3 Self-Publishing Scams To Watch Out For

Get the free publisher check: the questions to ask before you pay a publishing company.

The self-publishing scams I see most are promises of a best seller, hybrid companies that publish from their own account and hold your royalties, and companies that upsell you on every small change. A company is a scam when it promises one thing and delivers another. The rest of this post covers each one and the checks I tell my coaching members to run first.

What counts as a self-publishing scam?

A scam is a company that promises one thing and delivers something different. Many vanity and hybrid companies promise to get your book on the market, and they do. You may not like the quality or the price, but that alone is not a scam. If I buy a car and the brakes fail after a year, the car was poor, but it was not a scam. If the seller knew about the problem and hid it, or took the money and never delivered, that is a scam.

I get asked about specific companies all the time. I don’t name them, because naming a company gets people sued, and I have never been paid by any of them. Some authors tell me a company was fine. Others spent thousands of dollars, found errors in the formatting and the table of contents, and were told another thousand would fix it. The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) runs a watchdog desk that rates author services, and its guide (How to Spot a Publishing Scam in 2026, 01-Jun-26) lists the same signs I see: fake or one-sided reviews, pressure to sign now, prices hidden until a sales call, and guaranteed bestsellers or sales.

Can a company guarantee your book will be a best seller?

No. Nobody can guarantee a best seller or a number of sales, and ALLi lists these guarantees as a warning sign. Here is how it is often done. The company puts your book in a tiny category, say a puppy-shifter romance for a book on puppy training, then buys 50 to 100 copies on launch day. A few sales in a small category are enough for the best-seller tag. It’s a best seller in the wrong place, and the flag lasts a day or so.

It also breaks the rules. KDP says it does not tolerate categorization that misleads readers and may remove or change a category that does not match your book. Choose categories that really describe your book, as I show in the top book categories on Amazon. Some of my books have been best sellers for weeks, and it did not change my sales much. It is a number to enjoy, not a plan.

Sales promises are the same problem. If a company says you will sell thousands of copies or make a set amount a month, ask where those sales come from. If they come from the company’s own buying, they are not readers, and Amazon can punish your account for it. Real sales need an audience, which is why I teach you to build one.

What if a company charges for every small change?

Companies that upsell you on every change are not always scams, but they cost you a lot. You pay for the formatting, and then you want to fix a comma, change the cover or correct a mistake, and each change is billed again, sometimes at hundreds of dollars. I have done formatting for authors myself and saw how the revisions keep coming, so I understand why it happens. The point is that you never learned the skill.

A good tool fixes this. In Atticus you change the text, click a button and have a new manuscript. I have used it for years, and my virtual assistants use it too. People tell me they are not technical. If you can follow one click at a time, you can do this, whether you are eight or eighty. The same goes for hybrid companies that finish the book and then pitch a marketing package: a coaching member told me they paid about $10,000 to get a book out, and then were offered an $800 social media package that brought almost no sales. That’s legal, and still a poor deal. Writer Beware, the watchdog blog sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, makes the same point about fees an author must pay before publication: “Pay to play is pay to play.” (16-Oct-26).

Who owns the account your book is published from?

This is the one that costs people the most. If a company publishes your book from its own KDP account, you may own the rights on paper, but the book is not in your dashboard. They decide how many sales they report and when they pay you. You can’t see sales day by day, and you can’t run ads on it.

A friend of mine who makes horror films hired a company to put his films on Amazon. They said his sales were $500 a month and that this covered their costs, and they never showed him the dashboard. He eventually threatened to sue, and they released the rights back to him, with a payment. Authors face the same trap. You think the technical side is too hard, so a company puts the book on its account and tells you that you own the rights. You do own them, and you still can’t see a thing. If the company’s account is closed, your book goes down with it.

So set up your own KDP account and publish from it. If you pay someone to format or design, pay them for the files and upload them yourself: it is a title, a description, a cover and a manuscript. Then the royalties go straight to your bank.

Never hand over your login either, even to someone who wants to help. KDP itself says it does not recommend several people using the same login, and notes it may be a security risk. Some of my coaching members have offered me their password. I say no, because I don’t want that risk on either of us. For which jobs are safe to pay for, see should I pay someone to publish my book for me.

A book club or marketer emailed me out of the blue. Is it a scam?

Very likely, if it asks for money. Writer Beware, the watchdog run by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, says real book clubs don’t charge fees to their guests (19-Sep-25). It has seen “spot”, “spotlight” and “participation” fees of $55 to $350, and later extra charges for things like a cover redesign or promotion.

The first email is friendly and usually mentions no fee. Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss says this is on purpose (25-Sep-26): the money request comes in later messages. The emails are now often built with AI from details on your website and book listing, so they can sound personal. Signs Writer Beware lists:

• Long flattery and a summary of your book, which a real professional rarely writes.
• A personal email address, such as Gmail, instead of a company one.
• Stock phrases like “I recently came across” and “What stood out most”, or a leftover placeholder such as “[editor]”.
• Review offers where you pay reviewers a “tip” and commit to buying a batch of reviews. Writer Beware gives $20 to $30 per review and 30 to 50 reviews as examples. Paid reviews also break Amazon’s rules, which I cover in how to get reviews the right way.
• Payment by PayPal Friends and Family, Zelle, Cash App or bank transfer, which are hard to reverse.

Don’t pay, don’t send your manuscript PDF to someone you haven’t checked, and don’t reply. Writer Beware says answering just invites more. Delete the message and block the sender.

No money has been asked. It is a fan, another author or a reviewer. Is it still a scam?

It can be. The Authors Guild says scammers have learned not to ask for money straight away (20-Aug-26). They lead you along first, use AI to write their messages so they can sound as if they’ve read your work, and appear to come from real reviewers and book clubs. It also warns that replying may confirm your contact details are real. Amazon’s Community Guidelines set a spending requirement before someone can post reviews, so a “reader” who says they can’t review there may be telling the truth.

My advice, not the Guild’s or Amazon’s: a real reader who can’t review on Amazon can post on Goodreads without your help, since your book is already listed there. A “fellow author” who soon recommends a consultant or marketer is a pattern authors report in publishing forums. You can thank a real fan in one line, without sending files, links or details, and stop if the next message asks you for anything. The signs above still apply.

How can you check a publishing company before you pay?

1. Ask who will publish the book, from whose KDP account, and whether you get the files and the royalty reports.
2. Get the full price and the contract in writing, including what it costs to change something later.
3. Look for authors who have used the company and are happy, in a group the company does not run. A Facebook group of real authors is better than the testimonials on its own sales page. If you can’t find anyone saying “I was amazed by the editing, the formatting and the sales”, think twice.
4. Ask what happens if you want your book back.
5. Ask for a real money-back guarantee. Scammers do not offer one, or they make you jump through hoops. My free publisher check puts the questions to ask about price, rights, royalties and your own accounts on one page.

I never pay a company until I know, like and trust the people and know they have been around a while. This is the reason I started coaching: I show you how to do the work, so you own everything at the end. My coaching has a 7-day money-back guarantee, and people who ask get their money back. You don’t have to buy it, because I give away my content here for free. If you want help, book a free 25-minute discovery call and I will tell you honestly what I think of your plan, whether or not you ever join.

If a hybrid company is courting you, read my red flags with hybrid publishing companies first.

What self-publishing scams have you seen? Tell me in the comments.

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