Yesterday I got a phone message from “Jamie Brown” at Brokers AB, a “literary agency,” informing me that four major publishing companies wanted to buy my book for $250-400K. All Brokers AB wants in return is a 12% commission on the sale. Wow, how exciting! I googled Brokers AB, and learned they also do business as “WGA Publications,” and even have the audacity to list the Writers Guild of America website as part of their company. They are based in one of those “WeWork”-type shared offices in Oxnard, CA. I called them back today… and played along for a while before questioning their entire, idiotic scam. Here is the entirety of the phone call.
publishing scams
The “Stellar Literary California” Scam
Today I got an unsolicited call from a “business consultant” at “Stellar Literary California” offering me a literary agent and self-publishing services. His pitch quickly disintegrated without much prodding. My favorite part was when he tried to convince me that he was calling from California….and not the Philippines or somewhere like it.
I did say one thing in the conversation that wasn’t true…not that this putz would know the difference: you don’t get 100% of the royalties if you publish through KPD. What I should have said is that there is no upfront charge for formating, interior design, or a basic cover. (Sorry my disheveled appearance and the crumbs on my face… I was writing & munching popcorn when I got this call and rushed to return it).
You can learn more about “Stellar Literary” at Writer Beware
Six Common Scams Aimed at Writers
Lately, I am getting swamped by email and phone with publishing scams…which is a mistake, since I am an experienced, published author. Their primary targets are self-published, inexperienced, and desperate writers, who are easy to sucker. Here are six common scams and how to avoid them.
1. If any agent asks you to pay upfront for representation or “publishing services,” it’s a SCAM. Reputable agents make their money by getting a 10-20% commission from your work (the percentage depends on whether it’s for Hollywood or print).
2. If any TV program or podcast asks you to pay to be a guest, it’s a SCAM. Reputable TV shows *never* ask for money…and don’t pay you to appear, either (with the exception of paying your travel and hotel if they need you to come to New York or L.A., for example, but it’s exceedingly rare in this age of Zoom etc).
3. If any celebrity podcast wants to pay *you* to be a guest and/or wants to access your Facebook page for a live event, it’s a SCAM.
4. Don’t submit your book to any so-called “literary awards” competition that charges an entry fee, especially any with a city title in their name like the Los Angeles Book Awards, Paris Books Awards, London Books Awards, etc., it’s a SCAM. The vast majority of reputable awards, from organizations like Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, etc. do not charge a fee. (I can think of only three exceptions — the Romance Writers of America, the Crime Writers of UK and Crime Writers of Australia all charge entry fees, and they shouldn’t).
5. Do not pay for reviews from any publication (Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Midwest Book Review), nobody in the industry takes the paid reviews seriously and using one to tout your submissions to an agent or publisher marks you as an amateur hungry for praise. It’s a SCAM and those industry trade publications should be ashamed of themselves for doing it. Kirkus and Publishers Weekly seperate their “legitimate” reviews from their “paid” reviews by putting them in different, monthly sections of their magazine. I think the Kirkus one is called “Discoveries” and the PW one is called “Booklife.” As an incentive to pay for Booklife reviews, PW occasionally selects one to feature among their legitimate reviews.
6. If you get a call or email out of the blue from a studio, talent agency, or supposedly a big company like HBO or Disney, that wants to option the movie or TV rights to your book, and maybe even offers you a huge amount of money, but first wants you to pay to produce a “pitch deck” or “theatrical trailer,” it’s a SCAM.
Finally, always Google the name of the company or individual that’s hitting you up with this incredible offer… and check Writers Beware before you act on anything. If someone claims to be a big producer or director, check their credits on imdb…usually they don’t have any or they don’t even exist… or, if they do, they could be pretending to be that real individual. Contact the “famous” or “reputable” person or their agent directly, not with the contact info you’ve been given, but through contact info you’ve found on your own for their agent, office or production company, to see if the person reaching out to you is the real person or a fraud.
The “Our Film Agency” Scam
Today I got a voice mail from “Our Film Agency” letting me know the exciting news that HBO Max is offering me $250,000 for the film rights to my book TELEVISION SERIES REVIVALS. Pretty amazing, huh? Especially for a non-fiction reference book published years ago! So I called them back and left a message…and then they called me back a few minutes later, this time claiming to be Columbia Pictures. Here’s a video of my conversation with the inept scammers.
Visiting the New Age Literary Scammers
You may remember that the New Age Literary Agency called me back in February, and left a message offering to represent me and to showcase my book to “book investors” at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. So I called them back the next day and I posted the video of my conversation with them. It was a lot of fun and exposed the utter stupidity of their scam.
Although they claim to be a literary agents, they don’t actually sell books to publishers… or to anybody. Their job seems to be to attract some nebulous creature they call “a book investor” to take interest in an author’s novel…and their big way of doing that is to show your book off, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, at their booth. That, of course, is their real business… getting desperate, uninformed authors to cough up hundreds of dollars to have their book on a table at a booth that nobody visits.
New Age shared their booth with their sister company Book Trance Media, who claim to be “experienced marketing professionals,” which you’d never know from the amateurish posters in their booth or the half-hearted presentation of books by their poor clients. Booktrance is, of course, on Writer Beware‘s list of fake literary agencies and fraudulent marketing firms. But the firm is aptly named. You’d have to be in a trance to give any money to these scammers.
The New Age Literary Agency booth seems to exist purely as a prop they can show in photos to potential victims to legitimaze their scam, perhaps to gain some credibility with aspiring authors who probably don’t know that *anybody* can rent a booth at the Festival. The staff seemed to spend lots of time on Saturday taking pictures of themselves, dressed in New Age logo polos, in front of the booth.
Beyond that, the purpose of the booth isn’t clear. It is staffed by people who don’t know anything about the agency or the marketing firm…or even about the self-published books that they were displaying, mostly just a single copy of each title, which they offered for free to passersby (with handwritten signs taped to the booth — demonstrating the sheer marketing brilliance that Book Trance is celebrated for).
Suckers who paid even more got to have a signing hosted at the booth… I saw a couple of those and it was pathetic. The staff taped balloons to the booth, took photos with the authors, and that was that. Not a single book investor in sight. But hey, the suckers got to feel like authors for an hour…at an exorbinant price.
My brother Tod Goldberg and I stopped by the New Age/Book Trance booth on Sunday morning, presenting ourselves as authors looking for new representation. The video is below… but it’s not fun or amusing…it’s more sad and pathetic. These people didn’t really know why they were there or what they were supposed to be doing. Nobody at the head office in the Philippines prepared them with a script of what to say if anybody beside one of their suckers showed up. The staff couldn’t answer any of the questions we had…and when they tried, their answers made no sense. Instead, they referred us to a stack of business cards for their “Senior Literary Agents” none of whom, of course, was at the Festival.
As literary scams go, this is one of the lamest that I’ve ever encountered.
The New Age Literary Agency Scam
Yesterday I got a call from “Alex,” an agent at the New Age Literary Agency, offering me the opportunity, because I am a New York Times bestselling author, to sign my books at their booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books …and they might even consider representing me.
How exciting!
I’ve always wanted to be represented by a literary agency that charges an upfront fee & operates out of “Mail Boxes Times” in Beverly Hills. They don’t have any literary agents, but I can copy my keys, take a passport photo, or notarize my documents when I visit! They will even publish my next book for me so I won’t have to worry about selling it to a publisher. Amazing!
So I returned their call today…and recorded it (and, as it turns out, so did they!)