Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing

Helping authors achieve their dreams

Scams

Has the Big 5 become the Big 6? (This week in books)

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This week! Books! Sourcebooks Cracks the Big Five – Katy Hershberger, Publishers Lunch – Lots of caveats here, as Sourcebooks is 75% owned by behemoth Penguin Random House, and as Jane Friedman noted in her newsletter, they do quite a few print deals with self-published authors who retain e-book rights. But it’s still a pretty […]

Facebook: Scam central (This week in books)

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This week! Books! Thanks so much to everyone who attended monthly (did I mention they’re free) Office Hours last night! Now that we’ve had a few of them, I’m thinking about changing things up and adding theme nights. But what would you like to see? First page critiques? Query workshop? Advanced writing craft? Too intimidated […]

State-sponsored censorship week (This week in books)

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This week! Books! I’m back, and luckily nothing at all happened while I was away (okay everything happened while I was away). Lots and lots of links this week! Let’s get to it. 2026 We Need Diverse Books Mentorship Program Application – Applications are now open for We Need Diverse Books’ terrific mentorship program for […]

An inside look at rampant publishing scams (This week in books)

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This week! Books! ‘Our Goal Is to Get Their Money’: Inside a Firm Charged With Scamming Writers for Millions – Brent Crane, Bloomberg (gift link) – A well-reported and wrenching look into rampant scams preying on authors. One reason so many of the scams originate in the Philippines is because some of the scammers cut […]

A new literary agent scam to watch out for (This week in books)

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This week! Books! Victoria Strauss at the indispensable site Writer Beware has a new scam to watch for, which starts with a “literary agent” promising to work only on commission who will take your book to the next level, only for additional fees to start rolling in. Be careful out there! Also from Writer Beware, […]