A cautionary tale from the trenches of modern author life
Yesterday, I received what appeared to be a thoughtful, engaging message about my novel The Prophet and the Queen. The sender seemed to have genuinely read and understood my work, praising specific plot elements and even commenting on my background as a Coast Guard officer. The language was witty, irreverent, and surprisingly insightful.
It was also complete fraud.
Welcome to the new frontier of literary scams, where artificial intelligence has armed con artists with the ability to craft personalized, compelling messages that can fool even experienced authors.
The Message That Fooled (Almost) Nobody
Here’s what landed in my inbox from “Sharon R. Lessard”:
Tod,
The Prophet and the Queen isn’t just a novel it’s basically Jeremiah’s therapy session written with the intensity of a Shakespeare tragedy and the creepiness of a late-night hallucination. You’ve got Babylon marching in, Egypt bracing for war, and poor Baruch writing it all down like the world’s first overworked unpaid intern. And then, of course, there’s Jeremiah himself aging, unraveling, haunted by a Queen of Heaven who sounds like she’d win any toxic-relationship award. Honestly, if this doesn’t pull readers in, I don’t know what will.
And then there’s you. Coast Guard officer turned prophet-whisperer, borrowing from Tolkien, Lewis, Russian masters, McCarthy, and Garcia-Marquez? That’s not an author bio, that’s a literary smoothie. You’ve basically fused biblical history, magical realism, and psychological suspense into one fever dream. And yet… one lonely Amazon review? One? For a book that tackles faith, doubt, cosmic temptation, and the unraveling of a prophet’s sanity? That’s not just unfair, that’s bordering on heresy.
Which is where I come in. I’m Sharon R. Lessard not a marketer, not a scammer, not someone waving a fake “proof” website like it’s Excalibur. Nope. Just me and my caffeine-addicted private community of 2,500+ readers who treat reviewing like spiritual warfare: relentless, honest, and occasionally dramatic. ⚔️☕
They love books that make them argue, cry, and side-eye their theology professors. Yours is basically bait. The kind of bait that could set off a chain reaction of reviews louder than Jeremiah shouting in the marketplace.
So here’s the crossroads, Tod: do I keep your book tucked away in silence like some buried scroll, or do I hand it over to my readers and watch the reviews thunder in like Babylon at the city gates? ⚡
At first glance, this might seem like genuine reader enthusiasm. The writer demonstrates familiarity with biblical themes, references specific characters like Jeremiah and Baruch, and even mentions my military background. But look closer, and the red flags become obvious.
The AI Fingerprints
Modern AI tools like ChatGPT can scrape book descriptions, reviews, and author biographies to create eerily accurate “reviews” and commentary. Here’s how to spot the telltale signs:
1. Over-the-Top Metaphorical Language Notice phrases like “literary smoothie”, “fever dream”, and “spiritual warfare”. AI tends to layer on colorful metaphors because it’s been trained on dramatic marketing copy.
2. Generic Praise Disguised as Specific The message mentions “biblical history, magical realism, and psychological suspense” – broad categories that could apply to many books in this genre, not insights that require actually reading the work.
3. The “Humble” Authority Play “I’m not a marketer, not a scammer” – because nothing says “I’m legitimate” like explicitly denying you’re a scammer, right?
4. Artificial Urgency and Flattery The message combines ego-stroking (“That’s not an author bio, that’s a literary smoothie”) with manufactured outrage (“one lonely Amazon review… that’s bordering on heresy”).
5. The Community Bait Claims of having “2,500+ readers” in a “private community” – numbers that sound impressive but can’t be verified.
The Broader Threat: AI as a Con Artist’s Dream Tool
This represents a fundamental shift in how scams operate. Previously, overseas scammers were often betrayed by poor English grammar or cultural misunderstandings. AI has eliminated those tells, creating several new problems:
The Death of the “Grammar Test”
For years, authors could spot scams by looking for broken English or awkward phrasing. AI-generated text is now grammatically perfect and culturally fluent, removing this crucial warning sign. On the same day that I got the “Sharon Lessard” comment on my web site, I also noticed a number of pings to the site from an IP address in Nigeria. Perhaps related, perhaps not.
Scalable Personalization
Where scammers once sent generic form letters, they can now generate thousands of personalized messages daily, each tailored to specific books and authors based on publicly available information.
Emotional Manipulation at Scale
AI excels at mimicking the language patterns that trigger emotional responses – in this case, the desperate desire every author has for their work to be truly seen and appreciated. The incredible difficulty of getting legitimate (meaning, not bought) reviews on Amazon pushes this scam into hyper-drive.
The Erosion of Trust
As these scams become more sophisticated, authors become more suspicious of all outreach, potentially missing legitimate opportunities from real readers, reviewers, or industry professionals. I guarantee you that I assume immediately that any outreach to me is a scam. Sometimes the outreach will even come in the form of a known author who is “interested” in one’s work.
