This week! Books!

Dolly Parton, Superstar Whose Songs Spoke to Millions, Dies at 80 (gift link) – Bill Friskics-Warren, New York Times – Dolly Parton’s greatness was just about the only thing this country could agree upon, and it was particularly devastating to lose her during such a fractured time. Of course she looms largest as a singer, songwriter, actress, and all-around personality, but she had an outsized impact on the book world and as a storyteller as well…

Dolly Parton’s contributions to literacy will outlive the star, just like she planned – Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times – Dolly Parton, who grew up in a house without electricity and an illiterate father, launched her Imagination Library program in 1995, which has given away over 330 million books to children around the world. The mission will continue after her death.

Loving Dolly Was Easy. Understanding Her Was Hard. (gift link) – Tressie McMillan Cottom, New York Times – Author Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote a moving appreciation of Dolly Parton as, foremost, a writer and storyteller, whose greatest story was her own.

Dolly Parton, Rights Holder, Dead at 80 – Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo – And it’s admittedly much lower down the list of Parton’s many achievements, but she was innovative as an intellectual property rights holder as well. After starting her own music publishing company at age 20 (unusual at the time), Parton famously resisted a deal for Elvis Presley to cover “I Will Always Love You” in exchange for half of the publishing rights. Her refusal paved the way to immense profits from Whitney Houston’s popular cover in the 1990s.

Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – The upstart news site The 404 has an interview with an employee at the Las Vegas warehouse where Amazon is scanning and destroying mountains of books from all over the world to train AI.

The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – Meet Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen, the entirely fictitious “experts” AI chatbots repeatedly make up to refer to papers that don’t exist.

Get a Tech Job, Babies! – Elise Broach, The New Yorker – A look at the curious rise of books translating hard-core STEM concepts, such as general relativity and quarks, for very young children.

A New (Shorter) Chapter for Middle Grade – Joanne O’Sullivan, Publishers Weekly – Amid lagging middle grade book sales, publishers are turning to shorter books with more illustrations. From my vantage point, publishers always over-learn “lessons” about what readers supposedly want, and all it will take is one blockbuster long middle grade novel to change the conventional wisdom.

‘I was scared I was going mad’: Meg Mason speaks to fellow authors about the parasocial relationships that begin on the page – Meg Mason, The Guardian – A deep dive into the intense relationships readers develop with their favorite authors.

Survey Results Detail Publishers’ Failure to Register Authors’ Copyrights – The Authors Guild – Much to many authors’ chagrin, many publishers failed to register copyright in a timely way for many of their books, even when they were contractually obligated to do so, which left authors ineligible for funds from the Anthropic settlement. The Authors Guild surveyed its members about the problem, and while the results should be taken with a grain of salt due to response bias for those adversely affected, the problem appears widespread.

The Best Literary Detective You’ve Never Heard Of, and the Man Who Made Him (gift link) – Sarah Lyall, New York Times – Peter Grainger is the latest self-published septuagenarian author to ride a wave of interest to traditional publication and Hollywood interest.

The rise of ‘biogossip’: Rachel Cusk’s Natalie Portman novel is the latest in a delicious literary lineage – Greta Rainbow, The Guardian – The rumors that Natalie Portman is not-so-secretly the subject of Rachel Cusk’s new novel The Life of M is the latest in a long history of teasing who novels are really about, a canon she calls “biogossip.”

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
3. Delusional by James Patterson and James O. Born
4. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. This is Me by Hayden Panettiere
2. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
3. The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán
4. Strangers by Belle Burden
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

1. Barbie: Dreamscape by Alex Aster
2. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
3. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Thornbird by E. Kennedy

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• All about prologues

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

Yayoi Kusama, Pop Artist Who Expanded and Endured, Dies at 97 (gift link) – Holland Cotter, New York Times – Dolly Parton wasn’t the only luminary we lost this week. Artist and sculptor Yayoi Kusama, whose wide-ranging work spanned the iconic pumpkin in Naoshima to polka dots to infinity rooms, passed away at 97.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram!

