Blazing Reader,

A few times a week, I receive an email from some scammer (or their AI partner in crime) trying to convince me to hand over money in exchange for them making my novels world famous (as if they're not already... how presumptuous!). I usually just hit delete. Yesterday, I hit reply instead:

Hello Author,

Hello Scammer. I can tell you are not even using AI for this con, because at least AI would have been smart enough to address me by name.

Writing a book is a massive achievement...

How would you know? Have you ever written a book? You can't even pull off the minimum effort to write a convincing email.

...but the hardest part often starts after hitting publish.

Yes, because once published, I had to start wading through scammy offers like yours on an almost daily basis.

Between social media, algorithms, and trying to get noticed, modern authors are expected to be full-time marketers. It can be exhausting, and it often takes the joy out of the creative process.

Actually, I see marketing as a creative process. What would take the joy out of it is giving you any sum of money to do a lame job at promoting my books. A lame job, though, is probably setting the bar too high. I'm sure you'd disappear after payment faster than the speed of science.

That is why we run an Author Spotlight series at Author Influence Hub. We wanted to create a space that focuses less on cold sales and more on the human being behind the keyboard.

The human being? Human beings have names. We aren't called "author." But maybe avoiding names helps dehumanize budding authors enough that you can still somehow sleep at night after conning them out of their last few pennies.

This is a dedicated feature where we share the heart behind your book, look at your creative journey, and give readers a genuine reason to connect with you.

Can you vague it up anymore? I already do all of the above through podcast interviews, my newsletter, online videos and other media.

By handling the formatting, layout, and presentation on our platform, we give you hands-off visibility and a permanent digital footprint to help readers find you when they look you up online.

Even a five-year-old could construct a more logical and convincing sales pitch. What are you talking about? You're going to format and layout my permanent digital footprint?

To help cover our platform hosting and the time spent designing and promoting each feature, we ask for a small service contribution. I keep this as minimal as possible because author marketing gets expensive, and I want to keep this accessible.

Do you have any samples of your quasi-charitable undertakings? I notice you are writing from a Gmail address — adamsblue79@gmail.com — which is so common among scammers who don't want to be traced back to an online source. E.g. you haven't sent me a link to your generically named Author Influence Hub. Why? Because it's a facade. I did a Google search and found it. It's a fancy AI-generated home page linking to blank pages, and ending with a phone number — +1 (902) 516-2615 — that just gave me a busy signal when I tried calling it (can't afford voicemail?).

Putting your art out into the world takes real courage, and I would love to highlight your hard work.

It also takes courage to scam people into sending you "a small service contribution" in exchange for... nothing. But, on second thought, it doesn't take too much guts when you do it behind a keyboard, using a fake name and a Gmail account. If you had tried pitching your scam two hundred years ago in my small Dutch village, the folks here would have strapped you to the windmill.

Also, I think you confused "highlight your hard work" with "exploit your hard work."

You couldn't even be bothered to ask ChatGPT to help write your lame email, which shows what little you know about "hard work."

If you are open to sharing a bit of your story, please let me know.

You gotta be kidding.

Best regards

You forgot to write your fake name here, Adam Blue. That's what we human beings do after a closing salutation. You're not even a good con artist, let alone a book marketer.

I'll be sure to post this email reply to you on my blog, and on social media and in writer communities I belong to, to help give your Author Scamming Hub some more free publicity.

But, I can't promise it'll generate many victims.

So you might want to find a real job. Anything. Scrub toilets if you have to — it would be a wonderful form of repentance. Do that for a few years. Then write a memoir about your journey from amateur scammer to professional janitor. Work really hard at writing that book. Then market it yourself. And maybe, just maybe, you'll learn about the "joy of the creative process" and, also, the meaning of "hard work."

Sincerely,

John C.A. Manley

P.S. Turns out I'm doing fine without Adam Blue's Author Influence Hub scamming me of my hard-earned book sales. For a list of all the podcasts I've ever appeared on over the last four years, head on over here.

P.P.S. To date, one of my favourite interviews was with Robert Vaughan at Just Right Media. Check out this two-minute clip for a quick sample.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.