When I saw Emily Henry’s name pop up in my inbox, I was at first delighted. A missive from the queen of contemporary romance couldn’t have arrived at a more perfect time. Three months after my debut novel was released, the initial adrenalin that followed the launch had subsided and I was craving a jolt; interest from Henry—who described herself in this message as “writer of books about messy loveable people stumbling their way towards connection,” which is true, she does do that!—was just the thing I needed.
Or was it? On second glance I began to wonder why Emily herself would be reaching out to my personal junk e-mail address, the one I use to sign up for 10-percent-off discount codes, not the professional one listed on my website. Or why her descriptions of my book seemed suspiciously paraphrased from its back cover with all the panache of a plagiarizing sixth grader. And what’s more—how was it that the only e-mail the New York Times best-selling author could manage to secure for herself was “HauthorEmily@gmail.com”?
A natural-born skeptic, I can usually smell a scam a mile away, so I sent HauthorEmily’s message to my junk folder. Little did I know it would be the first of nearly a hundred AI-enhanced, bot-produced, spammy phishing e-mails that I, like many writers, would receive over the next six months. I have been contacted by my “favorite authors” who just want to “ask about my inspiration,” by “book clubs” offering “fresh eyes on my full backlist,” and “PR reps” promising guarantees that they will help me “skyrocket to the top of every best-seller list.” Each one ended with a vague request for a reply; there were no overt asks for my bank account or Social Security number. Just a desire to engage, presumably in hopes that I’d be lulled into a false sense of security and then pass over those details to them willingly in a subsequent exchange.
Each time one of these slop messages arrives, I cycle through a range of emotions. Momentary excitement at the ping of an e-mail expressing interest in my work is quickly replaced by anger, scorn, and resentment, but ultimately always: disappointment.
It is particularly cruel to target writers. Not only do we notoriously need positive reinforcement that our work is not garbage—or maybe that’s just me…just kidding, it’s also you—but in this hypersaturated communications marketplace, getting attention for our not-garbage work is a constant hustle. The rejection, the ghosting, it feels personal, even heartbreaking at times. We aren’t tech zillionaires, just regular people putting their souls on display with words, trying our best to get noticed in a world that doesn’t always value unique voices from people without a platform.
If you are one of the many who have already fallen prey to one of these scams, I am so sorry. If you haven’t yet, consider yourself lucky. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), an international not-for-profit coalition that aims to unify the global response to cybercrime, there were approximately 3.8 million phishing attacks in 2025. Phishing, as defined by APWG, is a crime defined by two key tactics: “social engineering,” which attempts to convince you that you are dealing with a legitimate person or organization by using false or deceptive e-mail addresses, websites, or domain names; or “technical subterfuge,” which can lead to malware being installed directly onto your device. The ultimate objective is to gain access to your usernames, passwords, personal data, financial information, or anything else that can help them steal from you.
Phishing is nothing new for those of us who have been on the internet since the days of dial-up, but the sheer quantity of scam e-mails is daunting. Scammers are getting smarter and savvier, and AI tools have made it simple to craft personalized messages with little effort. But there are still ways to discern genuine from inauthentic opportunities. If you hate digital clutter as much as I do (an unwanted newsletter with an Unsubscribe button hates to see me coming), then fight back, together, with me: Join my battle against the bots.
Step One: Check the E-mail Address…Carefully
This seems almost criminally basic, but before I started receiving scads of these messages I rarely looked further into the actual e-mail address of who was writing to me. If it says “Rankin, Ian,” why doubt it is “Rankin, Ian” sending me a note?
Revealing the e-mail address—not just the display name—of the sender is usually as simple as clicking on or even hovering your cursor over the name or checking the full message header (in Gmail, this is achieved by selecting “Show Original”). This can be a great way to spot danger. Faked e-mails may include:
• an extra number somewhere it shouldn’t be (“wellreadsistasbook club0” or “yarrosrebecca51”)
• a typo in the address that differs from the name in the description (an e-mail from the Thousand Books Club from “thethousandbookclub9”)
• a domain that is free to use—Gmail or Yahoo—rather than a custom domain
It’s not always terribly obvious. Book influencer Lupita Aquino of Lupita Reads recently posted a warning to her followers that e-mails being sent from Lupita.Reads@yahoo.com were not from her; she uses Gmail. If in doubt, a web search of the e-mail address in question might quickly show that it’s inauthentic.
Step Two: Skim the Content
Perhaps the e-mail address is close enough to seem real. The content of the message itself can be another easy way to tell when something screams “bot.”
The early versions of the e-mails I was sent were blatantly written with the help of AI—and not the good kind, the free kind. They regurgitated back at me almost verbatim the same marketing pitches that had been carefully developed by my publishing and PR teams in a tone that was overly formal and flat.
Since then the messages have gotten more sophisticated, but there remain some common features or patterns to look out for:
Almost as a rule, the spammiest messages start with over-the-top flattery that you can’t help but believe is true because you are, of course, a genius who deserves to sell millions of copies of your book. (I’m not being facetious. Flattery is my personal kryptonite. Of course I agree with author “Laura Dave” when she says that “it’s slightly baffling that a National Bestseller with this much wit and relevance isn’t being talked about everywhere.” I, too, am baffled). But the flattery is usually general, disingenuous, and pulled from existing public descriptions of your work. It’s also overly complimentary or flowery; look for messages designed to lower your guard.
