Return of the Nigerian Prince Redux: Beware Book Club and Book Review Scams
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a rising and extremely prolific marketing scam that I’ve been able to trace back to operators in Nigeria.
Using highly personalized (AI-generated) email solicitations that make it seem the sender (always with a Gmail address, always presenting as a marketing or PR expert) has really read the book, the scammer offers marketing services of various kinds, usually for a not-exorbitant fee of a few hundred dollars. If the author bites, they’re referred to a Nigerian “assistant” or “payment processor” on Upwork or Fiverr for payment. The scammer then demands access to the author’s KDP account.
I’ve since discovered two new and distinct iterations of this scam–both of which, like the first one, have appeared abruptly and spun up very fast.
Fake Book Clubs/Book Club Impersonations
Just in the last two weeks, I’ve heard from nearly two dozen writers who’ve received emails purportedly from local book clubs, offering features or spotlights for the writers’ books.
In some cases, as the example below, the book club appears to be fictional, with no trace of it to be found online. (I’ve redacted not just the author’s name and title of the book, but the personal details mentioned in the fourth paragraph.) Notice how sloppy this is: the club has one name at the beginning of the message, and another in the signature.