SAGE making videos: Real or Fake email?

[spunky]

hello. today i received this email (supposedly from SAGE publishing) about an article i submitted and got published during the summer. i dunno what to make of it... it sounds fishy to me so i wanna see if other people have received something similar (i'll remove some parts to conceal personal info/stuff):

 

the part that makes me think this is a fake is that they call my article a "highly read" one. the fact of the matter is that it's a somewhat technical article and i would only expect maybe... i dunno, 1 or 2 people to care about it? plus i think fake journals tend to use those loaded terms to catch the attention of unsuspecting new authors.

 

has anyone else got an email like this?

 

We’re writing to you now as representatives of Video Editorial and with the consent of the Journals publishing team at SAGE Publications.

SAGE is on the verge of launching subject Video Collections for the worldwide library market in support of higher education and research. Commercial launch for the first phase of these Collections will be in April 2015, and these Video products will be made available via SAGE’s already established SAGE Knowledge product. 

One major stream of content for each Video Collection are videos summarizing highly-read published journal articles, which will be incredibly useful research cases for students in your field. 

Given your expertise in this field, we’re writing to enquire if you would like to produce a video for our Media & Communication Video Collection.  We notice that you were the lead author of a highly-read article entitled A Cautionary Note on the Use of the Vale and Maurelli Method to Generate Multivariate, Nonnormal Data for Simulation Purposes published in Educational and Psychological Measurement. Might you be interested in creating a brief, 5-10-minute video summarizing some of the key aspects of this article for students and researchers?  


We’re looking to have supplied video to SAGE by XXX at the latest, so we’d be very grateful if you would confirm your interest as soon as possible. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions! 

Thank you so much in advance for your involvement; we look forward to hearing from you and hope that this email precipitates interest in SAGE Video!  

Yours sincerely,

Michael Carmichael & Rachael LeBlond

Video Editorial Department
SAGE Publications Inc.

[TakeruK]

I agree with you that this email sounds very fishy and in fact looks a lot like a ton of other predatory emails sent by fake journals in order to trick academics into paying them money to publish an article in a "fake" journal. They basically will send an email to anyone they can find online with an email address and paper title.

 

However, this email does seem a little different in that they are not asking you to submit to their journal. From this email only, it doesn't seem like they can gain anything out of you, however, a lot of scams do start this way and then begin asking for more. If you are genuinely interested in their proposal, I'd say it won't really hurt to ask for more information and then just cut off contact once they ask for money or something else fishy.

 

That said, even if this is a legit request, you also want to consider whether this is actually a good use of your time! But that's up to you

[AAdAAm]

It could be legit. Googling around I found this:

 

www.sagepub.com/video

 

which takes you to a video that more or less explains what's on the email you got. And it's on the official SAGE website.

 

It's weird to say but maybe you should be patting yourself on the back for writing an article that people actually liked? 

[lewin]

the part that makes me think this is a fake is that they call my article a "highly read" one. the fact of the matter is that it's a somewhat technical article and i would only expect maybe... i dunno, 1 or 2 people to care about it? plus i think fake journals tend to use those loaded terms to catch the attention of unsuspecting new authors.

 

I gave you a +1 for the frank introspection about the popular appeal of your own work

[spunky]

I gave you a +1 for the frank introspection about the popular appeal of your own work

 

aw... thanks! i'm all about keepin' it real here!

 

speaking of  "keepin' it real"... the evidence is starting to point towards the fact the email *might* be legit. i'm on my way to become  an online sensation! i'll be like...like... like the Alex from Target of Psychometrics!

[spunky]

That said, even if this is a legit request, you also want to consider whether this is actually a good use of your time! But that's up to you

 

wait... so the LOLcatz videos i watch at 2am instead of my dissertation are not a good use of my time!? D:

[EliaEmmers]

Just wanted to let you know that a colleague of mine (from a different area though) also got an invitation for a video. He emailed the people from SAGE and they said that they're contacting authors based on the amount of downloads their articles have had and they're using that as a proxy for 'people are reading this, so they must be interested'.

 

So... yeah. I guess you're more popular than you think?