“Why is it every time a new thing is invented humans immediately try to use it for porn?”
That’s a memorable quote from an episode of The Good Place, a favorite show the hubs and I are delightedly rewatching—but what struck me as we watched it last night was that the same seems to go for scams. Let there be any kind of new invention or technological advance and sure enough someone will find a way to exploit it to prey on others.
The most recent example of this is a flurry of AI-generated solicitations promising authors some version of wish fulfillment for their careers or offering creative or marketing collaboration with some accomplished, well-known, or best-selling author.
I saw scams like this a lot when I was an actor. Back then it commonly looked like an alleged talent agent or casting director or “producer” love-bombing an actor with praise and promises and offering to sign them as clients and shepherd them to stardom—but first they needed to invest in this pricey photography package and these classes and other services, either offered by them or someone they recommended (at a nice, chunky price tag, and with kickbacks for the “agent”).
How can you recognize and protect yourself against fraudulent, predatory solicitations?
The current version targeting writers is not at all dissimilar. Like a lot of authors I’ve been receiving more and more of these types of solicitations lately, even through backchannels of respected organizations. They’re often written to sound chatty and casual and as human as possible, and pointedly specific about me and my work.
Here’s a recent example of an email I received:
You’ve spent 25+ years guiding New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, coaching writers through their impostor syndrome, rejection spirals, and “why does this chapter hate me” meltdowns. You’ve built FoxPrint Editorial, spoken at endless writer conferences, and even moonlight as Phoebe Fox, author of six novels. Basically, you’ve helped half the literary world survive…
It’s specific enough to seem legit, and starting with compliments is always a way to lower someone’s guard.
And then they negged me:
…yet somehow, The Intuitive Author is still sitting on Amazon with fewer reviews than a mediocre phone charger.
The letter continued, alternating overly effusive praise—complete with emojis—and hyperbolic language with more negging:
Your book is literally a survival manual for authors. You hand writers machetes to slice through the publishing jungle, compasses to navigate rejection, and snacks to fight off the gremlins of comparison. You teach them how to balance craft vs. business, creativity vs. commerce, and existential dread vs. coffee addiction . And yet… when someone stumbles onto your page, what they see first is only 38 reviews. For a book that should basically be required reading at every MFA program and shoved into the hands of every trembling debut author? Nah. That number’s gotta change.
Then came the pitch, with the letter offering me access to “2,000 active readers/reviewers who actually read the books and write thoughtful feedback (yes, real humans)” who “support authors who deserve better visibility and stronger word-of-mouth and I don’t think I need to tell you that you qualify.”
As one final cherry, I was offered access to their Discord space:
where authors like you can lurk, chat with readers directly, or ask why Karen from Wisconsin thinks every book should have a dog . It’s low-pressure, high-fun, and a sneaky way to understand what readers actually want.
No prices were mentioned—just a lot of exhortations to reply to “talk about how many readers you’d like me to unleash on The Intuitive Author to get things rolling.”
Why scams work
When someone wants something so badly, something related to the most personal and deeply held parts of themselves and their creativity, it’s so easy to sell them something: a service, a product, an “opportunity,” or anything else.
In a business as complex and often opaque as many creative industries are, including publishing, it’s even easier. Most people, especially those earlier in their careers, may not be deeply familiar with the inner workings of our business, and it’s easy to convince them that you can provide access to a world they’re dying to break into.
Learn to recognize predatory, fraudulent, and scammy solicitations, arm yourself with knowledge, and fortify yourself against being a ready mark.
Add in feelings of frustration, stress, self-doubt, anxiety, isolation—sadly, often features of a creative life (or really any life)—and when someone finally notices and praises appreciates your work, when they seem to “get” you and what you’re trying to do, it can feel like long-awaited validation.
It’s the playbook every con artist uses, along with cults and radical extremist groups that recruit vulnerable people who long to be recognized and accepted and told they are good enough, no matter what anyone else has told them: We see you. We understand you. We want you. And then comes the sting, or the cash bilk, or the recruitment into violence and terrorism.
Authors can protect themselves by learning to recognize predatory, fraudulent, and scammy solicitations, arming themselves with knowledge, and fortifying themselves against being a ready mark.
How to identify a scam
The first tell in the email I cited above was pretty obvious, and common to most of them: Much of the specific detail about me and my work was clearly scraped from my bio and other material on my website, my book’s Amazon listing, or published reviews.
The jocular, over-the-top language and overly effusive flattery are also typical of LLMs.
The seemingly throwaway crack about the dog was one that gave me pause, though. This is a joke I often make in presentations when talking about misguided prescriptive feedback that’s unhelpful (“What if you gave the character a dog?”)—but I couldn’t remember having written it anywhere.
