Phony Publisher Promises Bestsellers

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[00:00:02] Bob: This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] Cheryl Davis: They approach these writers, many of whom are not that widely published. And they say, hey, we can offer you the opportunity to have your work, get a massive audience for you to get massive amounts of royalties. They sometimes reach out to them and say, "Hey, a prominent film director wants to adapt your work. Isn't that wonderful? And here's how you can pay us money to help that happen."

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[00:00:32] Bob: Welcome back to The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Bob Sullivan.

[00:00:38] Bob: If you've ever written a sentence on a piece of paper, or even typed one into a computer, you've probably dreamed maybe for just one little moment about being a published author, about writing a book, having your name on a book binding on a library shelf. It holds a romantic allure for almost everyone, but for some, it's much more than that. For some writers, it's a lifelong dream, a culmination of years of work, maybe decades of work. Well the crushing thing about dreams, dreams of love, dreams of fortune, dreams of fame, dreams of being a published author, well dreams can be manipulated, abused, and today's story involves a terrible abuse of hundreds of dreamers. And like so many scams we talk about nowadays, artificial intelligence is already making this kind of dream abuse much easier for criminals. Even I've been attacked by them as you'll hear. Okay, even if you can't ever imagine writing a book, you certainly have dreams, and you'll have no trouble relating to today's guest.

[00:01:47] Barbara Fasano: My name is Barbara Fasano, and I right now am retired. I'm almost 80 years old. My, I write books. That's what I do. I have 12 books.

[00:02:00] Bob: Twelve books! That's a lot of books.

[00:02:03] Barbara Fasano: And none of them are on the market, yeah.

[00:02:06] Bob: But that's a lot of work.12 books. Are they fiction, nonfiction? What kind of books are they?

[00:02:11] Barbara Fasano: Generally nonfiction. I started out with a nonfiction. I just ended with a nonfiction, and in between are various, some for children, some for teenagers, some for 18 and older. It just depends on what I want to write at the time.

[00:02:30] Bob: Barbara is a former teacher. She didn't even start writing books until she retired, and so she has made up for lost time. She is also incredibly well-traveled and many of her books are connected to her travel. Most recently, she's really had a thing for Iceland.

[00:02:46] Barbara Fasano: I do like Iceland, I usually stop there on my way to Europe every year or so.

[00:02:51] Bob: That's great. Yeah, I have a friend who does the same thing.

[00:02:54] Barbara Fasano: I just got back from Estonia.

[00:02:56] Bob: Barbara studied Russian in high school, and going to Estonia lets her practice her Russian. It also gives her the setting for her most recent book, which is called Death Beneath My Feet, about what happened after the Soviets entered Estonia during World War II.

[00:03:13] Barbara Fasano: The book is about 1945, and when they took over, they started making trenches and looking for uranium to build an atomic bomb because we already had the atomic bomb. And after they had dug all these trenches, they had murdered all, all these people. They didn't know what to do with them. They buried the bodies. So every once in a while, a farmer will dig something up and a body will be there. Bones will be there. So that's what the book is about.

[00:03:44] Bob: But her subjects vary a lot. Her first book series was called Sweden's Child.

[00:03:51] Barbara Fasano: And there are three books to that series; Journey to America, Murders at the Fair, and The Homecoming. The book series is about a girl who runs away from Sweden at the age of 16, comes to Chicago, becomes an upstairs maid for a family, and then goes to the 19--, 1893 World's Fair. The book is written by; it's my great-grandmother’s life. The second series is for adults. It's Hot Nights with an Iceland Man, You Have My Heart. I've been to Iceland four times. You Have My Heart, and the last one is Until Death Will We Part.

[00:04:39] Bob: As Barbara said, none of these dozen books have been put out by a traditional publisher, not yet anyway. And that's why in 2024 she was over the moon when she heard from a company called PageTurner. They reached out to her, said her books really had great potential, and they want to work with her.

[00:04:59] Bob: So what's the first thing that PageTurner asked to do, asked, wanted to do for you, and asked for money from you. What was the first thing?

[00:05:05] Barbara Fasano: I think they wanted to just make book covers for me.

[00:05:09] Bob: And about how much did they charge for that?

[00:05:12] Barbara Fasano: They charged about $750 a book cover.

[00:05:15] Bob: That's reasonable enough, and so you paid that and did you...

[00:05:18] Barbara Fasano: That's reasonable.

[00:05:19] Bob: Yeah, did you like the cover?

[00:05:20] Barbara Fasano: Yes, I liked the co--, cover very well.