As if the bots know we’re on a crusade against them, there can be language to attempt to convince you that no, seriously, the writer of this e-mail is totally a human! They use emphasis: exclamation points(!), emoji, strategic bolding and careful italicizing. One person swore that she was “Carolyn G. Swann, a real person who curates a private community of over 2,000 engaged readers who love smart, conversation-starting fiction. [books emoji, smirking face emoji]”
As someone who writes e-mails regularly, and often to people I haven’t met, I’ve never once thought it was necessary to refer to myself in the third person as a real human. The convincing is another regular feature of this content; the robot doth protest too much.
Another common attribute is a vague reference to next steps and a fuzzy call to action. Why are they reaching out to you? What do they want? At first it can be hard to tell. The objective of the message is to get you to respond to a nonspecific question it’s hard to say no to. Think: “Shall we introduce your fictional world to a few more readers who’ll savor every glossy, messy, morally complicated page?” or “Would you be open to collaborating with us on our next feature?” I mean, since you’re a possible criminal and certainly unethical operation targeting me for money, no thanks.
These messages will rarely refer to payment up front. The aim is to generate a reply and engage in a relationship, priming you and playing on your emotions. Don’t give them the satisfaction: Add to junk and block the sender. This will help your inbox’s own little robot soldier separate spam messages from genuine ones in the future.
Step Three: Exercise Some Due Diligence
Once you have reviewed the content and the e-mail address, there may still be a small part of you that thinks, or desperately wants to believe, the request is authentic. That’s when it’s time to go on the offensive.
If the scammers have been busy, a speedy web search of the name of the person or entity who wrote you plus “scam” can help you quickly assess if others have been targeted. (The site WriterBeware.blog also helpfully lists a lot of these.)
If nothing pops up there, you can hunt for the real e-mail of the person purporting to write to you. Don’t click on any links in their e-mail; rather a Google or Instagram search should lead you to a legitimate way to contact the alleged sender and then reach out.
Early on in my career I received an e-mail from “Ari Gibbs” of the Well Read Sistas Book Club, or so I hoped. A few clicks through Google led me to the club’s official Contact Us page. I forwarded to the club the e-mail I had received, with a note: While I would be honored to be included as part of your community, the content and e-mail address gave me pause. Is the below from you or someone masquerading as you?
Best-case scenario, the real people write you back with an actual opportunity. At worst, you’ve notified them of someone alleging to be them and possibly allowed them to warn others before it’s too late.
When the volume of these e-mails ratcheted up, I couldn’t respond to each one individually, so I created a template reply that now goes to any note that seems even moderately suspicious.
Thank you so much for reaching out and your interest in my work. To differentiate real people from spam bots, could you please respond with the following information?
• a website for your organization, book club or company
• a LinkedIn, Instagram, Substack or other social media profile for you personally
Apologies for the extra step to confirm this is a genuine opportunity.
Most bots cannot compute the follow-up, although a few have doubled down. One response from “a literary content creator” told me: “I do not have a personal social media handle to share.” The most egregious reply came from “Book Marketing Consultant Kathryn J. Morgan,” who responded that she was indeed a human, with a Goodreads profile (containing six five-star reviews written within fourteen minutes of each other for the same book) and a link to her “official website.”
While I can’t help but appreciate the effort this scammer was making—developing an entire mock website to keep up the ruse—their mistake was using a photo of a blond woman posing in front of an American flag. A reverse Google image search revealed the photo to be the official portrait of Christi Grimm, a former inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, who does not appear, at the time of this writing, to be moonlighting in publishing.
Step Four: Don’t Lose Hope
I have to laugh about all of this so I don’t cry. It isn’t easy being a writer. Our jobs require us not just to craft compelling narratives, but to convince people to buy them, hawk our wares on social media, make websites, write Substacks, show up at events even when no one else does, and take advantage of every opportunity that comes our way. When someone reaches out with an offer to help, any of us would jump at the chance.
My final piece of armor in my battle against the bots is the softest and most vulnerable of all: an open heart. Despite these messages doing their best to prove otherwise, there truly are so many dedicated book clubs out there, so many fellow authors searching for connection among their peers. It’s not all slop and bots and a fake Elena Ferrante saying she wished she could write like me.
Sometimes real people—actual readers and compassionate creators—will reach out for genuine reasons. Be ready when they come. But in the meantime, sharpen your skepticism, read with a careful eye, prepare a standard response, and be ready to fight back. The bots might win a battle or two, but I feel confident that humans will win the war.
Alisha Fernandez Miranda is the award-winning Cuban American author of the USA Today best-selling novel Someone’s Gotta Give (Zibby Publishing, 2025). Her first book, the memoir My What If Year (Zibby Publishing, 2023), was featured on Good Morning America and named a best new book in People magazine and the Boston Globe. Her writing has been published in Vogue, Marie Claire, Shondaland, and numerous other publications. She lives in Scotland with her husband and children. Follow Alisha on Instagram, @alishafmiranda, and on her website, alishafmiranda.com, but if you’re going to e-mail her, be warned: She’s going to ask you to prove your humanity.
Thumbnail credit: Samantha Tunis