Simon & Schuster Impersonation Scam Alert

Editing so many books brings me into close proximity to so many interesting patterns. There seems to be a recognizable type of person. Certain they are correct, but who regularly misquotes books and authors. I see this personality type repeatedly in executives and entrepreneurs but I see it most often in spaces where people benefit from "authority laundering." They need you to believe they're special in order for the grift to work. Bryna Haynes calls them "internet famous sociopaths." An apt, if brutal, neologism for people lying to you to steal your money, your time, and—if you let them—the good life you otherwise would have lived. I was surprised that this personality type eventually finds success. Snake oil salesmen usually get caught and run out of town. But I forgot that most people don't read. So most people don't know that the quotes these grifters cite to make themselves sound intelligent are just evidence they never read the books they want you to believe made them smart in the first place. Mark Twain never said: "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." Churchill never said: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Thoreau never said: "Oh God, to reach the point of death only to find that you have never lived at all." Almost every time you come across these quotes on the internet you are in the presence of either a grifter or a victim. The grifters follow a predictable pattern: 1. Steal authority by misattributing a quote.  2. Immediately use this authority they've stolen to coerce their victim into some action that usually costs the victim money, attention, or sets them down the path to a lifestyle that makes them miserable. I see these quotes a lot in published books that are only a more socially acceptable variant of a pig-butchering scam. Books that only exist to pull the reader deeper into the grifter's marketing funnel and shunt them to places where the reader can be further monetized. Luckily without extensive marketing these books usually don't do well. Almost as if these quotes are evidence of diminished intelligence or poor writing and the audience can smell it. How those books' editors allowed these quotes to pass manuscript review I will never understand. Part of an editor's job is to test your claims, to ensure you haven't plagiarized, to ensure your attributions are correct, and that you are accurately citing reliable data. To ensure you don't embarrass yourself by misquoting someone. It saddens me to see so many people calling themselves editors without doing what editors are supposed to do. --- https://lnkd.in/eA7xW--B https://lnkd.in/eJ_BUGme #publishing #editing

Scam alert: Last week, I was approached, by email, from someone who claimed to be an editor at a major publishing house – they used an actual, searchable name. She said she wanted to publish one of my books and referred me to a literary agent. We went back and forth a few times. There were some questionable things, but they always had an explanation. What finally exposed it as a scam was when they tried to get me to pay for someone to write a query. When I questioned it, I never heard from them again. Beware. Scams can come from all directions these days.

No one cares about your posts because you’re taking too long to get to the point. Sorry, but someone had to say it. You can be the smartest person on the planet with the most expertise. And yet no one will care enough to read if you don’t tell them from the jump why you deserve 5 seconds of their time. 1. Write out that post however you want. 2. Don’t think about the hook at all. 3. When you finish writing, choose the line that shows the “AH HAA!”. 4. Make that your hook. You’re welcome. What was your last hook? Auditing time!

THE WRITTEN NOTE: Full disclosure: my handwriting is garbage. I used to be pretty good at cursive and very nice all caps writing. A crazy accident at home 15 years ago really messed up my right hand, left me with all sorts of nerve and tendon damage, and left me needing to relearn how to write. So my writing is bad. It just is. But maybe THAT is why the written word is so powerful to me. Emails come and go. Texts disappear. But when you send a note to someone or a card, for that one moment, that one single moment, those words are there in print forever. I try to send emails to people frequently when I admire the work they did or think they went above and beyond. Once in a while, I grab a pen and I begin to write, and the words are stuck on the page as soon as they’re written. They’re truth. They’re permanent. There’s no turning back. A few years ago, in a previous newsroom, we reached out to actor Martin Sheen and asked him to take part in a special anniversary celebration at our station. He replied and asked us to send him a handwritten note with the invite and the info. And so we DID. And he came. Martin Sheen replied to that handwritten note and showed up. I’ve often kept people’s handwritten notes to me over the years. At that one moment, they thought so much of me, to write something for me. How AMAZING is that. So as we sojourn on into the cyber future, a nod to the much simpler past. When my Nana Ruth would send us postcards from Florida, she’d always sign them, “Lovingly Nana”. I’ll remember that FOREVER. For me I say to you, With deepest gratitude, Pete KTLA #NexstarNation

