Book Advertising Scams and Spam, How to Spot One

As indie authors become more prevalent and even traditionally published authors are having to provide more and more of their own advertising, people who take advantage of the need for book advertising are on the rise. Many hopeful authors who want to see a boost to their sales will make the mistake of paying one of these scammers for a product that probably won't get the job done and might even get them in trouble for infringing on someone else's copyright.

As lead editor at Warlocks In Space Publishing, I'm focusing mostly on the business needs and not just my personal work. Supporting Kyle, the Apprentice Warlock and the books of other authors who will someday sign with us it more important to me. Because it's my job. But my personal social media accounts still have me listed as an author and still show my books and links to them on my profiles.

Scammers are constantly trying to get me to purchase marketing campaigns, social media account management, and books trailers from them. They contact me via the messenger app of whatever platform they found me on. The book advertising scam script usually goes something like this:

Scammer: I see you're an author.

Me: Yes. I am.

Scammer: What genre do you write?

Me: It varies.

Scammer: How many books have you published?

Me: In total or under this pseudonym specifically?

Scammer: Can you send me the link to your books?

Me: My book links are all in my profile or my posts if you bother to look at information.

Scammer: Have you ever considered a book trailer/a social media manager/a book marketer?

Me: It's not something I need right now.

Scammer: Your books would sell so much better/ I could increase your books sales/ increase your social media following/ etc.

Here's the thing. Someone genuinely interested in your work as an author will take a good long look at your social media. They will find your books. They will never ask you to provide them with your book links.

Would you message Steven King and ask him to provide you with a link to his books? No. Would you email J. K. Rowling and ask her to send you the link to Harry Potter so you could read it? No. Because anyone can find her website with a simple web search. Anyone can find her books by searching Barnes & Noble or Amazon with her name. Anyone can find your work by reading your social media because that is the whole reason many authors even have social media accounts.

It might seem silly of me to be explaining this, because everyone knows that the actions these scammers take isn't something that normal people do. But being an author whose sales are flagging can be extremely distressing. Sometimes, it might seem like the friendly person who spent a few minutes pretending they are interested in you as a fellow semi-professional trying to make it in the self-publishing industry, is genuinely trying to be helpful and get your books out there. They are not. They are trying to take your money.

What inspired me to write this post? This morning I was contacted by yet another person trying to sell me a book trailer. I looked at his work. It wasn't good. It didn't have voiceover, just text at the bottom of each scene. Which is fine in some cases, but the clips chosen didn't match the words in the text. And the music? The music didn't match the mood of the clips, the text, or the story in general. They were awful trailers. One trailer even had a clip from the matrix and a still image of a famous Asian actress that were definitely under copyright and shouldn't have been in that trailer.

Before blocking him I pointed out what he'd did wrong with his work and with his solicitation. On days when I'm not fed up with people pretending to be interested in my books in order to scam me, I'm friendly about it. I give some kind constructive criticism and the ones who genuinely didn't know that what they were doing wrong take my words to heart and I see genuine improvement in their work over the next few months (because if I don't block them, sometimes I do check in to make sure they aren't still harassing people). Those are the ones I'll be more willing to give business to in the future.

Here's the thing, indie authors can make their own book trailers. Indie authors came make their own advertisements. Indie authors can grow their own social media following.

"But I don't know how?" Is something many writers reading this might be thinking. That's okay. You can learn. And you can use the internet to learn for free. Some of the programs you use might require you to spend some money. But there are plenty of applications, websites, and programs that offer you free services, free versions of a paid product, or free trials that you can exploit until your backlog of books is large enough to require paid services.

Becoming a self-published author can feel daunting and overwhelming. I know. If you want some help with free promotion, head on over to our services page and choose the Free Book Newsletter Listing. You can get your book or web series listed in our newsletter for free. No charge to promote your free book. Because Warlocks In Space Publishing loves books. We love helping our readers connect with free books. And we love helping authors succeed.