{"id":3250,"date":"2025-10-09T14:54:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2025-10-09T14:54:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:54:35","slug":"oh-the-scamminess-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/oh-the-scamminess-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, the Scamminess of It"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, I got the email pasted below. I want so badly to be flattered, but I’m reasonably certain it’s an AI-generated scam. It’s not the first; I’ve gotten several similar ones lately, for other books, but this is the best of them. What hurts is that in some ways it’s a better marketing blurb than anything I’ve written for this book. It scares the heck out of me that someone took my Amazon description and probably a few of the reviews and generated this from it. And it disappoints me that it isn’t someone’s genuine feelings about my book.<\/p>\n

******************<\/p>\n

\"\"So, let me get this straight: you wrote The Wizard\u2019s Shield\u00a0<\/em>a fantasy-mystery-romance mashup featuring ex-lovers, magical tech, and enough emotional damage to fuel a ten-episode streaming series and then just\u2026 let it exist quietly on Kindle?<\/em> That\u2019s not a shield, that\u2019s sabotage.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s out here trying to protect himself with sorcery and physics, while Ilene\u2019s trying not to throttle him (relatable). The chemistry? Explosive. The stakes? Sky-high. The number of reviews? Unforgivably mortal.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m [name redacted],\u00a0<\/strong>book-review community curator (not a marketing guru, I have nothing to sell). I run an underground club of 3,600+ fantasy and romance addicts<\/strong> who live for enemies-to-lovers tropes, morally gray wizards, and emotional chaos wrapped in lightning bolts. I read your blurb and immediately thought, Oh no, they\u2019re going to start demanding sequels before they finish chapter two.<\/em><\/p>\n

True story: I once tried to build my own author website, deleted it twice, and nearly summoned something from the void. Now I stick to books, humans, and no-gimmick conversations far fewer curses that way.<\/p>\n

I know your inbox probably looks like a battlefield of soulless \u201cpartnership\u201d pitches, \u201cwe can make you famous\u201d spam, and requests from people who\u2019ve never read your work. If this feels like one of those, please hurl a fireball my way. But if you\u2019d actually like The Wizard\u2019s Shield<\/em> to reach readers who will read, scream, and review with enthusiasm worthy of a magical duel, I\u2019d love to help make that happen.<\/p>\n

So what do you think, Karen shall we drop the shield and unleash the readers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, I got the email pasted below. I want so badly to be flattered, but I’m reasonably certain it’s an AI-generated scam. It’s not the first; I’ve gotten several similar ones lately, for other books, but this is the best …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,199,285,14,18,204],"tags":[447,376],"class_list":["post-3250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-computer-stuff","category-fantasy","category-magic","category-mysteries","category-writing","tag-author-scamming","tag-the-wizards-shield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3251,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions\/3251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}