I thought I should loop my readers in on a possible new scam variant that might be on the horizon (because we writers don’t have to deal with enough of these, apparently). Here’s what went down today. Make of it what you will.
I got an email out of the blue from Audiobooks.com. The gist of the email was as follows. They thanked me for emailing them, and their customer support would be reaching out to me within three business days. Normal, right?
Here’s the problem…I’ve never emailed this company. I had never even heard of them until today. Even stranger, this same email was carbon copied to several other individuals (obviously not going to post those addresses, but that is the kind of thing one normally would blind carbon copy, yes?). Why would a company copy the same customer service reply email to several other people, and then have those addresses visible?
So, my first thought is that this is some kind of scam. There’s tons out there. The flavor of the month for this kind of annoyance is the ‘fake book club’ ones. These types email an author about their book, and then offer to feature it in a club that has some huge amount of readers (I think one said they had 100k members…really?). They always want some kind of fee though. Sometimes it’s a ‘spotlight’ or ‘placeholder’ fee, sometimes it’s a ‘coffee tip’ fee for their readers.
Real book clubs don’t operate this way. Delete these, or toy with these dingdongs if that’s your thing.
Anyway, I thought I would complete my due diligence and reach out to my publisher, Ellysian Press. They do convert some of their titles to audiobooks, and I wanted to see if this was possibly the company they were using. Still, it would be somewhat strange that they didn’t tell me about this, and that this audiobook company was responding to an email that I never sent.
Ellysian Press got back to me a few hours later. They confirmed that this was NOT the company that they use, and that I should disregard the email. This served to confirm my suspicions as to part of this little saga.
Here’s where it gets really odd.
Not too long after this audiobook email comes through, I get a second email. This one is a typical scammer email, the ‘I have some ideas about improving your book’s visibility’ version. The weird part? This scammers email address was one of the ones that showed up in the audiobook email. Meaning, this person was one of the six that got that audiobook customer support email. I even triple checked to make sure the addresses were not just similar…nope. Letter for letter identical.
For me, the coincidence is too freaky to ignore. I’m in no way sure what to make of this. Why would a scammer be listed in another, seemingly unrelated email to me? What connection do they have to this Audiobooks.com company? I have no idea, but my gut is telling me that this is the beginning of some new variation of scams targeting authors and writers. What final form it will take, I have no idea.
Stay safe and sane, everyone! Remember, if they reach out to you, it is more than likely a scam. Real marketing companies let you find them, not the other way around. Ditto for book clubs. And super famous authors NEVER email people out of the blue.
Oof. As if the life of a writer wasn’t complicated enough.