I recently blogged about a little incident involving Stellar Literary Publishing and Media. They are a publisher who claims to work out of California, however I contacted Writer Beware and learned they’re really located in the Philippines. I’m mentioning them here again, because the scam continues.

Stellar forwarded my contact information to the next level of the scam: Alex Collins, who claimed to be a representative of Macmillan Publishers. The scam was the same: they needed me to republish one of my books under my name (what?!) in order to offer me a $300,000 contract, with up to 15% up front. Sounds like a dream, right? Well that’s because it IS.

I forwarded the email to the real Macmillan Publishers, and they contacted me to say it was a scam. Apparently this has been going on for a while now. So, keep an eye out for scammers. Here’s what you can look for:

• Incorrect spelling: Alex’s email address from “Macmillan” had an accent on the second a
• Fuzzy or low resolution logos, or logos that are incorrect. The “Macmillan” logo Alex included with his email didn’t look correct
• Lit Agents and Publishers DO NOT COLD CALL AUTHORS.
• Aggressive contact. Once you say no, that should be the end of the conversation.

You can always contact the publisher the representative claims to work for and ask them to verify an email by forwarding it to them. Another excellent resource: Writer Beware. They are an organization sponsored by the SFWA, Science Fiction and Writers Association. They know how to sniff out a scam and posts blogs and information on how writers can avoid being taken advantage of. If a lit agent, publisher or writing organization seems questionable, you can contact them and they will either provide some info or look into it and get back to you (thank you Victoria Strauss!).

Keep writing, everyone. And stay safe.