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Don’t Let The Scammers Make You Crazy
The scammers get more and more clever and annoying.
There are multiple ways to contact me. You can reach me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and via email. It’s important in this day and age to be accessible. And let’s face it, authors and artists already tend to work in a degree of isolation as it is.
Email remains one of the best ways to communicate. You can share a lot via email. In fact, I encourage readers to contact me via email if they have questions about my books, my process, or care to share why they might only give one of my books a 1- or 2-star rating.
Unfortunately, scammers have been getting increasingly personal, more detailed, and in the process are making it far more difficult to tell a legit offer from a scam. I’m already paranoid when it comes to links in emails, contact with accounts that look to be fake via the account used. (Like that Gmail account with the weird alphanumeric name before the @). But that doesn’t mean the scammers aren’t trying harder and harder.
What’s more, as an indie-author, anything that I can do to promote my work and get my name out there is tempting. Unfortunately, if it’s too good to be true, chances are that it is.
What am I babbling about here?
At least once or twice a day, I get an email. Sometimes it addresses me by name. Other times, it’s “Dear Author.” Some of these are deeply flattering. Others make it appear that the writer has, in fact, read my work.
Some are offers to be featured in a book club and what they’re reading. Others are offering Beta Readings, reviews, inclusion in their newsletter that’s viewed by 100,000 hungry readers, and so on.
I even got a couple of emails supposedly from a best-selling author who caught MY work and wanted to connect with me. But there was something just slightly off about the message.
This doesn’t just apply to email. I almost completely ignore direct messages on Instagram because of how many offers I get to review my latest book, to promote my work to thousands, and don’t get me started on the utterly ludicrous and obvious bots.
The scammers taking advantage of indie-authors and similar artists should be ashamed of themselves. They’re not, but they should be. Here we are, trying our damndest on our own to get noticed and sell product while these assholes want to take our hard-earned money and leave us with nothing. It’s maddening.
All the scammers can make you crazy
I’ve been writing for most of my life. Since 2020, I’ve doubled down and produced more and more books. A week from today, I’m putting out Book 7 in my Forgotten Fodder crime, clone, and conspiracy sci-fi series (Conspiracy Theory). In March, I will publish book 8. Theoretically, I’m putting out the first book in my new Gentleman Space Pirate series in the Fall.
I work hard to produce these books. I’m writing between 160,000 and 320,000 words of fiction a year. In addition to that, I write 3 blogs a week (which are about 1000 words each, so add another 156,000 words of non-fiction). Maybe writing largely comes easily to me, but that doesn’t make it easy.
Meanwhile, I strive to sell my books. Not counting my incomplete fantasy series, as of March, I’ll have 3 different sci-fi series that include 16 books, 2 standalones, and more coming. A lot of time, effort, love, and energy have gone into this (and keeps going into it). As I look for new avenues to increase sales and revenue, the scammers become increasingly irritating.
Yes, I’d love a book club to read my book. However, since you pinged 2 of my email accounts simultaneously, didn’t use my name, and chose book 3 of a 5-book series, I’m guessing scammer. Why yes, I’d love to discuss marketing opportunities with you. You only pinged one email account and used my author name. Cool. How come you have no website?
(One time, on inquiring with one of these for their website, what they gave me was so clearly fake and unrelated to anything they presented, it made my eyes hurt.)
Why are you scammers intent on wasting my time and energy? Yup, this can make you crazy.
Just keep swimming through the scammers
All you can do is keep on keeping on. I keep working on my art, writing more books, and seeking new ways to promote them and get noticed. The scammers are trying harder and getting cleverer, but they still tend to leave hints.
This is one of those places where AI is being abused, FYI. Every book on Amazon, for example, has both the blurb and usually offers a sample chapter or two for you to read. AI can read this, extrapolate some info, and then get used to make it look like the person contacting you read your work and is genuinely interested.
How can you tell the scammers? Subtle errors. My favorite is getting my name wrong. I go by 3 different names depending on professional, personal, or medieval reenactment. I wonder which is the professional one? Or in the email to me, they make an assumption about the series that is wrong (and wouldn’t be made if you actually read it).
Another favorite: They say they’re from an agency, but offer no link to it in the email (or the name of the agency and the URL don’t match).
As the saying goes, buyer beware. The scammers are going to scam, and it’s getting increasingly hard to tell the legit from the bullshit. It’ll make you crazy when it offers what you need but proves to be a lie.
You needn’t go it alone
Lastly, there are multiple author and artist communities out there where you can share with one another, help each other, and work together to overcome the scammers. You needn’t reinvent the wheel to handle these jerks. Just be cautious, and if you get an offer that’s too good to be true, do your homework and investigate it.
Don’t let the scammers make you crazy.
Thanks for reading. As I share my creative journey with you every week, please consider this: How are you inspired and empowered to be your own authentic creator, whatever form that takes?
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