I Set a Trap for a Book-Marketing Scammer
twenty-first-century blues
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I Set a Trap for a Book-Marketing Scammer<br>Or, She (It?) thought I was a 400-year-old playwright … then things got weird.<br>Rob Greene (He/Him/His)<br>Dec 02, 2025
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This is the story of a traditionally published sci-fi author who received more than fifty scam book-marketing pitches in thirty-three days, all hoping to prey on his desperation to sell books and net his next publishing deal.<br>We’ll call him Rob.<br>It’s also the story of a plucky, persistent, puzzled AI named Veronica and a scammer who steals real authors’ identities in order to get their marks’ guards down.<br>But mostly, it’s the story of what happens when an entire industry is drowning, and the people holding out life preservers are running a con.<br>Day Zero: Oct. 18
The wave began with Mercy Gold (which is a great name for a werewolf hunter or demon slayer, BTW).<br>“Hello,” her email started. “You’ve already laid a great foundation with your blurb and keywords that’s a strong start.”<br>A compliment sandwich, I know them well. You’re doing great, BUT there’s a problem you didn’t know you had. She offered to help me manage “light social presence and simple email marketing” to keep my book “in front of real readers.” Would I be open to seeing how this could support my “author journey”?<br>The email came from mercygold7400@gmail.com. Not a company domain. Not a professional address. Just a numbered Gmail account.<br>I deleted it.<br>Two days later, another pitch arrived. Then another. By the end of October, I’d received seven. In the first three weeks of November, I got twenty-three more.<br>They came from:<br>Isaac Michael, offering Pinterest and Goodreads strategies
Halfdaytravel, promising TikTok features at 1:28 in the morning
Pratibha Malav, with a price list for paid reviews across multiple platforms
Janet, pitching websites and cinematic trailers
Someone claiming to be “Dr. Sandra Maria Anderson” using the email address abbyamazonalirah@gmail.com
Some offered video production, others social media management, still others Amazon optimization or Google indexing services. They all shared generic Gmail addresses, vague promises of increased visibility, and an understanding that I was anxious about my books finding readers.<br>They were 100-percent right about the anxiety, and that’s what makes them dangerous. The economics of traditional publishing are brutal right now, especially for mid-list (and lower) writers.<br>My actual royalties per book sold (assuming they’ve earned out and I get, ya know, actual royalties):<br>Ebook: roughly $0.25-0.40
Print book: roughly $0.65-1.00
Audiobook: roughly $1.30-5.00 (depending on format and territory)
If someone charges me $500 for marketing services, I’d need to sell as many as 2,000 additional copies just to break even. Publishers have PR teams, media contacts, co-op placement deals with retailers, and marketing budgets. If Angry Robot, with all those resources, couldn’t get my book onto certain Pinterest boards or Goodreads lists, what makes a freelancer with a Gmail account believe their strategy will work?<br>The truth is, they don’t believe it will. They believe I might believe it will.<br>Books ARE harder to discover than they used to be. Algorithms DO matter. Readers ARE out there, somewhere, not finding my work. And, when the next pitch arrives—probably tomorrow or right now—some part of me will wonder: what if?
Glub. Glub-Glub. Glub-Glub-Glub.
To understand why these scams are proliferating, look at what’s happening to the industry. More books are being published than ever before (self-publishing explosion plus traditional publishers desperate for revenue), while readership is declining (fewer readers, less reading time, more competition from other media). The result is the average book sells fewer copies than it used to.<br>Authors are desperate because books aren’t selling, traditional marketing isn’t working, and publishers are offering less support per title. We’re feeling pretty helpless about our career trajectories, watching sales numbers decline while wondering what we’re doing wrong.<br>Meanwhile, publishers are desperate because the mid-list is dying, there are fewer breakouts, and they can’t afford to market every title the way they used to. They tell authors there’s nothing more they can do, leaving us to wonder if we should be doing something ourselves.<br>Scammers see opportunity in this desperation. There are more anxious authors than ever before, each one a potential customer. The market is growing (more books = more targets) while competition for attention intensifies. It’s the perfect environment to scale up operations using AI and automation.<br>That’s why the Summer and Fall of 2025 saw an explosion of these pitches. Summer sales numbers were bad across the industry. Publishers quietly told authors they weren’t picking up next options. Industry articles about the “publishing crisis” circulated widely. The anxiety peaked just...