31 Comments
User's avatar
M.E. Proctor's avatar

Some of them are more believable than others ... but they're all crap! The email I received two days ago was from J.M. Coetzee. That was impressive! A scammer impersonating a Nobel Prize laureate, wow! They're getting up there in the literary firmament ...

Lev Raphael's avatar

The saving grace is that these scammers are not as smart as they think they are. Picking famous writers is moronic.

Anthony Neil Smith's avatar

I know someone who got the Coetzee one. Sigh.

Lev Raphael's avatar

So bizarre to choose him, but also thankfully dumb.

M.E. Proctor's avatar

And I thought I was special, lol!

Lev Raphael's avatar

You still are. :-)

Liz Gauffreau's avatar

I’ve gotten one from a Nobel prize winner who is actually dead!

Lev Raphael's avatar

Wow! You are really in demand!

Liz Gauffreau's avatar

But of course!

Lev Raphael's avatar

Ça va sans dire, hein?

X. P. Callahan's avatar

Yep. Graywolf has this scam alert right at the top of its home page.

Lev Raphael's avatar

I wonder why scammers have picked them. Do they think most writers don't know the smaller presses?

Leigh Ann Wallace's avatar

This kind of thing really ticks me off.

Lev Raphael's avatar

Scammers are lowlifes and filled with contempt for the people they scam. It doesn’t matter what they do is digital or in person, it still stinks.

Susan Oleksiw's avatar

These are such a waste of time, and now with AI they're tempting and believable to newbies, but this too will come to an end when there's no one left to believe any of it. Thanks, AI.

Lev Raphael's avatar

AI Is increasingly and exponentially dangerous. There are many legitimate documentaries on YouTube that paint a totally gloomy portrait of where we’re headed.

WYATT! Out Loud's avatar

Yup, I'm getting a ton of these scams. And when I say, "Let's do a Zoom call," they disappear like Casper the Ghost. (LOL)

Lev Raphael's avatar

Nice one! They're persistent, though. I've had some keep emailing me. I knew because I marked their emails as SPAM and I check that folder daily just to make sure nothing is in there by mistake.

Lauren Levato Coyne's avatar

The email addresses always give it away. That's one thing AI bots haven't sorted out yet, but they have definitely improved in the spelling mistakes and grammar category to the point of being believable.

Lev Raphael's avatar

Yes! Better technically but not in tone. I have never gotten a legit request from an editor that was so informal.

Richard Donnelly's avatar

Once again the scam seems impossible. If you answer there's a back and forth that leads... where? A scam asks for money. This one asks for... a discussion? : )

Lev Raphael's avatar

Very possible and profitable, otherwise they wouldn't keep sending these out. Scams aimed at writers don't ask for money right off. The first email is bait. Money only gradually enters the equation.

Richard Donnelly's avatar

But I would think with each additional interaction the chance for getting $ diminishes. Again, to me these scams make no sense. Who's sending $ without at the very least checking the website?

Lev Raphael's avatar

These are likely going out in the hundreds of thousands, thanks to AI. *Somebody* will end up being fooled.

Anthony Neil Smith's avatar

He can't be interested in your book because he's already taken my whole backlist...at least as soon as the $3K check I sent him clears to help with "rights issues." Literary legacy, here I come!

Lev Raphael's avatar

He doesn't even know if I have a book.

But who reads a comic crime novel as an editor and thinks "I wonder if the author has a literary novel for us"?

Jon Fain's avatar

For a while I was getting emails and even a couple of phone calls from some supposed publisher interested in my book "The Deal." Thing was, I have a story with that title that has been published a couple of times but no book by that title. The one you share here about Graywolf is a bit more sophisticated but also lame because like you say they don't do genre. Sorry, Ethan.

Lev Raphael's avatar

I think AI is going to help the scams get even more sophisticated which means more victims.

From Ritual to Romance's avatar

Wow. And what would be the purpose of scamming you in this way? Would they try to steal your work and publish under their own names?

Lev Raphael's avatar

I think the point would be trying to get money from me in some way--or personal information. There's a whole raft of scams from supposed publicists who go for that more directly.