A lot of the work I do looks like writing. But most of it is actually figuring out what not to say. What matters. What doesn’t. What the reader actually needs vs what we want to include. Because in IP and legal, it’s easy to say everything. It’s harder to say the right things. #ContentStrategy

I get called a fraud regularly for being a ghostwriter. And I think this misses the point of what ghostwriting actually is. It's not that the founder didn't think it. It's not that the ideas aren't theirs. Every speech a politician has ever given was written by someone else. Every book a CEO has published had an editor who rewrote half of it. Every TED talk you've ever watched was rehearsed with a coach who shaped every word. And nobody calls that fraud. The mere existence of a founder behind the words changes their meaning entirely. When I write for someone, I spend my time inside their brain. Their stories. Their opinions. Their specific way of seeing their industry. What comes out is theirs. I just found the right words for it. The people who call ghostwriting fake are the same people who think authenticity means typing it yourself at midnight. It doesn't. Authenticity means the thought is real. The voice is real. The experience behind it is real. I've never once written something a founder didn't believe. That's the whole job.

Cold-pitching a movie star got me a handwritten letter. Today it would just look like a scam. In 2011, I emailed Geoffrey Rush out of the blue. No introduction, no mutual contact; just me, telling him his life would make a great book—and that I was obviously the right person to write it with him. At the time I was a rising ghostwriter, but I was by no means well-known. Geoffrey replied in a handwritten letter. (It’s one of my prized possessions.) Charming, gracious, and a polite no. I think about that exchange every time I see another warning about publishing scams—which are coming up more often, because the problem has become so bad that mainstream media is picking it up too. Here's what makes me a little sad: what I did in 2011 and what scammers do today look identical on the surface. Unsolicited contact ✓ Flattery about your story ✓ "I'm the perfect person to help you" ✓ The difference was intent, but intent isn't visible in an inbox. So now the advice—sensible, necessary advice—is this: if someone cold-contacts you about publishing, marketing, or promoting your book, assume it's a scam. Not because everyone is out to get you, but because enough people are. When you're ready, you'll find the right collaborator through research, referrals, and reputation. They won't find you first. Geoffrey Rush probably didn't think twice about my email in 2011. I doubt he'd even open it today. Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Most attorneys don’t have a content problem. They have a clarity problem. I see lawyers posting every week. I see effort. I see consistency. But I don’t see clients coming in. Because the content feels complicated. Because it sounds like it was written for other lawyers. Because it’s trying too hard to sound smart. And that’s the problem. Clients are not looking for the smartest explanation. They are looking for the clearest one. They want to feel understood fast. They want to know you get their situation. Not your legal theory. If your content feels like a lecture, they scroll. If it feels simple and human, they stay. That’s the difference. Say less. Simplify more. Speak like your client. Not your colleagues. That’s how content starts converting. If your content isn’t bringing clients, comment “AUDIT” and I’ll show you what’s missing.

Well… that’s certainly one way to discourage theft. One wrong word turns prosecuted into prostituted, and suddenly a serious warning becomes something wildly inappropriate. Same structure. Completely different meaning. In public, this is just funny. People laugh, take a photo, and move on. But in legal transcripts, word choice is everything. One incorrect term can misrepresent intent, distort facts, and damage credibility. Court reporters know this pressure firsthand. You are capturing precise language in real time, knowing that every word has to be right the first time. And no, spellcheck cannot save you here. Both words are real. Software sees no problem. That is why professional transcript proofreading matters. It is the final safeguard for accuracy, clarity, and professional reputation. 👉❓ Court reporters: Have you ever caught a wrong-word error that completely changed the meaning? 👉❓ Readers: Know a CR who protects precision every day? Tag them and show some appreciation. #CourtReporter #Proofreader #SpellcheckCannotSaveYou #LegalTranscripts #AccuracyMatters #TranscriptProofreading #CourtReportingLife #AttentionToDetail