from agents, editors, book clubs, and the like praising my work at length and offering to publish or promote me. I had no idea how profitable these scams were, only that more and more of them appear in my inbox each day. The early ones asked for money up front; they have become more subtle but are still clearly composed by AI. No busy agent or editor would write a fulsome appreciation of one’s career before inquiring whether one had any new projects to share!
A very thorough investigation of these scams just appeared in The Guardian; apparently some authors have lost more than US$100,000 falling for them! Here’s the article, if you are curious about the dark side of the literary industry: