I’m no stranger to scams. I’ve been in business almost twenty years, and when your business contact information is public, it opens you up to a plethora of calls and emails. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been called because my “Google business listing is in danger of being removed”. After years of ignoring these calls, I assure you, my Google listing is still fine. Of course, being in the author business opens you up to another class of scams. I’ve discarded emails from awards contests asking that I enter (for $200), so-called influencers that don’t actually exist, and now, my first discard from a “publisher”. Here’s the email:

I’ll admit, it would be pretty darn cool to be picked up by a big publisher, and Hachette Book Group is one of the “Big 5”, so I didn’t immediately send this to the delete bin. The other interesting thing is that the sender has a decent grip on my new release, albeit not much more than can be ascertained by the back cover. Would you be convinced it’s real? Can you catch the red flags?

My first red flag was that the sender email address (@hachetebookgroup.com) is different than the company name, Hachette Book Group. It’s also weird that “Regards” isn’t capitalized; you’d think an editor would be a bit vigilant about that. Still, I was curious enough that I dug deeper. Grand Central Publishing is in fact a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, which is the American branch of Hachette Livre, the third largest publisher in the world (according to Wikipedia). Then I scrolled through their Vice Presidents and found that they really do have a Suzanne O’Neill on staff. But I also noted that all the company emails were @hbgusa.com, not @hatchetebookgroup.com. The icing on the cake was on the bottom of the Hachette Book Group webpage, where they have an entire tab dedicated to fraud. Thankfully they also have a link to contact their customer service/ legal team to report suspected fraud and find out if emails are legit.

Turns out that the email I received was a fraud. I am glad I double checked before replying, though I’m curious as to what the sender would have wanted out of me. Money? Publishing rights? No harm done other than an hour or so of my time lost, but please, fellow authors, use this as a cautionary tale. Don’t let these scammers use your hopes and dreams to snag you. Really, everyone out there needs to be on the lookout for this kind of thing. Check the sender email address, if it doesn’t match up, move on. Then dig deeper before you reply or click on any links. Stay safe out there!