My latest book, published two years ago to decidedly modest public response, has suddenly attracted attention from three different editors at two publishing houses. Here are the real, genuine email messages I recently received from three apparently real and genuine people, along with my replies. Is this a scam or the real thing? Or a manifestation of Artificial Intelligence? Read on.
July 31, 2026
Hello Dan Rottenberg,
I hope you’re having a great week.
My name is Jason Katzman, and I am a Senior Editor at Skyhorse Publishing. I recently spent some time reviewing your book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League 1950-55, and I wanted to reach out to share my thoughts.
I was particularly impressed by the depth and authenticity of your historical narrative. Your ability to bring together firsthand accounts and personal reflections offers readers a vivid and compelling look into a pivotal moment in collegiate sports history. What stood out most was how effectively you captured both the institutional transformation of the University of Pennsylvania and the human impact of that transition, especially the experiences of players, coaches, and supporters navigating uncertainty and change.
The balance you’ve achieved between sports history and broader academic and cultural evolution makes the work both informative and emotionally engaging. It provides valuable insight not only for football enthusiasts but also for readers interested in the intersection of athletics, education, and institutional identity.
I would be very interested to learn more about your current and forthcoming projects, as well as whether you are represented by a literary agent. If you do have representation, I would be pleased to continue any discussion through your agent. If not, I would be happy to outline how the process typically works, should there be interest in taking the conversation further.
Subject to reviewing additional material, there may be scope for a broader discussion regarding a potential fit within Skyhorse Publishing’s sports history and narrative nonfiction program.
If this is of interest, I would be delighted to hear from you.
Jason Katzman
Senior Editor & Managing Editor
Editorial Department
skyhorsepublishing
jkatzman.skyhorsepublishing@gmail.com
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 307 5th Avenue, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10016
August 3, 2026
Hi Jason Katzman,
Thanks for your kind words about The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League 1950–55. It sounds to me like you’ve actually read it!
I’m a journalist, editor, and the author of 13 published books, summarized at
https://danrottenberg.com/wp/books.
My current project is a book about the 25-year struggle to build Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The research is now in its second year and will probably require at least another year to finish. I have a no-strings advance, and a research assistant, but haven’t yet submitted a proposal to any publisher.
My agent retired at the end of last year, due to Alzheimer’s. So I’m now on my own.
I have two other nonfiction books on the back burner: a memoir about growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the post-World War II years, and an exploration of a famous 13th-Century conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and a prominent German rabbi who happens to be my ancestor. Most of my projects take years or even decades to complete. One of them (Death of a Gunfighter, 2008), took 57 years.
If I haven’t scared you off, you can learn more about me from my personal website: www.danrottenberg.com.
Thanks for your interest.
Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
August 3, 2026
Dear Dan Rottenberg,
I hope you’re having a great week. My name is Anna Roberto, and I work in editorial at a publishing house. I recently spent some time with The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League 1950–55, and I was impressed by the way it combines institutional history with deeply personal testimony. The oral-history format gives remarkable immediacy to a pivotal moment in collegiate athletics and higher education, making the broader historical transformation feel vividly human.
I would be very interested to learn more about your current and forthcoming projects, as well as whether you are represented by a literary agent. If you do have representation, I would be pleased to continue any discussion through your agent. If not, I would be happy to outline how the process typically works should there be interest in taking the conversation further.
Subject to reviewing additional material, there may be scope for a broader discussion regarding potential fit within a publisher’s history, sports history, and narrative nonfiction publishing programs.
If this is of interest, I would be delighted to hear from you.
Warm regards,
Anna Roberto
Executive Editor
Publishing Editor | Macmillan
https://us.macmillan.com
Equitable Life Building,
120 Broadway, New York NY 10271, USA
My reply to Anna
Dear Anna,
Thanks so much for your warm regards and your kind words about my latest book, The Price We Paid. But I must confess to mystification on one score: The wording of your letter is almost identical to an email message I received three days ago from Jason Katzman at Skyhorse Publishing. Since both of you provided the addresses of your respective publishing houses and even photos of yourselves, I assumed that you are real people.
So, what’s going on? Why is an editor at MacMillan copying messages from Skyhorse? And how did you see Katzman’s letter in the first place?
Thanks for any light you can shine on this mystery. Come to think of it, it might make a good book!
Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
August 5, 2026
Hello Dan,
I hope you’re having a great week.
My name is Jesse McHugh, and I am a Senior Editor at Skyhorse Publishing.
I recently spent some time reviewing your book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League 1950–55, and I was impressed by its thoughtful, well-researched, and compelling exploration of a pivotal moment in collegiate athletics and higher education. What particularly stood out to me was your ability to weave together firsthand accounts into a vivid oral history that captures not only the transformation of the University of Pennsylvania’s football program but also the human experiences behind one of the most consequential institutional decisions in American college sports.
Rather than simply recounting historical events, you bring to life the voices of the players, coaches, administrators, and supporters who experienced this remarkable transition firsthand. The balance between sports history, institutional change, and personal narrative creates a compelling account that will resonate with readers interested in football, higher education, and American history alike.
I would be very interested to learn more about your current and forthcoming projects.
