Being an Indie Author Is Like Painting a Target on Your Back that Says "Welcome Scammers"

 Goodreads recently stopped allowing private messages. I am still not happy about this, but it was a conduit for numerous scammers. It seems that a lot of people become Indie authors for vanity reasons, and this makes them ripe for scammers. Most of the messages I get are people telling me how amazing my book is, and if only I could get it to a bigger audience, I would be famous. On average, even without Goodreads messaging, I get a couple hundred scam requests through e-mail and phone every month. Publicity is necessary because that is the only way to get your book in the hands of your audience, but it is also extremely important to be aware that the more publicity you get the more you will be targeted. I've decided to share a few of the ways I've been targeted to help you recognize when something is a scam:

(1) A famous author wants to be your friend/correspond with you/ give you advice/promote your book/etc. 

As an author, you are probably busy out of your mind if you are doing it right. This is not just Indie authors, this is ALL authors. Danielle Steel, Stephen King, and even lesser knowns like Hannah Bonam Young or Rebecca Serle are not going to be scanning the Internet looking for Indie authors to connect with. I don't scan the Internet looking for other authors to connect with, and you shouldn't either. I do have a Goodreads account, and I participate in author groups on that platform with other authors. That isn't the same as trying to reach out to other authors in some misguided spam effort to promote your work or give them advice. 

(2) I would like to use your book for my book club/blog post/TikTok video/etc.

No scammer deserves anything more than getting quickly added to your junk/trash/block list or being deleted from the answering machine you are using to screen your calls. However, this is the most ridiculous scam I have seen, and I have been tempted to just reply with a simple, "Go for it." No one needs to get an author's permission to use the author's book for their book club or to review it on their blog or to make a TikTok video about it. Anyone wishing to use any of my books is more than welcome to do so. If someone would like me to speak at their book club meeting or interview me for their blog, they do need to contact me, but they had better be contacting me with important details--primarily do I need to travel and if they are planning to reimburse my travel costs. If it's a blog interview, they can just send the questions up front and save time in correspondence. I don't mind speaking at a book club meeting (either online or in real life), but most of these requests are teasers, and if you follow them through, they are going to ask you for money or books or for you to sign over all your earthly goods to them.

(3) I have 50 reviewers willing to give your book a review.

These are always followed by how much they are going to charge you to get these reviews. Amazon (and most places where authors can get reviews) have strict rules about paying people to leave a review. Now, Amazon does require a $50 investment to create any account that can leave reviews, but let's say this person charges you $250 to leave reviews. S/he would only need 10 people to buy into this scam and the cost of 50 fake reviewer accounts would be covered with only pure profit beyond that. They could also take your money and run without leaving any reviews. Even if they do leave the reviews, though, this is a scam. You are paying someone for reviews and s/he may only be navigating the Amazon rules by a technicality if at all. The reviews you get are most likely going to be AI generated drivel or "This was an amazing book!! I highly recommend it!!!" style garbage. There is also the danger that the person is not exploiting a loophole but rather violating Amazon's terms. This can get both you and the offending (fake) accounts banned. You have more to lose here than the scammer. It may seem like a quick (and certainly easier) way to get reviews, but you put your future writing career at risk. 

(4) I am a famous marketer/book promoter/publisher, and I love your book.

These usually come with a "but." There is always something wrong and this person is going to fix it. Again, whenever someone has contacted you, there is a greater chance you are dealing with a person who will take your money and run without providing any service at all. Book marketing is time consuming and costly when done correctly. It involves press releases, paid advertising, and a lot of research to make sure you are targeting the right market. I have not found one of these fly-by-night wanna-be marketers who do much more than spam people's e-mails with ads for your book or spam websites and blogs with jank ads in the comments sections. Certainly this can get you books sales, but you are going to irritate people more than you are going to convert them into customers. The likelihood of spam actually reaching the person it is sent to and not being removed from a website or auto sent into a spam folder is extremely low (and when I say low, I mean for every 50,000 people you send this kind of junk to you will get 5 of them max to buy your book). At some point, I may discuss targeted marketing on here (although marketing is my least favorite end of the writing business). The people trying to sell you their marketing skills through spam are not prominent marketers (look them up and make sure you compare email addresses if it seems they actually have an online presence). If you really want to promote your book through e-mail, you can always set up a mailing list through your website/blog and a free e-mail service like MailChimp. Then you will be getting people who are actually interested in your work and you will see better results than the random e-mail lists people are selling.

(5) I represent BookBub/Medium/BookBrowse/FilmFreeway/etc. and your book was chosen.