I get quite a lot of questions about prologues. Are they necessary? Do agents like them? Should they be included with partial manuscript requests?

Consider this a post on all things prologue.

I’m going to cover:

• What’s a prologue?
• Different types of prologues
• Do literary agents like prologues?
• The prologue litmus test
• Advice for writing good prologues

What’s a prologue?

Typically, a prologue is 3-5 pages of introductory material that is written while the author is procrastinating from writing a more difficult section of the book.

Ah, I’m kidding.

The prologue is usually a scene that’s separate from the main plot of a novel that provides an introduction, often for atmospheric or tone-setting effect.

Sometimes the prologue is told from a different POV from the main story, sometimes it happens in a different timeline, heck, it can happen in a different universe. But what separates a prologue from being Chapter 1 is that it feels separate from the main story, and Chapter 1 is typically where the story really begins.

Different types of prologues

There are no “rules” for prologues. Your only limit is your personal creativity.

That said, there are a few common types of prologues:

• A framing device – Sometimes authors will create bookends with the prologue and epilogue, such as an interrogation scene in the prologue followed by the whole story of the crime, finishing back in the interrogation room.
• Forces gathering outside of the protagonist’s view – To create a sense of ominousness, sometimes writers will show what the villain is up to in a way that builds tension and danger when we meet the protagonist.
• Distant inciting incident – Similarly, the prologue may show the true inciting incident, such as a virus escaping a lab or a meteor being detected heading toward Earth, while we start Chapter 1 with an oblivious protagonist.
• Building the mythology – Sometimes writers will zoom way into the past to show the creation story for, say, a magical talisman, or a gathering of the gods in order to lend depth to the world-building.
• Ancestral catalyst – Another version of building mythology is to show a historical legacy, such as an ill-gotten land transfer or a murder in an old house, that adds another layer to the main story.
• Showing the crime – In crime fiction that focuses on a detective or investigator, sometimes the prologue will show the crime at the heart of the story from the criminal’s or victim’s perspective.
• Document or artifact – Sometimes writers will start with a piece of ephemera, such as a newspaper clipping or podcast transcript, that reveals a key bit of information that will become important.

These are just a few of many. Prologues are a land of infinite opportunity.

Do literary agents like prologues?

It depends.

Agents tend to have strong opinions, and prologues can be lightning rods. Not everyone likes them.

But you can’t control an agent’s individual pet peeves, so don’t worry about any strong opinions you hear about them. Just look in a bookstore and you’ll see that there are plenty of books with prologues. There isn’t anything resembling a blanket rule against them.

Don’t listen to anyone who says you can’t include a prologue. You clearly can.

When I was an agent, I liked good prologues and disliked bad prologues, which I believe to be an eminently sensible opinion.

Now, should you include the prologue when agents ask to see your first twenty or fifty pages?

Yes. Include the prologue. Agents want to see where you think the story begins, and if you think it starts with a prologue, you should include it when you send the partial manuscript.

If you’re worried that the prologue doesn’t put the best foot forward or doesn’t capture the spirit of the book, and thus you want to give the agent Chapter 1, well, maybe you don’t need the prologue entirely.

Which brings me to…

The prologue litmus test

Personally, I think the easiest litmus test on whether you need a prologue or not is to take out the prologue and see if your book still makes sense.

If you can take out the prologue and the entire story still makes perfect sense, chances are the prologue was indeed written to “set the mood.”

But here’s the thing about mood-setting: most of the time you can set the mood when the actual story begins. Do you really need to set the mood with a separate prologue? Really? Really really?

Sometimes the answer to those four reallys is: “yes, really.” Or the prologue is to be used as a framing device around the plot or to introduce a crucial scene in the backstory that will impact the main plot.

If, in your heart of hearts, you think the prologue makes the book better, by all means include it.

Advice for writing good prologues

What makes a good prologue?

Short, self-contained, comprehensible.

The most important thing to remember about including a prologue is that you are essentially making a reader start the book twice. We have to get our bearings in a prologue, then start all over again in a new place, and often with a different character entirely, in Chapter 1. It takes more effort.

