While you’re pounding the keyboards this summer, beware of scammers targeting spam-worthy e-mails your way. These crafty ne’er-do-wells are slamming your inboxes with wordy communication that includes grandiose praise and promises of increased book sales. Sadly, these seductive efforts are designed to separate you from your hard-earned royalty checks.
But only if you let them.
- Scammers claim to possess the secret sauce to rocketing your book(s) to the top of best-seller lists once you adopt their ‘marketing’ plans…for a fee, of course. Lean in here: Shouldn’t you question their perception of your success? I’m uncertain of the scammers’ tabulations, for most indie authors are spread across multiple sales platforms. Not just Amazon’s.
- Some of these swindlers determine that rewriting the novel’s description and altering keywords and categories will catapult your book to higher ranks of recognition on the Zon, thereby landing it atop its genre pile. They cannot perform this action unless you’re self-published and can access your personal KDP panel (meaning they can, too). I cannot change keywords. Neither can my publisher.
- Scammers offer to add your title(s) to preferred genre lists on Goodreads and connect you with book giveaways. As the author, you may do this yourself: no need for a middleman.
Perhaps the most audacious scam is promising indie authors a featured position in premium book-reader organizations, such as the Manhattan Book Club in NYC. Oh, my goodness….
You need to nail a hoax when you see one. Here are several tried-and-true suggestions:
- Understand, it’s unlikely that an unsolicited e-mail from similar reading groups will find its way to you.
- Check the sender’s e-mail address. Expect to find the valid organization’s email in a funky Gmail address. Tricky, right?
- Note the excessive wordiness, filled with 10 to 12 paragraphs of exaggerated praise, likely created by AI.
- Read the e-mail’s conclusion; you’ll find a call-to-action requesting a Yes or No. Please, please don’t respond.
- Consult websites like writerbeware.blog and authorsguild.org if you doubt the legitimacy of a book marketer, book club organizer, or small publishing house.
When you recognize these nuisances as spam, block the sender, then delete. By training Google, you’ll eventually route these e-mails into spam.
Why this, why now?
More polished than ever before, scammers appear to understand a book’s hook better than most, so AI’s involvement is highly likely. Any insidious correspondence that grips an author’s emotions concerning reviews and sales represents a much larger concern for all of us.
Indie authors are an attractive target because our start-up is an uphill climb from the jump. Too, we’re a sensitive bunch who may fall prey to praise. Why? Because everyone wants to embrace more readers, like moths to a flame.
Because we don’t have staff to handle marketing and advertising, to sort through correspondence, and to edit, rewrite, and complete a manuscript, we are sitting ducks for those who offer, for a fee, to help carry that load.
While it’s often exhausting, remember that we signed up for this.
Most indie authors maintain full rights (that’s 100 percent!) to their books, and that’s a huge consideration when deciding which journey to take for publication. Owning the intellectual property and holding the copyright grants us the option to license specific rights for different purposes, over various periods of time. We may not be earning 100’s of 1,000’s, but we still maintain control over the fictional world(s) we’ve created.
For me, I’m in this for the long haul. I’ve spent years writing for newspapers and serving in the trenches of English education. Now, with the opportunity to write full-time, I can let readership grow. I’m okay with running Amazon and BookBub ads when I feel sales are lagging. I’m excited when a Bookstagrammer tags me with a positive review. Eager to connect with both authors and readers, I look forward to exhibiting at state book festivals.
Most importantly, I’m obsessed with the next novel I’m writing. Because I’m proud to be an indie author, I’ll never fall prey to a scammer.
And neither should you.
