Well known mystery/suspense author Lee Goldberg received a call recently from a gentleman professing to be with a literary agency. He and his organization would assist him in getting his book promoted at the Los Angeles Festival of Books. Mr. Goldberg recorded the conversation and you’ll enjoy listening to this renown traditionally published author mess with a scammer. https://leegoldberg.com/the-new-age-literary-agency-scam/

Someone calls me every month or two want to promote me at some book fair or another. Most of the time they ask to represent The Shy Writer Reborn, a nonfiction how-to book I self-published last in 2014. Sometimes I talk to them. Other times I do not. I have messed with them like Mr. Goldberg, too.

A FundsforWriters reader recently wrote me, asking for assistance in finding grant funds to pay a literary agency that called him, seeking to promote his book at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I warned him to avoid these scammers, and I really think I took the wind out of his sails. He was hoping this was a break for him and his book.

If a caller seeks you out, making promises about publishing and marketing your books, do not take them seriously. They are not good for you, and will only take your money with little positive in return.

I know it’s difficult to tell someone no. . . someone who seems to want to help, but scams are abundant in this regard. They will ask you for thousands, promising you the moon, and all you’ll get in the end is crickets, unless you go to the event, in which case you’ll have a vacation. . . then crickets.