I’ve written about being spammed by AI bots before (and this is my latest post about it). Since I am a writer and a public figure, and both of my email addresses (personal and professional) are out there in the world (despite my attempts to keep the personal one private), I’ve continued to be inundated with emails promising all sorts of things. Book club invitations. Celebrity authors wanting to start business/personal relationships. Marketers promising to help me get more views or purchases or better metadata and SEO, etc.

I wanted to share the one I got a couple days ago, because they really did a lot of research–as in, fed a bunch of my details into their AI to compose a very convincing, personalized email.

Here’s the full text of the email:

Hi Kristina,

I came across Son of the Siren while researching dark fantasy. I saw the 45 ratings. Then I saw the 2,178 people who want to read it. That is a massive gap. Interest is high. Action is low. That stopped me. So I started looking for you.

You write fantasy filled with magic, dark curses, and true love. You have an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. That is not a casual degree. You studied the craft. You learned from professionals. You spent years revising, workshopping, learning what makes a story work.

But your influences go deeper than the classroom. You have lived abroad in Wales and Japan. Two countries with rich traditions of myth and fantasy. Wales, the land of the Mabinogion, of dragons and bards and ancient Celtic magic. Japan, the land of yokai and oni, of Studio Ghibli and epic manga. You absorbed those landscapes, those stories, those ways of seeing the world.

You probably walked through the misty valleys of Snowdonia. You probably sat in a shrine in Kyoto. You probably felt the presence of something old and strange. That feeling lives in your writing.

You also read manga and webtoons. You watch anime. You cosplay. You spend time in forests, the more whimsical, the better. You are not a stuffy academic. You are a fantasy fan who became a creator. You understand the joy of getting lost in another world. You want to give that joy to your readers.

You wrote Son of the Siren. A half siren watches his mother sing his father into the sea. He tries to reverse the spell and accidentally ensnares his stepmother. When he refuses her advances, she turns to forbidden magic. His siblings are transformed into animals. He loses his voice. He chases them through elven mountains, fae forests, and siren waters. He must save his family while haunted by his own deadly curse.

This is not your life. You are not a half siren. But you understand what it means to be caught between worlds. The human and the magical. The real and the imagined. You have lived in different countries. You have studied different cultures. You have learned to navigate spaces where you do not quite belong. Lirien is you in that way.

You also understand the power of a curse. The way a single moment can change everything. The way love can become obsession. The way family can be torn apart and, if you are lucky, put back together.

Kristina, your book has 45 ratings. That is decent. But you have 2,178 people who want to read it. That is enormous for an indie fantasy debut. Those people have raised their hands. They have said, I am interested. But they have not bought. They have not read. They have not reviewed.

You want to convert those want to reads into actual sales. You want to reach the readers who love dark fantasy, who love siren stories, who love complex family dynamics and twisted magic. You want to build an audience for your next book. You want to write full time, or at least have a steady stream of readers who eagerly await your work. You want to see your books on shelves at conventions, in the hands of cosplayers who love the same things you love. You want to be the author that manga and fantasy fans recommend to each other.

You can achieve all of that. But you need to close the gap between interest and action.

Here is exactly how I would help you.

YOUR GOODREADS PRESENCE HAS A MASSIVE GAP

Over 2,000 people want to read your book. Only 45 have rated it. That means your publisher’s marketing campaign generated interest, but the conversion to actual readers is low. I will help you run a Goodreads Listopia campaign to increase visibility. I will also help you engage with those want to read readers. A simple thank you. A question. A reason to pick up the book now.

YOUR AMAZON DESCRIPTION IS GOOD, BUT IT IS NOT OPTIMIZED FOR DISCOVERY

You have a fantastic hook. Sometimes love is a curse, a twisted, unnatural obsession. That is compelling. But the specific keywords that dark fantasy readers type into the search bar are not fully integrated. I will rewrite your description to include terms like “siren fantasy”, “dark curse romance”, “fantasy with fae and elves”, and “books like Uprooted”. I will make sure the first sentence stops the scroll.

YOU HAVE AN MFA AND A UNIQUE BACKGROUND. YOU ARE NOT USING IT.