It’s crucial to make the reader’s extra effort worth it. The prologue should have a genuine role in the overarching story, feel engaging unto itself, and create the best first impression possible.

What makes a bad prologue?

So vague it’s incomprehensible, information for information’s sake, and self-indulgent.

All does not need to be revealed straightaway in a prologue. Particularly if it’s teasing a mystery that will get explored in the rest of the novel, it’s okay to be a bit coy.

But being so vague there’s nothing for the reader to sink their teeth into can quickly drag down a prologue. Make sure your prologue still feels active and propulsive, even if you’re ultimately setting up a tease.

And don’t use a prologue as an excuse to info-dump. It still needs to feel like a scene.

Do you like prologues? What do you think makes the good ones work? And do you have any favorites?

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: In the library by Ludwig Valenta

This week! Books!

Okay now we really are in the dog days of publishing summer. But I still have some good links for you!

First up, back by popular demand, I’ll once again be hosting office hours on September 3 at 9pm ET / 6pm PT. In order to join, you need to be a newsletter subscriber, so what are you waiting for, sign up! More information to come via the newsletter…

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – I realize not everyone may have a subscription to upstart news site The 404, but this article is too important to not lead with. Long story short: The 404 partnered with a used bookseller to put a tracking tag on a rare book. They followed the tag all the way to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, where books are destroyed in order to scan them to train AI models. The logo of the facility is literally a dinosaur holding a book, baring its teeth:

All of this is (probably) legal because in the Anthropic class action suit, a judge ruled that Anthropic only pirated authors by acquiring the books illegally. Destroying books to train AI (probably) falls under fair use. Unreal…

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing – Jason Koebler, The 404 / Words Matter. Damnit. – Jeff Jarvis, Whither News? – At a time when AI writing detectors are notoriously faulty, some took heart when Anthropic announced its text would have a “digital watermark” to facilitate AI-detection. Essentially, Anthropic will alter Claude’s word choices in order to change “the source of the randomness used to pick among words,” which should aid detection. By treating not-quite-synonyms as essentially interchangeable, Jason Koebler and Jeff Jarvis argue this is further proof of how little esteem AI companies have for actual writing. And it’s a great reminder that AI models are not writing, they are outputting probabilities that can be arbitrarily tweaked at any time.

AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry Into Utter Chaos (gift link) – Anna Silman, The Wall Street Journal – A roundup of the various recent AI controversies and deluge of slop submissions that have wreaked havoc on the publishing industry, including this wonderful quote from agent Angeline Rodriguez: “When I see something that’s honestly badly written, it’s such a breath of fresh air now.”

How a Highbrow Novel Became Celebrity Gossip (gift link) – Alexandra Alter, New York Times – Many have speculated that literary star Rachel Cusk’s new novel Life of M is based on Natalie Portman. In a new interview, Cusk addresses the controversy, sort of, saying whether it’s based on a real person “is not really the point.”

UW researchers say AI is coming for kids books, but it’s biased – Ann Duan, Seattle Times – In case you needed yet another reason not to buy AI-generated children’s books, they are also filled with pernicious biases.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
3. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
5. The Secrets We Hide by Karin Slaughter

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
2. The Day After by Brian Tyler Cohen
3. Strangers by Belle Burden
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
5. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Young adult hardcover:

1. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
2. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Thornbird E by Kennedy

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• Know your rights as an author and don’t get scammed

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

When Your Brain Is in Your Arm – Cara Giaimo, Wired – Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons live on its arms, and other wild facts about these mind-boggling creatures.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA. Follow me on Instagram!

Be careful out there.

While the Internet has been an incredible boon to writers, allowing us to find fellow creators and readers, there are also a truly unfathomable number of scammers these days preying on authors’ dreams. There are also well-intentioned publishing professionals out there who don’t realize they’re incompetent and could unknowingly wreak havoc on your career.

Protecting yourself starts with knowing your rights as an author, understanding the business, and learning to recognize common scams.

