The daily grind of spam and scam author emails...
This morning I received five emails from people who claimed that they could transform my book sales. The day before four. The day before three. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was averaging about one a day. Now, the numbers have trebled.
Some of these are deliberate scams. The email purporting to be from Joe Brosnan, Senior Editor at Atlantic Grove Books, for example. This one was quite convincing; not too long, no Gmail address, no overt flattery. A quick check on the Grove Atlantic website, however, revealed not only that the contact email address was wrong but more importantly there was a big banner across the top of the website with a fraud alert: Professional scammers are impersonating Grove Atlantic staff, offering contracts under false pretences. If you are contacted, or need to verify any communication, please call us at, etc. Not just any scammers. Professional scammers. This is big business.
Today I read a Substack piece by Amy Chan titled ‘I Spent $44,000 Launching My Book. Three of Those Dollars Worked’. She had paid $10,000 dollars to a TikTok influencer who produced a great video. It resulted in three sales. Three. $3,333 per book sale. Another $10,000 dollars to an Instagram influencer. $24,000 to a marketing company that promised to set her up with professional speaking engagements. She received no bookings. (They did later refund part of her fee after much negotiation.)
There are many people out there making a lot of money out of authors, both indie and traditionally published. And every day, they bombard our inboxes.
For me, this has a double effect. The first is that it’s just really annoying. I always end up reading them just in case they’re not a scam, which is a waste of my time (and I hate wasting time). Then I have to delete them. Often now, I screenshot them and share on social media to raise awareness for other authors.
The second effect, though, is more important. Most of these emails tell you that you are doing a very poor job of promoting your book. You don’t have enough reviews. You’re not high enough in the bestseller ratings. Your social media reach is poor. They give you an (AI-generated) analysis of why your book is not performing better (actually quite useful but I could do it myself with a quick click on Claude or Gemini). Gradually, they erode your self-esteem, sending the message that your book should be doing better. You should be doing better.
It takes a fair amount of mental effort for me to say, “I’m doing fine, thanks. I’ve written and published three books in the past year. I have positive reviews. I have good sales. I have positive relationships with readers. I’m not a marketing expert but I’m learning. I’m investing in tried and tested methods. I’m doing fine.”
There is so much pressure to be a number one bestseller with your first book, to play the algorithm, to proclaim yourself to be a six-figure author. All these scammers are playing into that pressure. That trajectory might have been nice, but it was never part of my plan.
My first goal was to write a book that just one person enjoyed. To know that someone loved my characters how I do. As time has passed, my goal has expanded. I want to write lots of books that lots of people enjoy and give others the escape and enjoyment that I get through reading. To have fun doing something that I love. Not to spend my days desperately trying to game a system that changes every day. I understand I need to market my work and I’m learning. I’m getting better. My sales are growing.
This is a long game and I’m happy to play it.
PS If you’re a writer and you want to know how to avoid being scammed, here are some red flags. First, the email address is usually Gmail and the sender’s name is often misspelled. (I had one supposedly from Sarah J Maas, only they’d spelled her name MASS in the email address but correctly in the email—easy to miss.) The email is often insanely long and tells you how wonderful your book is and why it stands out to them, usually using information they could easily have scraped from your Amazon page. They imitate real book review clubs and influencers, as well as agents and publishers but there is usually a misspelling in the organisation’s name (e.g. thoughtexperimentsinhubs instead of thoughtexperimentsinpubs, or booksandwinesclub instead of bookandwineclub.) And last but not least, they are usually too good to be true. If in doubt, copy the text into an LLM and ask it if it is likely to be a scam.
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