Authors get tons of scam emails. Some are pitiful in their ineptitude and transparency, often originating from an email address like “famousagentreallyimnotmakingthisup@gmail.com.” Those remind me of that Super Bowl FedEx ad, the one where the space alien puts a human paper mask over his face, and everyone believes him because he keeps saying “Let’s use FedEx”. Scams are getting better with AI now. Most of them rave about how good your book is and seem to come from someone who actually read it. And some aren’t scams; they are people trying to sell you a service which may or may not be worthwhile. I have bought a few of those and got what I paid for.
My most interesting interaction was with a gang member, a smuggler, whom I ran into during my research for Hotwire. He texted that he wanted to kill me and sent photos of his handiwork, kind of like how remodelers will send pics of bathrooms and kitchens they have worked on. Except these were pictures of dead bodies, which he promised I would look like soon. Not just me, my entire family–he also listed my wife, kids, and their spouses on the “to be killed” list- including my daughter’s two ex-husbands! I wanted to reach out to the guy to help him in his nascent career as an extortionist. “You don’t need to threaten me! I would pay you good money to kill a few of the people on this list!”
But I didn’t, because the first rule in dealing with a scammer is never to respond. Which brings me to last month when I got a most contrived and obviously scammy email—a woman in the UK wanted to buy an original copy of Hotwire, the original cover with Lady Liberty slammed over an ICE cruiser, the one I retired because I thought it stifled sales. Money was no object. She had gotten a copy from a friend, another woman, who had loaned the original to her, and she had lost it. Obvious scam! First of all, all the women I know in the UK will not talk to me anymore. But in a conversation, she mentioned her friend’s name, whom I did know, and for reasons unknown, is still talking to me. So I sent her an email to arrange funds transfer, shipping. Etc. And heard nothing for two weeks, confirming my initial suspicions. Pretty elaborate for a hoax, I thought.
So it was a surprise to get another call from her two weeks later; my email had gone into the “bit bucket”, she was legit, and the crazy story of a lost book and a woman still on speaking terms with me was true! Book sent and funds transferred in short order.
I think there is a lesson there about trust and the lack of it today. Most people I know will not answer a call with an unknown number—a far cry from a time when all our names, numbers, and addresses were listed in a book which doubled as a booster seat, distributed each year. Nowadays this would be called doxing. I got the initial email while eating lunch at WriterCon in OKC and asked my lunchmates what they would do—every single one of them, about a dozen, said they would never have responded to the first email.
We have lost something to these scammers. I don’t know how to regain it, but I want to live in a world where I can trust people. I think you create the world you live in by your actions, so I will continue to respond to the odd email, phone call, and text. But I’ll try to avoid the gang members (even though, as a pretty good author, I think I could really up their extortion game.)
Megga Maps update: No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and no draft survives contact with a beta reader! Still revising, shooting for ARC out by 1 November.
Till next month, peace.