The first clue these are fake is that they don't come with an "unsubscribe" link (be careful when you click these, though). The second clue is that if you dig for the real e-mail address, it is usually from a free provider. These are big companies. They don't use free Gmail or Yahoo accounts. For example, I received an e-mail purportedly from Madeline Milburn who is a legitimate literary agent. The "From:" said it was from Madeleine Milburn <themadeleinemilburnagency@gmail.com> Even though this e-mail address uses what looks to be a formal name, it is the information after the "@" that is most important. If this was coming from the real literary agent it would be @madeleinemilburn.com (Note: To the best of my knowledge, this agency has no need to cold-e-mail people. Submit following the guidelines on the website if you feel your book is in their niches.)

Some may combine a real business with some extra words to avoid legal issues with the real business. Some of these (like Medium) are basically blogging websites and may be a big name but are not focused on books. Others, like BookBrowse, are real businesses that only review Indie authors for fees of $400 or so. Sorry, on one hand, publishing companies pretty much figuratively own the best review services for marketing and can get their reviews free from real editors at these places. In part, this is because they only send polished books to be reviewed. I review and have reviewed probably more than five hundred indie books (professionally and otherwise) at this point, and I would say only about 20% of them meet the standards of a publishing company. Granted, those standards are falling and the buddy system allows books that should never be traditionally published to be published, but I digress. The point is that these companies get boatloads of books to review from traditional publishing companies, so they are not going to reach out to you in an e-mail or phone call and tell you that you were chosen to be the singular Indie book they are going to review. Part of the reason they limit Indie books is because they were inundated with so many subpar books they couldn't afford all the people needed to screen them. This scam is implying that they have a staff not just scanning all the Indie books sent to them but also scanning every Indie book published!! I don't click on any scam e-mail, but my bet would be they charge you $600+ to get you that $400 review from BookBrowse or whichever company they supposedly represent--and that is only if they are trying to make an "honest" business of it, which brings up the question--why would they lie and tell you they represented these companies in the first place if they were honest?

(6) I can make you a better website/app/book trailer/turn your book into a feature film.

If you feel that your website is subpar or that you need any of these other things, then do research, find a reputable company with good ratings, and hire someone. If a person/company is relying on spamming authors to get business, they must be so bad at what they do they can't build good reviews online. 

(7) I am an Amazon Affiliate Marketer...

...and I want to share my commission with you. This should ring all sorts of warning bells, but the way it's worded, the person sending the e-mail makes it sound like s/he has to get permission from you to put a link on his/her website. This is completely false. Amazon Affiliates promote things sold on Amazon and then get paid per click. They do not need permission to promote any Amazon product. Since they can promote your book and get paid whether you agree or not, there is no reason for them to share their commission with you. Run--fast and far--from these. 

(8) May I ask you a question?

These are the most irritating people. I would like to believe these aren't really scammers, but the bottom line is that they are wasting my time. The biggest pet peeve is against people who want to ask me a question, but they expect me to respond just to find out what that question is. (It's right up there with "If you want to get scammed by me, simply reply with the word "DETAILS.") The best way to ask me a question is through blog comments on one of my blogs or through Goodreads--but asking me if you may ask a question is not going to get a response anywhere. Sometimes, however, I have gotten e-mailed actual questions, like "Is your book in hardcover?" I don't like answering questions through e-mail because only one person gets to see the answer. If I am going to answer a question like this, I will do it on my blog. The problem is that I am suspicious by nature. If you like me and like my books, you can clearly see on Amazon which ones are offered in hardcover and which ones aren't. There are many technical reasons why I don't offer all my books in hardcover versions. In the future, I suppose I could add this information to my website, and I might do just that, but that raises the third flag I had with this question: Which book? This question is really like the "May I ask you a question?" because anyone who has read one of my books or even looked at any of my online profiles would know I have written numerous books. To ask if a book (without naming the book) is offered in hardcover without naming it seems to be a fishing expedition to get me to reply and start a conversation, just as asking if they can ask a question is meant to start a conversation. I don't mind having a professional relationship with my readers, but should I ever become more popular, I wouldn't have that kind of time to dedicate to each one, so I'm not going to start now. Since this particular person did not specify which book and asked me a question readily available with minimal research, it raised flags. I feel most of these are actually scammers who are trying to develop a relationship with you first--similar to the my son is dying from cancer can you help me get food for him scams and the I am trying to settle an estate and want to make you the heir scams. 

