Email Scams

For the third of my series, Life of an (Independent) Author, my original topic dealt with writers’ organizations and conferences. However, recent events have prompted me to rearrange my topics a little and pull Email Scams to the forefront.

Since the press release hit for Canthany Rising in late May, I have been inundated with over a thousand emails promising a host of different benefits. The vast majority of them, 99 percent, are outright scams or have zero verifiable information in them. So, yes, out of one thousand emails, only ten are verifiably legitimate. (One of which was this site.)

So, what are the top scams?

Book Clubs and Festivals

The book club scam is the most prevalent, at 50 percent of emails. The sender claims to be part of a book club or festival that has taken an interest in your book. I’ve noticed they have AI regurgitate whatever information they can find from the press release or back cover copy found on Amazon back to you, with nothing unique to your book.

If you engage with them, there will be a cost mentioned somewhere in the lengthy explanation of what they will do for you. They bury it, hoping you’ll be so blinded by the praise and promises that you won’t blink at whatever cost they ask of you.

All of these emails come from a Gmail account. Verify with the club’s or festival’s site to see if they use Gmail. You’ll find they either have their own domain email address or have some other way to contact them. Verify, verify, verify. Even then, you could get caught, like I did. I’ll explain in the case study below.

Book Marketer/Social/SEO Specialists

This makes up 45 percent of emails. The sender promises to help you with marketing on Amazon, or on Facebook/Instagram Ads, or SEO of your website. Some will offer to do an audit on your website, sample ads, or even point out flaws in your keywords/description/A+ Content on Amazon. All will promise to help you clean up your mess.

Now, it’s quite possible some of these people are legitimate freelancers trying to drum up business. However, most of them do not have a website or references for work, or give any prices for their work up front. There are too many scammers to take these people at face value.

Always verify a person’s qualifications and references. Like the book clubs, these all come from a Gmail account.

Other scams

An invite to a radio broadcast or podcast
A publisher or agent wants to represent you
A well-known or award-winning author wants to talk “book” with you
The email references the wrong author and/or book—Yeah, they couldn’t even get their system to recognize you correctly

All came from Gmail accounts, the common denominator for all these scams.

Case Study

So, after all this, I fell for the book club scam. It came from a Gmail account, but the Facebook group also showed this same email. I thought it was legit, so I engaged with the person.

The person promised an Author Spotlight, banner page, and some other bonuses on the Facebook group page and an associated website. I checked the Facebook group, and the posts went back at least a year. There were thousands of followers. The associated site seemed to follow the group, so it continued to look legitimate.

My first red flag was the need for a “donation” of an unspecified amount. When I told them no thanks, they came back with a “typical range” for the donation. It was within the amount I thought it was worth, so I decided to go for it.

The next red flag was they wanted a bank-to-bank transfer of the agreed amount. Red flag. I told them PayPal or Venmo so I could use a credit card for some protection. Payment made, good to go.

Now here’s where the scam came in. They posted a banner on their website along with many “members” posting their praise of my book. Each of the posts listed the person’s name and the country they were from. I checked my KDP account. No sales accounted for the number listed on the site. Also, there have been a few units of my book sold internationally, but not in all the countries listed on the site. The reviews were fake. The person also didn’t post on Facebook. When I asked, they were having “technical difficulties,” and it would be delayed. Riiiight.

The person then asked for discussion material to share with the members. There was “so much positive reaction” (a.k.a. the fake reviews) to my book that they “craved” this information, and they wanted my Goodreads link to post reviews there. (Red flag—not Amazon, which is tougher to leave fake posts on.) I told the person I would be pausing any further action until the banner showed up on Facebook. Promises continued, but no action.

Final Thoughts

Be very cautious when you engage with any of these types of emails. Verify sources when you can. Beware of suspicious costs/donations and how they want to receive the money.

I should have called it off when they wanted money, but, at the time, I thought it was worth the risk. When they wanted the bank-to-bank transfer, that should have ended it, but again, having my book put in front of tens of thousands of people ended up being too hard to refuse. In the end, I got bit.

Don’t get bit.

See you next month.

Kenneth Bliss writes Christian science fiction and Christian LitRPG fantasy featuring spiritual warfare, battles reminiscent of TTRPG encounters, and heroes whose faith shapes the outcome of impossible conflicts. As an unabashed nerd, he has read hundreds of sci-fi/fantasy books and played TTRPG and MMORPG games for decades. He turned his sights to the written word to express his love of God, sci-fi/fantasy, and psionics. He lives near a small town in Michigan with his two cats.

Author website link: https://www.kebauthor.com

Amazon link Canthany Rising: https://www.amazon.com/Canthany-Rising-Christian-LitRPG-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0GZ598XPX

Amazon link The Accident: https://www.amazon.com/Accident-Story-Faith-Psionics-Supernatural-ebook/dp/B0FSH7NPPF