Author Solicitation Fraud Alert

Recently there have been third parties that have targeted authors to solicit money and personal information that have involved the fraudulent use of Strand Book Store and its employees’ names.

Specifically, third parties who are not affiliated with Strand Book Store have been impersonating our employees via phone calls, email, and social media, and requesting money, manuscripts, and personal details in exchange for assistance in having their work published and stocked in store. They even create fraudulent documents using our logo. Please do not trust these types of documents, especially if they are sent to you in the form of screenshots. Communications like these are fraudulent.

Strand Book Store is not a publisher—we neither print nor publish books. If you receive a solicitation using the Strand name and/or the name of a Strand representative, please reach out to us at customerservice@strandbooks.com

Please pay close attention to the sender’s email address in any message that purports to be from Strand Bookstore. Scammers often use misspellings or other variations of our domain name and email address in their solicitations. Please be aware that the following are not legitimate Strand domains:

• thestrandbooks.org
• thestrandbookstores.com
• thestrandbookstore.net
• strandbookstore.info
• strandbookstores.com
• strandbooks.us

This list is not exhaustive. Strand staff will only email from the Strand domain: strandbooks.com

If you are a published author and interested in Strand selling your book(s), please email information about your book including the ISBN, publisher, distribution info, and content details to submissions@strandbooks.com. Do not send unrequested physical copies of your work to the bookstore, as they will not be reviewed and we are unable to return solicitation materials to their senders.

Tips

• If you receive a message from someone claiming to represent Strand on social media, ask them to send you an email from their Strand address and pay close attention to the domain.
  Strand does not ask prospective authors for payment or bank account information under any circumstances.
• If you are unsure of the identity of the sender of a communication, do not click on any links.
• If you have any concerns about the legitimacy of an email appearing to be from a Strand employee or claiming a connection to Strand, please email customerservice@strandbooks.com.
• Seek legal advice before signing any contracts.
• If you are the victim of a scam, we encourage you to contact law enforcement immediately.

U.S. Resources

• Writer Beware: https://writerbeware.blog/2023/02/17/scam-alert-scammers-impersonating-the-strand-bookstore/
• The Authors Guild: https://authorsguild.org/resource/reported-publishing-scam-alerts/
• Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbb.org
• FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): https://www.ic3.gov
• Federal Trade Commission: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov
• State Attorneys General: https://www.usa.gov/state-attorney-general