[00:05:22] Bob: And so there were two, which two books did they make the cover for at that point?

[00:05:26] Barbara Fasano: They made the covers for Sweden's Child, and for Murders at the Fair.

[00:05:33] Bob: But that's just the beginning. Now that the books have better cover art, the rep from PageTurner says the firm has even bigger ideas for Barbara's work.

[00:05:42] Barbara Fasano: Then they wanted to go do a book fair. And so they had all these book fairs lined up. The had books in the Philippines, they had book fairs in Indonesia. They had all kinds of book fairs and things to go to, and me, not knowing that's what you did, I did it.

[00:06:01] Bob: And the big ideas don't stop there. They say they have a contact in New York City, and they want to put up a big advertisement there, like a billboard in Times Square.

[00:06:11] Barbara Fasano: Said that everybody would buy my book if I did that. Then it was, they sent me posters, very nice poster. And they sent me cards to hand out to people.

[00:06:23] Bob: And they want to distribute her books to bookstores around the world. But, at least at the start, Barbara will have to pay for some of this.

[00:06:33] Bob: How much did they charge for your participation in these kinds of things?

[00:06:37] Barbara Fasano: Some were thousands of dollars. I had spent, I don't know, probably $3500 just for the book insurance.

[00:06:45] Bob: Oh wow. And the fairs were probably several thousand dollars, right?

[00:06:48] Barbara Fasano: Right.

[00:06:50] Bob: Thousands here, thousands there, it starts to add up to a lot of money. But that investment is worth it they say because...

[00:06:59] Bob: Did they ever suggest to you that somebody wanted to make a movie out of your book, or that kind of a thing?

[00:07:04] Barbara Fasano: Oh yes. They sent me two different books, two different companies said that they wanted to publish my book and then I looked up those companies and the, the signatures matched the people who owned the book, and so I thought, wow, this is great. They finally got me a book, and they were offering me $400,000 for the rights to the book and all of that.

[00:07:33] Bob: A movie, $400,000 for a book. It really all sounds like a dream come true. Barbara is holding a letter on publisher's letterhead with an offer for rights to her work. But weeks go by and she never hears from the publisher again. Meanwhile, PageTurner keeps asking her for more and more money. So finally, she does more research.

[00:07:59] Barbara Fasano: When I looked them up on Google Maps and saw that they did not have an office, they did not have a printing place, they did not have anything but a drop box. And that got me worried. So I wrote letters to the people that were on those books and on the signatures, and it took about a month or maybe two months that they wrote me back and said, "Do not deal with PageTurner. It's a scam."

[00:08:29] Bob: Do not deal with PageTurner. It's a scam. That letter is crushing.

[00:08:35] Barbara Fasano: They had no idea who I was because it was all, it was on their letterhead and all of that, but obviously PageTurner had letterhead to copy.

[00:08:46] Bob: Huh. Okay, so by the time all this is said and done, how much money had you sent to PageTurner?

[00:08:52] Barbara Fasano: Close to $100,000.

[00:08:56] Bob: Wow. That's a lot of money. And did that represent a big part of your retirement savings?

[00:09:02] Barbara Fasano: It was almost all of it.

[00:09:04] Bob: Oh my God, I'm so sorry. That's terrible. What was that like when you discovered that?

[00:09:09] Barbara Fasano: Oh, it was devastating. It was devastating.

[00:09:12] Bob: Barbara is the victim of a crime the FBI is investigating, and in January 2015, PageTurner is the subject of a federal indictment. A few months later, Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, a 34-year-old citizen of the Philippines pleads guilty in federal court. The Department of Justice says he was head of conspiracy that took more than $48 million from 800 victims all around the US, including Barbara. According to the DOJ, Sordilla managed a call center in the Philippines where dozens of sales representatives contacted victims in the US pretending to be literary agents from PageTurner. The callers told victims that their works had been selection for acquisition by publishers or movie studios, and convinced victims to send payments for various services, including prepayment of taxes and transaction fees before the victim-author's work could be published or optioned to studios. The callers impersonated literary agents and executives from major publishers, motion picture studios, and popular video streaming services. Quote, "Michael Sordilla and his co-conspirators callously preyed on the hopes and dreams of authors to have their stories come to life costing hundreds of victims more than $48 million in losses," said Special Agent in Charge, Mark Remily of the FBI San Diego Field Office in a press release about the guilty plea. "Today's guilty plea is the beginning of holding all those involved in this Hollywood dream scheme accountable for their crimes." Unfortunately, Barbara's troubles didn't end with the indictment.

