Spamalot (Not the Musical)
I’m thinking about venturing into a career as a stand-up comic.
I already have a enough material for a routine full of laugh-out-loud absurdity, delivered to me in the form of dozens of spam emails that arrive in my inbox every month, specifically, the ones that offer me fame and fortune as a best-selling author. All for a handsome fee, of course.
I could riff on every one of their offers, like the one from “Elena” that promises Category optimization | Review velocity strategy | Long-term discoverability.” Wow, she’s really got her corp-speak language down!
*Chloe” tells me that my readers are in the “wellness and niche communities,” whatever that means. “Lewis,” from the Author Credibility Society, says he’s “creating meaningful conversations in my field.” And “Tim,” from The Philosophical Zurich Club, “an international literary community,” is deeply moved by my writing.
Their real names should be something like A.I. Scam or Chat-Gee P. Tee.
In my new act, I could deliver zingers about the idiots who, after scraping tidbits from my website and other urls where my author info resides, still get it wrong. Yes, “Rachel,” I did once work at a prestigious film organization, but it was not the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Next comes one of my favorites so far, from “Samuel, a literary advisor at QuantumCreative.digital.”
Hi Gay,
I came across your Facebook author page and I have to say — a feature in D Magazine, an author interview, a series with a title as sharp as Sorry Knot Sorry — this is an author with genuine credibility and a clear voice. The work you have done to build visibility in the Dallas literary community is evident and impressive.”
I agree that my esteemed colleague, Lois Winston (the actual author of a book with that clever title), has genuine, award-winning credibility. However, I am the one who earned that national literary award for a series of articles I did for D Magazine in Dallas, back when I was its managing editor.
All of this seemingly unceasing, unscrupulous, and pitiful effort to scam unsuspecting authors is big a waste of time, especially my time, when I could be working on my next book instead of having to daily flush this spam down the toilet. Anyone with a working idea of how to eliminate the constant barrage, please let me know. There may even be a free book in it for you.
And, speaking of free books…
This June is the time for the Stiletto Gang Annual Summer Book Bonanza, when lucky readers can win free e-books from our participating authors. First Prize winner receives one book from each of us. Two runners-up will get 3 books by the Stiletto authors of their choosing. Just sign up on our homepage, and in July, you could be a winner!
In the meantime, if you know any of the aforesaid e-scammers personally, please kick ’em un the shins for me.
Thanks!
Read more about this award-winning author at GayYellen.com…
… and remember to sign up for your chance to sample some of our books. Winners announced next month, Happy Reading!
Gay, with all that spam, flush judicially. You don’t want to clog the toilet and flood the house! 🤪
Thanks for the advice, Lois, though it’s probably too late for that!
Gay, Arrrgh. This is so cleverly written but these *$@$@ waste our precious time. I have a section on my personal blog called Help From My Friends Friday. I am now receiving spam for my guests, Steve Rush — has now received glowing praise from spammers that they have read his story and can help him with visibility. And the fact that they picked up on Lois’s Sorry Knot Sorry just proves these idiots never do their homework. They’re fraudsters trying to draw hopeful and unsuspecting authors in. Thanks for pointing out this idiocy. Great blog.
Glad you enjoyed it, Donnell.
OMG funny and tragic. I don’t even read them any longer — straight to junk. Which means a legit request will likely not get my attention. But unless the subject line (or first line) is something that no spammer could know, into junk it goes. Sharing widely!
Judy, Exactly, which makes our email function on our email system virtually obsolete. Thanks AI.
Thanks, Judy. I really needed to vent my frustration at these lowlife. I may be deleting some legit offers, but the ones that seem way too smarmy are beyond belief.
Gay – A very timely topic. Definitely unceasing and unscrupulous! My inbox overflows with these crazy spam emails. I keep hoping I’m not missing a real person with my daily flushing.
Call the plumbers!
Sometimes I think I hit my email delete button more than any other. It’s frustrating. And you are correct, the scammers are so good at this.
While I was posting this piece, I got several new ones. One wondered why I hadn’t responded to his great offer. I’m hoping they crawl back into their hidey
hole soon.
The thing is, while we are wasting time deleting, no person is wasting time in generating these sometimes-long and elaborate scams. They are all being written by AI, and the errors tell you how inaccurate and unreliable AI is. If an AI app can produce a 400-page Stephen King-like novel in ten minutes, imagine how many of these emails it spits out in a second or two. Fortunately, my email provider’s AI is beginning to recognize which of these emails are not legit, and it fills my spam folder with them faster than ever. And I can delete the entire bunch of them with one click. Maybe if AI is as smart as it thinks it is, it will learn that no one is going to open its spammy emails, and it will move on to the next thing. One can only hope.
Thanks for your comment, Saralyn. I’m planning to contact my email provider to see if they have the solution.