How to Avoid Publishing Industry Scams and Research Publishing Companies

It seems every industry is plagued by scammers and the publishing industry is no exception. Over the last two decades, I have heard countless reports of authors being taken advantage of, downright ripped off, and even losing rights to their own work. These tales always leave my head spinning, especially because many of these issues are avoidable with a bit of research.

As an author myself, I’m not immune to scammers. Recently, I received a voice mail from someone saying their company wanted to acquire the right to print one of my early books. The first clue that something was off is that that book is out of print for a reason. It’s outdated and would need a major rewrite.

I’ve received these calls before and can tell pretty quickly when it’s a scam. These so-called companies typically want you to pay them or for you to hand over your work to them so they can print pirated copies and try to profit from them, never delivering you a single penny for sales.

To be clear, these scam calls are different than those coming from legitimate foreign rights publishers, yet it can be difficult to tell the difference. This is one of the many reasons why it’s important to thoroughly research any publisher or service provider you consider hiring. These are the mistakes you don’t want to learn the hard way.

The following are ways to protect yourself against a variety of publishing industry scams by looking for red flags and tallying them up.

Always Review the Company Website

First, see if the company has a website. If no site exists, that’s a big red flag. If a site does exist, ask yourself these questions:

• Does the site look legitimate?
• Is it professionally designed?
• Does it feature books published by the company?
• Can you find their books on Amazon?
• Do the covers for those books look professionally designed?
• Is there an “About” page that features people who lead the company?
• Can you locate the company leaders on LinkedIn or elsewhere online?
• Is there a business address listed?

If you answer “no” to any of the above questions, these can be red flags.

Check the Domain Registration When Investigating Scams

Fortunately, the date of a website’s domain registration is public information. Sometimes the actual domain owner is listed too, unless the owner chooses to hide their contact information. But hidden contact information isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s more important to see the date the domain was registered.

When you’re researching a publishing service provider, or any service provider you’re considering hiring, be sure they’ve been around for a while, preferably for several years. If a domain is less than a year old, this can be a red flag. Many scammers come and go by launching websites and shutting them down once consumers catch on to their schemes.

You can search for domain information for any website for free here: https://www.whois.com/whois/.

Here’s how it looks when I searched for our site, NonfictionAuthorsAssociation.com.

And below are the results of the search. Note the original date of the domain registration is 2012. Because the domain was registered over ten years prior, it’s safe to assume this site has been in business for quite a while.

Further down the page is contact information for the domain owner. I chose to keep mine private because I received so many solicitations based on my address and phone number being listed publicly. Therefore, private registration is not necessarily a red flag. But if a domain owner’s name and address is listed here, you can then go to Google and search for that person to see if you can learn more about them.

Beware of Subdomains – These Can Indicate Publishing Scams

An author reached out to me recently to ask about a proposal he received from Amazon Publishing. When I ran a quick Google search, I discovered numerous companies representing themselves as Amazon.

One big clue is when you see a subdomain. Here’s one that’s in operation right now and has “amazon.com” in its URL:

This company even uses Amazon’s signature smiley face arrow in its logo. In this case, the company may not be an actual scam, but their business practices certainly seem deceptive.

To be clear, any website domain can create a subdomain. We could create nonfictionauthorsassociation.amazon.com. This isn’t a legal violation—any website can have all kinds of domains—unless we were to represent ourselves as being a division of Amazon. (Which we are NOT!)

Amazon subdomains aren’t the only ones to look out for. Lots of scammers of all kinds use these tactics. Just last week I received a scam text message telling me someone had logged into my IRS account. The URL in the text looked something like “joescammer.irs.com.”

Always be on the lookout for subdomains and avoid clicking if you have any sense something is off, whether from a publisher or any other solicitation.

Search for Public Reviews

Whenever I consider hiring a service provider of any kind, I always conduct several searches on Google. Make sure you search these keyword phrases:

• <company name> scam
• <company name> reviews
• <company name> complaints
• <company name> lawsuit

Recently, a member of the NFAA community let me know he had invested thousands of dollars with a publishing service to produce his book. (Hint: the company heavily advertises its courses on self-publishing and then convinces students to hire them to produce their books.)

It took well over a year for the company to complete the author’s book formatting and publishing production steps—a process that should have taken a month or less. The author was beyond frustrated and had much to say about the poor customer service he received.

While writing this article, I conducted a Google search for the offending business: “<company name> scam.” Sure enough, several articles and forum discussions about this company appeared at the top of the search results. Protect yourself and check out one of the many articles here.