[00:10:53] Barbara Fasano: I even hired a book company, well the last people that scammed me, they said, "Oh, if you pay us $15,000, we will send our personal lawyer to the PageTurner trial and get your money back."

[00:11:08] Bob: Oh, no. Oh gosh.

[00:11:10] Barbara Fasano: That turned out to be a scam also, because they wound up taking $2000 out of my account without my permission.

[00:11:18] Bob: And they weren't fighting for your money at the trial, were they?

[00:11:21] Barbara Fasano: No, there was nobody. They said, "Oh, I got $88,600 back," but they could not take a picture of the check to show me. They could not do anything. They just kept saying, "Well this lawyer needs more money, this lawyer needs more money," And I kept, I probably spent $25,000 with them.

[00:11:41] Bob: Oh my God. All just trying to get back the money that was taken from you, right?

[00:11:45] Barbara Fasano: Right.

[00:11:47] Bob: Barbara is the victim of a scam as old as publishing. She was vulnerable, put her heart's work out into the world and criminals know how far people will go to live out a dream, and to be honest, every writer, every podcast host, myself very much included is always waiting to hear from someone that they love your work. It's just part of making things.

[00:12:11] Bob: So try to explain to someone who isn't an author how it feels first, when someone expresses interest in one of your books, right, that's an amazing feeling, right?

[00:12:22] Barbara Fasano: It's wonderful because you think, well, wow, I must have done a good job on this.

[00:12:28] Bob: And you know I just want to talk, because I think this is a really important part of the story. When you published these books, and, and I believe you're self-published, right? But when you hear from a publishing house and you can tell your friends, I'm actually, I've made the big time, that's a really big moment for someone like you, right?

[00:12:43] Barbara Fasano: It is, a wonderful moment until you find out it's a scam.

[00:12:50] Bob: And tell me how it feels to discover that you've spent a whole lot of money and a whole bunch of time with a company, and then to find out that they were lying to you. How does that feel?

[00:12:58] Barbara Fasano: Oh, I was devastated. I was so worried that I would need the money, my 401k or something after, afterwards. My house needs a new kitchen. I need new floors. I, the bathrooms need to be redone. I can't pay for any of that.

[00:13:14] Bob: Do you think that authors are particular vulnerable to this kind of crime?

[00:13:18] Barbara Fasano: I do because you put your heart and soul into a book and then you, you're so excited when somebody wants it that you'll just about spend anything. And from what I hear is that people spent more than I did with PageTurner.

[00:13:34] Bob: But what do you want other authors to learn listening to your story here?

[00:13:38] Barbara Fasano: Not to invest in people that call you up on the phone. Try to instead go through querying a business that has the publisher that has people that will read your book and make a decision whether it fits into their category or not. It's very easy to order a book that has a list of all the businesses, their addresses, their email addresses, and you can just go down the line and find somebody who writes a children's book or wants to read children's books. And then you send it, the information in a query letter. It's a long, drawn-out process you not, you might not hear from them. They might not be taking people, but to me that is probably the most honest way of dealing with it, not through people that answer the phone, or call you on the phone.

[00:14:38] Bob: That sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But that is unfortunately the reality facing the vast majority of first-time authors. Anyone offering a quick solution and asking for money is almost certainly lying.

[00:14:52] Barbara Fasano: It's so hard to break into the business, no matter how good, unless you're popular, unless you're a movie star or somebody great in their business, you really can't get into publishing a book. It's really difficult.

[00:15:08] Bob: I mean that is the truth.

[00:15:10] Barbara Fasano: It's just really frustrating.

[00:15:12] Bob: And into that frustration is, criminals just rush right in, right?

[00:15:16] Barbara Fasano: Right.

[00:15:18] Bob: Now I want to stress, it is certainly not impossible for first-time authors to break in. It does happen, and I know there are a lot of great undiscovered writers out there. So I want to talk a little bit more about how to keep your dreams without making yourself vulnerable to scams. And to help with that, we have Cheryl Davis here today. She is the General Counsel of the Authors Guild.

[00:15:42] Cheryl Davis: We have over 17,000 members at this point, and our members write in various genres. We're a, an organization, it's a membership organization, but what we do is we provide legal advice to our full members. They can send us their contracts to review and ask us legal questions. We also spend a lot of time on our advocacy work. We lobby down in DC; we are lobbying more and more on the state level these days.

[00:16:09] Bob: Cheryl knows all about the PageTurner case.

