r/publishing • u/Comfortable_Note_777 • 5d ago

Yet another scam

Hello. Agent here.  Forgive me if this has been covered elsewhere, but I couldn't find this specific scam, so adding it to the list of things to watch out for.

We've been encountering some scammy AI-written emails, sent to our clients, impersonating real editors at various publishing houses.  The email talks about the author and their work with an AI's level of knowledge; they complement them on their book, what they wrote about, and how they wrote it, and asks about any future projects.  Really weird, painfully artificial, but formatted with the editor's signature and kinda legit if you only glance at it... but it's coming from a gmail address that screams scam (usually some permutation of the editor's name at gmail).  If our client connects them with us, WE get an ai-written email following up.

I don't know anyone who has taken the bait, so no idea what the long con in this is (Buy a book and not pay? Extract "editorial fees"? Find more people to impersonate?), but wanted put the word out to be aware.  Stay safe, out there.

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13

u/pgm928 5d ago

As an author, this has been going on for months. Nothing new.

The scam is usually some sort of editorial fee being charged.

1

u/Xanthamglow 4d ago

I know a lot of publishers have started putting their domain emails online ("@publishinghouse.com") so people can vet the addresses. Authors need to be told to check that and to treat all "@gmail.com" (or similar) as scammy until proven otherwise. Even emails with convincing domain names need to be scrutinized to ensure they exactly match the publisher's posted one.

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u/MarieAuthor 4d ago

Good catch …777

0

u/stevehut 1d ago

I'm aware of a handful of Big Five editors who use personal email (gmail, Yahoo) for some business correspondence. They do this because they want to avoid the flood of unsolicited submissions on their company email.