I looked at the alleged writer’s LinkedIn profile—not through the link in “her” email (PLEASE never hit links in suspicious or unknown emails!), but by searching LinkedIn for the full name, which was given in the email’s footer in a somewhat official-looking signature line, along with a generic gmail address (another “tell”—legit companies and organizations will often have their own domain names).
Certainly there was a LinkedIn profile with the name given in the email, but it showed only two connections, no picture or posts, and very little specific information—though it did offer this illuminating line in the About section: “I am a tenacious work, I never gave up in life, as long as my goal has not been achieved. My life purpose can raise my children with the results of my efforts.” (Obviously substandard English—especially in our business—should be suspect.)
But more than that, I expect solicitations like this to be, if not a scam, then generally predatory—at best opportunistic, indicative of somebody trying hard to sell you something. Reputable, established professionals—especially agents, publishers, editors, and top PR/marketing pros—aren’t going to reach out to you like this. They don’t need to—most are busier than they can handle already.
I’ve seen other predatory approaches that can seem legit on first glance: I often receive emails from “people” asking to pay for placement of guest posts on my blog, for instance. There are also clear tells in these: generic email addresses, substandard English, empty and generic praise. They often offer posts on topics totally unrelated to my field, and ignore the fact that I have never featured guest posts, info that even a little bit of research would have revealed.
I recently received one message via my Authors Guild listing from a “bestselling author” (per his email signature, though it gave no other info than that) who appreciated my work for authors and wondered if we could collaborate. These impersonations can seem convincing because if you look up the name these people do indeed exist—mine was a Nobel prize winner, in fact, who no doubt is hungry for my input on his career. Jane Friedman recently posted about a scam using her name and the false email address “janefriedmansblogs@gmail.”
Carefully examining and thinking through these types of solicitations can help you spot them as scams, even if they sound like the person they purport to be; AI LLMs can easily mimic someone’s style if they’ve eaten enough of their writing, as unfortunately they have, especially with prolific writers like Jane (though this one used flowery praise that’s atypical of her style).
Again major bestselling authors and any other high-profile professionals are highly unlikely to approach people like this. Jane’s example offered a generic, suspicious-looking link (DON’T CLICK LINKS!), even though it included “janefriedman.com” in the long URL, and stated that she wanted to buy the author’s books directly when she returned from traveling out of the country (a strange and suspicious ask).
I’ve received suspicious emails about networking, connecting, working together, marketing, and more—more every day in recent weeks. A good friend reports receiving these types of solicitation via phone calls, and one friend told me about a very human-sounding telephone approach that came complete with the artificial sound of clacking keys in the background, revealed as an AI bot only when she asked it outright whether it was artificial intelligence or human, and it (surprisingly) told her the truth.
If you receive solicitations like this—or anything that feels either questionable or too good to be true—start by checking and reporting it to Writer Beware, where Victoria Strauss researches and exposes predatory actors in our industry. Do an online search for the name, address, or company used in the email or post or DM (adding “scam” can help with results); that’s how I found a link to a post about the troll who was trying to get me to pay for supposedly unlicensed photos I’d used in my blog.
Read more: “Protect Yourself from the Trolls”
If the message comes through an organization, like the one I received through my Authors Guild listing, check with them (AG sent out an email to members the following week warning of the emails).
Talk to other writers. Ask in writers’ forums. Check the archives of respected writers’ sites and organizations like Writer’s Digest, the Authors Guild, Jane Friedman, the SFFWA, Writer Unboxed, etc.
Fortify yourself
Con artists like to prey on the isolated and the ignorant—so make sure you are neither. Do you know who isn’t an easy mark? Those surrounded by a community to help inform, safeguard, and bolster them, so build yourself a writing community and support system.
Read more: “Don’t Build Your Network”
Ask trusted sources who might be able to help. Most of us are happy to offer insight or answer questions to help protect and inform authors. If you receive a solicitation from, for example, “Tiffany Yates Martin” or “FoxPrint Editorial,” go to my website (NOT THROUGH A LINK IN THE EMAIL!) and contact me directly through my online form for the email given on my site and ask if it was me. Or ask me or any other knowledgeable industry professional about your specific case. Show and talk about it with other authors, ask whatever writers’ groups or organizations you belong to, ask your agent or editor, etc.
Educate yourself as much as possible about the industry and how it works so you can more easily recognize fraudulent, misleading, or unlikely emails and other approaches. The organizations and sites I mention above are great places to start, and involving yourself in a writing community is another resource to seek out information and answers and learn the inner workings of the publishing industry.