[00:16:13] Cheryl Davis: We had a number of authors reporting to us that they were being approached by PageTurner offering them marketing services, but they would do a little bit of work and then they would say, oh, now you need to pay us more and more and more money for this. And again, it's playing upon people's dreams and ambitions. They would represent that they could get your book acquired by a top publishing company. Or that say, oh pay us to do these various marketing services for you. Somebody else was approached saying, oh we can get your book acquired by a very prominent publisher, but you need to pay us in order to pay for these advertising costs, for book publishing costs, to get your work into shape, etcetera. They're, they're claiming to offer you an opportunity which can be irresistible at, if you're at a certain stage and then sometimes, they will offer you a large amount of money saying that the possibility of a large amount of royalties for a tremendous opportunity, and it can be hard to resist.

[00:17:08] Bob: The scam can be confusing to victims because PageTurner did indeed come through with some services at first, like Barbara's new cover art.

[00:17:18] Cheryl Davis: And in fact, that can be what makes you and encourages you to spend even more then. You feel like, oh well I did something for a relatively small amount of money, and this was okay, so I guess I should feel safe to continue to give these people my money and trust, that they will continue to provide the services that they claim they're going to provide me.

[00:17:38] Bob: Can we just talk for a moment about why authors are a particularly vulnerable category?

[00:17:44] Cheryl Davis: Well, it's actually very sad because I feel that when you're playing upon somebody's hopes and dreams, you're a particularly evil sort of individual to my mindset, because you're playing upon their ambitions and their desires. And I think people are automatically a little more credulous when somebody is offering the chance to make their dreams come true. And they approach these writers, many of whom are not that widely published. And they say, hey, we can offer you the opportunity to have your work, get a massive audience for you to get massive amounts of royalties and maybe even to have your work optioned for a film. They sometimes reach out to them and say, "Hey, a prominent film director wants to adapt your work. Isn't that wonderful? And here's how you can pay us money to help that happen."

[00:18:32] Bob: Remember, the promises that PageTurner made to Barbara and to hundreds of other victims included placement in book fairs around the world, and even a billboard in Times Square.

[00:18:44] Bob: These scams to me are so sophisticated. It's a long cry from somebody just saying, send us $5000 and we'll help you with your book. This is more elaborate than that, right?

[00:18:53] Cheryl Davis: It really is. They have become increasingly sophisticated over time. In fact, The Authors Guild, we got looped into a scam ourselves when somebody was misusing our name to try to scam people.

[00:19:05] Bob: Oh boy.

[00:19:06] Cheryl Davis: Yeah. And we were, of course, aghast, and we reached out to the entity which I think is no longer functioning under that name, but to look at these sorts of approaches they were making at that point and that was just a few years ago, it was if you had a, you could look at it and see like there was improper capitalization of words, verb tenses were inappropriate, it was badly drafted, and you can look and say, oh, well that doesn't look right. But these days people are using AI and come up with much more sophisticated looking approaches, and they can pull language from people's books and say, so that you think that oh, well what they're saying, they must have actually read my book. They must be legit. So they think these efforts are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Bob, that is true.

[00:19:50] Bob: We will talk much more about AI and author scams in a moment.

[00:19:56] Bob: Well the PageTurner case actually was prosecuted. There's been a, one conviction already. Is it hard to get law enforcement's attention on a story like this, on a crime like this?

[00:20:04] Cheryl Davis: It is, because we actually reached out originally to law enforcement back when there was a scam involving our name and the name of a major publisher's was involved. We reached out to them, and we had some level of interest but then it seemed as though the numbers, the damages that, you know that we were mentioning, weren't sufficient to really make it worth their litigational while I gather. But clearly, Page Turner was, the number of damages was astronomical compared to unfortunately, the number of damages that the people who were sort of reporting it to us were aware of. So yes, it can be.

[00:20:42] Bob: Hmm, and I think it's confusing for a lot of people. First of all, the book business is very hard to crack into, right?

[00:20:50] Cheryl Davis: Oh traditionally published, yes, but we're seeing more and more self-publishing these days, and that's one of the areas in which these scammers are approaching people who are self-published saying that hey, I can get you a traditional publishing contract. Or I can help market your book more widely so that it gets more out there, you can get traditionally published or, and/or get uh your work optioned for a film and TV adaptation.

[00:21:13] Bob: And, and you know one of the generic pieces of advice that we give when we talk about scams is, anytime somebody asks you for money upfront for anything, it's probably a scam. You don't have to spend money to make money but that's, as a blanket rule, it's a little bit more subtle than that in, in book writing, isn't it?

