New scams appear every day.
Now AI enters the picture, and the sophistication jumps
exponentially. This week, I received a
very flattering email from the Acquisition Editor of a major publishing
house. The letter spoke glowingly of my
work and my interest in the welfare of children. Then a query as to whether we could have a
chat about my upcoming work. The email was polished, very polished. The amusing part was that I received an email
at the same time for another author with similar glowing remarks. So the clues were flawless flattery with the
level of depth that it is characteristic of AI-generated text, a mis-mailed
email to another author with an identical approach, and finally emailing the
support people at the publishing house, who confirmed it was a scam.
As many authors feel underappreciated and have wishes to be
discovered by a publishing house with the resources to truly market our glowing
words, this was a wisely constructed scam, but scam it is.
So to my fellow authors, beware of silver tongues that will
lead you down a prickly primrose path
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