Enough With the AI Scams

A brief post from an indie author who has had had it with the AI come-ons from grifters and scammers.

When you first start getting the emails, you think—if you’re smart—this all seems too good to be true: a reach-out from a “senior editor” or “editor in chief” of a major publisher. These scammer emails are designed to appeal to the aspiring (or established, in my case) author’s wildest fantasies, of dreams coming improbably true:

But let me tell you something—and guess what? Yeah. It’s all a scam. Whether it’s a book club ready to feature your work, or at the other end of the spectrum, an editor from a major house who just happens to have time to have gone through your list and wants to know what you have new, because as the editor of a major house she’s got the kind of time to find you and go through your work, it’s all a bullshit scam.

My advice? Don’t fall for it. If something seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is far, far too good to be true. And it sucks, after decades of striving to get noticed, to finally get noticed by criminals behind a screen, using AI tools to craft schemes to take what little money one may have. Here’s hoping that karma catches up to anyone trying to fool and cheat gentle artists and writers who simply want to have their voice heard. As if the world weren’t corrupt enough, as if the publishing industry itself wasn’t broken and dying, now there’s this nonsense.

Of course, it won’t get better. Now even would-be writers are scamming readers by using AI to produce “books” that’ve been “written” by an “author.” Sad situation all the way around. Makes one question whether going forward with any of this work is truly worth it anymore.