There are a LOT of scams aimed at authors. Awards, book club features, fake publishers. It takes so much time and energy to sort through the noise.
Scammers like to prey on everyone, but author scams seem to work especially well because writers are looking for validation.
A few months ago, I entered Beyond the Mirage to the Christlit awards. I’d seen authors touting the Christlit awards, and it was free to enter, so I thought I’d try.
When I got the email saying it’d been selected, I was estatic.
But there were warning signs…
The first was that you had to pay to use the award seal on your book cover.
They said the payment is to cover processing, but if that’s the case, why not charge everyone an entrance fee instead of hundreds of dollars to only the winners?
They specifically said on their website that it wasn’t a pay-to-win service, and that it was a prestigious award.
The biggest warning sign that everyone wins is if the organization is only paid when people win.
Another warning sign was that they’re open to submissions year-round.
I almost fell for it…
Most reputable book awards are only open for a limited time, and then present the awards many months later. I was willing to let that slide because the company only claimed to award books for excellence in Christian publishing.
To be honest, I think Beyond the Mirage stands out. It’s gripping, it’s got beautiful prose, and it’s refreshingly authentic. That’s not what I’m saying, that’s what readers and bestselling authors have said.
At this point, I was on the fence.
Writers I’d looked up to had claimed the Christlit award. Maybe it wasn’t a scam. Maybe if I didn’t look into it, I could call myself an award-winning author.
I shared my excitement on my IG stories, careful not to claim it was genuine. I felt so confused. I’ve been around the publishing industry for almost 7 years and I still had no clue.
Most writing experts talk about how to write a good book and connect with agents and publishers. They hardly ever mention award scams!
The plot thickens…
Today they sent me a follow-up email, claiming they will “keep my winning outcome active for six months.”
After that time, I’m welcome to apply again.
No way, Hosea. The email was even Blind Carbon Copy! Most likely it was a mass email, and it was poorly formatted on top of that. It’s a scam if I ever saw one.
My job as an author is to pretend for a living. Their job as scammers is to…send weird emails?
Here’s the thing that stuck with me…
Winning an award could open doors for ministry and book sales that are closed to me right now.
Other people said yes. And they’re happy! I felt so frustrated when I thought about that…about the people who were blissfully taken in by the scam and sell more books because of the award seal on the cover.
But I’m not going to settle for something that’s not real.
Have you ever fallen for a scam? What do you think about book awards? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!