This is the second time in six months that a scammer posing as me has created a fake Facebook profile attempting to impersonate me. I’ve reported this and as a reminder all my official social channels can be accessed via my website.
However, I want to quickly address the growing issue of scams in the writing community. I had never seen the huge wave of scammers we’ve been getting lately. Most people are not trying to impersonate authors, although some do. The biggest issue I and other writers have been noticing is fake artist profiles offering to create art for them. These profiles tend to have AI generated art and seem to have AI generated profile pictures.
They’re generally easy to spot because they seem to follow the same template effusively discussing the author’s work, declaring themselves a huge fan and the like. Sometimes they make obvious mistakes. One account replied to a Facebook post of mine saying they loved my latest novel. The problem? They invented a title. Other times the flaws are more difficult to spot. My friend, who is not on social media much, asked me for advice when he was contacted by one of these entities. At first, he did not realize this was some kind of bot or scam but he felt something was off.
These kinds of predatory scams are going to continue so a word to the wise: be extremely cautious. If any ‘famous’ writer offers to connect you to people in the industry it’s very likely a lie. If they ask for money, run.
Be aware that there are many scammers trying to offer dubious services. Not only AI-generated images of characters, but access to special distribution channels and insider info.
As I said before, all my official social media channels are listed via my website. I never interact via DMs with strangers. I do not sell any services or offer any advice or mentorship. All my publishing info is shared freely via my social media channels, website or Patreon.
Finally, this kind of shit is exhausting. I’m supposed to be on a social media break working on a project but I had to come in and deal with this today.