Here’s what I’ll cover:

• Knowing your rights as an author
  • Literary agents (should) only get paid when you get paid
  • A good agent should adhere to the AALA’s Canon of Ethics… at minimum
  • Know when it’s time to file for copyright
• Publishing gray areas
  • Watch out for “Schmagents”
  • Not all small presses are created equal
  • Middling editing and publishing services with dubious up-charges
  • Hybrid publishers vs. vanity presses
  • Contests with dubious rights claims
• Common publishing scams
  • Impersonation scams
  • Be wary of professionals who try to upsell you or reach out to you out of the blue
  • Fake book clubs and vanity awards
  • “Amazon” services
• How to protect yourself
  • Listen to industry watchdogs and experts
  • Don’t rush, and exercise common sense

Knowing your rights as an author

Protecting your hard work and intellectual property starts with knowing your rights as an author and recognizing what’s customary within the business.

Educate yourself to protect yourself.

A bad agent is worse than having no agent at all, and there are lots of authors out there who have gotten scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Please, please read this post carefully.

Literary agents (should) only get paid when you get paid

If you’re pursuing traditional publication, here are four important letters: AALA, standing for the American Association of Literary Agents (formerly known as the AAR), an organization that’s sort of a combined guild and watchdog for literary agents. The AALA has criteria for entry and a Canon of Ethics for its member agents.

The predecessor of the AALA was formed in order to spread best practices among agents and stamp out unethical business practices that diminished the profession’s reputation. In part, this helped standardize an agent’s commission at 15% (20% for foreign rights where it’s split with a subagent), and ushered in a prohibition on reading fees, meaning, no agent should charge you to consider your work.

One key baseline that had persisted for years was another ironclad principle: agents only get paid when you get paid. Meaning, historically agents solely earned commission on deals they negotiated on your behalf. Apart from agents recouping reasonable expenses, like photocopies and postage, agents only earned a slice of authors’ advances, royalties, and subrights and were prohibited from charging for other services.

However, the AALA recently loosened the rules around the services agents can offer, and the waters here have become murkier. The overall principle still applies: a reputable agent should still earn the vast majority (if not all) of their income from commissions.

But rather than a blanket rule that agents only get paid when you get paid, authors need to understand that there are new nuances in effect.

A good agent should adhere to the AALA’s Canon of Ethics… at minimum

Not all reputable agents are members of the AALA. There are some good agents out there who have never joined. And AALA of course can’t police every act of bad behavior committed by its members, so it’s not some sort of blanket guarantee.

But if you are approaching a member of the AALA, which you can determine on their database, you should have a reasonably good sense that they are reputable.

AALA members adhere to a Canon of Ethics, which used to be very straightforward. But things have gotten slightly murkier with the loosening of restrictions on agent service offerings and referral fees.

Here’s an abridged version of the AALA’s canon of ethics. First, what’s largely remained the same for quite a while:

1. Agents are loyal to their clients’ business, avoid conflicts of interest, and never deceive or defraud their clients, other agents, the general public, or anyone else they do business with.
2. Agents must act as fiduciaries and stay secure with their clients’ funds. Agents cannot represent the buyer and seller in a transaction. Agents cannot participate in packaging fees for TV and film adaptations, or accept producer credits (without the clients’ written consent).
3. Payments must be made on time (ideally 10 days but at most 21 days without written consent). Books of account must be open.
4. Agents may pass along charges, such as photocopies and purchase of books used for sales of other rights.
5. Agents must keep their client apprised of matters entrusted to the agent and provide information that the client requests.
6. Agents keep their clients’ financial information confidential.
7. Agents may not charge clients or potential clients reading fees (except in limited circumstances related to charitable purposes).

All pretty straightforward right? Now let’s get into the murkier stuff amended in 2026:

1. Agents may not receive a secret profit, but as of 2026, they can now receive referral fees provided the referral is in the best interest of the client and disclosed to the client at the time of the referral.
2. Agents may not charge their clients for editorial services in preparation for submitting work to publishers. However, agents can charge non-clients for editing services. If the agent decides to eventually take on a non-client they charged for editing, the treatment of the fees is subject to “mutual agreement.”
3. Agencies can offer clients services such as marketing, promotion, or web design, but representation may not be contingent on signing up for services. Agencies must not respond to non-clients approaching them for representation by directing them to their services.

