Back in 2014, the Bexley Public Library invited to me to give a free seminar on how to professionally self-publish a book. I used to do a lot of these seminars. I’d developed a bit of a reputation as the guy who could set you straight on publishing, and it was a great turnout, 150+ people packed into this library auditorium.

Unbeknownst to me until after the event, a young woman live-tweeted the whole talk, offering her reactions and opinions to everything I said. Imagine all of the mentions I found when I checked my Twitter later that day (it was still Twitter back then)!

She seemed to be of the opinion that no one should ever pay anyone for anything in publishing and that we should all sell our books for 99 cents. Apparently, I was a big scammer. I specifically remember the term “snake oil salesman” in her exchanges with her followers.

Nothing will bring out the comments and support quite like “exposing” a scammer.

She disagreed with my opinion on how to publish. I was promoting services that she thought were unnecessary. She had published a few books and she had a different way she liked to do things. But did that really make me a scammer?

Of course there are real scams in the publishing industry. I see this word all the time in the publishing world. In fact, as I was writing this, I saw this ad on my Facebook feed:

So what actually is a scam?

When we say “scam,” we’re probably talking about one of three different things: scams, schemes, and bad opportunities.

What is a scam?

Right out of college, my first “professional” job was at NBC4 in Columbus, Ohio. I worked as an assistant web editor, which meant that my job was to take the stories from the news TV show and rewrite the show script into written articles for the website. Back then, the TV show was still king, so we couldn’t publish anything to the website until after it aired on TV.

“Scam” was a word that we were instructed to use carefully—which meant don’t use it at all.

A “scam” implies that fraud has occurred. It’s an accusation of criminal intent. In its simplest terms, fraud means that someone has used provable deception in order to gain personal advantage.

Let’s say someone tells you that for a $1,000 they’ll get an endorsement for your book from Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games.  When you pay, they either disappear or they make up an endorsement themselves. That’s a scam.

A year or so ago, someone replicated the website of one of the publishing companies that I started, but have since sold. They claimed to be a part of my company. I found out because a friend of an author contacted me directly to find out if the very expensive thing his friend was doing was legitimate. It wasn’t. (I won’t share the fraudulent website here, I don’t want to give it any more attention.)

That was a scam. Someone in Iceland was pretending to be someone else (me!) in order to steal someone’s money.

Here’s what’s important: when you call something a “scam” you’re saying that you believe a crime is happening.

What about when it doesn’t rise to the level of a crime? Lots of things are deceptive but aren’t necessarily criminal, and we call those schemes.

What’s a Scheme?

At the news station, unless someone had admitted fraud or been found guilty by a court, we always used the word “scheme” in place of “scam.” (Unless, in true news speak, we could use “allegedly” or “reportedly,” like “the alleged scam”.)

“Scam” is objective. A crime can be proven to have occurred.

“Scheme” is subjective. It’s a statement of opinion. When I say “scheme,” I’m implying that the action or activity is taking unfair advantage. It doesn’t imply that an activity is a crime, but rather an untoward example of bad morals.

Many business practices are ethically suspect, but not illegal.

Further, when we use the word “scheme” we’re implying that the person knows (or ought to know) that they are taking advantage.

In publishing, the most common schemes charge an unreasonable price and infer an unrealistic benefit to the author.

When a company promises to send out 100 press releases about my book to major news outlets for $X—that’s a scheme. As long as they actually send out the press releases it’s not a scam. But they know the odds of that service doing your book any good are virtually zero, but they sell it anyway.

When a “hybrid publisher” uses deceptive language to charge $15,000 to produce a book that only costs them $500 in actual expenses, that’s a scheme.

I get emails literally every day claiming that for a small fee my book can be included in some kind of book club, newsletter, or feature. These emails claim that my book will be shared with thousands of eager book readers.

If no newsletter exists, then this is a scam. They’re telling a lie to deprive me of my resources.

But if a newsletter exists, it’s likely just a scheme. I can pay them $100 and they will indeed share my book with 1,500 “readers.” Who are those readers? What country are they in? Do they speak English? What do they read?

The implication of the offer is that if I pay $100 a lot of people will buy my book. This probably isn’t true. However, in many cases, there will be a real service rendered. Their promise is demonstrable in the loosest sense.

But it’s an unfair deal. I believe they know it’s an unfair deal. They’re intentionally capitalizing on a desperate customer base to offer a useless service.

I’m not accusing them of a crime, it’s just a bad deal. And they know they’re offering a bad deal.

But what we find more than anything else in publishing are simply bad opportunities.

What’s a Bad Opportunity?

Like any industry, publishing is full of people doing their best.

A lot of things that feel like scams are one of two things:

1. Someone doing their best, but they’re just not very good at what they claim to do. (Unbeknownst to them)
2. A poor match for your publishing journey.

For example, there are marketers out there who will charge you thousands of dollars for various marketing services, often with little to no results. They’re not trying to take advantage of you. They think they can help and they really put a lot of time and effort into your campaign. But they just suck at it (sorry).

There are also publishers out there who are trying their hardest and really want to serve their authors. But they just don’t know what they’re doing.

I know an author who recently paid $150 to be a vendor at a book expo that no one showed up to. It seems like the organizers just forgot to market the event to the public after they filled their author booths.