[00:21:28] Cheryl Davis: It can be more nuanced in terms of if you're dealing with something like a hybrid publisher where there may be some outlay on your behalf. They can still be legitimate. But we do feel that if somebody's approaching you out of the blue with an opportunity, you should look at that askance. And look into it a bit more.

[00:21:49] Bob: One version of the book scam that is incredibly persuasive involves identity theft and impersonation. Criminals pretend to be book agents or editors. They steal their photos, their bios, make a look-alike email address and then write to victims. They are drafting off of an editor or an agent's well-earned credibility. And I've seen this myself with book agents I know.

[00:22:10] Cheryl Davis: And one of the easiest things that we recommend people do is look at the email address of the person who's emailing you, because a number of these people, we call them impersonation scams, they pretend to be like from Macmillan or other prominent publishers or from a prominent agency. And people will google and say like, oh, well this is a real agent, so I should trust this person. But it may be somebody just using that agent's name. We've seen them use the names of prominent authors saying, claiming to have read their, your book, and saying, oh, well, would you like me to help you out in some way? Would you like to join a book club, etcetera? One of the things that you can do for yourself is like look at the actual email address of the person who's reaching out to you, and if it's from a very personal sounding email address like a gmail.com or from like their own individual website address rather than the name of the company they're claiming to represent, then that's highly dubious.

[00:23:03] Bob: So let's be really clear about this. If you get an email that claims to be from someone, it's not enough to google that person and confirm they exist. It's just too easy to impersonate people online.

[00:23:15] Cheryl Davis: But one thing we do recommend, and when we find out that publishers and directors and agents names are being misused, we try to let them know so that they can put that information on their website. There are a number of publishers, etcetera, who do say, there are a number of scammers using our name and we are not, we are not reaching out to you cold calling you. So be very dubious of this kind of thing.

[00:23:39] Bob: I know we talk about AI and scams a lot on this podcast, but I have to say, I've yet to see a more persuasive use of AI than in author scams. Because AI-driven scams aren't just a single email suggesting the victim might have a book deal on the way, but it's that AI can carry on a long-term conversation. And it can play with the victim's emotions, deploying the cold-hearted calculations of a computer chip.

[00:24:04] Cheryl Davis: I am a writer myself. I certainly identify when somebody says that they're interested in my work. My heart floats and my ego starts to go out the window. But I try to step back and remind myself to put my feet on the ground and say, okay, what is really going on here? How did this person get my information? And what is it they're actually saying? And sometimes I will email back with a little more questioning, but unfortunately these days with AI, they can come up with a semi-reasonable answer as opposed to in the older days you start asking a question and they fumfer and then to say, well this is how you can pay, submit the payment here and you say, okay, there's something off here.

[00:24:43] Bob: I'm so glad you brought that up, because that is what, one of the things that in a dastardly way, AI is good at, is creating that conversation. They do have ready-made answers for you, four or five times, it'll sound like someone is digesting your response, and we're starting to see that. So, but I'm actually really glad you said that last part. I think that's really important. We do a lot of romance scams on The Perfect Scam, and there's something about this that feels a little bit like a romance scam to me.

[00:25:07] Cheryl Davis: It is, you're playing to people's hearts.

[00:25:09] Bob: Yeah, yeah, and there's, and your, it's your heart goes aflutter when someone finally pays attention to you in that deep way and pays attention to your writing, and it makes you very vulnerable.

[00:25:17] Cheryl Davis: It does.

[00:25:18] Bob: Okay, the truth is, I've received several AI-generated emails with offers to help me sell more of my books, and I'm here to tell you, they definitely tickled my pride and made me give them a double-take. Here's just one example. The subject line of this email was, "Bob helping readers spot the hidden fees and red tape in gotcha capitalism." That's the name of one of my books. Listen to all the ego-stroking that goes on in here.

"Gotcha Capitalism uncovers a truth that affects millions yet is often invisible to everyday consumers. Your clarity, investigative rigor, and storytelling transforms financial literacy into something actionable and urgent, turning abstract frustration into tools for survival and empowerment. By framing the gotcha as a deliberate business model, your work stands apart from the standard advice manuals. Maintaining visibility in a rapidly evolving digital landscape can feel like chasing a moving target. Bob, if every consumer struggling with hidden fees and corporate complexity could find your book the moment they needed guidance, how might that amplify the impact of the work you have spent decades building?"

