AI scams targeting writers with fake publishing offers
Authors are receiving sophisticated emails impersonating real editors and agents, created with AI to exploit writers seeking publishing deals.
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Writers are being targeted by an escalating wave of AI-generated scams that impersonate real editors and publishing professionals, creating a headache for legitimate industry players and a minefield for authors hoping to break through.
In late May, an author in Romania and another in Montana both received personalized emails introducing someone claiming to be Naomi K. Lewis, acquiring editor for Freehand Books. The messages were detailed, naming the authors' novels and plot specifics, offering effusive praise for their work. Both turned out to be fake, created with artificial intelligence and designed to lure vulnerable writers into a long con eventually involving money.
Lewis herself, a Calgary writer whose 2019 memoir Tiny Lights for Travellers was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, received a similar email from someone claiming to be an American literary agent. She forwarded all three emails to Postmedia and learned she wasn't alone—writers had been receiving similar emails from someone impersonating Deborah Willis, a senior editor and submissions coordinator at Freehand.
"It's super creepy," Lewis said. "It just started a week ago, when Debbie and I started getting emails asking, 'Did you really email me?' It is really disappointing and sad. Obviously, it's strange to see your own name being used in that way."
Scams targeting writers aren't new, but AI has transformed them. The tells used to be obvious—spelling errors, strange formatting, generic greetings. Now, thanks to AI scraping details from the internet, cold emails seem creepily personal, offering specifics about a book or career that make them sound legitimate.
The Writer's Union of Canada posted a warning after hearing from members about a "marked uptick in cold emails claiming to be from publishing houses, book marketing and publicity services, or film production companies, offering to publish, promote, or produce an adaptation of their book for a fee."
Theodora Armstrong, a Vancouver-based author who recently published her debut novel Welcome to Sunny Town with Freehand, estimates she receives at least two fraudulent pitches per week. The sophistication is new. The vulnerability writers face—hope mixed with caution—remains unchanged.