Angela Hoy

Another author contacted me after getting spammed by a so-called “book marketing company.” They wanted to charge her $1,199 (!!!) to have her book displayed at an overseas book fair. Unless you are a celebrity with a presentation and book signing lined up at that particular event, with hundreds of people vying to hear you talk, paying to have your book displayed at a book fair or festival is a complete waste of money for authors. Book fairs typically only make money for the fair organizers.

The digital marketplace has become a breeding ground for sophisticated scams, and Amazon, one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms, is no exception. Authors whose books are on Amazon are increasingly being targeted by a new wave of fraudsters who exploit Amazon’s trusted brand to intimidate and deceive.

The image above this post is from a video I took after one of the times Benedict attacked me. I threw a metal cup at him to make him run away. If you’ve been following News From the Office, you know that our rooster, Benedict the Jerk, has attacked me several times. We were going to wait to send him across the rainbow bridge until our new rooster got a bit bigger. But, we couldn’t wait any longer.