Is there a scam going around?

sensibleshroom 2021-08-14 02:06:48 UTC #1

I recently was reached out to by an account called Editor Works, asking if they could recommend my very, very low traffic novel to some editors who would give me an actual offer if they liked my story enough. Obviously, brain immediately went "scam", but I figured I could mess around a little before cutting them loose because I am, admittedly, a bad person. So I asked if they could tell me what platform they were talking about, and they actually said webnovel.com, which was shocking for a variety of reasons, chief of which is that my series is NOT something that would do well on webnovel. I can't think of a single series off of there with an explicitly nonbinary trans lead. So I thought I would do some digging and see if there were webnovel scams going around that were actually current and not deleted reddit posts from over a year ago, but I didn't find any? I found a blog post by Writer Beware (Victoria Strauss) from 2020 mentioning they have predatory licensing agreements, but there's nothing current. Does anyone know anything about this? Has this happened to anyone else?

Shazic 2021-08-14 04:00:21 UTC #2

yeah they said they wanted my novel too lol
and my novel has smut in the very first chapter so yeah i think they don't know ow what there doing lol a lot of the times

sensibleshroom 2021-08-14 04:03:26 UTC #3

Yeah that's what I thought. I almost wanted to ask them what their favorite part was just to see what'd happen. I don't think it's a scam bc according to multiple forums they do this a lot, but I don't think they're actually reading the stories themselves. There's nooooo way a story like mine would do well on webnovel.

Freemints30 2021-08-14 06:58:47 UTC #4

Once your novel is on webnovel you can't delete it. They are know for very preditory licensees BS for poor pay. And yes they contacted me with the exact same thing through instagram.

They are not a scam by the literal definition but they are a very scummy company that should be avoided.

Also bots tend to steal novels on that site and post them on other pirating sites after the reach 50+ chapters.

sensibleshroom 2021-08-15 02:59:33 UTC #5

I've heard some horror stories about authors turning down offers and immediately having their work stolen and profited off of if they didn't already post to webnovel. I'm kind of worried now.