The Author Scammer who Will Not Be Ignored [LOL]

by | 2026-02-16 | Observations on Everything

Scammers love to prey on authors, taking advantage of their desperation to get their book published and/or promoted.There are tons of angles: interest from fake publishers, fake interest from real publishers, fake editors, fake agents, fake book clubs, and fake reviewers.

There’s two easy tells for these things. One is heaping over-the-top praise upon the work, and the other is the free-mail address (GMail, AOL, Hotmail, etc.). I saw another one recently where the scammer-idiot claimed to be an editor from one of the big five publishers, but was using a GMail address. Belly laugh. Please don’t fall for that.

This scam-ass is in the fake review category, but when the author failed to respond to the first message, the scammer got threatening:

Email from a scammer. Subject: Re: [book title] From Christopher Joseph if you continue to ignore my messages, | might do something you would regret for the rest of your life. | already have access to your book, and instead of giving it a positive review, | will leave a negative one and damage its reputation. It seems you have forgotten that | have a community of readers, and | can easily influence them to bring your book down. You can try me though. On Wed, 24 Dec 2025 at 2:55PM, Christopher Joseph wrote: Hello [redacted], | came across [book Title], and it immediately struck me as the kind of transformative, deeply personal guide that seekers of self-discovery actively search for but often struggle to find.

I have to say if this showed up in my inbox, they would get an obscenity-laced response (from a no-reply email address) inviting them to do their worst. And if they actually did post a negative review, I’d use that in my promotional materials under the heading “Review Scammers Hated This Book!”

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