These aren’t scams. They’re not even schemes. No one’s trying to take advantage of you. They’re just not opportunities that will be helpful for you.

And it’s the “for you” that’s important. Authors are publishing with different motivations and different goals.

That little small press that couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag is a terrible fit for someone trying to become a professional author. But it’s a perfect fit for someone who wants to work with a creative team of really fun, passionate people to bring their poetry book to life.

That book expo is a terrible fit for someone who does a lot of events because they want to sell books. But it’s a great fit for someone who wants to hang out with other authors and get a picture of themselves signing a book at a cool con.

That lady that called me a scammer all those years ago was wrong. I know my intentions were good. I know my information was solid and helpful.

She just had a different perspective on what publishing should look like. She believed in do-it-yourselfer-ing and selling cheap. I believe in professional production so that you can compete with the biggest books on the market. I’m not a scam, I just wasn’t a good match for what she wanted to do.

And yes, there are plenty of bad services out there. They’re really not valuable to anyone. But that doesn’t mean that there’s a bad actor behind every one. Most new restaurants fail because they don’t deliver a product the public wants at a reasonable price, but we don’t accuse the owners of being malicious.

It really does matter…

This business about “scams” actually does matter. It’s not just semantics.

I know we use “scam” in a colloquial way. “$79!? That oil change place is such a scam.”

But if you’re writing professionally, your words have legal bearing. When I say “professionally,” I don’t mean you’re making a lot of money, I just mean that you are purporting yourself in a professional capacity.

When you publicly write an article or social media post that calls something a “scam,” you are accusing someone of committing a crime. If this claim isn’t substantiated, you could face civil liability for libel (written slander).

That’s why the newsroom got so antsy if one of the reporters wanted to call something a “scam.” The reporter had better have done their homework to substantiate that claim. Something couldn’t just be unfair, a bad deal, or in poor taste—there had to be real evidence that there was criminal intent to the scheme.

And more importantly, it’s just not how we love each other.

As Christian writers, you’ll never get more clicks than when you throw a brother or sister under the bus and “expose” them. (This isn’t just limited to publishing, either.) But we had better be real sure before we do that. (See Galatians 5:19-21 for more information on this subject.)

So is that publishing opportunity really a scam?

Before you call something a scam, ask these three questions:

1. Is there anybody else, with different goals than mine, that this could be a good opportunity for?
2. If this is a bad deal, is the operator acting in bad faith—is it so egregious that they ought to know that they are seriously breaching good ethics and taking advantage of someone?
3. Has this operator committed criminal deception? Have they told a demonstrable lie in order to gain a personal advantage?

Schemes involve subjective, qualitative lies.

• “We’re going to do a really good job.”  They don’t.
• “We only use the best cover artists in the world.” They use AI.
• “With our help, we know your book will be made into a movie.” No one who has ever used their service has seen their book made into a major motion picture.
• “We deliver big results for authors like Stephen King.” One of their staff members once delivered a package to Stephen King’s house when he worked for UPS in college.

Scams involve objective lies.

• “We’ll get you an endorsement from XYZ bestselling author.” All endorsements are written by a fat Armenian guy named Fred.
• “Your book will be professionally produced to the highest standards.” No one does anything to your book, they just slap an AI cover on it and throw it on Amazon.
• “XYZ award is only awarded to the top 1% of applicants.” All applicants are given the award.

There are real scams in publishing

Don’t mishear me. There are real scams in publishing.

There are criminal actors preying on vulnerable authors, making provably false statements in order to deprive you of your time and money.

(In fact, I wrote a whole handbook to help you sort this thing out, which you can get for free from The Company: https://writers.company/resources/the-three-publishing-paths-by-brad-pauquette/)

But more often what you’ll find are schemes. They’re not criminal, they’re just people without good morals who are taking advantage, knowingly overcharging and underdelivering. That’s a free market.

When we throw that word “scam” around too liberally, we do more harm than good. It makes it more difficult to figure out what is actually a scam and what is just something someone found to be a bad deal.

If you’ve been to any of my publishing seminars, you’ve probably heard me use the word “scheme” when talking about certain parts of the publishing industry. That’s intentional.

If you have an author website or a social media account as an author, you need to be especially careful. Just like a news website, you’re a professional writer. While it’s unlikely that someone would ever pursue you for libel now, what about when you’re as rich and famous as you hope to be, and that article is still hanging out on your website, long forgotten?

That woman in Bexley all those years ago shouldn’t have insinuated I was a bad person. She was well within her rights to disagree with me, even to urge people not to trust me or do business with me.

I don’t know if she’s still writing books or not, but I hope she’s wildly successful with her strategy. I still stand behind the information that I gave out that day as good and helpful for most people who share the goal of becoming a professional writer.

You shouldn’t do business with people that can’t deliver things that are helpful to you, in accordance with your goals and values, and at a price on which you’re likely to see return on your investment. But that doesn’t make them a criminal or even a bad person.

And if you hang around trying to help people in publishing very long, you just might find the shoe on the other foot.

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Publishing is tough. I think you can be successful in writing and publishing, because I’ve helped lots of people do it. Join my free newsletter to stay in the loop, and I’ll send you the first four chapters of my bestselling book for free.