Essential knowledge about scholarly book publishing that every author should have. Get weekly tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book from developmental editor and publishing consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD.
A new scam to watch out for
Published 2 days ago • 6 min read
The Manuscript Works Newsletter
Essential knowledge on scholarly book publishing that every author should have
Hello Manuscript Workers!
What's in this edition:
A new publishing scam to watch out for, plus a mild rant for my fellow Luddites (non-pejorative)
What would you like to know about university press publishing right now?
As always, if you have a question or suggestion for a future newsletter, you can reply directly to this message. Thanks for reading!
This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing advisor. I help scholarly writers navigate the book publishing process with more ease and agency.
I hope you'll stick around for practical tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book, but if you'd like to adjust your subscription settings, you can do that at the bottom of this message.
After publishing each of my three books (in 2013, 2021, and 2025, respectively), I’ve been fortunate to receive thoughtful invitations to dialogue with groups of interested readers. I’ve found that participating in book clubs can be a great way to build interest in a scholarly book and to get direct feedback from your audience about what resonates with them in your work (and what they might like to see in future projects).
I noticed something different happening after the release of my most recent book, though. Since publishing Make Your Manuscript Work last year, I’ve received "book club" invitations almost weekly promising to get my allegedly underexposed book in front of more readers. Sometimes the invitation isn't about a book club but rather offers up some other mode of publicizing my book to help it get the attention it deserves.
The messages all follow a similar format. The email “writer” claims to have read and appreciated my book (sometimes in quite specific terms) and offers to help me connect with potential readers. The first message I received like this almost convinced me it was legitimate. Upon closer inspection it was clear that the specifics about my book were easily culled from the promotional materials I myself had drafted with help from my publisher. Some emails even throw in details that are plausible for a scholarly book but obviously wrong about this specific book, such as my book engaging with critical theory or using ethnographic methods (maybe the large language model that generated the messages got the wires crossed with my first monograph). I trusted my intuition and did not reply to the first message or any subsequent ones I received. The fact that I was being targeted by an AI-assisted scam was confirmed for me when I received more and more messages that were all essentially the same. I still get these messages multiple times a week even though the legitimate publicity window for my book is pretty much closed by now.
I can’t tell you exactly how many messages like this I’ve received because I’ve marked them all as spam and blocked the senders as they came in, but it's been many dozens at least. The handful of legitimate publicity inquiries I’ve received about my new book have been easy to separate out because they've come from individuals or organizations I’d already heard of and preserve the writer’s unique perspective with details that can't be lifted from my own catalog copy.
I want to be clear that I am not special here. The book club scam has become such a pervasive problem that many publishers have issued statements encouraging caution among all their authors. I've also received questions from clients who have just published their first books and are wondering if they should take these kinds of offers seriously. I hope this newsletter will help you spot a similar scam if it ever lands in your inbox. But I'm also writing about this today because I feel compelled to share a more general gripe.
The truth is that this scam is just one in a series of ways the experience of publishing a book is being enshittified by AI. As scholarly authors, we put years of labor and care into publishing our books. My mission at Manuscript Works has always been to help academic writers have the most fulfilling publishing experiences possible so you can truly take joy in finally getting your book out into the world. Academia affords so few genuine satisfactions these days, but I believe that becoming a published author should still be one of them if you want it to be.
And so I find myself infuriated and demoralized by the continuing creep of AI scams into the work we are trying to do. I don't really have anything constructive to say about this, but I want to make my feelings known. I normally try to take a positive tone in my newsletters, but today I've finally had it. There is probably a discussion to be had about legitimate uses of AI in book publishing. I will let others make that case elsewhere if they want to; it's simply not my ministry. To be very honest, I resent that I’m constantly asked to share my thoughts about AI, even though I completely understand why my readers, clients, and podcast interviewers feel the need to talk about it. Maybe someday I will have some useful advice for you about it. Today, I just want to express that if you are also feeling angry and exploited by the enshittification of scholarly life in general and scholarly book publishing in particular, I’m right there with you.
If you are still interested in learning to write your book and connect with publishers and readers in ways that resist the AI takeover as long as we can, I would love to help with that. It’s still my mission to preserve the joy and satisfaction that can come from human-led communication conducted in authenticity and integrity. I really hope we all get to keep doing that for years to come.
And if you run a legitimate book club or group that would like to discuss Make Your Manuscript Work, please do reach out. I promise not to mark your email as spam unless you use AI to write it. :)
Big sale on my books from Princeton University Press!
Looking for professional support with your book or article manuscript, but not sure who can help? When you fill out my referral request form, you'll be sent a curated list of trusted editors—matched to your specific field and needs—whom you can contact right away.
Keep in mind that experienced developmental editors may book up months in advance, so if you're even starting to contemplate working with someone, now is the time to reach out.
What would you ask university press editors?
I'm soon headed to the annual conference for the Association of University Presses, where I'll be moderating a panel on editorial labor and working with scholarly authors. Beyond the conversations I hope to generate at my own panel, I'll be listening keenly to find out what concerns are top of mind for university press editors and other staff. I know the current climate in higher ed will be on the table for discussion, as well as broader political/economic conditions and applications of AI in scholarly publishing. (I'm going to do my best to keep an open mind about this last topic.)
Are there any specific questions you'd like me to keep my ear to the ground for answers to or pose directly while I'm there? You can reply directly to this email. I'll report back on my observations in a future newsletter.
And if you're a UP staff member who has time for a quick one-on-one chat with me, I'd love to meet up in Seattle. I'll be happy to pass along your thoughts to the ~10,000 scholars who read this newsletter.
If you have a friend, colleague, or student who might enjoy the Manuscript Works Newsletter, could you forward this email to them and encourage them to subscribe at newsletter.manuscriptworks.com? Thank you for reading and sharing!
Essential knowledge about scholarly book publishing that every author should have. Get weekly tips on writing and publishing your scholarly book from developmental editor and publishing consultant Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD.