Guardian podcast examines rise of fake film deals and agent scams
The Audio Long Read, based on reporting in The Dial, looks at who targets aspiring authors with bogus book deal offers.
The Guardian's Audio Long Read podcast this week covers "The Lucrative World of Literary Scams," an investigation originally published in The Dial by Snigdha Poonam and read for the podcast by Maya Saroya. The episode examines what it describes as an explosion in literary scams, including fake film deals and emails impersonating top literary agents.
According to the outlet, writers are being bombarded daily with invitations from fake book groups and unsolicited offers to publicise their work, with aspiring authors described as a soft touch for the scamming industry.
This one is worth your twenty minutes, not because it names a number you need to write down, but because it names the pattern: fake book groups, fake publicity offers, fake emails dressed up as top agents, all aimed at writers hungry enough to say yes fast. Scammers go where hope is highest, and querying authors are exactly that. Listen to it the way you'd listen to a neighbor's warning, not for drama, for the shape of the trick.
From the Coral Wire edition of Sat, Nov 14 2026 · Coral Index 69/100 (Tailwinds building)