A few weeks back I entered a twitter competition, where you tweet about your book. People from the publishing world sift through the tweets and ‘like’ anything they are interested in. If you are liked you can sent them a query of your novel. So I was liked and duly sent off a query. A few days later I am asked for a full manuscript, this is the first time this has happened for me, so naturally I was quite excited. It was at this stage that I realised that I was being asked for my manuscript by a publisher and not an agent. It came as a great surprise when a few days later I received an offer of a publishing contract, and I was overjoyed and naturally I told a lot of people about my good news. It was only when I dug a bit further I became suspicious, the publisher’s website is sparse and only seemingly one author and a couple of other people who they say they have recently signed up. Not much else and the letter to me wasn’t personal, in the sense of someone saying “congrats, really pleased to be working with you.” It felt automated, as if they have sent this out to a number of people. However, the contract itself looks fine, no requests for money and seemingly covering everything. So where’s the scam if there is one? Might they ask for money down the line, they have got my manuscript, might they nick my ideas? Not sure and I am trying to do some digging, but with no success as yet. So my initial euphoria has turned to mild depression as I consider that someone might have nicked my novel. I hope I am wrong.
Book Publishing Offer Or Scam?