It should never feel like you are being forced to pay for editing or other services you don’t need in order to have a chance with a literary agent. There are a ton of great editors out there, and I would never recommend hiring an agent for editing primarily because you’re hoping it will lead to representation.

If you choose to engage with an agent who starts offering you services, be very careful, and be prepared to walk away if things start feeling icky.

Know when it’s time to file for copyright

I’m not a publishing attorney, so please don’t construe this section as legal advice. But there’s a common misperception that authors need to file their work with the Library of Congress and/or put a copyright symbol on their manuscript in order to protect it.

Neither is quite true. You own your copyright the second your work is produced. Filing for copyright facilitates pursuing statutory damages for infringement claims, but within the industry it’s customary to register for copyright when the book is published and finalized. (And this must happen within three months, so make sure it gets done).

If you’re ever uncertain on how to proceed here, consult a publishing or intellectual property attorney.

Publishing gray areas

I wish I could tell you that everyone who works in publishing goes to Reputable Publishing Professional Finishing School and gets a badge that proves their bona fides, but that’s just not the case.

For instance, among literary agents, there are some phenomenally talented and experienced professionals who first worked their way up under fabulous mentors, there are some people who woke up one day and just decided to call themselves a literary agent, and there’s everything else in between.

Even if someone you’re considering working with isn’t an outright scammer and has all the best intentions, it’s more important than ever to vet them thoroughly to make sure they actually have the requisite experience and connections to help your career.

Watch out for “schmagents”

The 2010s saw the rise of what people in the industry refer to as “schmagents,” people who simply hung out a shingle online and called themselves an agent.

In order to be a good agent, you need to be familiar with what good publishing contracts look like, have a robust rolodex, and be able to draw upon experienced mentors when things get dicey.

You must view prospective agents with clear eyes. Particularly with the AALA rule changes, there are further incentives for agents to blur the lines between being well-meaning but incompetent and more actively predatory.

I’m here to help. Here’s how to research literary agents and how to know if you have a good one.

Not all small presses are created equal

If you strike out pursuing literary agents, it may be tempting to go to a small press who accepts un-agented submissions. And there truly are some really great small presses out there who do wonders for authors, win awards, and sometimes even serve as a stepping stone to major publisher-level advances.

But be very careful. Small independent presses are rather notorious for a) tying authors to very bad publishing contracts and b) going bankrupt, which can tie up your rights and leave you stuck. Or you might have a weak reversion of rights clause when your book goes out of print and they’re sitting on the rights without actively selling it.

Even if a small publisher has a decent contract and remains solvent, they may not truly be able to offer you much more than you’d be able to do on your own self-publishing.

Vet a small press like your life depends on it. Understand how their distribution works, make absolutely sure you’re signing a good contract, and talk to authors who have worked with them. And if you get a deal from a small press, don’t be afraid to shop that deal around to agents to negotiate the contract on your behalf. It will be worth the 15% commission.

Hybrid publishers vs. vanity presses

Starting in the 2010s, new publishing models came along that combined some of the features of self-publishing and traditional publishing. These are so-called “hybrid” publishers, like Greenleaf, Amplify, and She Writes Press, where authors share in the up-front costs of a book’s production, but typically receive more of a share of the revenue for every copy sold than they would via traditional publishing.

The industry has also been long plagued by scuzzy “vanity presses,” who have historically helped authors self-publish. They may well facilitate an author creating a book, but vanity presses are absolutely notorious for charging way more than they need to and upselling authors on services they don’t need. Maybe not to the point of being an outright scam, but close enough.

Now that hybrid publishing has caught on and achieved a degree of respectability, some vanity presses have caught wind and are now rebranding themselves as hybrid too.

This has created an extremely confusing landscape. Just because someone calls themselves a “hybrid” publisher doesn’t necessarily mean they are a reputable version of one. The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) has a hybrid criteria checklist that will help you evaluate a publisher’s legitimacy.