Read more: “Caveat Scriptor: When Creators Become the Customers”
My Get It Edited Guide is a helpful tool for vetting professionals
If you’re approached, do plenty of due diligence about verifying the sender, the organization they claim to represent, and questioning what they’re offering—and be skeptical of flowery praise and big promises. The bottom line about solicitations and scams is to use your common sense: There are rarely any shortcuts, and if anyone had any kind of proven, infallible formula for success then everyone would be a bestseller.
In any business based on people’s dreams, it’s so easy to tell them what they want to hear, make promises that seem to offer everything they long for, and swindle people into paying for the promise of their most deeply held goals. It’s up to us to educate ourselves, reach out to those we trust, and be our own safeguard and champion.
Talk to me, authors—are you getting an avalanche of these annoying solicitations lately too? Did you recognize them as such right away? If not, how did you finally realize they were scammy—what resources are you using to educate and protect yourself? Have you had other fraudulent or predatory solicitations I haven’t mentioned? Please share—knowledge is power, and power is protection.
34 Comments. Leave new
They are getting more legit-appearing all the time. The emails from bonafide corporations, using (stealing) thier logos, etc.
Dead giveaway on emails – click on the sender’s address. It’s not a corporate email address.
The ones that anger me the most is the ones targeting old people, who are generally not tech-savvy. Grrrrr.
It’s a fire hose! I know it’s a bump and will die down as soon as it loses whatever effectiveness or convincingness it may have had. But yes, I get angry at scams that prey on anyone, certainly those who may not be as savvy about how to avoid them. (That’s one reason I wrote this–I think many authors are aware, but there are always those newer to the business who may be caught in this kind of net.)
Getting them non-stop at this point and they follow up! I mark them as spam and block them which seems to be slowing them down some.
This is such important information to get out to writers who are just starting out.
I just got one that followed up! Usually I spam-block them but forgot with this one and it slithered through. 🙁
It’s an avalanche, and I need a bigger snowplow. The specificity of knowledge about my novels is uncanny and the ingratiating copy a dead giveaway. If only it were that easy. It would be nice to see these tools used for something other than porn or scammy profit.
Right? I know they are–all these tools can be used for good purposes as well as more nefarious ones–but yeah, it’s vexing. Reminds me of the slurry of phone solicitations we all used to get back before the regulation on them (for what that’s been worth–but at least I can cite it when asking them to take me off their call list).
I get at least two or three daily on my forward-facing email (the one listed in my contact form). The fact I’m also now getting them on the private, unlisted email is concerning. Both use Outlook, which already has a great spam filter. I also block and move to spam but they keep coming. It’s a good thing I generally know within the first sentence of its legit or not.
Agreed–the one I got through Authors Guild was alarming, and more convincing than some, but as you say, luckily I’m knowledgeable enough about the business to avoid approaches like that. But I worry about those who may be newer to the business or not as familiar with how it works. Sigh…
I get at least one a day. Some of the time they get the information right. A lot of times, they mention the wrong book or have {name} in the body of their email. The first time, I thought it was a friendly email, offering to be a beta reader, but soon realized it wasn’t even written by a human. I just delete now.
I report them as spam and block them. It’s probably sticking my finger in the dam, but hope springs eternal. 🙂
I receive so many of them now that if they come in with just an email, no website, etc, I delete or block them. The language is pretty repetitive in each email so, although the amount coming in is annoying, they are sometimes easier to spot. Not always. Thanks for this article!
As fast as we figure them out, I imagine bad actors will find new approaches–all we can do is stay aware and educated and cautious.
Thank you for this. There are so many more trademark assistance scams, too! Beware of anything about assistance from the USPTO or TEAS with a dot org email and domain.
Great point, Teri–I got an avalanche of those after I filed for my trademark!
I asked Microsoft Copilot if it was possible in Outlook to block incoming emails based on the sender’s address or by keywords. Copilot said that it was. Rather than me posting that exchange, I suggest asking your favorite AI on how to block selective emails in whatever email service you use. However, I think I’ve tried Copilot’s suggested procedures before– with limited success. I suppose there’s a potential for a conflict of interest when asking one Microsoft product about how to limit another MS product. My apologies if this post further confuses the issue.
Gmail is good about its spam filters, though some get through. I have been reporting them as spam and blocking them and I’m hoping that slows the flow and also “trains” the spam filters to get rid of these before they get into my in-box.
Lucky for us, scams aimed at writers are easy to spot. “You’ve built FoxPrint Editorial, spoken at endless writer conferences, and even moonlight as Phoebe Fox, author of six novels.” That’s where I would’ve stopped reading, because of the obvious grammatical disagreement — that last verb should be “moonlit”, and that’s double whammy, a clunky word that all by itself would have turned me away immediately. Moral of the story — never take writing or publishing (or really, any) advice from people who can’t put together a sentence.
