Just Awful...

This story happened last week, but I just learned about it from Writer Beware. Days after a self-published author posted her novel on Amazon, she received a series of e-mails purporting to be from an agent at Writers House. The "agent" not only offered representation, but then claimed to have sold her book for a six-digit figure to a major publishing house and urged the author to announce it on her blog. You can see the e-mails on Writer Beware. The author learned the next day it was a hoax, most likely personally directed at her by someone she'd encountered on Twitter. The author publicly admitted she'd been scammed and even offered some tips on how to recognize a scammer. But who can blame her for getting caught up in the excitement? It's the kind of deal every author dreams of. But sometimes you have to ignore the excitement and listen to your head. My sympathies go out to the author. Hopefully no one else gets tricked like this.