My novel, Rebecca of Ivanhoe, has been out for little more than a year, and it has gotten garnered some great reviews, including from the Historical Novel Society and The Jerusalem Review. I’ve done talks at a well-attended Jewish book festival and several bookstores in Boston, Chicago and Newtown, Pennsylvania. I’ve also zoomed with several book clubs who’ve been made aware of the novel thanks to the Jewish Book Council. But lately, the only attention I’ve been getting for my book is from scammers who have been written me emails extolling the novel and explaining how they’d like to help me better market it on social media. They always end the emails with the words, “Warmly” or “Warm Blessings,” and it’s very clear they are not who they say they are (professional book marketers) because you can’t find them in a google search. Sometimes, these scammers say they represent a legitimate book club but when you look at their email addresses and compare their address to the actual book club address, it’s always off by one digit. Recently, for example, I received an email from someone purporting to be from the Black Sistas Book Club and the emailer used the actual name of the book club’s founder. But when I looked at the scammer’s email it was different from the founder’s email. And of course, a quick search revealed that the Black Sistas Book Club only reads books by black women, a group I don’t belong to.
In yet another variation of this scam, the emailers say they are other authors (usually better-known than me) and they’ve read my novel and would like to correspond with me. Hah — as if Jonathan Franzen is interested in learning more about my oeuvre. In some cases, the scammers don’t even bother filling in some blanks in their emails, which sound as if they’ve been generated by chap GPT or another AI app.
The sad thing is that some authors have been taken in by these scammers to the point where they’ve sent them money and never hear from them again. That almost happened to me as well when I received the first scam email from a marketer (by the false name of Rachel Irwin) who said she could help me market my book. We corresponded several times, and I asked to see the contract for her services before sending her any money. When I finally received the contract, I realized it was a sham — it was an AI generated piece of folderol, not a real contract — and I told her I was no longer interested. She continued to email me until I put her email address in my spam folder. Of course, I kept hearing from other scammers. The tip off was that all the follow-up emails sounded the same.
I would love to find a legitimate marketer who could help me continue to publicize my book, but haven’t found one yet. If you have any suggestions, please do let me know. In the meantime, do your due diligence and stay safe out there!
