Is this a scam?

[Michael Angelo Go]

Hi, I just recently received another email response from an agency I applied to a month ago and they sent me an email with a sort of odd request. I haven't responded yet, but this is what is contained in the email:

"Hello,

Please send us your price for 10 Books, every Book consists of 16 Spread pages and Cover along with your payment terms and method. Find the attached sample of the illustrations needed (we expect the same quality or even better).

Note: Please send samples of your work.

kindly reply within one week latest

Best wishes
[REDACTED]"

Attached image:

[Kori Jensen]

sounds more like a demand than a request???

[lpetiti]

A good indicator of a scam is usually grammar and punctuation. I feel like a legit company would have said "At the latest" not "one week latest". The chaotic side of me suggests emailing them back to find more info, but my gut says it's a scam.

[NessIllustration]

@Michael-Angelo-Go This sounds more like a publisher than an agency. Not necessarily a scam per say, but it does sound like one of those bottom of the barrel companies that want to put out a constant stream of bad books as fast and as cheap as they possibly can. The fact they ask for your price before anything else, and the fact that they want you to charge for 10 books at once (!) is all red flags indicative of a very lousy company. This reminds me very closely of some company that reached out to me some months ago, in fact it might be the same guy because they asked for 10 books. I said I charge $10k per book and never heard from them again

[lpetiti]

@NessIllustration I love that, that's brillant

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Michael-Angelo-Go I think I received a similar email. Is this from a company claiming to be based in UK? 123 Publishing or something? what I did is refer them to my agent. We didn't hear from them afterwards other than an email that included a suspicious file that might have contained a virus that gmail thankfully prevented us from downloading.

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Michael-Angelo-Go yup, I just checked and it’s the same email. Given my experience, I definitely think they’re scammers preying on new illustrators or asian illustrators. But there is a very small chance that they aren’t and that they’re just a small and very cheap publisher.

[Michael Angelo Go]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Oh yeah, I found them through an ad saying they were looking for a Filipino illustrator (I wasn't sure if this meant Filipino national or just someone of Philippine descent/blood, but whatever). Yeah the email and the examples they showed are just completely suspicious.

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Michael-Angelo-Go i think they're just looking for a cheap illustrator.