Every day, another book marketing scammer hits our inbox. Lately, it’s two a day. The basic pitch is almost always the same. It goes like this:
1. We came across our book (Endemic, This Plague of Days, Vengeance Is Hers) and it is…
2. Insert a long, flattering, and flowery description of the book here. There’s enough detail, you’d almost think they read my work. What they’ve actually done is scrape social media and book reviews for their pitch.
3. The pitch is to market my work to their secret group of 2,000 readers or to their book club. Another variation is to act as a book marketing coach with all strategies conveniently provided by ChatGPT. (Sometimes they pretend to be a famous author who loves your books and is eager to pass on the name of their book promoter to help you out.)
Spot a Scammer
The first thing you may notice is that the grammar and syntax miss the mark. The sender’s first language is not English. That alone is not disqualifying, of course, but it’s not a good sign if they intend to market English books for you. When I turned down a chancer, they asked, “Why? Do you think I am scam?” (SIC)
The less sophisticated emails are more generic, and the template they’re using for mass emails is evident. (e.g. “I just ran across your excellent novel <<title of book>> by <<Author>>.)
For some reason, the name of the book promoter is often two feminine first names. Sarah Sally is excited to read and sell your book for you!
Like any author, I need more reviews of my books. Several times, I’ve been approached by someone whose marketing plan would contravene Amazon’s terms of service. So, they get money, and I lose my account and livelihood? Great! For them.
More Tip offs
The salutation says, “Hi Author Robert!”
They have no website and no or very low presence on social media.
Their email is a generic Gmail address. (e.g. bestbookmarketing.au.bookbar.uk@gmail….)
They impersonate a real book marketer from a reputable company, but when you go to the real person, the contact info doesn’t match. When that happens, I let the impersonated person know.
HOT TIP #1: Always research by going to the source directly. Do not click a link within an email.)
In the past couple of days, I’ve received offers for deals on their book promotion for “the festive season.” It’s already December 3. A little late to pull together a helpful book marketing campaign for Christmas, isn’t it?
Some scammers are persistent to the point of aggression, sometimes even harassment. When I ignored one particularly relentless scammer, I suddenly got a one-star rating on my latest book. Can I be sure it was the suitor I rejected? No, but the timing was suspicious, and it hurt because the book has, as yet, so few reviews. After that, instead of ignoring scammers, I opted to reply with a polite but firm, “No, thank you.”
It’s exceedingly rare for authors to get approached for something they didn’t sign up for. Real book promoters simply work with authors who come to them, not the other way around. That stipulated, I have had a few entreaties from real agents, publishers, and book promoters. When that happens, I have to look at them really hard before I can take them seriously. That’s part of the problem.
The Danger
A new one this morning came very close to getting me. The pitch was good, but the sourcing didn’t pass. Anybody (including authors) can plug a prompt into ChatGPT and get the same book marketing advice as the scammers do. These people aren’t adding real value. The trouble authors face is not having the budget to overcome the noise. Getting a signal through to actual readers and reviewers is difficult.
Beyond wastes of time and money and the damage to the environment, these AI scam pitches harbor a deeper danger. They poison our media environment. AI hallucinations and deep fake videos erode trust. With the newest gizmo, Nano Banana, you can’t trust anything you see. I loved images from the James Webb telescope, but stopped sharing them because I couldn’t tell what was real, what was enhanced, and what was fake.
If an honest-to-goodness pitch comes along, it’s become an act of self-defense to treat all information with a skepticism that devolves to easy cynicism. If there’s clear video evidence of a politician doing something heinous, they’ll dismiss it with “It’s just AI!”
Can’t write a book on your own? Flood the zone with prompts to an AI that yields trite, soulless regurgitation.
When you use your media literacy and critical thinking skills, the scammer replies, “Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lyin’ eyes!”
Writing for a living is hard. Waving away the gnats would be a minor strain were it not for their ubiquity.
HOT TIP #2: When in doubt of a sketchy email, check it out. Writer Beware has a searchable database to check out the names and reputations.
