31–40 of 52 posts
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The author needs to avoid a sufficient number of false positives for the time investment not to be prohibitive, and that is what he is arguing is becoming a hard problem. I have problems believing that given some of the e-mail I receive. I have no problem trusting Scalzi on this.
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I think you underestimate how much mail famous people get.
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If there is more slush and the fraudulent slush increases in quality and scope it must mean that the wit, effort and time required must also increase to deal with the problem.
Dealing with problems that do not give one a return on the investment seems not worth doing, especially when it turns out the most efficient way to deal with this particular problem is to absolutely refuse to do any book club stuff.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author needs to avoid a sufficient number of false positives for the time investment not to be prohibitive, and that is what he is arguing is becoming a hard problem. I have problems believing that given some of the e-mail I receive. I have no problem trusting Scalzi on this.
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OK but why would your AI be sending out book club spam? Is it trying to get you to pay for coming to the book club?
It's to take advantage of authors who want to get their book seen and read and bought. Book clubs used to be a good mechanism for word of mouth marketing.
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Or you have someone running an AI bot that does research on your target automatically. Ironically, one of regular features of spam I'm getting semi-regularly now is for "marketing" services" that provide OpenClaw instances to research and individualise messaging.
This isn't a new phenomena in the author world, it's been plagued by 'you have won 1st prize in a poetry competition' for decades.
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https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/11/22/yes-all-those-author-...
OK but why would your AI be sending out book club spam? Is it trying to get you to pay for coming to the book club?
I've seen these. They promise a book club with a wide audience, and then you need to pay for having your book present [or some other fee]. It's to take advantage of authors who want to get their book seen and read and bought. Book clubs used to be a good mechanism for word of mouth marketing.
My novel isn't even one of the popular self-published genres (eg romantasy.) It's literature, set in post-sea-rise northern Europe where a drowned city's remaining above-water blocks have divided into political enclaves, and one young woman's journey. It's part adventure, part political satire. Think Metro 2033 on water in Europe. Tech bros and startups, librarians and sea monsters. I think this is difficult enough to find an agent for, but AI spam does not care and will target you relentlessly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen these. They promise a book club with a wide audience, and then you need to pay for having your book present [or some other fee]. It's to take advantage of authors who want to get their book seen and read and bought. Book clubs used to be a good mechanism for word of mouth marketing.
On that note I get the impression the whole publishing industry has an AI problem. I wrote a novel and started sending it out to agents recently. The number of agents who emphasise no-AI, or simply say that due to volume they won't reply... Then, as an aspiring author you rapidly start getting messages offering editor services, or book clubs (like this), or agent access, and it becomes clear those are AI and require…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've seen these. They promise a book club with a wide audience, and then you need to pay for having your book present [or some other fee]. It's to take advantage of authors who want to get their book seen and read and bought. Book clubs used to be a good mechanism for word of mouth marketing.
On that note I get the impression the whole publishing industry has an AI problem. I wrote a novel and started sending it out to agents recently. The number of agents who emphasise no-AI, or simply say that due to volume they won't reply... Then, as an aspiring author you rapidly start getting messages offering editor services, or book clubs (like this), or agent access, and it becomes clear those are AI and require…