Believe me, I would love for someone important to read my books--any of my books--and get end up a New York Times bestseller the next day with a movie option just as much as the next Indie author. However, I know realistically that even if that happened, I wouldn't be contacted about it by anyone famous or any major publishing/promotion companies until after I was at the top (and then I would have to be even more leery of scammers). I also recognize that my books have niche appeal that does not necessarily appeal to the business models of traditional publishers. Once upon a time, I did query publishing companies about my books. I have a 3-ring binder devoted to rejection letters. I stopped, when I got one that said my book was a perfect fit and they loved it, but unfortunately, their schedule was full for the next 2 years and so they had to decline it. Some might have been encouraged by that and kept going. I chose self-publishing, which means instead of struggling to find a traditional publisher, I struggle to find readers. No matter what you choose, there isn't an easy path. Don't let scammers convince you that there is.

Noob Writing Mistakes

 I read a lot of Indie books. (Yes, I am kind of masochistic that way.) In general, people who don't have some sort of state or top-tier private college/university education in writing should hire someone who does to help polish their book. Yes, this is expensive, but it's actually a lot cheaper and easier than in the olden days when you had to hire a vanity press. Even people with upper level education in writing need editors to help polish, they just don't need as much polish. Beta readers are okay to use in addition to professional help, but they should be used more for finding out if your book is mostly coherent and enjoyable.

I repeatedly find the same mistakes over-and-over in new indie author work, so I figured I would address some of them here to help those who, for whatever reason, feel they can't afford the education or hiring someone. These are not all inclusive and can never take the place of a professional.

1. Not re-reading what you've written in one setting.  This one always blows my mind. This is something that is drilled into middle school age students as soon as they are taught to write: "Proofread" your work before you submit it to your teacher. Like many goofy teachers below the university level, they misuse the word "proofread," but that doesn't change the fact that only the most immature writers think they can put out a written work without giving it a second read through. 

Most of my novels are 50,000-75,000 words. If I am not working on the same book every day, I always go back and reread the whole story before adding to it. It is unbelievably easy to either write things that you, yourself, do not understand the meaning of because you misworded it or to forget what you have already said in the story. I mean, if you can't stand to read your own work, why would you push it on others?

2. Excessively and awkwardly using literary devices. If you have used the word "like" more than once every 1000 words (about 4- 8,5" x 11" double-spaced pages) and you are not writing some sort of simile induced poetry, you are not truly writing descriptively but rather overusing a literary device in your prose. Similes are the most basic and overused of all the literary devices. Unless you are writing literary fiction, literary devices should be used sparingly. 

3. Author's notes before the book. Many indie authors like to talk about themselves and their books. Author's notes at the end of a book, explaining what inspired the story and the connection you hope the reader will make to it, can add a nice personal connection for readers. Most of the author's notes that indie authors use, though, are placed at the beginning of the book and these authors use them to either explain the book almost to the point of apologizing for writing it. If you have to explain details about your book to your reader before s/he reads the book--there is a problem with your book. If you have to apologize for writing it, than either you are trying to target the wrong market (that will reject it) or maybe you shouldn't be publishing it at all? There is certainly art for art's sake, but artists, directors, and authors who make this kind of art could really care less if you like it or not. If you, the author, do not feel your book is justified without a lengthy explanation, it is probably one of those things that you can regulate to the back of your closet for your kids to ponder some day instead of releasing it to the general public. 

4  Mislabeling the Preface, Prologue, Introduction, or Foreword (including misspelling any of them). Although Author's Notes don't really belong in the beginning of a book, there are several ways you can introduce the book without making an apology for it. A "Preface" is kind of like an author's note. It covers what inspired the book and how it came into being and usually ends by thanking the people who helped with it. (Just thanking people would be an "acknowledgement.") Whereas an Author's Note would focus on making a connection with the reader, A Preface would give more insight into the process and focus on praising those who helped the author. A Prologue is part of the story, usually backstory that the reader must know for the rest of the story to make sense. This is not just random backstory that the author finds interesting. Authors should know all the details of their characters' backstories--the readers do not need to know all this information in a dump at the beginning of the book. An Introduction tells the reader information that is necessary for reading the book, but that is not part of the backstory. If you have created a unique world, where let's say gravity is reversed, this isn't really "backstory" information but it is necessary or the reader is going to be confused when s/he begins reading. A Foreword is where someone who is not the author (but who is famous) talks about how great the book is and how it affected them. As such, Forewords should never be found in Indie books unless you happen to be on good terms with your next-door-neighbor, who also happens to be someone like Stephen King or Johanna Lindsay, and you are so close that you don't feel like a heel asking him/her to (1) read your book and (2) write a foreword for it. If your neighbor is truly famous enough to write a foreword for your book and actually impress your readers, then s/he is probably not going to be able to tell you "yes" or "no" immediately, regardless as to how many times you have saved his/her cat from falling in his/her pool, because they will have to consult their publicist or manager or whomever is guiding them on their public image before they help you with your book. 

