I rather like this article on writing scams, largely because it looks outside of traditional publishing. I wanted to add some comments from my own experience as well. (Original article was written by Lila Moore.)

1. Investing in Internet Points

Like Amazon rankings and reviews.  I mean, sure sometimes these things matter. But they don’t always, they don’t always mean the same thing to the same books and these rankings/points are in constant flux. I’d like to point out again that of my self published titles, the one with zero reviews outsells the one with multiple positive reviews easily, every month. Some books soar up to the top of the charts when offered for free and it doesn’t equal larger sales after the fact or even more reads. I have tons of free ebooks…that I haven’t read. I’ll get to it eventually.

Furthermore we all know the system is loaded. Buy a hundred copies of your own book to shoot it up the charts and other people will do it too. There have been many articles lately exposing how the bestseller lists and PR folks have been gaming the system for years. Spending your time soliciting good reviews only, or screaming your links out to everyone you can on Twitter or inviting everyone on your Facebook or Goodreads friend list to buy your book just makes you part of the fakeness. And people can smell that.

Your time is valuable. Evaluate what is worth your energy. Writing a good book, investing in editing and production, those are the things worth spending your time on. Online internet scores, pushing a spin agenda, etc. Are not.

2. Paying for Fake Book Reviews

Don’t do it. I think it’s incredibly unethical. But hey, ethics are a personal thing. A lot of people think it’s unethical and you’ll be distrusted. You know what makes someone a Neil Gaiman? Readers knowing they can depend on him for a good story. Even if they don’t end up liking it, they know it will have pretty words and imagination and careful editing and production.

Paying for smoke to be blow up your ass in front of other people accomplishes nothing except making people think they can’t trust you. Plus, you’re spending money that would be better spent on good cover art.

3. Giving Away First Rights for a Cheap Prize

This. A million times this. Back when I was looking for any and every way to get my work in front of actual people (you know, back in those days self publishing did not get you into the Amazon store base. It meant you were probably selling books out of the trunk of your car.) I found a lot of contests, even from pretty big places like Woman’s Day. And most of the took all rights. A lot of self publishing places did that. The Woman’s Day contest took all right in perpetuity and you only got 100 copies of your book.

Currently I know of some publishers that pay nothing, or a small token pay, like $25 per 100 copies sold. Now, for a book set at $2.99, the lowest cover cost that gets an author the 70% royalty rate, 100 copies equals $209. Think that $25 pay is still a good deal?

4. Crowing about Cockamamie Credentials

I know of someone who posts all over every single time they get a positive review. They even made a claim that people once called them…let’s say “Emperor of Undead”. After reading several books by said person and wondering what the hell I googled them. The only person ever calling them said royal title was themselves in various interviews, trying to build up their own hype.

Years ago my novella Rot was on the bestseller list on a horror web shop. On the back end this equated to a whole 20 copies one month and 5 the next.

Now yeah, be proud of every happy reader who emails you, every royalty check, every small accomplishment. But do you need to tell everyone on your friends list about it? Do you need to spend an hour posting it to all the message boards you frequent, or emailing everyone who ever mistakenly gave you their email address? No. So don’t.

You should have a Team You just for crowing about little things or complaining about things to. Use them.

5. Pyramid Scheme Publications

You should read what Lila says. But also I want to add publishers who won’t pay authors, but solicit ads, or put Google Ads on their site. If a publisher think people should pay them, but don’t think it’s important to pay writers, RUN AWAY. Metaphorically.

6. Paying for Poor Publicity

As a blogger and reviewer I’ve been hit up by crappy PR places who want me to host guest blogs or solicit reviews. And they charge an author $300 to solicit me rather than the author soliciting me themselves. And I said yes once because I liked the idea of the book and then for a year I was mailed for every single book, whether it was something in my interest or not. I still get emailed for Christian non-fiction and media tie-ins. I still delete spam comments on my blog that clearly come from services who post to said entry because it hit their Google Alerts for a certain terms.  Also, remember the whole issue of integrity and readers being able to trust that even if your work is shitty, you’re genuine. That gets you farther. Of course being good and genuine is a lot better.

7. Indiscriminately Working for Free

Key word “indiscriminately”. Donating a story to a charity anthology is great (provided the money actually goes there and it has a chance of selling well, and isn’t just an bad taste effort of unknowns to sell their work by attaching it to a goodwill cause.) Submitting to non paying magazines or anthologies because it’s a good place to start is often offered advice. Sure some free magazines have great circulations and readership. I was lucky to have my first publications be in Cthluhu Sex Magazine, which fit that bill. (Also it violated my previous bit about running away from places that want advertisers to pay but not authors. No, wait. I did get multiple free copies of the issue my work was in.)

But most places with no pay also have very low readership. Sometimes only those who have been published in it read it. Not even people who submit to it. Kinda scout it out first and decide if an acceptance there would be furthering your goals, a risk you’re willing to take, or crap. Then proceed  as you wish.

Because that’s the goal. Set goals based on what you want out of your writing career (or hobby). Then take act based on that. Does it further or have a chance to further your progress toward your goals? If it doesn’t, then why spend time on it? (Yes, because it’s fun is a good enough reason to do it anyway. But if it is potentially or outright damaging no, fun doesn’t cover it.)