As with small presses, vet hybrids like your life depends on it and make sure they’re not a vanity press in disguise.

Middling editing and publishing services with dubious up-charges

There are many great freelance professionals out there who can help elevate your craft and make sure you’re really ready to pursue publication. But editors with great experience, particularly ones who have worked at major publishers and agencies, are able to charge top dollar for their services and can be extremely expensive, stretching well into four or five figures.

While the ROI is inherently murky with books and you should never spend money you can’t afford to lose, these high prices for editing are not inherently a scam, but just a matter of supply and demand.

Unfortunately, there are also lots of “editors” out there with limited experience filling in the gaps at lower price points, particularly in places like Fiverr and Reedsy. You have to be careful. These editors may be well-intentioned but give you advice that’s difficult to trust. Or, if they’re not well-intentioned, they may be doing little more than skimming and returning notes, and/or just running your manuscript through ChatGPT.

Be particularly wary of overblown promises from PR and marketing services, who may try and charge you for things that aren’t genuinely going to help sell books. With the rise of BookTok, there are some scammy services that promise you reviews, but are little more than bot farms that don’t yield genuine engagement.

Vet any freelance professional you’re considering working with like your life… you get the drill at this point.

Contests with dubious rights claims

There are definitely some reputable contests out there that can give you a boost, such as the ones hosted by good writers conferences.

But be careful. Delve into the terms and conditions and make sure you aren’t tying up any of your rights by entering the contest. And keep the effect of winning a contest in perspective. As I liked to say when I was a literary agent, my inbox was more competitive based on volume than any competition.

A contest win can be validating, but don’t count on it to propel you to publication on its own. And steer well clear of any contest with shady terms.

Common publishing scams

We’ve covered what reputable agents look like and more nebulous gray areas.

Now let’s talk about the out-and-out scammers. Because there are a ton of them.

Don’t get ripped off! And if you’ve previously self-published or you’re on Facebook, you’re particularly vulnerable to hearing from scammers, so be doubly careful.

Impersonation scams

One of the most common and dangerous scams these days involves A.I.-assisted scammers posing as real life publishing and film professionals, as well as bestselling authors. The scammers use spoofed email addresses or fake social media accounts to reach out to authors out of the blue, gushing very specific A.I.-generated praise about their book, and offering to refer the author to another publishing professional, who is also fake.

For instance, scammers are currently posing as me from a fake email address (nathan.bransforrd@gmail.com, note the extra “r” in “ford”), then referring authors to a fake email address for a real literary agent. From there, authors are invariably told they need editing services or some other bogus charge, which is how the scammers make their money. Or they’ll claim a film or TV adaptation is in the offing, only they need thousands of dollars for a book trailer or screenplay treatment.

Even if you’ve vetted a publishing professional to confirm their credentials, it’s crucial to make sure you’re communicating with the real person. Double-check their email address for typos, watch out for domains that are spelled correctly but don’t match a publisher’s site (e.g. macmillanpublishing.com instead of macmillan.com), be highly suspicious of any “Big Five editor” or “Hollywood producer” who insists on communicating via WhatsApp or Telegram, and when in doubt, reach out directly from their website (such as my contact form) to confirm the legitimacy of the communication.

Be wary of professionals who try to upsell you or reach out to you out of the blue

Now, let me be clear that good and reputable literary agents and editors will absolutely reach out to writers proactively to see whether they have representation or might be interested in writing a book. It does happen.

But if someone approaches you out of the blue with a “book deal” where you have to pay a share of the printing costs or are trying to get you to buy additional services like marketing, it’s probably a scam. As before, make absolutely sure that the person who reaches out to you out of the blue is, in fact, the person they say they are.

And be realistic here. If it feels too good to be true that someone is reaching out to you out of nowhere when you haven’t caught fire with sales or exposure, it is probably too good to be true.

Fake book clubs and vanity awards

A super common scam these days involves representatives of fake book clubs who gush in a long A.I.-generated rave about your book, and they claim they want to feature you. Or you’re a finalist for an “award” that just happens to have an entry fee.