5. Excessive typos. There is absolutely no reason for this, even in an Indie book. A few typos--whatever. Excessive typos? MS Word and Google Docs have a spelling and grammar checker built in. Grammarly has a free spelling and grammar check that is a little more advanced. Not using at least one of these is just lazy. 

Doubting what these are telling you and making changes to the programming (i.e. marking something as correct when it says you are not) when you have never had formal training and just "think" you are right, is just dumb arrogance. Once you have told these programs you want to accept errors, it is difficult to go in and fix that.

6. Not understanding what a paragraph is. As a general rule, sentences do not make good paragraphs. In dialogue, there may be a back and forth of one-sentence paragraphs, but in prose, repeated single sentence paragraphs should not be used. Most of the time, these single sentences can easily be combined with other single-sentence paragraphs around them because they are still on the same topic. 

7. Writing in a foreign language. If you don't speak the language, don't write in it. I read several languages well enough that I am confident translating into English from them. I only translate into English because I am a native speaker and native speakers of target languages are best because we are pretty familiar with nuances and idioms. That said, I feel confident translating into French/Spanish/Latin/Italian for the brief instances they may be needed in a book. For German, I can go to my Mutti, who is, well, German. Most newbies tend to think they can use Google translate or AI and that's close enough. It isn't. there are some garbage translations I have seen--to the point I have no clue what the author is trying to say because they chose some convoluted way AI told him/her to say it.

Also important on this topic: If your reader isn't going to understand what is happening in the book without you putting translation notes in it-don't write in a foreign language. I defer to The Lord of the Rings for the best example of how to do this. Tolkien was obviously inventing several languages. He was a linguist so he could do that and do it correctly. There is a glossary you can use to translate everything because without it no one would be able to translate what was said (he was the only one who initially knew the language he had invented, after all). Real, modern languages don't need glossaries because they are easily looked up online. At the same time, readers could read Tolkien and never look up what the orcish or elvish or dwarvish was saying because they never missed out on the actual story by not knowing what those words meant in English. Now, I have seen even traditional publishers, or rather Amazon imprint publishers, add in a translation after using a foreign phrase. In this latter case, the translation was not necessary because the rest of the story allowed the reader to understand what was happening. Having the English translation pulls you out of the story more than having text like: 

"I love you, my sweet," Emilio whispered in German. 

Using a foreign language for authenticity when you don't really know what you are saying and when you feel you need to translate it immediately back to English in the text is poor authorship. 

8. Not understanding formatting conventions or using them inconsistently. Print books have indents at the beginning of paragraphs. Online and e-books have spaces between paragraphs. Some newbies combine these, which is confusing and wastes space. Other newbies fail to be consistent in formatting and italicize things randomly, switch fonts without seeming reason or consistency, and improperly use things like bold face and all caps. Publishing companies have style guides for those areas of grammar that are flexible in correctness but that need to be consistent throughout a manuscript. It might help if you establish basic rules and write/type them out in your own style guide document. Then go through your manuscript after editing to ensure you have followed these rules consistently. (This is called proofreading.) 

9. Not citing works or including quotes without permission. If you quote anything in a book--fiction or non-fiction--you must cite the source. There are some times in fiction where using a footnote is a better choice that directly citing the source in the text. However, directly quoting another source in fiction--especially from songs--is plagiarism unless you have written permission from the copyright owner of that quote, and you then explain that you obtained that permission in the copyright notice. In general, you can quote up to 500 verses from the Bible in your work, as long as they meet certain requirements and you cite which version of the Bible you are quoting as well as the book, chapter, and verse of the quote. As an indie author, it is generally best to just stay away from direct quotes. 

10. Not understanding your target audience. Every book has a target audience. Usually, the people who are your target audience are those who enjoy reading the genre you have written in. This means that if you write a mystery and call it sci-fi, when it doesn't have any sci-fi elements, then you are going to make your target audience unhappy. I have definitely seen mislabeled books--some are occasionally even put out by traditional publishers in an effort to sell books, like 50 Shades of Grey, that are erotica to a bigger audience. By marketing 50 Shades of Grey as a romance instead of as erotica, it reached more people than it would have, because fewer people read erotica than they read romance. This, is extremely risky because in doing this, you have to have a big enough marketing campaign to get millions of books into readers hands before bad reviews start flowing in. In other words, the book isn't that great but you already sunk a bunch of money into it, so you have to create a massive marketing campaign to recoup your money before people start letting other people know how bad it is. Movie producers also do this--giving you a trailer that has only the best parts of the movie and then you get there and the movie is awful. It's a gamble, but if you are going to lose money anyway and if you are a big publishing or production company, it is a gamble you may take. 

