Book promotion spammers now travel in packs

ByJosh Bernoff

Just by chance, the following all happened yesterday.

  • Ethan Cole, book marketing specialist, whom I’ve never met, suggests promoting my nine-year-old book Writing Without Bullshit with corporate, university, and Amazon programs. Example text: “Congratulations on Writing Without Bullshit a rare book that cuts through the noise with the same precision it teaches. You’ve not only written a guide to better communication, but a manifesto for a new standard of business writing. Every chapter embodies what professionals crave today: brevity, boldness, and the courage to write with clarity and conviction. Your ‘Iron Imperative’ treating the reader’s time as more valuable than your own resonates deeply in a world overwhelmed by digital clutter. By urging professionals to abandon jargon and embrace substance, Writing Without Bullshit becomes more than a style guide; it’s a modern philosophy of communication. It empowers leaders, marketers, and executives to express complex ideas with confidence and authenticity.” Ethan has no web site.
  • Chiara Collins, “book marketer and reviewer,” offers to share a concise idea for expanding my book’s reach, explaining that“Writing Without Bullshit, has become such a touchstone for clarity and purpose in communication. The ‘Iron Imperative’ is both simple and transformative, an idea that feels even more urgent in today’s attention-short world.”
  • Roberta Rono offers to feature Writing Without Bullshit in her “literary spotlight program,” including this heartfelt plea: “Writing Without Bullshit is a refreshing manifesto for anyone who wants to write and think with purpose. The Iron Imperative you champion, to treat the reader’s time as more valuable than your own, resonates deeply with our members. In a world overwhelmed by noise and fluff, your insights on clarity, confidence, and honesty in writing are not only practical but empowering.”
  • Evelyn Jean offers to create bulk orders for my book, congratulating me on my organic growth of 708 ratings in 8 years (presumably on GoodReads, based on my matching numbers). Evelyn, a “book marketing specialist,” cites her successful promotion of two marginal books of fiction as proof she is an expert on business book promotion and says she deleted her LinkedIn profile because scammers were impersonating her. (There are no book marketers with the name “Evelyn Jean” on LinkedIn.) When I demur, she says “Thanks for your quick reply I’ll admit, your ‘Not interested’ caught me off guard” (presumably because everyone else is jumping at the chance to work with her).
  • Betty Lyna proposes to create a professional landing page for me. I guess this 4-million view 4-million word blog doesn’t count.

A new scam?

None of the people messaging me mention web sites for their promotional programs in their pitches. All have gmail addresses. None appear to be on LinkedIn.

Several mention details from my book, including “The Iron Imperative.” But they don’t use the same language. The most likely reason is that they use AI to scrape and reinterpret my book description.

I don’t know what triggered them all to appear on the same day. Either there is some scammer source somewhere that just posted my book, or it might have to do with it crossing the 800-review threshold on GoodReads.

People selling useless services to authors are as common as mushrooms around rotting tree trunks. But AI-powered customized spam is something new. It needs a name. LLaMarketing? Spaim? Splop? Please suggest some better alternatives.

If you do this, just know that authors read my blog and are on the lookout for spammers like you. What’s next, synthetic video of me doing a podcast?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

6 Comments

  1. It can’t be because you’ve crossed a threshold in the number of reviews. I have far fewer and these well-crafted pitches have been flooding my inbox. Some of them are quite compelling, and they all reference the content of my book. Who wouldn’t want to be the invited guest at the London Book Club with 2500 eager readers just salivating over my title and desperate to buy it and promote it?

    Reply

  2. I like ‘spAIm’ for labeling this. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but with the capital ‘AI’ it reads well.

    Reply

  3. “Just by chance” – to you, maybe. But not by them. Clear targeting. Flooding you with such a heavy barrage of “offers” that you’ll get careless (from sheer exhaustion) and respond. You and a zillion other authors out there, published traditionally or independently. This kind of campaigning has worked forever for every kind of “culture” in which humans commune.

    I delete most that I receive, by both email and voice mail. The ones I don’t delete? Those I save, the really well-done emails, are preserved for posterity in a folder named, “They Wanna Make Me Famous.”

    Reply