Lit Scam

After being lit-spammed via email the other day, I now find I'm the recipient of a lit scam via phone—a ploy by this, er, book-marketing company to publicize my 2007 vanity-pubbed collection of columns, More Peevish Advice.

Only the caller —Lisa? something like that—who left the message on my phone had a bit of trouble pronouncing the title. She pronounced the second word pev-vish. Well, I guess it's a hard word for some folks to say, what with two syllables and all.

Anyhow, I couldn't make out the company she was calling from, but it sounded like she might have said "Book World." Just to be sure, I Googled the phone number: 1 (877) 207 1679. Not Book World, but something that sounds like it. Guess what I found?

A whole slew of warnings about this company. Author Lee Goldberg has blogged about them twice on "A Writers Life": here and here. April Henry blogged about them on "So Many Books, so Little Time" back in 2008. Jeff Sypeck blogged about them in 2009 on "Quid Plura." Dark Forces Book Group also blogged about them in 2009. None of these bloggers had anything favorable to say. I can't say as I blame them. I have nothing favorable to say either.

Wait. I do have one word for this company, though: scam.

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