OK, OK. I missed my May the Fourth Be With You Star Wars quote tie-in by one day (as I write this, it’s May 5th) but it’s a message that’s true for indie writers, whatever the time of year.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen a huge upsurge recently in not just fake social media posts and messages from scammers, but also direct emails to my author address. These usually take the form of someone offering gushing praise for my work, with a vague plot summary lifted from whatever synopsis of it that they can find online.
Even more disturbing, some of these scammers are stealing the identity of actual real-life successful authors to reel-in desperate self-published authors. How does this work though? You’re right to ask. The thing is, some of the authors being impersonated are not active on social media themselves, so less likely to pick up on having their identity stolen.
We can only hope that lawyers acting on behalf of these authors can get involved. Even if self-published authors getting scammed isn’t their concern, the reputation of their clients most certainly is.
So, I’m treating this as both a warning to fellow self-published authors who may not be aware, and also just an opportunity to add my tiny bit of presence to the cause of exposing these scammers. Also, I’d really appreciate it if you could reply, either by email or in the comments, if you have had any similar experiences. I’m not under the illusion that keeping a log of these scam email addresses and accounts is going to stop anybody scamming, but hopefully by building up our database of blockable scam accounts, we can keep our inboxes a little clearer and keep hold of what motivation we still have to write in these ever more challenging times.
Here’s a few recent ones I received that you can add to your block list to get you started:
Shari Low
Varsha
Emily Douglas
Elena Ferrante (she’s real – the scammer has stolen her identity)
Simon Says 