There's a vast industry out there of unscrupulous people who want to scam wanna-be writers out of their hopes, dreams and — most of all — money. I'm not sure if it's quite as large as the array of unscrupulous people who want to scam wanna-be performers out of the same three things but it's pretty large.
About once a week I get a call from someone who has found my name and contact info somewhere on the web linked to the name of some book that I worked on. The speech, which most of them read badly, extols the genius of that book…which they assume is a novel I wrote and own rather than, say, a collection of stories from Garfield comic books or a Shrek mini-series I wrote eons ago for Dark Horse. They say it's such a shame that "my" book did not sell in the zillions because it's so wonderful and would certainly dwarf that Rowling lady's sales if I'd had the right people advertising…
…which, ahem!, they are and they can elevate me to Best Seller Status supply for a price. Note that they're talking about me — not my publisher, not the copyright holder of the book but me — paying them money. I can also pay them to get anything I have that's unpublished published. There are other kinds of scam calls but these are the crooked offers I most often receive.
Now, I have this pal named Lee Goldberg who has written and published a very long list of successful books…the kind where the author gets paid, not the kind where the author pays some middle man. To me, these con jobs are an annoyance but to Lee, I think they're exciting adventures. They're also dishonest enterprises which he takes delight in exposing and warning others against. Here's a video of him talking to one of these scammers — a guy working the "pitch deck" swindle…