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–
” Someone was using AI to make it sound like they had carefully read the book….AI has unfortunately accelerated all kinds of writing and publishing scams, plus scammers will impersonate people you know and trust.”
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
Thanks for continuing to highlight this insidious scam, Anne. What’s truly scary is how fast they are improving to defy detection.
Recently, I received one that impressed me with its sophisticated use of humor. It referred to my writing craft guidebook The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. The subject line of the email read: “Debbie, your villain deserves more victims–er, readers!”
It skipped the purple prose praise that’s a dead giveaway. Instead, it carried through the villain theme, saying it was a *crime* the book only had 11 reviews, and promised thousands of reviews they generated would unlock the *prison bars* holding my villain back from bestselling success.
Gotta give that bot an A for effort.
Debbie–Yes. That bot deserves a prize. 🙂 The scammer must be very good at writing prompts. Most of my scammers are pretty clunky, but that one is slick. We have to be more vigilant than ever.
Yeah, they’re getting much better at fooling. At least in the opening salvo. I just received one that ticks several of your red-flag boxes, including a clever name: Angela Lecture. And her high praise for ONE book sounded too close to home… lifted from the Amazon blurb.
If we didn’t already have enough to think about!
Thanks for the warning post.
Harald–Angela Lecture! Yup. That’s the kind of name I’m getting, too. Almost there, but the bot hasn’t learned enough English names. It sounds as if you and I are getting approached by the same scammer.
Scary stuff, Anne. You almost have to live a hermit existence to avoid the scammers that magically appear out of Stardust, Nigeria. *sigh*
Kathy–It’s true we simply can’t escape this stuff in the electronic age. They say the Nigerian Prince scam was one of the first things to emerge with the invention of the Internet. So instead we have to spread the word and stay as savvy as possible. As long as there are naive, gullible writers, there will be writing scams.
I suppose we can at least enjoy the thought that AI scamming may flood the market, putting millions of human scammers out of business. Or can we?
CS–I love the idea of robot scammers putting some real scammers out of business. The people using AI certainly can reach more potential victims than those Nigerian Princes.
They take over your account and all of your books – that’s scary.
Fortunately with my email unlisted, I don’t get the emails. But now I wonder if all of the DMs on X are coming fro AI. Because I get a lot and they are all women!
Alex–I have heard about the X DM’s. I don’t get them, but I don’t interact much on X these days. It may be these people, or some like them. I used to get a ton of the “publicist” scams on my FB author page, but they’ve disappeared. Probably to morph into these AI assisted scammers.
I receive two a day. At least. And as you say, they are very sophisticated. I do worry about new writers, those desperate for attention being hooked. You do a good thing with these columns, Anne!
Melodie–You have an unusual first name, which may be why you’re not getting the dozens I’m getting per day. At least the bots don’t confuse you with Naomi Campbell, Kim Campbell or Campbell Scott. But even two a day is too many. These people are relentless. If I can save a few authors from their snares, it will all be worth it.
Always helpful content, Anne. Appreciate you and your respect of fellows to share your insights. And always with a twinkle!
Judy–If I save a few authors from being robbed of their savings and their books, I’ll be doing my job. Thanks!
Thanks for the valuable warning, Anne. I receive those glowing scammer emails every day, but there was one last week that is so memorable, I saved it:
The scammer referenced my book “Lacey’s Star” in the subject line. But he/she forgot to replace the book name in the body of the email. Here’s a sentence or two:
“I hope you’ve been doing well since we last connected. It’s been a little while, but My Three Lives has truly stayed on my mind.”
I haven’t written a book with the title “My Three Lives.” After I stopped laughing, I was tempted to send a sarcastic reply, but why bother?
Kay–Haha! These people are their own worst enemies. My favorite email started: “Professor Allen, So let me get this straight C.I.A. intelligence officer, history professor, cattle wrangler, and now mystery novelist? Honestly, you’re making the rest of us look bad.” Yeah, that’s me: CIA officer and cattle wrangler. I have a special way of wrangling varmints from my wheelchair. 🙂 They are churning out this stuff so fast, they never fact check themselves.
I just discovered by chance that you aren’t on hiatus anymore. I’m so glad you’re back. I’m not even published, and I’m getting a ton of these emails. The individuals don’t even say what publicist they work for. I mark them all as spam and block them if I can.
Natalie–Yes, I’ve been back on a limited basis since January. Now I publish a couple of times a month. Very interesting they are targeting you, too! I thought they were finding victims by trolling Amazon, but that wouldn’t work for unpublished authors. All very mysterious. And of course, all crooks.
I am sick to death of these damn scammers. I send all the emails to spam, and I’m still getting them.
Liz–These guys are relentless. And stupid. The fact they hit us with their crap so often gives away the fact they are scammers. They’ve already over-saturated the “market” and tipped us off with their relentless assaults on our inboxes.
I have been getting these emails for a year or so at my website email address. As I crave compliments, I imagine each one is adoring fan sending well-wishes to a meritorious scrivener. Then I delete the email.
In the words of Mr. T, “I pity the fool who believes this bullshit.”
Thanks Anne for your well-crafted public service announcement.
