News Story

We're aware of scam emails inviting authors to our August Festival, from email addresses which are not associated with the Book Festival. These emails are being sent from individuals who are using both the names of current Book Festival employees, and other names of individuals not associated with the Festival. These emails are sophisticated, and the scammers have responded to replies from those who they've targeted, to seem more authentic. These conversations may end in a request for money from an author in exchange for an appearance at the Festival.

If you receive an email from the Book Festival, here's what you need to know:

Official communications, including invitations, will only ever be issued from an @edbookfest.co.uk email address. We will never issue invitations from a @gmail.com address, or email address from any other email provider.
We do not charge authors for appearing at the Festival.
We will never ask authors for their card or bank details, or ask you to make a purchase online.

If you want to check whether a Book Festival email you've received is genuine, or you believe you've received a scam email, please forward the message to admin@edbookfest.co.uk. If you think you've received a scam email, we recommend not engaging with the sender any further.

The Society of Authors in the UK have published a useful update on similar scams experienced by other writers, with some steps you can take to help protect yourself against any future targeting, which you can click here to read.

No Book Festival data has been externally accessed or compromised, and we believe that the scammers are using publicly available contact information. We know receiving these scam messages can be distressing and disappointing, and we're working to report them to the relevant organisations.