Scammers target authors with fake book clubs and PayPal tricks

Scammers are increasingly targeting authors, according to The Week. Author Snigdha Poonam, writing in The Dial, described book club scams where "writers with published books have been receiving invitations from reading communities that start to unravel after a basic Google search." Other scams involve offers that "sound too good to be true," including promises to publish, market, handle social media for, or get book-to-movie deals for writers, The Dial reported. The Dial said the paper trail in these scams often leads to "Nigerian third parties holding bank accounts in America."

The Guardian reported that author John Cocks paid a person identified as "Mary Brown" $478 "for a book trailer and some commissioned reviews" after Brown promised to "assist in the distribution to her 'wide network' of book clubs." Cocks later noticed the PayPal receipt listed a Nigerian named Dayo Oguntuase, according to The Guardian.

The Times reported that AI is playing a large role in these scams, helping to "tailor emails, produce fake pictures and documents, and create websites" to lure writers. Eleanor Dawson of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain told The Times that authors who consider themselves tech savvy are "suddenly being confronted" with AI-created deception. Literary Hub advised that hiring a qualified freelance marketing or PR team costs more but delivers "actual strategy, real outreach and meaningful expertise."

Here's what should stop you cold in this story: John Cocks paid $478 believing he was buying a book trailer and reviews from someone called Mary Brown. The receipt told a different story — a name, Dayo Oguntuase, that didn't match the person he thought he was paying. That gap between the name on the pitch and the name on the payment is the whole scam in miniature.

The offers that work are the ones that sound like exactly what you've been hoping for — a reading community, a publicist, an agent, a shot at a movie deal. The Dial's reporting makes clear these pitches are built to "sound too good to be true" because that's the bait. And now AI is sharpening the hook: The Times reports scammers are using it to generate convincing emails, fake images, documents, and whole websites. Eleanor Dawson of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain told The Times that even authors who think of themselves as tech-savvy are getting caught off guard by how polished these fakes have become.

So what do you actually do this week? Before you send a payment to anyone offering book promotion, book club access, or representation, check that the name on the invoice or PayPal receipt matches the name and company you believe you're dealing with. If it doesn't, stop and ask why. And weigh the pitch against Literary Hub's blunt comparison: real marketing and PR help costs more, but it comes with "actual strategy, real outreach and meaningful expertise" — not vague promises of a "wide network" you can't verify.

None of this requires paranoia. It requires five minutes of checking before the money moves. Once you know the shape of these scams — the urgency, the flattery, the mismatched names — Literary Hub's point holds: the red flags are hard to miss. But only if you're looking for them before you pay, not after.