I admit I’ve seen legit solicitations with imperfect grammar–I weigh it by how egregious it is. This example I’d probably let slide–but something like the LinkedIn profile I looked up is glaringly obvious.
Thank you so much for writing about this, Tiffany! I received the first one about six weeks ago. It was so polished, and it flattered me by complimenting specifics about my book. Okay, I admit, I responded nicely, saying I was not interested and the reasons why. The reply was rather quick and somewhat surprising because it really sounded like a sincere person who wrote very well. It addressed each reason I gave and tried again to engage me again. It sent screenshots of (anonymous) authors’ fabulous earnings increases. Obviously phony, and at that point, I tried to find any identity or online presence of the person who signed it. It verified what I already knew–no such person, must be an AI scam.
But my goodness, it is good stuff, and I can see how people would fall for it. My husband and I are very aware of scams and talk about them as they come up in articles or in our inboxes or on our phones. I have gotten another two dozen such solicitous emails since the first, and it is evident they really dug around to find my old moribund books to flatter me and tempt me. I just delete and block. No harm that I am aware of has come from my responding to the first one.
Another thing, Tiffany, which I wonder if you’ve seen happen as well. My Meta FB author page is not active. It’s there, but I rarely post anything new. But over the past two months, hundreds of people have been checking out my author page about every other day. Think how much info they’re hoovering up and then spitting back out at us with the help of AI! And hey, “It” is correct about the impact of your editing book. The best I’ve ever read.
It also infuriates me that being a decent human being (to what you think is another human being) and replying politely is then used to try to plant the hook deeper. Predators exist in every field, seemingly worse in creative ones, where people want the dream (and the validation) so much.
Interesting about your Facebook page–of course I imagine these LLMs are scraping from everywhere. I try to protect myself with privacy settings, but with a public-facing business account that’s a hard to do sufficiently to avoid this kind of scam. Maddening! Thanks for sharing, Rebecca.
Thank you for alerting everyone. You nailed it!
I used to get a few a week. Now, I get twice that many, sometimes per hour. I don’t receive ones linked to writing, though. I’m not successful enough. Lucky me.
Gmail is a red flag, but so are addresses that don’t match the fake company, or the address is a jumble, or it’s just plain weird. Frequently, the company name or simply the sender has added letters, symbols, strange fonts, and so on.
I can’t count how many accounts I don’t have that they claim to have blocked or are sending me a “final notice.” I’ve had times when I have final notices from several different companies from the same address within minutes of each other.
Unsolicited? Then it’s suspicious. Too good to be true? Then it’s malicious. I never, ever click on links or open attachments. At this point, I have a sixth sense and can identify fake in a second about 99% of the time. There’ve been a few that gave me pause. In those cases, I go straight to the company.
I used to try reporting them to my email provider. That was ineffective. They want me to pay for their premium service so they have no incentive to stop them. Now, I block and delete. They keep coming, though. The internet is becoming the wild west of Hollywood legend. They can blanket the internet with this garbage for little cost. If one in a million victims bite, they win.
Be careful out there, everyone!
Ugh, yes, I didn’t even include all the ones I’ve been getting for some time–fake invoices, bills, “overdue accounts,” orders, the gamut. I always think that if scammers would take all that industry and enterprise and turn it to something good, what might they achieve? Easier to prey on people for some, I guess. (*shakes metaphorical fist*) I just keep reporting as spam and blocking–and hoping the flood dies down soon.
Can you hear the LLMs screaming. Clarisse?
I am so grateful for people who use ChatGPT for this stuff, because it is so easy to spot. But while that’s good for me, many writers don’t know what to look for, and they get hooked by the wish fulfillment and easy button solutions being proposed. Thank you for sharing the scams that have targeted you, because the more examples shared, the more people learn to be wary and ask questions.
Ha–good point about it being easy to spot. 🙂 But as you say, that presumes a certain level of familiarity with LLMs, and the business that I worry not everyone may have. If it costs them little to send out thousands of these things, and a handful hit the mark, I think that’s a good enough ROI for them to persist.
Yeah, that was my thinking too–if scams are proliferating for authors and others in the creative field, then we can maybe use whatever platforms we may have to amplify warnings about them for others. Thanks, Angela.
