Author Impersonation and Other Scams

They've gotten a lot more prolific

Hello, Protagonists!

Welcome to another entry in Author Diaries—where we take you behind the scenes of publishing—querying, cover design, book publicity, and more.

In this post you’ll find:

📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well—books or articles that are lighting up my brain

🕵🏻‍♀️ Behind the Scenes—Author Impersonation and other scams

As always, thank you for being here, not just as readers, but as fellow story-lovers and co-dreamers of this beautiful, bookish life.

xo,

Joanna & Evelyn

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📚 What’s Filling My Creative Well

Recently read:

• “Swanksgiving” by Katrina Donham — this essay is part memoir, part reflection on what makes us human, and all gorgeous prose. Katrina doesn’t sand off the sharp corners of life but rather, observes the world with gentle keenness and reminds us that no matter who we are or where we’ve been, it’s okay.

• Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein — this novel is about the depth of appreciation and love between mother and daughters, and between sisters. I didn’t know if I’d enjoy a book about soccer, but it’s not really about soccer (like how Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was not really about video games)—it’s about deftly crafted characters whose emotions and dilemmas and yearning I felt viscerally as I followed their story across generations, victory, heartbreak, and more.

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🕵🏻‍♀️ Behind the Scenes—Author Impersonation and other scams

This makes me sad, but there are many flavors of scam emails these days, preying on writers and readers.

Let’s get into a few of them:

Scam #1: The Famous Author Who Wants to Be Your Friend

Last year, I got an email from the very famous author Thomas Pynchon. He said he loved meeting other writers and wanted to connect with me, and was wondering what I was working on.

Now, I’ve never read anything by Pynchon, but I do know that he is a notorious hermit. He would never reach out to random writers, “wanting to connect.”

Thomas Pynchon walked around with a paper bag on his head during this episode, because he wants anonymity (which The Simpsons poked fun at)

A week later, I got a very similar email from the very famous Ann Patchett.

Then, recently, someone alerted me that I am being impersonated to scam people! (I’m nowhere near the caliber of Thomas Pynchon or Ann Patchett.)

What do these scammers want? Whoever is behind these kinds of emails are preying on the hopes and dreams of writers.

The scams all follow a similar pattern. First, they write a personalized email with some details from your book, then compliment you. They think you’ll be flattered and excited by the attention of the author!

Then maybe that “author” will offer to read your manuscript and edit it for a fee.

Or maybe they will sell you a fake review or blurb.

And of course, the real Thomas Pynchon or Ann Patchett (or me) have nothing to do with it.

Scam #2: The Kind Author on Social Media who is “Just Like You”

Supposedly, I was on X/Twitter, sending DMs to people, asking about their writing or what books they were reading.

Supposedly, I was also on a Discord server for writer’s block, sending messages to people, asking about their work.

Supposedly, I was also on Instagram, sending DMs to people, asking about… you get the point.

Each time, the scammers made a fake account with my author photo copied from elsewhere, and they took the time to also copy a LOT of my content (photos, videos, etc.) from my legitimate Instagram account in order to make a realistic-looking fake IG or X/Twitter or Discord account…

Here’s a screenshot of an imposter Discord account:

This was a fake account. I did not write that bio or any of the messages this account sent out.

I have no idea how the scammers came up with this stuff. I guess they thought it appealed to the people on the Discord server? But they made it all up.

Why do they do this? So they can befriend you, then offer to sell you a product or get your personal info and credit card number…

Friends—beware of fishy (phishy!) things like authors just popping up out of nowhere to offer to sell you things that are not their books.

Scam #3: Book Clubs that Want to Feature You and Your Book!

This is the newest scam that has taken off in the last few months. Someone will email to tell you that they run a book club and fell in love with your book and would love to share it more widely!

They often steal the names of real book clubs. The emails often look like:

Hi, I’m so-and-so and I run the Silent Book Club in Poughkeepsie, NY! We have thousands of engaged readers and I fell in love with your book and would like to have it as an upcoming book club pick. I’d also love to have you drop in for a Zoom session to meet our readers.

I also got an email from soccer star “David Beckham” about how much he loved my book and wanted to share it. Yeah, right.

David Beckham - Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage

If you respond, these “book clubs” will reel you in with lots of exciting promises of exposure, and then reveal that it’s just for a small fee to cover the costs of promotion (or whatever).

What really sucks is that there are legitimate book clubs out there who would love author visits. But now it becomes very very difficult for writers to understand which emails are real and which are fake.

Scam #4: Editors or Agents Interested in Your Work

Aspiring authors, who wouldn’t be excited if an editor from Simon & Schuster reached out to you?

Or if a well known agent saw you on Bluesky and sampled your work on Substack, and they’re very interested?

Sadly, manuscript phishing is a growing problem. The scammers get you to send your work and then… they steal it!! ( to self-publish or do other things with your manuscript). Or they offer to help you edit it, again for a fee.

Be wary of agent or editor emails that are not from their official agency or publisher email address (i.e., from emails that look like personal gmails).

My current publisher, Simon & Schuster, has a fraud alert page with known scams. It also includes S&S’s official email domains so that you can check if that editor who reached out to you is real or not.

Stay vigilant, writers & readers!

These kinds of scams and phishing attacks are growing by the day, so stay aware, my friends!

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» This post is part of our Author Diary series. You can find past entries HERE.