This isn’t a real post. It’s me venting a little and also maybe letting you in on something that might cost you a lot of money if you aren’t aware of it, especially if you are an author.
Scammers have been taking advantage of authors forever. They know that your books are your babies and you desperately want to find the readers who will love them and that can make you emotionally invested in ways that make you vulnerable to people taking advantage of you. Here are a few recent and not so recent scams to be aware of, including one I got close to falling for myself:
THE PAID PODCAST SCAM: This one consists of someone wanting you to be on a well-known podcast (or facebook live, etc) where you’ll be getting $3000 just for participating. This is the first red flag. You don’t get paid for being a one-time guest on a podcast. I’ve been on tons and I’ve never been paid. The scam is that it seems very real and the assistant just wants you to get on a zoom for a “tech check” and then they need to take over your screen for something or have you download something and then they have access to your computer. Or sometimes they need to see your instagram analytics or have access to your facebook so that they can promote the podcast so you can get paid, but really they just go in and change your password and blackmail you for access, or more often use your platform to sell crap. They can also use your video image to create AI videos of you. Bleh.
THE PUBLICITY SCAM: This one looks like a lot of different things but starts with a very complimentary email and an offer to share your book with their enormous bookclub or group of readers. They reel you in and then ask if you’ll send them money for something. A typical one is “We’d love to have you come to (WHATEVER STATE THEY KNOW YOU WON’T TRAVEL TO) but if you can’t make it you can send us $300 for snacks while our giant group discusses your book.” Or maybe they’ll ask for a gift card from you so they can buy some of your books to give out for pre publicity. It’s not real.
Even more upsettingly, this scam is ramping up because scammers are using AI to write these emails and so people are getting tons of them and they’re becoming more sneaky. I literally just got one that went on and on and on about the incredible and complicated themes in my latest book. Except that the book they mentioned was written by a different Jenny entirely. And it was a picture book. About golf. An actual line from the email: “So tell me, Jenny—when you wrote this book, did you know it would feel like this? Like sunlight and nostalgia woven into one gentle lesson about grace and joy?” *sigh*
THE COMMENT SCAM: I get this a lot in my blog comments but I’m starting to see it in my social media comments. The scammer writes a program to use AI to send comments that seem very related to the subject your writing about and then adds a link to whatever they’re trying to get traffic to. They will eventually get slicker but right now they’re often obvious. Yesterday I got one on a post where I was talking about how I was worried that the nervous blinking tic I’ve developed will be too distracting for people when I go back on book tour and I got this comment: “JENNY LAWSON’S CONVULSIVE EYE TREMORS ARE HYPNOTIZING AND BAD CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THIS GAME FOR RELAXATION JENNY.” Awesome.
Slightly related, a lot of romance scammers are on facebook and will leave comments on your posts or on other comments on your posts saying how beautiful you are and asking to be friends. They aren’t real people. Block them.
THE FAKE BOOK SCAM: Some scammers will create books that look similar to yours and then put them on Amazon so that people might accidentally buy theirs. Really though, theirs is “a summary of Jenny Lawson’s book” and is about 5 pages long and completely wrong. People will also use your name to publish their book in the hopes that people will think it’s yours. Grrr.
THE PUBLISHING SCAM: There are a lot of people who look like real agents or publishers and ask the world at large to send them stuff. Is it possible that some of them are real? Totally. Is it also likely that some of them are trying to use you? Sadly, yes. An agent should not ask you for money. Same with a publisher. (Unless you’re self-publishing, in which case there are a lot of well-known and reputable places that people have depended on for years that have good feedback.) Publishers get paid when you get paid. Same thing with agents. Don’t send your manuscript to a publishing company that doesn’t have happy past customers. You have no idea what they’re going to do with it and if they suddenly publish a similar book that is just yours that has been slightly rewritten with AI you’ll have a very hard time proving it. In fact, if you’re submitting something to a publisher or agent just send them the first three chapters and a proposal letter. If they like it enough they’ll ask for the whole thing and then you have proof that they were interested in it in case they do try to steal your idea later.
THE DEAD UNCLE SCAM: This is not a book-related scam but my mom just called to say that she got a letter in the mail that a distant uncle of ours had died with no children and a $10 million dollar life insurance policy with no beneficiaries and all she had to do was retain the lawyer who was sending her the letter. Luckily, she realized this was a scam (who is paying premiums on a life-insurance policy with no benefits?) but I’m mentioning it here because a lot of us have told our grandparents to avoid phone and internet scams (DON’T CLICK ANY LINKS, MEEMAW) but written letters might seem more legit, especially when the dead uncle has a similar name to actual distant relatives and now you can send this to them to warn them.
THE FIGHTING ROBOT SCAM: This is less about getting your money and more about getting online hits. There are a TON of AI robots on social media who are created specifically to fuck with you. They are often created by political groups who want a ton of people all saying the same stupid thing so that it trends and so that people fall for it. Sometimes they even create fake profiles of people on the other side of the aisle and make them say extreme things so that everyone gets mad at them. Sometimes their bots will fight with other bots and that thing will trend and you’ll think, “Wow, I guess people really do hate (whatever they want you to hate)” when really it’s just robot fights. And then we spend time fighting with robots about things that are just a purposeful distraction. Take a deep breath. Talk to real people. Do real things. Focus on making changes that are real. Your time, energy and peace of mind are precious. Protect them.
There are also a lot of people who get paid for interactions and will purposely post inflammatory bullshit just for attention and money. And if you comment telling that person they are an idiot it tells your algorithm that this is something you’re interested it and suddenly all you get are idiots. If I follow you I will see the stuff that you’re replying to and so if I’m following a lot of people who are yelling at hateful idiots I will have a timeline full of hateful idiots, but if you comment on someone who is doing incredible work then I’ll see that and that will be promoted to the timelines of everyone. Grow what you want to see and what you want others to see.
One thing that really opened my eyes recently was my threads trending page was filled with book drama and it gave me this idea that threads is sometimes toxic for writers but then my kid showed me their threads trending page and it was completely different. The major news stories were the same of both our trending pages but they were getting none of the writing stuff I was getting and it made me realize how easily siloed we become and how easy it is to think that something is all anyone is talking about but may not actually be how the rest of the world is seeing things.
Sorry if this has typos. I’m about to go to Nowhere Bookshop with Hailey for the Haunted Adult Book Fair which starts tonight (COME!) and we have to put on our costumes.
Know of any other scams that I missed? Leave them in the comments.
