Craig Silverman, the author of many words on media accuracy, said people generally believe books are more reliable than magazines or newspapers. “A lot of readers have the perception that when something arrives as a book, it’s gone through a more rigorous fact-checking process than a magazine or a newspaper or a website, and that’s simply not that case,” he said.

Why don’t publishing houses spend time and money making sure they aren’t publishing the next fabricated memoir? Kate Newman suggests they don’t pay enough in repercussions when an author slips them a phony victim story.

“Maybe there should be a warning, like on a pack of cigarettes,” said another author. “‘This book has not been fact-checked at all.’ Because when I realized that basically everything I had read until that point had not been verified, I felt a little bit lied to.”

Of course, I should warn you that I didn’t verify any facts stated in Newman’s article. No, I did verify one, but that’s it. Who knows if they rest is true?