More Adventures In Scamworld
As I previously posted, self-publishing flags me as a sucker willing to grasp at straws to gain a larger audience for my oeuvre. Wouldn’t anyone? I’ve published fourteen novels and like them all. Of course, I have my favorites like Life Could be a Dream, which appears to have gathered a following among the con artists. I don’t blame them. It’s a great read. Who wouldn’t want to raise awareness of my favorite novel?
The latest iteration of book promotion bunko is a radio interview. Recently, I was contacted for an interview with Will White on a British FM station in Southampton. What were the tip-offs to the scam? 1) direct contact from a gmail account. 2) the address was a small change from the station’s address; 3) in the course of my discussion I identified Corinna Walker, who had already pitched a book club scam to me; 4) she was all too eager to agree to a lower “engagement fee.”
Don’t you?
I was curious how the fraud works and paid a small amount to set up an interview. What followed was a series of intentional mistakes in setting up the interview. “Corinna” booked a zoom interview and then changed the time twice, claiming that I wasn’t online at the appointed time. Then she said it was because of time zone differences between the UK and Nevada.
Of course, there was no posted Zoom contact corresponding to her alleged meeting time. “It’s your fault. You weren’t there.” The latter I don’t understand. She got some money. Move on to another sucker. “Corinna” is representative of a cottage industry of clever conmen (and women). They have identified a large pool of potential victims, and they have become more sophisticated.
On close inspection their marketing plans are nothing but empty jargon, but they can appear quite impressive. Like all successful predators they have identified the vulnerabilities of their prey. We self-published authors have labelled ourselves as their prey. We desperately want to get our ideas out to the public. I doubt if most of us have grandiose dreams of fame and fortune.
The act of self-publishing virtually precludes an engagement with an established publishing house. Nonetheless, I’m undeterred. (Currently working on a sequel to Marlene). My published works are professionally edited and worth reading. I love what writing has meant to me the last twenty years. As a bonus, I enjoy jousting with conmen. Thus, I shall continue to write until my brain stops working.
Addendum: I just had an “interview” with the latest conmen. It was supposed to be with Will White, who interviews authors for Voice FM in Southampton. The person didn’t post his picture. He sounded Nigerian but said he was Irish. This is a pathetic denouement to the latest fraud. They impersonated a radio station’s book reviewer and offered an interview with him (for a price). For inexplicable reasons they just tried an embarrassingly inept fake interview via google meet. I hope there is no way connecting through google exposed me to hackers. Oh my, is anyone honest these days?
Rex