It’s just that they need some money to facilitate that discussion…

At this point I weep for organizers of real book clubs trying to arrange Zooms with the authors they’re reading, because I doubt anyone believes them anymore.

“Amazon” services

Amazon offers one of the biggest paths to self-publishing via its Kindle Direct Publishing.

However, this is only a self-publishing platform. Amazon does not currently offer services that will facilitate an author self-publishing. And self-publishing on Amazon is free.

But there are a lot of scammers out there with “Amazon” in their name to lend authority for scams, charging authors high fees for services they probably don’t need. Even the real Amazon warns about this problem.

How to protect yourself

Publishing scams evolve fast, and as we speak the scammers are evolving and changing tactics.

Luckily there are some great resources out there to help you stay abreast of the latest scams and to make sure you’re staying safe.

Listen to industry watchdogs and experts

Here are some valuable resources to help you spot scammers and stay abreast of the business:

• Writer Beware at SFWA – Victoria Strauss does absolutely indispensable work keeping tabs on publishing scams, disreputable publishers, and all the other actors putting authors at risk. You must subscribe to Writer Beware and familiarize yourself with their resources.
• The Authors Guild – The Authors Guild has a ton of resources for authors, including legal services and contract reviews for members, making them a very strong shield against predatory deals.
• Jane Friedman – Industry expert Jane Friedman and her awesome newsletter The Bottom Line cover the evolving publishing landscape, particularly around hybrids and the marketing tactics that work and don’t work.
• Publishers Marketplace – A very helpful resource for vetting publishing professionals (its deal database is indispensable), and keeping abreast of industry news.
• Absolute Write and Reddit – These are helpful places to check for writers’ previous experience with publishers and industry professionals. Take the opinions with grains of salt and vet the vetters, but if there’s a consensus to run away from a publisher, for instance, I’d probably listen.
• Reach out to me – If you’re ever uncertain about whether you’re being scammed or feel uncertain how to move forward, I’ll do my best to help you.

Don’t rush, and exercise common sense

At the end of the day, there’s only so much that industry knowledge and lists of scammers can do to protect you.

The reason there are so many publishing scammers is because of authors’ collective emotional vulnerability. We badly want validation, we crave the big break, we want to be able to tell our friends we have an agent and a book deal.

Your best and most important insulation comes from two crucial mindsets:

• Don’t rush. There are no emergencies in book publishing. Yes, you want to be published yesterday. Don’t lose your head. Vet everyone you are considering working with like the potential business partner they really are. The road to publication is almost always a long one. Settle in for the ride.
• Exercise common sense. The old adage is ever true in publishing: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Take a deep breath and start verifying.

I truly wish that I never had to write this post and that it didn’t have to be so long. I hate that we live in such a scam-prone society.

But you and your book are precious. Be careful out there, and make sure you stay in safe hands.

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: Prudence, Justice, and Peace by Jürgen Ovens

This week! Books!

Normally this is the quiet dog days of publishing summer, but you wouldn’t know it from the number of links I have for you this week!

New Amazon Data Center Stokes Worry It Would Be the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S. – Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times – As a “super El Niño” fueled by climate change looms this winter, Amazon is building a natural gas power plant to fuel a data center in Texas that could spew as many as 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which would make it the most polluting power plant in the entire United States. What are we doing here…

Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and the Misreading of Science Fiction – Jill Lepore, Wired – Meanwhile, in an excerpt from a forthcoming book, Jill Lepore digs into the (willful?) illiteracy of our idiot tech barons, who congenitally read science fiction cautionary tales as instruction manuals.

91 Percent Human: The Shy Girl AI Scandal / The Shy Girl AI Scandal Is Way Worse Than You Think – The Drey Dossier – An important deep dive into the Shy Girl A.I. scandal, which reveals the centrality of the shoddy A.I.-detecting company Pangram’s role in amplifying unproven claims author Mia Ballard utilized A.I. to write her novel. According to The Drey Dossier, a URL in the Pangram report claiming the novel is 78% A.I.-generated suggests Pangram employed a pirated version of Ballard’s manuscript to scan the book without her permission, a Pangram sales employee brought the “scoop” to a publishing consultant who then alerted the New York Times, which did not disclose the connection to Pangram, and Hachette dropped Ballard less than 24 hours after the Times contacted them for comment. Surely lawsuits are incoming…

What Publishers Must Ask Themselves Now – Kathleen Schmidt, Publishing Confidential – Taking into account the H.M. Wolf, Mia Ballard, and Jerry Falade scandals, publicist Kathleen Schmidt notes that publishers are going to need to decide upon acceptable thresholds for A.I. usage.