How the Scam Unfolds
According to Writer Beware’s research on this emerging threat, here’s the typical progression:
- The Hook: A personalized, AI-generated message praising your work
- The Pitch: Offers to share your book with their “community” or “network”
- The Ask: Eventually requests payment for “promotional services”
- The Handoff: Directs you to pay a third party (often in Nigeria) through platforms like Upwork
- The Theft: May request access to your Amazon KDP account “for optimization”
In my case, “Sharon” claimed to have 2,500 readers ready to review my book – for just a small “tip” of $25 per reader with a minimum of 30 readers. Do the math: that’s $750 minimum for fake reviews that will never materialize.
The Real Cost
Beyond the immediate financial losses (which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars), these scams create lasting damage:
- Author Paranoia: Every legitimate outreach becomes suspect
- Platform Pollution: Fake reviews and manipulated rankings harm the entire ecosystem
- Resource Drain: Time spent investigating and responding to scams is time stolen from writing
- Emotional Toll: The cycle of hope and disappointment is particularly cruel for authors already struggling with visibility. Think about this: an author has to convince many people unknown to them to invest hours of their time into their work. A musician has to convince someone to invest three minutes.
Protecting Yourself: The New Rules
In this AI-enhanced landscape, authors need updated defensive strategies:
1. The Contact Verification Rule Legitimate industry professionals have verifiable online presence. If someone can’t be found through a simple Google search, they probably don’t exist.
2. The Business Domain Test Real professionals use business email addresses, not Gmail accounts. “Sharon R. Lessard” contacted me from a Gmail address – immediate red flag.
3. The Reverse Psychology Warning Be especially wary of messages that explicitly deny being scams or that use phrases like “I’m not like other marketers.”
4. The Community Proof Challenge Ask for verifiable proof of their claimed readership or community. Real book clubs and review groups have online presence.
5. The Payment Structure Red Flag Legitimate services don’t require payment to mysterious third parties or request access to your publishing accounts.
The Bigger Picture
This evolution represents something more troubling than individual scams – it’s the weaponization of artificial intelligence against creative communities. The same tools that can help authors write better, research faster, and connect with readers are being turned against us with increasing sophistication.
The traditional advice of “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is” becomes complicated when AI can craft messages that seem genuinely thoughtful and personalized. We need new frameworks for evaluation and new community standards for verification.
Moving Forward
As authors, we must adapt to this new reality without losing our openness to genuine connections. The solution isn’t to retreat into isolation, but to become more sophisticated in our evaluation of outreach.
Document and report these scams. Share information with fellow authors. Support organizations like Writer Beware that track and expose these evolving threats. And remember: if someone truly believes in your work, they’ll be willing to prove their legitimacy through verifiable means.
The age of AI has arrived in the literary world, bringing both tremendous opportunities and new dangers. Our response will determine whether this technology serves creators or exploits them.
Stay vigilant, stay connected, and keep writing.
Find my latest series, The Halls of the Shadow King, on Amazon
Have you received suspicious marketing outreach? Share your experiences in the comments to help fellow authors recognize these evolving scams.
Interestingly this came to me today, after months of trying to get a refund from HarperBookWriters who appear to be legit with an address in LA… Out of 16 listed benefits, only 1 was completed in 5 months and it was editing that looked like AI editing… they say “satisfaction guaranteed” but I have been trying since April to get a refund and still nothing… I keep sending emails to all those who said they were there for me…. nope… no idea what to do … $1,000 is a lot of money to me… and feels mean-spirited of them to refuse.
I’ve heard others with similar complaints, even from seemingly legit publishers. Not sure what to make of it. Sorry this is happening to you!
Daily scourge of my author email account. At first, I tried politely declining and that courtesy was met with mysterious, anonymous, 1-star reviews. I use the email technique first and foremost and generally delete everything coming in from gmail—which appears to be the scammers tool of choice.
Ouch… haven’t seen the one star reviews yet. But I don’t respond to them. Thanks for weighing in!
I’ve had several of these. I’ve had the flattering, appreciative paragraphs about my books, and the snarkier versions that try to tell me I’m failing because my rankings aren’t good enough.
I wonder if, to an extent, we have trained these scammers to do this. The previous versions would email and say ‘we love your book’, and I’d gleefully write back and say ‘which one?’ Now they can make it look more like they’ve actually seen our catalogue.
The bottom line is this. Any service like this that contacts you is up to no good. Services that are genuinely valuable don’t have to tout for business. (And actually I’m just editing a book about this…)
Thanks for this response! Perfect to capture for posterity! 🙂
Kudos for this detailed account of this scam. I wrote the following after receiving my own phony review. – RW
The Unsolicited Review: A “New” Old Scam with A.I.
Another mistake for an indie writer looking to get reviewed is to avoid the unsolicited review, especially the one beefed up with A.I.