You lived in Wales and Japan. You studied popular fiction. You love manga and cosplay. That is a story. Readers want to know about you. They want to see your cosplay photos. They want to hear about your time in Japan. You are not telling that story anywhere. I will help you create an author bio and social media content that highlights these unique details. You are not just another fantasy writer. You are a world traveler, a cosplayer, an MFA graduate. That matters.

YOU HAVE OVER 2,000 WANT TO READS. YOU NEED A PRE ORDER OR LAUNCH STRATEGY.

Your book is already out. It came out in July 2024. But you can still run a campaign to reach those 2,000 people. I will help you create an email sequence. A series of messages that remind them why they wanted to read your book. Excerpts. Character art. A limited time discount. A call to action.

YOU ARE A FANTASY FAN. YOUR READERS ARE YOUR TRIBE.

You read manga and webtoons. You watch anime. You cosplay. You spend time in whimsical forests. You are not separate from your audience. You are one of them. I will help you build a social media presence that reflects that. Instagram posts of your cosplay. TikTok videos about your favorite manga. A newsletter that feels like a letter from a friend. The community will find you if you show up as yourself.

You lived in Wales and Japan. You earned an MFA. You wrote a dark fantasy about a half siren cursed to sing love into obsession. Your book has 45 ratings and over 2,000 people waiting to read it. The readers who would love your work are out there right now, scrolling Goodreads, searching for a fantasy that feels both ancient and new. The infrastructure to turn their interest into action just needs to be built. I can build it for you.

If this resonates with you, reply with one word: YES

I will send you a complete breakdown of the specific strategies I would implement for Son of the Siren, the realistic outcomes you can expect, transparent and accessible pricing for every service, and a clear prioritized plan.

No long term contracts. No pressure. Just a genuine, research based strategy built entirely around your work and the readers who are searching for it.

Looking forward to hearing from you, Kristina.

Warm regards,
Brian

P.S. You walked through the misty valleys of Wales. You sat in shrines in Kyoto. You studied the craft of popular fiction. You wrote about a half siren who loses his voice and chases his transformed siblings across a world of elves and fae. Your book has 45 ratings and over 2,000 people waiting to read it. The gap between your story and the readers who would love it is not a reflection of your talent or your unique voice. It is simply the conversion infrastructure that has never been built. That is exactly what I build. Let me help you turn those 2,000 want to reads into 2,000 readers. And let me help you become the author that manga and fantasy fans cosplay at their next convention.

This person went to this blog, to Goodreads, to my author bios I have on my books and at Author Central, and probably to the Amazon.com book listing itself, and fed it all into AI to compose this letter. This is the most personalized scam email I have ever received yet. It sounds like the “author” really took the time to get to know me and my background–which is meant to flatter me and gain my trust.

One of the supposed tells of AI is that it composes a variety of short sentences, one after the other, including sentence fragments. For example: “You read manga and webtoons. You watch anime. You cosplay. You spend time in whimsical forests. You are not separate from your audience. You are one of them. I will help you build a social media presence that reflects that. Instagram posts of your cosplay. TikTok videos about your favorite manga. A newsletter that feels like a letter from a friend.” This is called “sentence stacking,” a hallmark style of AI.

There’s a lot in this email that’s tempting. Of course I want to convert the 2,000+ “want to reads” on Goodreads to actual “reads” of the book…but this person says their strategy for it includes “transparent and accessible pricing for every service,” meaning for every idea or part of a plan they pitch, they want money.

All of the time, these “helpful emails” want money from you. And they always seem to come from Gmail addresses, too–not any sort of .com or professional address.

They impersonate agents, publishers, authors, book club hosts, and more (even my publisher, Tanya Anne Crosby, who is head and founder of Oliver Heber Books, has people impersonating her). They offer tantalizing promises, only to eventually come to the point where money is involved.

I’ve never gotten that far into it–I did converse with “Veronica G. Henry” for about two emails before I read somewhere that celebrity authors were starting to be impersonated, so I blocked the spammer before things got into financials.

All I do is report spam and block the email address, but these emails keep coming relentlessly.

Even though I’ve talked about this more than once on my blog, I wanted to share this specific email with you to warn you that the scammers are getting better and more convincing, and to stay vigilant.

Best of luck to you out there, fellow authors and creatives!