I found a variation of the Nigerian Prince scam again. This time, the unsolicited email promises wide exposure through an interview/reader discussion group. The message seems very likely to be AI generated, with the typical kinds of generic writing and telltale signs. The name of a real podcasting group was used–The Moth, in this case, along with the real name of one of their producers, though the name was misspelled. It gave a gmail account to which I was supposed to respond. It was obviously suspicious, but what really put this over the top was that the email asked for an interview fee, which cracked me up. I hope no one out there is tricked by this kind of thing, but I’m posting this in case anyone has received this sort of email and is wondering about it. No one, whether its an agent, publisher, or interviewer, would ever ask an author for money, if they’re legitimate. Beware of the Nigerian prince! I noticed a lot of hits on this blog recently from Nigeria and Indonesia, which is probably where this originated from.

I keep this site going to try and review books I’ve been reading, when I have time, which is less and less recently, and also to promote my new book when it comes out. However, I am wondering lately if it’s worth the effort, with so few readers out there, and irritating scams like this coming to my inbox. I will keep the site up for now, but I am not really able to blog regularly, given my other time commitments.

If you’re a writer reading this, happy writing, and watch out for scams.