I got a great one from Colleen Hoover, raving about my writing and wanting to connect. I said sure, that I charged $350/hour and she owed me $17 for the time I’d just spent replying to her. (I normally don’t play with trolls, just block as spam, but I was at my wit’s end that day.) To my delight she wrote back, “Thank you, I just sent the money.” OH MY GOD this made me laugh. So CoHo won that round. 😂
CoHo!! 😀
Style points to you for how you handled that. My husband likes to mess with the spam calls we get too.
Thank you very much for shining a light on this issue. Great post!! Yes, I have gotten many of these scams, similar to ones described here. When I first got one about two months ago, it was from someone promising to help me get more visibility for my novel. The writing was superb and I, unsuspecting, immediately wrote back complimenting her/him/it on the excellence of the review. (Personally I couldn’t have done that well in weeks and I wrote the book!). I received a reply with a quote of several hundred dollars to get the book more visibility on a number of platforms. When I told my son, an attorney, that I was suspicious, he laughed and said “It’s AI, ask for a live phone call.” I did that and of course it was “unavailable for a phone call.” I’m older and not the brightest bulb in the string, but here is my issue. As mentioned in the comments, even if one in a million works out and they get the money, it’s worth it, so it won’t stop.
Some very good recommendations for avoiding these scams were suggested here. That’s one way to deal with the problem, like antivirus programs. But it’s not the only way.
In the 1970’s and 80’s, after horrific slaughter from drunk driving on the highway, very strict laws were passed with huge consequences for DUI. Those laws didn’t eliminate it, but reduced it significantly. If the penalties were made very severe for these scammers, like $100,000 fine and 20 years in prison if caught, then maybe only a few high profile cases would be enough for people to think twice before trying to scam struggling authors or elderly retirees. The internet and news media is a perfect forum for broadcasting the results of the prosecution and sentencing of those scammers all over the world. That might just help. By the way, there’s a great movie about this called “The Beekeeper” that came out in 2024. I really think it’s time to get serious about these predators.
I do too, Jeff–but sadly regulation seems slow to come, especially in the current administration. It actually seems as if things are moving in the opposite direction–less oversight rather than more.
One thing that really helped with legislation with DUIs, in my understanding, was organizations like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)–activism at the grassroots level. If we can organize and demand more commonsense regulation and legislation, perhaps we can get lawmakers to take action.
Of course, that presumes a functional Congress…. 🙁
Thanks for the food for thought, Jeff.
I’ve received many of these emails recently and was initially amazed by their specificity, but quickly realized the data was lifted from my Amazon book page and my website. I replied to two emails and received an impressive business plan from one before understanding they were scams.
Ten days ago, I received an email ostensibly from the World Intellectual Property Organization (Geneva, Switzerland) claiming I had used material owned by Metal Blade Records (a hard-core metal band). I phoned the intellectual property attorney who had helped set up my LLC and he told me to go to WIPO’s website and contact them to see if an actual case existed. The address on the scam email matched the actual address, but the phone and fax numbers were off by several digits. Unfortunately, I had clicked on a “view document” link before calling the attorney and was worried about malware.
I contacted the tech service I use, and a rep came out and thoroughly reviewed that nefarious email and my computer. His investigation of the email revealed that it contained lots of damaging Trojan junk, but my clicking didn’t infect my laptop. I was extremely lucky!
Between this experience and your outstanding article, I’ll be much more cautious about these ultra-flattering, too-good-to-be-true solicitations. If scammers used their energy in ethical work, they could probably make a good living!
I’m so glad you didn’t get damaging computer viruses from it, Lee! I know plenty of people who clicked on the wrong links and weren’t so lucky (hence my boldface exhortations).
It’s really easy to fall for scams like this–they are so endlessly creative in how they constantly adapt technology in various ways to prey on people. I’ve had your same thought many times–if all that effort and ingenuity went toward aboveboard activities they might do quite well on the up-and-up. (*shakes fist in the air*)
The copyright-infringement scam was pretty rampant not long ago–I got gotten by it too (see the “Trolls” post I linked to in the article). I guess the upside is that I get ever more careful about protecting myself, and ever more informed. But it’s like whack-a-mole.
Getting tons. Emails, text messages, messenger, FB comments attached to my posts. Thx for this post.
Glad it was useful!
I started getting them when I began to follow a Facebook group for Authors, Agents and Editors. I did let it keep going for a while and made a spread sheet on what they were offering and charging. Most marketing, some Book Club placement. I didn’t ever take one on, but learned something about the details and language, and perhaps pricing of marketing. As written in this blog, the gushing about how great a writer I am let me know up front it was a scam. Now if I can only find a new agent….
It’s crazy how creative and diligent people can be in service of scamming other people, isn’t it? I always think if they would just turn all that effort and ingenuity toward something legitimate…. Sigh.