In general, indie authors do not have well-funded marketing budgets. Five bad reviews can be pretty difficult to overcome, and it is even more difficult to get a decent reimbursement for your work prior to those bad reviews going live. 

Aside from passing erotica off as romance, the other area where authors regularly misread their audience is marketing something as a "Christian" book. Many people are "Christians" and don't seem to realize that their behavior and the things they are alright with are not actually okay when one reads the Bible. Evangelical Christians, who see the Bible as literal, make up 1/4 of the population of the U.S. and they have and extremely strong review system online and through churches. If you slap the "Christian" label on your book, and it doesn't meet the standards of what a Christian book is, people (including myself) will complain, and they will do it loudly. 

Granted, in my case, I complain against all mislabeling. I recently read a "mystery" series that was actually a soap opera in book form. That's the quickest way to get a one-star review from me--don't understand who your audience is and market to one audience when your book belongs with another audience.

How Do I Get Reviews for My Self-Published Book?

 Another author on Goodreads asked me this question on my profile, but after asking immediately pushed her own book. If you include a link to your book anywhere it wasn't asked for (including in a comment here), it is spam and will probably be deleted. I struggled all day today with (a) responding to her question on my Goodreads profile and thereby not only encouraging her (and others) to spam because her book link would now be published on my profile or (b) report her to Goodreads as a spammer or (c) ignore her. None of these options appealed to me. 

First, I have not read her book, and I do not intend to read or review it. It's a self-help book, and that is one of the few genres in which I have no interest. You have to write a really good self-help book to get me interested in reading it--although it doesn't necessarily need to be targeted to me. 

Second, she called me "Jenna," which makes me think I wasn't the only author who got thus spammed. Note: If you are writing to anyone, especially book editors of traditional publishing companies, and you are using a form letter, make sure you change names, addresses, etc. No one wants to get a letter addressed to someone else. 

Third, I have no way of questioning her to try to find out if she was intentionally spamming me or not. I have reported other people for doing things like this, but usually only under pressure from fellow moderators (who want me to report people because they don't want to be spammed, too--and by reporting them, it will mark them as a spammer and reduce their ability to do this or they will get their account banned). 

Finally, I really don't like to ignore questions--especially legitimate ones, which is why I decided a blog post was the best way to deal with this.

So, the best way to get reviews is NOT to spam people--especially other authors. Sending me a link to your book is not going to get me to buy it. Even if I do buy your book, that doesn't mean I have to or will review it. Plus, if the person you spam gets upset over that tactic, they could leave you a bad review.

I discussed Goodreads Giveaways as a method of getting reviews here. It is expensive and for about every 100 books I gave away, I got 2 reviews in return. Still, that is one way to get reviews.

You can also pay scammers to write (usually AI generated) reviews for you that are vague. These are generally all positive because you are paying them and really have little value beyond tricking algorithms (at least temporarily). These are also usually expensive, and you are not dealing with good people. Most fly-by-night marketing scams also use these. If you are caught doing this, however, you may end up getting your publishing account banned from Amazon. 

You can do review exchanges--but by that I do not mean you give me your book for me to review and I give you mine. This is called a reciprocal review (you are reviewing someone who is reviewing you), and it is forbidden (and can get you banned) on most sites that allow reviews. A legitimate book exchange allows you to give your book to someone to review and in exchange you review someone else's book. There are a few groups like this on Goodreads. These do not usually cost anything (or sometimes cost the price of a book), but they require a time commitment to reading other books.

There are also numerous paid services that have started doing this--but only a few of these are reportedly reputable. These are also online review exchange websites. These are a little more risky and also tend to be expensive. Some require you to use them with ARC (advanced reader copy) distribution before you publish your book fully (it should, however, be edited and polished fully). Some are set up so that you can give reviews for other books to earn your reviews, but all of them use a business model with varying costs if you want to get enough reviews for your book to be worth using the service. I watched a YouTube video where an author talked about how great one of these was. However, I noted that she spent hundreds of dollars and admitted she only got about 16 Amazon reviews. Goodreads reviews are great, but they don't usually translate into sales as well as Amazon reviews. I find it hard to justify that kind of money for the return. 

I have some other methods of getting reviews that I plan to explore over the next couple of years. I plan to write a second post about those methods and explain whether or not they worked.