O Nichols, senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown, received a disturbing call from a self-published children’s book author. The writer said she’d been contacted by someone named William Choby, who claimed to be an editor at Hachette, which is Little, Brown’s parent company. Choby said her agent had given him a digital copy of her book and that he wanted to publish it with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. But to do so, Choby told the author, she would need to pay steep fees for removing the book from the self-publishing platform and licensing it. Although the author didn’t have an agent, which should have been the first red flag, she paid him nearly $15,000. When Choby stopped returning her calls, the author became desperate. She flew from her home in California to New York City, appeared
