Caveat Scriptor

         Lately, I’ve been getting warm, personal emails from bestselling authors.  I’m touched by this, because I really didn’t know how much they cared.  Another exciting development is the number of professional book marketers who see tremendous potential in various titles from my backlist.  I most appreciate the effort they’ve put into these communications, not only gathering facts about the works, and myself as the author, but providing very coherent, persuasive arguments.  I mean, these guys are good.

        Scary good.  Actually, literally terrifying. 

        Most of my professional experience has been in advertising.  One of the things you quickly learn in that business is you need a healthy dose of cynicism.  As Lilly Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical you get, it’s impossible to keep up.”  It also helps to have your ego ground into a gelatinous paste on a regular basis.  We didn’t just experience rejection, it came at us all day long, every day.  So I’m probably the least susceptible target on earth for flattering marketing ploys. 

        Thus, I knew almost immediately that I was being played by Artificial Intelligence.  But what threw me was how incredibly sophisticated these appeals were.  The best were not just factually sound, but textured and nuanced in how they framed their arguments.  They have complete fluency in the language of both marketing and publishing.  And worst of all, it didn’t seem possible that they weren’t written by a human being.  That’s because the composition had an emotional quality, a personal touch that rookie promotional writers take years to develop.

        It seems pretty stupid to try to scam everyday fiction writers, of all people.  Clearly they don’t have access to our tax returns or go deep enough to find the entry for advances/royalties.  Though as I often remind myself, you can make a lot of money by taking a little money from a lot of people.  As the headline on a recent article in The New York Times puts it:  “Hungry for Affirmation, Vulnerable to Scams:  As a Writer, I Know the Feeling.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/books/review/publishing-scams.html

        This is the crux of the matter.  All aspiring artists are equal parts devotional, ambitious and insecure.  We get into it because we want to create, often driven to do so.  And we want to succeed, because success means having an audience that appreciates our work, and provides the means for continuing in the pursuit.  But since no one can truly be an arbiter in their own efforts, we have to rely on others to approve or reject.  It’s a perilous place for anyone yearning to achieve in their chosen art form.  So boy, vulnerable as you can get.

        The scams that feed on lonely hearts, often elderly, and then steal their life savings are particularly heinous.  The material loss is financial, but the emotional toll is far worse, since the hopes and dreams of the victims, their most heartfelt, are used against them.  To say nothing of the self-recrimination and embarrassment. 

        These frauds targeting writers are a close cousin.  I’m sure an fMRI would reveal that the same areas of the brain that light up from romance are kindled by a writer being offered the validation they so eagerly desire. 

        As I write this, there are striving writers out there who are being seduced by these diabolical con jobs (I mean that literally, even biblically).  I wonder about myself at that stage, and how it felt to have those tender emotions hanging off my sleeves, dripping from every pore.  I’d be a sucker for sure, and I’m not sure how well I’d recover. 

        My hope is that anyone reading this will 1. Never reply.  2. Report the scam to the platform, even if you think it’s not worth it.  3. Tell every writer they know to watch out.  They’re after you, and you won’t always see it coming, no matter how experienced, cynical and hardboiled you think you are.