I try not to read it too often, because the name is an accurate summation of Writer Beware‘s mission. There are a lot of scammers out there who specialize in going after independent authors and creators, because that’s where the fear, worry, and desperation is. Fear that you’re not going to be successful; worry that you’re not doing the right things; and desperation fueling your desire to do something, anything, that will relieve either one. Scammers love people like that.
The very bad news in all of this is that there are shortcuts in the self-publishing business, only they all involve spending money and playing the long game. Professional-grade copy-editing and proofreading (some might add, ‘structural editing’) services make a huge difference, not least because after you get the same terse note twenty times in a row, you stop abusing semicolons, or using the same word in a paragraph three times, or whatever. Those services cost money. Good cover art for your books is better than cheap, easily replaceable cover art for your books. That costs money. Things like a decent cover design, or proper page formatting (for people who don’t just let KDP do the latter) are valuable in the long run – and, again, cost money.
I could go on for a while. The main point here is, liquidity issues are the curse of the modern self-published authors, and there’s nothing like getting a little money coming in to attract the attention of people who will to try to convince you that they can get you a lot of money. …They cannot. Ultimately, whenever it comes to cash on the barrel-head, you are on your own.
Sorry to rip off the band-aid like that.
Moe Lane
PS: Mind you, it’s not good to dwell on this.