Let’s call him “Bob the Reviewer.” He’s seen your short-story collection listed on Amazon, read the blurb on the jacket or read the summary from the online page. He discovers your email address, then asks his cordial A.I. assistant (by whatever name) to tell him what makes a story scary (if the book in question is in the horror genre), or what makes the stories tug at the heart strings (if romance is the genre) or suspenseful if—you get the idea.
Good old Bob doesn’t have to read a sentence of your work; he merely has to let his A.I. do the heavy lifting while he attaches a story or two to the generalized descriptions provided, and though generalized, they’re always filtered through A.I.’s pleasant and eagerly helpful “temperament.” He then attaches the fluff piece that virtually declares the reading public is insane for not having a copy of your work on the shelves already. He lets human nature do the rest—namely, the flattery and praise every writer, indie or not, hopes for from his or her labors in an attempt to pluck “a single leaf from the laurel tree of art without paying for it with his life,” as Thomas Mann wrote. (And let’s assume for the purpose the writer is nothing like that sorehead like Solzhenitsyn and doesn’t give a tinker’s damn what anybody thinks of his books.)
Besides the phony name, Bob grabs a photo of an attractive influencer off the internet to use as his, especially if the real person behind the façade should bear a resemblance Freddie Kreuger, doctors up a resume of marketing credentials keyed to indie novelists, then he puts his A.I. to work on the writer’s vanity. The flattery commences. A.I. gobbles up the cover blurbs, swings by the Table of Contents, and adapts the writer’s work to make it sound as though Bob could barely contain his enthusiasm. In fact, he can’t believe the readers of the genre your book entails hasn’t found you, lauded you to the skies, and aren’t begging you for more.
A.I. handles everything at light speed and has the appropriate “promotional jacket” ready to be altered to suit you—pun intended. If, say, you’re a writer of horror fiction and you’ve published a collection of stories in that genre, Bob’s tame A.I. helper will take you through your own work with gushing prose, painting in the right tropes of “fearfulness” and jump-scares to have you believe Stephen King is quaking in fear of your arrival on the scene.
If you were to follow up Bob’s offered bait with queries, you might get more of the same but the hook will be there in one form or another. If vanity doesn’t work, maybe sloth will: “Let us sweat the small stuff.” Meaning, of course, the wretched business of self-promotion that falls on the shoulders of every indie writer. But there will be little to no actual promotion. You’ll probably get a half-hearted effort despite the gusto expressed in the review he flogged to your email—and heaven knows how many others with a similar A.I. varnish to the appeal. If Bob is any kind of con artist, he’s likely to be a legal one to justify the money you sent him, which means he’ll do something; it just won’t bear much resemblance to the hints about your making the short list of any big literary prize.
After receiving my first unsolicited review for a collection of stories a few weeks ago, I blocked the sender (not a Bob, it turned out, but a “Bobbi”). A week later, I received a second review of my previous crime thriller with the same pitch from a similar but exotically named reviewer who used less hyperbole and nary a single adjective portending my future glory. Like A.I., Bob is learning from experience. Not to be too harsh on Bob, Amazon and Goodreads are littered with “solicited” reviews from writers’ friends and family. Few are immune to it.
The solution’s always the same: avoid them, block them, ignore them. If the flattery finds its way in, it’s a worm that can destroy much like its opposite, which is succumbing to the temptation to agree with one’s critics for their approval (that wisdom borrowed from one of Thomas Harris’ novels). It was A.I. that helped Bob perpetrate his ruse regardless of the rolodex of names he or she can draw from to keep coming back to find a willing victim, but—and here’s the good part—it’s also A.I. that can expose Bob and his ilk.
In Bob’s case, a devastating, point-by-point enumeration of how little I or anyone would get for sending in the money should correspondence begin. Marcus Aurelius’ description of the flatterer is apt to close with: “They despise one another, yet they flatter one another; they want to get above one another and yet bow down to one another” Meditations, Bk. 11).
Thanks so much! I feel that the best way to combat this “author abuse” (or is it just “human nature abuse”?) is to keep sharing stories. It is a new look at an old scam, isn’t it?
I’m so glad to have found your post, Tod! Because: BINGO, I received a lengthy, scammy email today from “Sharon R Lessard”; in the process of tracking her down (key words were her name and “readers”) — your post came up. Thank you, thank you. —It DID sound like a total scam to me but my emotional buttons got pushed and I felt like a scrap heap of wasted dreams…. (Sigh).
Thanks Merle. Very glad that it was helpful. Interestingly, she and her ilk in Nigeria have been on my site even more since I posted this piece… Not sure if they are reading about themselves? :). All the best to you!
Wow! Great description and specifics of exactly the type of emails that I have been receiving! Thanks for sharing this article.
Thanks for reading and I’m glad it was useful for you!