Scam Warning

Important notice: fraudulent approaches to writers

We are aware of a sharp rise in fraudulent emails and messages sent to writers, including Salt authors. These messages impersonate publishers, literary agents, film and television producers, rights managers and recruiters. Some of them use Salt’s name; many use the names of real people working in the trade, who are themselves victims of the impersonation.

We want to be clear about how Salt actually works, so that anyone receiving an unexpected approach can recognise it for what it is.

What Salt does not do

We do not offer employment, internships or freelance work by unsolicited email or direct message. We do not recruit readers, editors, proofreaders, ‘remote publishing assistants’ or marketing staff in this way. Any genuine vacancy at Salt is announced on this website and through recognised trade channels.

We do not approach writers with offers to publish their work. The only route to publication with Salt is the one described on our submissions pages. We do not scout manuscripts by cold email, we do not invite submissions outside our published windows and criteria, and we do not make offers to writers who have not submitted to us.

We never ask a writer for money. Not for reading or assessment, not for contracts, registration, rights, translation, distribution, marketing, festival placement or legal fees. In legitimate publishing, money flows to the author, never from them.

We do not conduct business from free webmail accounts. All genuine correspondence from Salt comes from an address ending in @saltpublishing.com. An email from a Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or similar account is not from us, whatever name or job title appears on it.

How to recognise a fraudulent approach

  • The sender uses a free webmail address, sometimes with a publisher’s name built into it – for example, something like ‘editorname.publisherbooks@gmail.com’.
  • The message is unexpected, flattering and unusually long, praising your work in warm but general terms without ever quoting a line or naming a specific poem, chapter or character.
  • It asks early on whether you have a literary agent, and how you handle international rights.
  • It offers something disproportionate to the approach – a film option, an American deal, a substantial advance – before anyone has read the work.
  • It provides no verifiable route back: no switchboard number, no company signature block, no request to reply to a corporate address.
  • At some point, and often only after several friendly exchanges, a payment is required to proceed.

What to do

Do not reply, even to decline. A reply confirms that your address is live and will lead to more approaches.

Verify independently. If you want to check whether an approach is genuine, contact the company through the details on its own website – never the details supplied in the message. If the approach concerns a Salt book, write to us and we will confirm the position; we hold the rights and will know.

Report it. In the UK, fraud can be reported to Action Fraud at actionfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040. It is also worth notifying the company whose name has been misused. The Society of Authors and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society both offer guidance to members, and Writer Beware maintains a public record of recurring scams.

Talk to someone. These messages are designed to be persuasive and to make you feel that discretion is required. It isn’t. If you are unsure about an approach, ask a fellow writer, your agent, your publisher or your society before you respond.

Salt authors should send anything of this kind to us rather than engaging with it. We would rather look at fifty harmless emails than have one writer lose money or rights to a fraud.