When Predators Exploit Freelance Writers
The scamming of freelance writers is disturbingly common. But the situation is not hopeless.
A few weeks ago, I found out that I was the victim of one of the scams that so frequently targets freelance writers. At the start of November, I solicited a recruiting agent from an independent agency. The agent was hiring ghostwriters for a publisher that was working to increase their output quickly. The first and only other time I worked as a ghostwriter, I wrote 60,000 words for a theology book that I didn’t personally agree with, only to have the author ghost me when the time came for payments. So I was admittedly wary of the gig.
But this agent promoted a monthly salary of $500 for a quota of 10,000 words, an offer that was too good to blow off, so I decided to pursue it. The publishing company that the agent claimed to represent was legitimate, and the amount of content they churned out on a monthly basis suggested they could be relying on ghostwriters. I proceeded to spend a week convincing the agent I was a good fit for this specific publisher, then another week ironing out the details of the contract.
About a month after I first made contact with this agent, I had a video conference to finalize my contract and verify my identity. I knew something was wrong when…
