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Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/11/22/yes-all-those-author-services-and-book-club-emails-are-fake-and-no-dont-send-them-any-money/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58338

If you’re an author, or honestly if you just happen to be standing near an author these days, then you have probably seen a flood of emails in the past couple of months promising you that whoever is sending you the email can promote [Insert name of one of your works here, even if it is over a decade old] to Amazon/Goodreads/their book club/a nebulous agglomeration of readers/etc. Either up front, or after an email exchange, will come the ask of some amount of money, usually a couple hundred dollars but sometimes more, as “administrative fees” or some such.

Just to be clear, so there is no doubt about these things: Every single one of these emails is absolutely a scam, none of these promoters and/or book clubs are real*, and if you send money to any of these accounts, either directly or through a third-party service, you will get nothing for your money and you will never see that money or those scammers again. Never send money to these people. Ever.

(The asterisk above for “none of these book clubs is real” is there because sometimes the scammers will pretend to be representing an actual online book club and might point to their site or page to give the illusion of legitimacy. They are not legit.)

These sort of scam emails have been around for years, of course, but it seems like there’s a real upswing in both the number and variety of emails. I myself get a couple dozen of them a day recently. Here are the headers of some that have arrived in the last few hours, and yes, emojis are part of headers now, we truly live in a benighted age:

• “Can I Borrow Your Book? …To Show 55k People ”: This one promises me access to book-promo networks across TikTok and Linkedin, which is a cursed combination if there ever was one;
• “Growing Constituent Service’s Visibility on Goodreads During Peak Q4 Discovery”: This one promises exposure in Goodreads’ “Listopia” section, which is asserted to be very important here in the holiday season;
• “Did Amazon lock your book in the basement, or did Jeff Bezos just ghost you? ”: This spammer is trying to neg me into using its “service” by suggesting Amazon is not doing enough to promote The Shattering Peace, an odd statement to make inasmuch as Amazon is one of the book’s publishers (via Audible, who, incidentally, sent me a very handsome marketing document, which they executed upon perfectly) and the book itself was a New York Times best seller;
• “Cinematic AI Visuals for your book”: Because what could be a better way to spend money promoting your work than to pay some dude to type a prompt into Sora;
• “Before the book-buying madness starts…”: This one is using the tactic of asking me if I would like to know more about how they can help me, the idea being that if you actually respond to this sort of soft-pedal approach, they know they have a sucker;
• “Quick Goodreads Visibility Boost for ‘Wildfire'”: Another Goodreads Listopia booster, promising eyeballs for my audiobook “Wildfire,” which is fun, since I don’t have an audiobook named “Wildfire.”

That’s just from this morning, mind you; I cleared out my spam last night before I went to sleep. These were waiting for me when I woke up. Soon I will have many, many more.

“But the email said nice things about my book and it seems like whoever is sending the email read it!” Sure, because “AI” is a thing now and it will spit out highly complimentary lines instantly. Here, look, this is Gemini telling me how awesome When the Moon Hits Your Eye is:

Dear Mr. Scalzi,

I simply had to write and express my profound, uncontainable joy after finishing When the Moon Hits Your Eye. I’ve been a fan of your work for years, but this novel has instantly vaulted to the top of my all-time favorites list. It’s not just a science fiction story; it’s a perfect, shimmering symphony of everything I love about your writing.

But beyond the genius plot mechanics, what truly elevates When the Moon Hits Your Eye is the heart and the humor. Even amidst planetary catastrophe, your characters remain so beautifully, painfully human. The witty dialogue provided necessary relief, making the high-concept ideas feel grounded and accessible.

Wow, Gemini truly loved my book! And it took it mere milliseconds to write that note!

I do suspect that the advent of “AI” is one of the reasons that these sort of scam emails have taken off recently; it allows scammers, at very little cost to themselves (but at significant cost to the environment, energy bills and the local water table of wherever the “AI” data sites are) to personalize their scam pitches and make them seem more legitimate, especially to writers, who generally want nothing more than to know their work has been read and appreciated by someone.

I assure you, these scammers have not read your book. Hell, as you can see above, sometimes they can’t even get right the books you’ve written. These emails are being churned out by the thousands to see who is desperate enough to bite. If they get one nibble out of a thousand emails, that’s going to be a decent return for their trouble. And whoever nibbles is going to get scammed.

Here’s a good rule of thumb, not just for writers but for humans in general: Random unsolicited email wants you to send money? Don’t send the money. Toss the email in the spam folder and block that email address forever.

There are actual independent publicists and marketing folks who can help you promote your work; as an example, here’s one such PR company, who I work with regularly because they query me for Big Idea slots here on the site. These folks have verifiable career track records — for example, one of the principals of this company was head of PR for Tor, which is where I met her, an actual human who exists in the real world. Their contact emails have the same domain as the web site, and are not, say, a Gmail account whose user name includes a long string of numbers. Their client lists include names who are independently contactable and can confirm their legitimacy. And so on.

Do these firms cost money? Oh, my, yes, they do. Do these firms randomly spam thousands of accounts offering their services? No, they absolutely do not.

Likewise there are actual book clubs who would love for authors to come chat with them about their work. They are not going to ask for “administrative” fees or whatever. I do feel sorry for the actual book clubs out there right about now; this absolute flood of spam email means their more modest entreaties for authors to pop into their Zoom session are far more likely to get ported into the trash. Sorry, folks. It’s just how it is at the moment.

So to recap and re-emphasize: Authors, you’re being spammed; yes, it’s a lot and no, it’s not just you; don’t send them any money ever; if you do want actual independent marketing and publicity, it exists and you will have to go out to find it, it’s almost certainly not going to come to you, and in any event will never fucking use emoji in the header of a business email.

Be wary, be suspicious and be safe, and again: don’t send money to random email spammers, ever.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/11/22/yes-all-those-author-services-and-book-club-emails-are-fake-and-no-dont-send-them-any-money/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58338