Locating one negative review for a company may not be cause for alarm. It’s impossible to satisfy everyone all the time. But when you find many negative reviews, please turn and run the other way.

Also note that negative reviews can get buried by savvy companies. Look at any weight loss supplement advertised on late night TV. Those companies invest in all kinds of article placement and advertisements in an attempt to bury negative publicity (those paid articles appear at the top of results, so you need to scroll through two or three pages of Google to get to the real stuff). Some publishers may do this too.

Some additional sources for locating company reviews include TrustPilot.com, the Better Business Bureau, and Google reviews. (When a company has an official Google profile, you will find reviews listed within Google.)

It’s possible you may not find reviews on any of these three resources since not all companies are listed in these directories, and that may be good news. But if you do find the company and see multiple negative reviews, then you can add those red flags to your tally.

There is also an excellent resource that has been reporting on publishing industry scams for years. Check out https://writerbeware.blog/ where you can also search by company name.

Visit Social Media Accounts

It’s hard to imagine any business not having a single social media account, so check to see if the company you’re investigating has a social media presence. Most businesses list social media links on the company website. From here, you can see how long their social accounts have been active and what people are saying about them.

If you don’t find links on the website, take a moment to search Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn to see if you can find a company profile. No social media presence could be a red flag.

Know the Difference Between Hybrid Publishing and Vanity Publishing

Because self-publishing involves dozens of steps and details, many authors choose to hire out the production of their books. There is nothing wrong with paying for these services, provided you choose a reputable company that won’t take advantage of you.

The term “hybrid” publisher indicates that the company has a vetting process for accepting manuscripts. This tells you the company cares about producing quality work. If there is no vetting process, there is likely little quality control, and a publisher without a vetting process is often called a vanity press. This means they will publish anything in exchange for a check. Sometimes, vanity publishers take advantage of authors.

One author shared with me that she had hired a vanity publisher to produce her book and a year later, she wanted to cancel her contract and take her book elsewhere. The cost of her books was too expensive with the vanity press and she found another publisher that would cut her costs in half.

When she requested to cancel her relationship with the vanity press, she learned the contract she had signed kept her book tied to that publisher for two years. She was not granted permission to take her own work to another publisher until the two years was up.

This is infuriating. If she had been offered a lucrative traditional publishing deal to acquire the rights to her book, she wouldn’t have been able to accept. (Not that this is common, but it can happen!) When you pay for a service, your contract should be cancelable with 30 days’ notice or less.

Contact Their Clients

While you can always ask a company to provide references, I recommend seeking these on your own. Look on the company website for books they have published and reach out directly to the authors. This will give you a much better chance of getting genuine feedback. Here are some questions to ask:

• How was your overall experience with the company?
• How long did it take to complete your book?
• Did they do a good job on editing, layout, and cover design?
• What is their customer service like?
• How quickly do they respond to questions?
• How often do they pay out royalties?
• If you could rate them on a scale of one to ten, what would you choose?
• Would you hire them again?

Review the Contract

When you hire a publishing services provider, they should provide a contract detailing the services you will receive. Check the following:

• Are all services detailed, per your communications with them?
• Does the pricing match what you were told?
• Is your author purchase price listed? For a black and white paperback book under 200 pages, your purchase price should be somewhere between $3 to $6 per copy. If your cost is $10 or higher, this is a red flag. (Keep in mind that color printing and hardcover can more than double the cost.)
• Can you cancel the contract at any time? (If you’re paying for a service, you should have the right to cancel with 30 days’ notice or less.)
• Who owns the copyright to your work? (You should always retain your own copyright.)
• How long will the process take to produce and distribute your book?

Contracts can be quite confusing. It’s a good idea to have it reviewed by an attorney. You can find several options for literary attorneys in our recommended resources.

Ask Fellow Writers and Publishing Industry Professionals

If you belong to any writing communities, ask members there about the company you’re investigating. Members of the Nonfiction Authors Association are encouraged to ask questions in our private Facebook group and during our monthly Group Round Table discussions on Zoom. We also appreciate receiving reports about bad experiences. We keep an internal list so we can warn authors who inquire.

Listen to Your Gut

I almost always regret ignoring my gut feelings. If you’re having doubts about hiring a company, tally up those red flags and consider alternative providers. You owe it to yourself to thoroughly investigate your options before making a final decision, especially when it comes to something as important as publishing your book.

The good news is that there are plenty of reputable service providers out there, both small and large businesses, that will deliver on their promises.

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