Last updated: 14 July 2026
Authors are a target, and the people targeting them are good at it. The publishing world is full of impersonators posing as marketers, agents, publishers, famous authors, and book clubs to take money, manuscripts, and personal information from writers. The largest houses keep fraud pages for exactly this reason — Penguin Random House warns openly that scammers impersonate its staff. We are a small studio, and we are being impersonated too. Read this before you trust any unexpected message that carries our name, or any offer that arrives out of the blue.
How to know a message is really from us
The clearest sign of the scam is simple: it is an unsolicited offer to market, promote, translate, review, or “fix” your book. We do not do that. We do not pitch, and we do not need to — authors come to us, usually through a waiting list, and any working relationship starts with the author, never with us arriving uninvited in your inbox. So a message that shows up unasked, offering to help your book, is not from us — no matter whose name is on it or how convincing it looks.
Our official communication comes from our own domains — bookwhisperer.ink, and, in their own contexts, casacroce.press (our imprint, Casa Croce Press) and indie-uncon.com (the Indie UnCon conference). Most of what you would hear from us comes from bookwhisperer.ink. None of our real mail comes from an address that merely contains the words “Shaun Loftus” or “BookWhisperer.”
Shaun has one personal Gmail address that some authors who know her personally have. She uses it only to reply to people who already have it — she never sends a first, unsolicited message from Gmail, and never pitches services from it. The impersonator does the opposite: he uses look-alike variations of it — extra words such as “books,” “pr,” or “info,” or her name reordered — to start conversations with strangers. So any Gmail that contacts you first, or offers you services, is a fake, even if it resembles hers. The real one only ever appears as a reply inside a conversation you already began with her.
We will never ask you to pay through an unusual channel, buy reviews, wire money to raise a ranking, or hand over passwords or account access. Anyone promising guaranteed sales, reviews, or chart positions is neither us nor honest.
If you are ever unsure, stop and ask us directly through this website before you reply, click, or pay. We would always rather answer “is this really you?” than watch an author get caught.
The impersonation using our name
Someone is sending unsolicited emails to authors and scholars under the name “Shaun Loftus.” The lure changes from message to message, which is itself a sign it is not a real person who knows your work:
- Some flatter your book and then claim it is underperforming or invisible, and offer to fix it.
- Some pitch translation or foreign-market services — “reach readers in Japan, China, or France.”
- Some are barely about books at all and simply try to strike up a personal or romantic conversation.
They copy Shaun’s real Reedsy profile link and sometimes point to a fabricated business, Reader Reach Marketing (readerreachmarketing.com), which is not ours. They send from a rotating set of addresses on Gmail, Hotmail, and legitimate business email platforms such as Salesforce, chosen to look credible. The names and addresses change constantly. The reliable test is not the address but the ask: an unsolicited offer of services is not us. Our official mail comes from our own domains, and never from a free email account offering to promote your book. Seeing Shaun’s real Reedsy link proves nothing; a scammer can paste it as easily as we can.
Other scams aimed at authors
The same instinct protects you from the wider field. Be wary of:
- Fake publishers and imprints offering to sign or reissue your book, often copying the name and branding of a real house. Verify through the publisher’s official domain, never a Gmail or a look-alike address.
- Impersonated agents and famous authors who “discovered” your work and want to help, mentor, or collaborate. Real professionals do not recruit strangers by cold email and then ask for money.
- Fake book clubs, festivals, awards, and book fairs. Some invitations to feature your book, win an award, or appear at an event exist only to collect a fee for “exposure” that never arrives, and some impersonate real events. Paid opportunities can be legitimate — the warning signs are an unsolicited approach, pressure to commit, vague deliverables, and claims that don’t hold up when you check the event or award yourself.
- Fake “official” notices from platforms — messages claiming to be Meta/Facebook, Amazon/KDP, Google, or a “copyright,” “verification,” or “ad account” team, warning that your account will be closed unless you act now. These harvest logins and card numbers. Real platforms do not ask for your password by email.
- Offers built on guarantees. Be wary of anyone promising publication, film deals, bestseller status, or a set number of sales or reviews in exchange for payment. Reputable help — ours included — is paid work; what it sells is effort and standards, never a guaranteed outcome. The tells are the guarantee, the manufactured urgency, and the inflated claim, not the fact that there’s a fee.
- Review and ranking schemes. Paying for reviews or “ranking signals” breaks retailer rules and can get your book removed. We do not offer this; nobody reputable does.
Two things unite almost all of these: the message is unsolicited, and it uses urgency or flattery to get you to act before you think. Both are signals to slow down.
How to protect yourself
- Check the sending address, not the display name. A scammer can put any name in the “From” line. Look at the actual email address, and be suspicious of Gmail, Hotmail, or anything that only imitates a real domain.
- Do not click links or open attachments in an unexpected message. Type the company’s real web address into your browser instead.
- Never send money, card details, passwords, or manuscripts in response to an unsolicited offer.
- Slow down. Urgency is the scammer’s main tool. A real opportunity survives you taking a day to verify it.
- Verify independently. Contact the person or company through their official website or a number you find yourself — not the contact details in the suspicious message.
- When it uses our name, confirm with us through this website before acting.
How and where to report it
Reporting matters. It is what gets accounts and sites shut down, and it warns the next author.
- Tell us. Forward anything using our name or Shaun’s to authors@bookwhisperer.ink. Where you can, forward it as an attachment so the original is preserved.
- Report the email account to its provider — Gmail through Google’s abuse form, Hotmail/Outlook through Microsoft’s reporting page.
- Report a fraudulent website to Google Safe Browsing, and to the site’s host or registrar.
- Report to the industry watchdogs: Writer Beware (writerbeware.blog) and the Alliance of Independent Authors’ Watchdog (selfpublishingadvice.org), which keep public records of author-targeting scams.
- Report to your national fraud authority: in the US, the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov) and the FBI’s IC3 (ic3.gov); in the UK, Action Fraud (actionfraud.police.uk); elsewhere, your country’s fraud or cybercrime body.
- If a real company is being impersonated, report it on that company’s own fraud page too.
Where to learn more
- Writer Beware (writerbeware.blog) — SFWA’s long-running record of publishing and author-service scams.
- Alliance of Independent Authors — Watchdog (selfpublishingadvice.org) — ratings and warnings on services aimed at self-publishing authors.
- Penguin Random House fraud page (prh.com/prh-fraud) — a major publisher’s guidance on impersonation and publishing scams.
