#justsaying #opinion
As a poet/writer there are lots of people out there trying to scam us from 'vanity publishers' to other dubious sources. Here is the latest one that I came across.
David Hartley purporting to be from the Glasgow Book Club invited me to appear on their on-line platform to do an informal question and answer session about my poetry. I said that I was I interested.
Then came the scam! Apparently they expected me to pay them for the privilege! Their book spotlight support package which involves a contribution to their creative and organisational work is they assured me "not a fee for your appearance or answering questions" As soon as I read that, common sense told me it was a lie.
This is part of my reply:
"I am very disappointed by your reply. I do not have a book to promote. I have a blog which is accessible to all FREE of charge.
If you are inviting poets and writers to answer questions on your platform, you should be the one paying a fee to us!
If your 5,192 members paid £1 each you would have enough funds to pay for your promotional materials and a small fee to the poet/writer.
I am not interested in following up on this. I think as a book club you should be ashamed of trying to scam hardworking poets and writers. However nicely you word it, you are trying to scam people into paying for something they neither need nor want.
I do volunteer work for free in local writing groups and schools and would not have charged your book club a fee either.
I have no interest in participating in this invitation as I feel it impugns my integrity as a poet."
Needless to say I have had no reply. I am 71 and retired so poetry is not my means of earning a living but for many younger people it is. This is an insidious way of a supposed book club trying to extort money out of poets and writers.
POETS AND WRITERS BEWARE!
*A Google search confirms that this is a scam doing the rounds, possibly with an AI generated 'script' and possibly originating in Nigeria!*
©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026
