Timeline for How can I tell if an unsolicited offer to publish a book with Springer is legit?

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Sep 24, 2015 at 19:24	vote	accept	lindelof
Sep 20, 2015 at 23:50	comment	added	Anonymous Mathematician		@DanRomik: Yes, I think editors are aiming for two scenarios. One is someone who already intends to write a book but doesn't yet have a publisher in mind. The hope is that preemptively building a relationship now may keep the author from considering other publishers. (This is bad for the author, except in the rare case when the author already knows this is the best possible publisher for the book. It's best to keep your options open until you know what else might work out.) The other scenario is an underconfident author who won't even try writing a book without external encouragement.
Sep 20, 2015 at 23:26	comment	added	Dan Romik		Book editors sometimes send unsolicited e-mails to people ... so this could well be legitimate. I must say I never understood the point of such emails, even the legitimate ones. If you ever have an idea for a book, don't wait for an editor to contact you; sit down and write it. If it's a good book, you will have no trouble at all finding a publisher for it. If it's a bad book, don't write it in the first place. The idea that you should change your entire professional plans for the next few years because a random editor you never met was "impressed" by a paper you wrote seems ludicrous to me.
Sep 20, 2015 at 17:53	history	answered	Anonymous Mathematician	CC BY-SA 3.0