 21, 20259 COMMENTS

In early February, author Vanessa Keel published a long, cautionary blog post about her experience with one small publisher. It was not a happy tale: an absent editor, little marketing support, a non-standard wholesale discount that discouraged bookseller orders, problems with royalty statements and payments, and much more. The result: few sales, crushing disappointment, and, ultimately, a rights reversion.

Vanessa didn't name the publisher, but she did mention the title of her book. So it was easy to confirm that the publisher in question was Clear Fork Press (CFP), a children's book publisher that publishes under four imprints: Spork, Blue Whale Press (formerly an independent publisher, acquired by CFP in 2020), &MG, and Rise. Per Amazon, CFP has a catalog of around 150 titles, most released via the Spork imprint (though you'd never know it from looking at the CFP website--more on that below).

I first heard about Clear Fork Press (then Clear Fork Publishing) way back in 2016, thanks to questions from authors who'd received contract offers. At the time, CFP had no imprints; its (poorly formatted and unprofessionally-worded) contract was quite brief, but included one significantly author-unfriendly provision: royalties paid on net profit (actual sales income less printing and shipping--for why this can be a contract red flag, see here).

BUSINESS OF WRITING

Are Writers Uniquely Vulnerable to Scams?

Header image: black fountain pen with silver nib resting on a handwritten page

MAR 7, 2025March 7, 202529 COMMENTS

This is a question that sometimes comes up when I do interviews. Writer Beware has been in operation for more than 25 years, yet it’s still so busy. There seem to be so many scams that target authors. Are writers somehow more vulnerable to fraud than other creatives?

In my opinion, no.

Writing scams aren’t unique. There are similar frauds in every creative industry. Headshot scams for models. Talent agency scams for actors. Representation scams for illustrators. Pay-to-play venues for musicians and artists. They may not be as numerous as writing scams, but they are widespread, and they use the same tricks and techniques to lure and ensnare victims.

BOOK MARKETING SCAMS

Why Cheap Promo is No Bargain: The Promo Website Empire of Alwin Gnanaraj

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FEB 21, 2025January 16, 202614 COMMENTS

A literary agent recently reached out to me to let me know that one of their authors (a well-known literacy advocate) was being impersonated via a message falsely sent out under the author's name. The purpose of the message: plugging a "perfect" marketing website called AllKidsBooks (I've redacted the author's name and email address):

From what appears on its website, AllKidsBooks (warning: if you click the link, you'll be routed to a Cloudflare "verify you're human" page before you can access the site) is one of those DIY promo sites where authors sign up to post their own books, book trailers, events, etc., supposedly to boost their exposure to an eager audience. Additional perks include the promise of social media and email marketing.

Without information about traffic and/or subscribers and followers, such sites are pretty dubious as a marketing strategy, even if they're free. And AllKidsBooks is not free.

Turning Copyright on Its Head: The UK’s Proposed AI Copyright Exception

Header image: black chalkboard with drawings in white chalk of a brain that's half organic and half circuitry, flanked by one thought-bubble saying "Artificial Intelligence" and another saying "Copyright" (Credit: faithie / Shutterstock.com)

JAN 31, 2025January 31, 202527 COMMENTS

The explosive development and spread of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), with its potential for embedding itself in every aspect of our lives, poses a dizzying plethora of issues: environmental, social, existential, even apocalyptic. In this post, I'm going to be focusing on an issue of primary concern to those of us in the creative industries: the struggle to apply the framework of copyright law to GAI companies' utilization of our work for training their systems.

Developing and training the networks and large language models that power chatbots like ChatGPT and image generation systems like Midjourney requires vast amounts of data scraped from the internet: text, images, music, and more, including material protected by copyright. As we've been discovering over the past couple of years, GAI developers haven't exactly been scrupulous about obtaining the permission of creators for the use of this material.

GAI companies argue that it's not possible to develop their products without using copyrighted materials, and in any case, that to do so is fair use.* Creators, on the other hand, want to be able to control access to their work, as guaranteed by copyright law--and, incidentally, get paid for the exploitation of it. There's enormous anger in creative communities not just over these issues, but over the ways in which GAI can potentially supplant human creators and destroy livelihoods--not to mention the degree to which it is enshittifying the creative sphere by flooding the zone with GAI slop.

OVERSEAS SCAMS

USA Pen Press: The Ghostwriting Scam of a Thousand Websites

$USA Pen Press homepage with large images of John Grisham and J.K. Rowling flanking a boxed announcement: Hello World! We Are The USA Pen Press Bearers of the book publishing \ legacy$

JAN 24, 2025October 16, 202529 COMMENTS

Well, not actually a thousand. But a lot.

It's been a little while since I've written about ghostwriting scams (previous posts include the markers that identify ghostwriting scams and the scams' misappropriation of the Amazon name and trademarks)...but given how prevalent they are, and their increasing aggressiveness in advertising, especially on Facebook and other social media, it seemed like a good time to re-visit them, via an especially egregious example I recently discovered.

But first...a little background.