Authors, Those Flattering Emails Filling Your Inbox—They’re All an AI Scam

 

by Anne R. Allen

If you’re like a lot of authors, you’re starting to feel annoyed at the number of “publicists” filling your email inbox with sugary messages about your brilliant talent. The headers are usually quotes from your Amazon reviews, something like:

    Fast, Funny, and Fair, Delivering a Twist-filled Mystery…that’s Ignored by Amazon!

    Expensive shoes, angry demons…and Amazon’s Silent Treatment.

They all tell you how your prodigious talent is being ignored by the world because you haven’t had good marketing advice.

But publicist XYZ, who usually has no Web presence–or is impersonating a real publicist–promises that she (it’s usually a she) will do one or more of the following:

• Get your book the attention is deserves with “marketing strategies.”
• Build you a better website and increase your Web presence.
• Reach out to book bloggers and reviewers to get you 100s of reviews
• Boost your Amazon presence
• Make you a book trailer that will sell millions
• Get your book chosen by book clubs around the world
• Record a “emotion-filled” audiobook of your grand opus—even if it’s a nonfiction how-to handbook.
• Or, an avid reader has “come across your book on Facebook” and would like to know where they can find it and wants talk with you about your “writing journey.”

Why I Know What’s in Your Inbox

How do I know all this? Have I been hacking into your email? Nope.

But a whole lot of these emails intended for other authors are landing in my inbox. I wrote about this AI scam a few weeks ago, but I didn’t know the extent of the scam. Every day, I hear from more writers who have been targeted. Even well-known bestsellers.

David Corbett wrote a blogpost on the subject of this AI scam on Friday, called “Let’s Play…Spot the Bot.” As he says–

“As creative artists, we not only have to worry about our work being stolen to teach large language models, or compete with AI-generated work that seems “good enough” to readers—now we need to anticipate being assaulted with AI-generated scams, marketing pitches, publication offers, and God only knows what else.”

On Saturday, the always-reliable Jane Friedman wrote in her newsletter that she had discovered–

Some of you may even have fallen for their lavish praise. At least until you get to the point where you pay them. Then they insist you use a wire transfer (a red flag) to their “assistant” in Nigeria. Yes, Nigeria. This is why Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware calls this scam “The Return of the Nigerian Prince.”

“This is an incredibly prolific scam that is aggressively targeting writers–as always, primarily self-published writers, but trad-pubbed authors too. It has spun up extremely fast: I’ve seen dozens of emails like the ones above, and I only started getting reports of them in June. Now, at the beginning of August, I’m getting multiple reports every day.”

How to Tell If Your Praise-Packed Emails are an AI Scam

AI has changed everything. Gone are the days when you’d dump a bogus email into spam in a heartbeat because of hilarious grammar mistakes and the greeting, “My Dear.” The senders don’t have two first names and work on oil rigs or serve as Army “surgeon generals” stationed in the Middle East. These new solicitations are well-written and believable.

Well, almost. There still are signs that something isn’t quite right.

Here are some red flags that show those emails are bogus and AI generated:

• The “woman” who wrote the email has a name that’s slightly “off.” Names like Suzie Belly, Babar Alicia, or Loofa Joy often don’t sound like any actual names you’ve heard in Anglophone countries.
• The publicist is un-Googleable. No website and no web presence at all.
• The return email is a generic gmail address, not a business address.
• The AI generated praise is laughably over the top and a rehash of what’s in your Amazon blurb and reviews
• The emails show up in improbable bunches. How have all these people suddenly discovered your book?
• It’s always “your book” singular. They always assume you’ve only written one book, usually something you published years ago.
• And, most important of all, it’s an unsolicited email. This highly successful “publicist” has to contact perfect strangers to get work. Really?

How Does This Scam Work? 

All these emails seem to come from the same place, probably a “boiler room” in Nigeria. Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware explained how it works in her Nigerian Prince blogpost. They ask that you wire the payment for their hefty fee to an “assistant” in Nigeria. Then they ask for access to your KDP account.

Then they take over your Amazon account, change the passwords, address and phone number, then evaporate. You are out thousands of dollars and they have control of your books and your royalties. Victoria has it explained, chapter and verse. Do read the whole post. It’s scary.

Please Spread the Word: Help Stop this AI Scam

So why am I talking about this AI scam in two blogposts in a row?

Because this scam is escalating, and I want to make sure this info reaches as many writers as possible. I know lots of writers no longer read blogs these days, but maybe you can forward this to them. Tell them they won’t get cooties, I promise. 🙂 But they might save many thousands of dollars plus their future royalties. These scammers are relentless.

I’d love it if enough writers sent these AI emails to spam that the emails would stop gumming up my inbox every morning. And I especially want to save hard-working writers from being exploited. We seem to be targeted by every scammer out there. I guess because there are so many of us, none but a handful ever get the praise we need.

But remember that AI praise is no praise at all. And no bot is going to put you on the bestseller list.

What about you, scriveners? Are you getting this kind of AI spam in your inbox? Did you almost believe all that praise at first?

by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen and annerallen.bsky.social) September 14, 2025

THE HOUR OF THE MOTH

A light and funny beach read to take your mind off all this stuff.

And this poor book needs reviews. If you enjoy the novel and you find this blog useful, do consider leaving an honest review.

Ebook and paper book available at Amazon. Paper book also available at Barnes and Noble

NPR fans, there are Easter Eggs in this story just for you!

When Camilla Randall allows a neighboring business to hold a “Moth Hour” storytelling event in the courtyard of her beachy California bookstore, she finds an inconvenient corpse left in the audience after the event. The deceased, a storyteller famous for his appearances on NPR, turns out to have a shady past — and a lot of enemies. Unfortunately, Camilla’s boyfriend Ronzo is one of them.

***

featured image by Mohamed Hassan for Pixabay