I would be happy to outline how the process typically works, should there be interest in taking the conversation further. Subject to reviewing additional material, there may be scope for a broader discussion regarding a potential fit within Skyhorse Publishing’s sports history, college athletics, and narrative nonfiction publishing program.
If this is of interest, I would be delighted to hear from you.
Jesse McHugh
Senior Editor
Editorial Department | Skyhorse Publishing
mcjesse.skyhorsepublishing@gmail.com
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com
307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018
Dear Jesse,
I was having a great week until I received your message. Now it’s a confusing week.
You see, the letter you sent me is the same letter I received last week from Jason Katzman in your own Skyhorse Publishing house, not to mention from Anna Roberto at Macmillan. The only substantial difference is your photo. Don’t you and Jason talk to each other? And if you do, why send me the identical letter? And how did Anna at Macmillan get into this act? I thought Skyhorse and Macmillan hated each other worse than Trump hates immigrants. And why are you expending so much energy on me?
Granted, I’ve always thought of myself as the second coming of Ernest Hemingway. But nobody else does, except maybe my wife and daughters. So, what the heck is going on? Are you all creatures of Artificial Intelligence? Even your photos?
Warm (albeit artificial) regards,
Dan Rottenberg
A reply from Anna Roberto
August 14, 2026
Dear Dan,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply, and for raising the question so directly.
I completely understand why the similarity between the two messages would have caught your attention. I can assure you that I did not have access to the correspondence you received from Skyhorse, and it would not be possible for me to have seen a private email exchange between you and another publisher.
What may have made the messages feel familiar is that editors across the publishing industry often use a similar structure when reaching out to authors whose work has attracted their interest: a brief introduction, a comment on the book itself, a question about representation, and an invitation to discuss additional material. If I had been responding to or drawing from another publisher’s correspondence, the content and observations would have been noticeably different.
In that sense, the resemblance is likely a reflection of the fact that both messages were expressing a similar publishing opportunity and inviting a conversation about your work, rather than one being copied from the other.
I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to clarify, and I’m grateful for your good humor about the situation. If you’re open to it, I’d still be very interested in hearing about any current or forthcoming projects you may be developing.
Warm regards,
Anna Roberto
Publishing editor/ Macmillan
…And my reply
Dear Anna,
Of the three editors who wrote to me in the past month, you are the only one who replied, thus demonstrating to my impressionable mind that you are not a robot (I think). So please forgive me for ever doubting that you are flesh and blood.
When I first received these messages, I assumed this was some sort of scam, like one earlier this year, which flattered authors into providing “expenses” for book club discussions of their works, click here. My purpose in responding this time around was to use this correspondence in my weekly Substack column, “Contrarian’s Notebook,” which circulates to about 1,300 readers. Although anyone can subscribe to it, I suspect most of my readers are colleagues, friends, relatives, or fans of my various past projects. I’m happy to add you to my subscriber list. The column is posted each Monday at 4 p.m. If you check it out this Monday the 17th, you will find this correspondence there.
In any case, I think you have passed my test. So I am sending you the text of the original message that I sent to Jason Katzman. If you really want to pursue our relationship, I’m game if you are. Oh, and have a nice week.
Warm (and not the least bit robotic) regards,
Dan Rottenberg
August 15, 2026
Dear Dan,
Thank you for your thoughtful and generous reply. I appreciated both your sense of humor and the care you took in explaining why the similarity between the original messages gave you pause. I’m glad I was able to provide some reassurance that there is a real person on the other end of the correspondence, and I look forward to reading Monday’s Contrarian’s Notebook.
Thank you as well for sharing the message you originally sent and for outlining the range of projects you have been developing. It was helpful to learn more about your background and your long-form approach to nonfiction writing.
You mentioned that your previous literary agent retired at the end of last year. May I ask whether you have since secured new representation, or whether you are currently unrepresented? Knowing your current representation status would help determine the most appropriate way to continue the conversation.
If you are not currently represented, I would be interested in taking an editorial look at your manuscript or proposal materials before considering any potential next steps. If you have a PDF of your current manuscript, proposal, or a substantial sample of the work in progress, I would be grateful if you would send it along for an editorial review.
Thank you again for your openness and for continuing the conversation. I look forward to hearing from you.
Warm regards,
Anna Roberto
August 15, 2026
To be continued…..?
Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com
From reader Ed Flax:
Before continuing to communicate with “Anna Roberto,” it might be worth following the advice of Macmillan Publishers on their website and reaching out to compliance@macmillan.com to verify that such a person exists and actually is an editor there.
From reader Robert Zaller:
Your e-mail mystery resembles one of my own. Over the past year, I’ve received solicitations from ‘agents’ who offer to promote long-ago books of mine which they describe as unjustly-neglected masterpieces, offering their services to bring them to the attention of a readership panting to hear about them. My assumption is that they are a come-on if not simply a scam (what else does the internet exist for?). The tone of them resembles the letters sent to you, with the difference that none of their authors claims to represent a publisher, and as I gather Skyhorse Press is an actual entity if a dubious one.
Personally, I don’t respond to correspondence from people I don’t know unless it comes through what remains of the U.S. mail. Then I know someone has at least invested seventy-eight cents in baiting the hook for me. If I think a book of mine has sat on its shelf alone for too long, I read a little of it myself to keep it company.