Scammed! Yes, Moi.

I am ashamed to admit it but I, too, have been scammed.

First, someone named Shannon Struble emailed me about joining her book club via Zoom. Her passion, and that of her book club members, was “Trashy Romance.”

My God! Did she have the wrong writer. But I checked her out. Struble is apparently real--she works in a Boston-based bookshop, has a small publishing house, and runs this book club. I was charmed, amused really, and I wrote her back to tell her that we were not a good fit. She insisted that it would work. I only balked when she asked me to cover the cost of refreshments for the book club--but, she insisted, only if I really wanted to do so. I stopped responding. Maybe the real Struble has had her email hacked. The possible scammer’s email address is: bostontrashyromancereaders@gmail.com. I dunno. Maybe it was a real request, although, if so, it was a very strange one.

I also received an invitation to participate in the Harrogate Festival in Yorkshire, in the UK, also via Zoom. How wonderful, I thought. It is a real and very large festival that does feature writers and other artists. I was soon told that they would have a table heaped with my books and that they would feature a way to purchase them. And then came the ask: I could pay for the kind of table I wanted. I wrote to Harrogate directly and forwarded the scammer’s name and email. It is Sharon Canavar at casharonnavar@gmail.com

However, the most extensive scam imaginable was launched against me and against many other writers. There is now a very merciful blogsite up, launched by Victoria Strauss, titled: writerbeware.blog. Thank you, thank you, thank you Ms. Victoria. I only wish I had seen this sooner, but Strauss posted this on March 27th, 2026. And I’m bearing down on a new book--actually on two new books. Even I cannot find and read everything. By now, there are at least 54 comments by other writers who were similarly scammed.

Two women (or two men? Political prisoners in China--or Nigeria? Or even in Iran?) emailed me. Each impersonated a real editor and a real literary agent. This began on April 23rd and continued on through April 27th or April 28th. They appropriated the name of Marilyn Kreztner at Blackstone Publishing and Caitlin Mahony at William Morris Endeavor.

(These specific names and many others like them have been used many times before, all targeting writers.) HarperCollins (the real HarperCollins) published a Fraud Alert based on a multitude of scammers impersonating their staff, etc.

Please understand: Given the realities of publishing, most writers are a desperate lot. And oh-so-vulnerable to flattery. If a publishing person praises our work--we melt. We glow. Writers specialize in Big Dreams. I actually sent the two scammers some chapters from both works. But even before the ask--even at the beginning--I said to four other people, including my assistant: “This must be a scam. It can’t be real.” But I hung on, dreaming my foolish dreams. Long before the ask, I had my assistant submit their incredibly flowery praise of my work to AI. We were told that there was a 70% chance that it had been written by AI. We sent an example of my writing to AI and were told that there was a 0% chance that this had been written by AI. By this time, the scammers had, pro forma, asked me to pay a small sum of money for an editorial consultant who would slightly improve my work.

I then called William Morris Endeavor and asked them to ask the real Caitlin Mahony if she had been in contact with me. Of course, she had not. I told them that Bad Actors had been using her name, affiliation, and photo in their scam. I then emailed Blackstone and told them that Marilyn Kretzner’s name had also been seized for use in a scam. Finally, I wrote back to the scammers, told them about what AI had confirmed, told them that I’d contacted both the real literary agency and the real publisher, who thanked me but said there was little they could do.

Unbelievably, the scammers still continued to write to me. For my part, the rest was silence. And lots of egg on my face.

They spent all this time--nearly a week--for an ask of $700.00. But they must have contacted hundreds of writers, maybe thousands.

My son-the-judge ordered me to assume that, going forward, I must treat every request from someone whom I do not know as a scam, and I should not write back.

Oh God! Will I now pass up some great opportunity because, if offered a Nobel or the Booker or the Brooklyn Bridge, I will not respond?

What do you think I should do?

For some more colorful firsthand accounts of scams, take a look at the comments posted under Strauss’s article. Here are just a few of them:

Daniel Scott Sheley says:

I was going down the rabbit hole of all this. In the back of my mind asking why an editor would contact me. But the logic side was told well odder things happen let’s see where this goes. After the referral to Sara Megiblow I got suspicious because it listed a Gmail address. I started to investigate further and found this blog. The wording is Very similar to that listed above. So now the scammers don’t just want our money but also to toy with our wee black hearts. Shame on them.

Deborah Sosin says:

Very helpful. I’m post-publication, no agent, so I’m in a different scam bucket of fake people wanting to set me up on the top podcasts and with the top reviewers. The gmail address is the tipoff each time. Deleting and blocking but they keep sending. I keep deleting and blocking. Maybe they’ll give up sometime soon. THANK YOU for your hard work!

iquetzal says:

Very nicely done. That was a lot of work and is greatly appreciated.
I’m an indy writer (hard sci-fi) and I have been a party to several of these scams.
One scam asked me to write them a screenplay of one of my novels, which they insisted they were going to submit for a feature film. Their email address was an amaterish spoof of a well known movie producer. I still haven’t figured out what their end-game was on that one.

Lizzy says:

I suspect most of these are actual human beings. You’d be surprised at, ironically, the amount of work scammers put into this stuff...

Else Cederborg says:

Recently I’ve experienced what I take is a new scam: Someone from Netflix would like to make something about me and one of my old publishings, and the offer looks quite enticing. After seeing that, I wonder what will be next ….

Charlotte L Goldman says:

Thanks for doing this. In 2018, For the sole purpose of personal process, I wrote a small memoir (My Secret Life, Days of Heaven in the Realm of the Devil) self-published through Balboa press, listed on Amazon. I wrote under pseudonym (Karrie Water. Don’t know how these people got my email and phone number. I’ve been phoned and emailed as many a three times a week since 2021. In a couple of solicitations, I’ve been offered to appear in the New York Times Magazine and appear on The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert–kind of a red flag. I have all these offers in a personal file, if you ever need more material.

Ursula Dyck says:

I receive author scams monthly, I have saved several of them.

Donahue Silvis says:

Thank you; I receive about 7 of these Gmail scam emails every day.