[00:26:46] Bob: Notice, this pitch doesn't mention a fee, and it doesn't even promise riches or fame. It promises impact, and truth be told, that is what motivates me. It's a little scary that an AI-generated email knows me this well. Okay, so how are writers, especially first-time authors, supposed to avoid this kind of minefield?

[00:27:07] Cheryl Davis: So do a little research on your own. And if you remember the Authors Guild reached out to us because we are aware of a certain number of these, and we may be able to tell you rather quickly that yeah, we're familiar with this scam. Don't do it. There's also something called Writer Beware that Victoria Strauss runs, her website. And she is exceptionally up to date on the most current scams out there. So you can also go on the Writer Beware website and see if the name of the entity that is approaching you is on there, or something suspiciously close to that, because people may change like a word or a letter in a name and say, hey, this sounds like the same company that she's writing about.

[00:27:47] Bob: But of course, scams change so rapidly you can't count on any service to list all of them. Your most important tool is your own writerly skepticism. Investigate any proposal you receive as vigorously as that private detective you created through your novel. And in the end, just know, anyone who asks for money and offers overnight success is almost certainly lying to you.

[00:28:14] Bob: And okay, I know a lot of this process has changed since I learned about it in college a few years ago, and but there's still some general principles that apply, right? So I'm an author, I have a manuscript. Rather than throwing myself to the whimsy of these, all this cesspool of criminals out there, what is the better way, the standard way to go about trying to get myself published?

[00:28:37] Cheryl Davis: Well, you can reach out to various agents and see if you can get somebody to represent you. There's, I think the American Association of Literary Agents, AALA, I believe it's called. Their agents actually have a code of ethics to follow. So you can try to reach out to a legitimate entity like that. If you are, you can read the, I think it's the forwards and the acknowledgments of, of books by authors who you respect and think are, who like the kinds, the kinds of things that you're writing. See like who their agent is. See like how did they get themselves out there and published. There are often talks by people where they list their experiences. There are some people who start out in the self-publishing area; use that market their way into a traditional publishing contract, because once they get their book out there and they say, hey, this book is selling, maybe the, the prominent publishing house may pick you up, pick up your next and following books. There are a variety of ways that you can approach this.

[00:29:33] Bob: And I realize again, now there's more doors than there used to be, but it used to be true that you had to have an agent for the most part, right?

[00:29:40] Cheryl Davis: Yes, for a traditional publishing contract, yes. You're going to be looking more for an agent to get you into that world.

[00:29:47] Bob: And agents normally say on their webpages where or not they're even taking new clients, and they have, there's a query process...

[00:29:53] Cheryl Davis: Exactly.

[00:29:54] Bob: ... they often prefer and then all that information's usually available on their webpage. So sadly, there really isn't much of a shortcut to having a book published, and, and anybody who promises a shortcut for a few dollars is probably lying, right?

[00:30:06] Cheryl Davis: I hate to say that, but yes, probably it's, it's highly dubious that somebody says give me X thousands of dollars. I can get your book; well I can get your book published with a traditional publisher. It's going to be harder and saying if you can, say I give you a few thousand dollars and I will help you self-publish your book, that is another story, so.

[00:30:25] Bob: Sure, sure. Yeah, in some ways I feel like that might have muddied the waters for people too, because lots of people now do that, and it's a perfectly valid and lovely thing to do of course, but that kind of opens the door for this. Well there are some, some cases where money up front leads to a book being published, and so that confuses our message a little bit, I think.

[00:30:42] Cheryl Davis: It is a little more nuanced.

[00:30:45] Bob: A little more nuanced. Just like a good book. Remember how I started this episode? This scam isn't really about books, it's about dreams. Anyone can relate to that, and I don't want anyone giving up on their dreams. I just want you to have those feet firmly planted on the ground while you type your way up to the stars. For The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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[00:31:22] Bob: If you have been targeted by a scam or fraud, you're not alone. Call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360. Their trained fraud specialists can provide you with free support and guidance on what to do next. Our email address at The Perfect Scam is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org, and we want to hear from you. If you've been the victim of a scam or you know someone who has, and you'd like us to tell their story, write to us. That address again is: theperfectscampodcast@aarp.org. Thank you to our team of scambusters; Associate Producer, Annalea Embree; Researcher, Becky Dodson; Executive Producer, Julie Getz; and our Audio Engineer and Sound Designer, Julio Gonzalez. Be sure to find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For AARP's The Perfect Scam, I'm Bob Sullivan.

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