I would add that given these three prominent scandals just so happen to involve Black authors, the industry is overdue for another reckoning around who is getting the benefit of the doubt around A.I. usage and who isn’t.

After Editing Two AI-Assisted Manuscripts, I Rewrote My Client Agreement – Mary Kole, Jane Friedman – After unknowingly signing up to edit two A.I.-assisted manuscript, freelance editor Mary Kole describes the head-spinning work of trying to engage with a manuscript when it’s a robot’s outputs and there’s no authorial goal to orient around.

Is your college football preview real? Amazon takes down knockoffs of Phil Steele magazine (gift link) – Matt Baker, The Athletic – The latest example of Amazon turning a blind eye to fake knockoffs of prominent books is brought to you by American football expert Phil Steele. Amazon only took down the fake books after Steele and The Athletic asked them for comment.

MacKenzie Scott Could Have Chosen Any Publisher. Instead She’s Releasing Her First Novel in 13 Years on Substack – Amaya Nichole, Inc – Author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, plans to serialize her new novel on Substack, rather than releasing it in a more traditional format.

President Barack Obama to Host “A Great Book” on Audible – Audible – Former president Barack Obama is the latest noted influencer with a book-related podcast.

The Steamy, Magical and Now Very Lucrative Romantasy Business (gift link) – Hannah Miller and Madison Muller, Bloomberg – An entertainingly exhaustive look at the Romantasy Industrial Complex.

How Caro Claire Burke Wrote the Biggest Book of the Year – Rachel Syme, The New Yorker – A fascinating interview with author Caro Claire Burke on her buzzy novel Yesteryear, including what it was like having Anne Hathaway-driven interest, the pressures of a massive book deal, needing to let go of the film adaptation if it gets green lit, and all the work that went into this first deal. Another great example of a book that feels like an overnight success story being anything but.

Pizza Hut’s Book It! program for kids is officially back – Rainesford Stauffer, Slate – Pizza Hut’s millennial-beloved reading program Book It! is officially back this summer for a new generation of readers.

It’s Ok to Judge a Book By Its Cover (It’s Impossible Not To) – Ed Simon, Lit Hub – A brief history of the evolution of book covers, one of the greatest expressions of marketing genius in history.

Middle Grade Novels Get a Glow-Up – Pooja Makhijani, Publishers Weekly – Speaking of, you may have noticed that sprayed edges have become more common as publishers spread premium edition characteristics more widely in the hopes of getting kisd to notice.

How DNF Became A-OK – Erik Piepenburg, New York Times – Erik Piepenburg makes the case that life is too short to spend on books that aren’t grabbing you.

How a Debut Self-Published Novel Earned Five Figures in 10 Weeks Without Kindle Unlimited – Ashli O’Connell, Jane Friedman – A great case study in how an author built a successful launch for a self-published novel, starting with a crucial but often overlooked place: the author’s personal network.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Adversary to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
2. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
3. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
4. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
5. The Unknown – Riley Sager

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
2. Strangers by Belle Burden
3. Biological War by Annie Jacobsen
4. Your Fellow Americans by Peter Santenello
5. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Young adult hardcover:

1. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
2. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Immortal Game by Allison Saft

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Ghost in the Night by Tiffany D. Jackson
5. Growing Home by Beth Ferry

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• How to handle an offer of representation from a literary agent

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

The James Webb Telescope Is Changing How Astronomers Think About Everything – Jay Bennett, Wired – The massive James Webb Telescope is fundamentally upending our understanding of the early universe. Wild, wild stuff.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram!