Post by @hayesstw@c.im

2026-09-16 02:52 UTC

@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa Yes, the book club ones seem to be most frequent at them moment. I put representative samples into my "Writing Journey Spam" folder - the earliest entries were from "fellow authors" wanting me to tell them about my "writing journey". After I had collected about 20 or so I sent them an email proposing the setting up of a "Writing Journey" mailing list, so that instead of having to write 20 letters about our "writing journey" we could each do it only once, and then our letters would be visible to all. That particular variety seemed to diminish after that.

Replies (1)

@GrahamDowns@mastodon.africa 2026-09-16 04:43

@hayesstw@c.im Oh, I receive those "share your writing journey with me" ones too. And other similar ones, from fellow authors wanting help or advice or inspiration. Those are the saddest ones for me to deal with, because in truth, I really *do* want to help people, but AI has made us so suspicious lately. I got one last week from someone who''d just published her book and wanted some advice on how to go about promoting it because she had no budget. Something we all know all too well. She had a Gmail address and the email itself was very well written, and it looked like she'd been to my website and read through my About info before deciding to email me. All the same things an AI scammer would do. I took a chance and replied. And she replied back, thanking me for taking the time, and for my support. It doesn't look like a scam. But on any other day, I might've dismissed it. And I hate the fact that these scams have made me so cynical. :-(

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