Author Beware - Virtual Book Fair Scam

Well, the Interwebs have reminded me once again of the predators lurking in the shadows of even the friendliest places. The good news is that I already needed to deactivate my check card and start using a newer one, so at least there's that.

I figured I would post a beware for other authors out there since this opportunity is popping up literally everywhere, and will probably start again in a couple of months.  


Indie authors like moi are literally starving for exposure, with bleeding hearts beating to reach and inspire all the doe-eyed children of the world. Think of the children!

A member of a Facebook group I'm in used my bleeding heart (and my frustration with book promotion) against me. This person's idea sounded great, and the pitch looked a bit (okay, a lot) like this:

Showcase your books at our January Virtual Book Fair!!! Elementary students will attend the morning session and part of the evening. College students will attend the evening and night session. Registration fee: $25.00. You will receive a webcam and 100 promotional flyers through the mail. 

I won't bore you with all of the details, but there were details.  And grand promises of connecting with ALLLLLL the doe-eyed children and their sweet little sponge-like brains.  If we registered for the event by a certain date, our early registration fee was only $25.  A bargain, since the registration fee doubled after that.

Once we registered, we received a questionnaire to set up our profile page.  I'm not sure about the other authors, but I certainly wrote the most epic answers ever and then whisked that baby back in record time (okay, not record time. But the organizer said, "Sure, send it in," when I asked her if I was too late to participate. Hahaha.  Oh, so ironic!).   Then we waited with butterflies in our stomachs for the arrival of the doe-eyed children.  

Except now it's January 9th and there are no doe-eyed children and no profile pages, webcams, or flyers.  The organizer has abandoned our Facebook group and people have begun disputing credit card charges.  

In other words, good times.

The moral of this story, doe-eyed authors, is this:

Research any opportunity requiring the forking over of dollar bills or precious contact info.

Research would have revealed this as a scam, at worst, or a very unorganized endeavor, at best. And not because there was evidence of such on the Googlebox.  On the contrary, there was nothing where there should have been something (a prior Virtual Book Fair). 

But I'm here to provide one piece of evidence where before there before there was none.  If you learn nothing else from me--and I highly doubt you will--learn this:  

Look before you leap.

*I've taken special care not share names and links above, even though I lost money and smarts.  Karma, friend.