UFA
Don Hergumino
John–Haha! It was time for a Mr. T. quote! I love the idea of letting yourself believe for a minute before you send it to spam. Do send to spam and don’t just delete this stuff. Eventually all these emails may be marked as spam and not land in your inbox.
yeppers, got ’em. I engaged with the first one right until the praise became a hard-sell for questionable “publicity” help. and even if I had gone further than that the moment someone asked for my password to access any account of mine without guard rails that would have been an instant no and I would have taken the next exit off the love and praise turnpike. But it feckin’ HURTS. When you’ve written something – and you receive a response from a reader who loved it – that’s something writers live for. To get an email that sounds like it’s coming from somebody like tha and it turns out to be just a come-on to fleece you… it hurts.
Alma–You’re right. This stuff is hurtful. It raises our expectations, then lets us down. Better to be let down sooner than later, though.
Thank you for this excellent post, Anne, and I’m going to heed to your Call to Action and “Spread the Word: Help Stop this AI Scam” by reposting. I can’t believe how many I have received, even those with the same subject lines from different “professionals.” So sad to prey on people.
Valerie–Thanks for spreading the word! Let’s save some authors a lot of pain. I forgot to include those identical headers as a red flag. When three “different” people send identical emails, you know something nefarious is afoot!
Yep, been getting a few of these. Luckily my self-esteem is low enough that any praise I receive is immediately dismissed as inauthentic.
Ida–Call it what you like, it’s a scam detector, so embrace it. 🙂
Thank you for writing about this! I’ve been getting a bunch of these—they go from sales pitch to admiring reader back to sales pitch over the course of a month or so. I emailed back asking to be taken off the list and got a “I completely respect that, but…(insert sales pitch)” When I again asked to be taken off the list, a day later I had a new name but same general message in my inbox. They’re all writing about a book I published six years ago (and I’ve published two since). They offer to send a plan along to see how they could help and it makes me think it’s like the bracelet scam that gets pulled on tourists—I wonder if agreeing to get this plan (not that I would) opens authors up to being billed for something they assumed was free
Allie–I did that at first. I replied to an email aimed at an author with a name similar to mine to tell them I didn’t write that book. They just replied with another pitch. I don’t know if they charge for the “plan” but you can be sure you’ll get more and more sales pitches until you block them or give them big bux for their “services” that don’t exist.
and they’re getting FAST. I literally just uploaded a new publication – it isn’t even open for official preorders yet! – and in pops an email from somebody who could not possibly even have read the thing (because it ISN”T ACCESSIBLE YET) asking if I wanted to “improve the reach” of my book…
Alma–Wow. They keep “improving” these pitches. 🙂 Hilarious that they claim to have read a book on pre-order.
Oh my goodness yes! Last week I got an email from “Oprah’s Book Club” but it was a gmail address – seemed super legit. Just to mess with him I asked if Oprah would read my book. He also got my book title wrong. So you know – wow.
Penny–Aren’t they hilarious? This week I got the book club scam from Esther Miracle, Grace Wealth, Delight Dicey, Dawn Organizer, and Amanda Honor. I think their name generator must have a glitch. 🙂 I send them all to spam and block them, but they keep coming.
Thanks for this blog, Anne.
These scams are really obnoxious and ubiquitous. For one, a careful reader can see that there’s NOTHING in the email that isn’t rewritten by AI from the available content on one’s Amazon page.
One scammer who contacted me had a tiny photo with a Gmail address. I found that with the same name & photo, they’d set up a GR account (3 weeks old). I did a reverse search on the VERY nice photo and found out that it belonged to someone who had a high public profile and about 500K followers on Instagram.
When I responded to the scammer and told her/him (who knows who’s behind it) who the person was in the actual photo, they casually responded, “Oh, I guess someone is using my photo.” (Give me a break!)
Anyway, I think most authors are catching on quickly. What I think some authors are NOT catching onto quickly, however, is that a lot of scammers set up social media accounts using the names of authors who sell very well.
There’s a lot which gives it away (the unbalanced ratio, etc), but what upsets me is how many authors I know will follow the account back without vetting. One scammer made the mistake of posing as a friend of mine. 🙂
Lisette–Good work searching for the photo. Mostly they don’t do much to identify themselves, except have an email address with their ridiculous made-up name, like Amanda Success, or Esther Miracle. Today I had one–meant for another Anne Allen–that really stepped up the outrageous flattery. “You didn’t just write a romance, you wrote about connection beyond life and death, and that’s the kind of magic that lingers. The review nailed it: “a Pride and Prejudice-style story” with a ghostly twist? Chef’s kiss” Haha! You’re right about the fake bestsellers. When I first joined BlueSky, I was jazzed that Liane Moriarty friended me. I asked her if she’d like to guest on this blog. Suddenly she disappeared. 🙂
Thanks for making me realize it’s not just memoir writers like myself and the authors of groups I belong to, who are receiving these flattering AI emails. We all knew they were spam and have been joking about them on the forums – because some actually have a sense of humor and wit to them – but reading about the extent of the scams here is less funny!!
Liesbet–No, it’s not just memoir writers, although one of them did call my how-to bestseller “The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors” a “heartfelt memoir.” 🙂 But I get these emails about historical romances (written by another Anne Allen) poetry collections (written by an Annette Allen) and a gritty thriller by somebody named N.R. as well as my own satiric mysteries. With the amount of dreck these people are producing it’s amazing they have time to even notice the genre. You know, the flattery might have worked on some people, but the flood of nearly identical stuff in our inboxes every day gives away the scam right there.