Story
Return of the Nigerian Prince Redux: Beware Book Club and Book Review Scams (2025)
1 report
1 website
1 discussion
Latest report
Overview
A new marketing scam involves operators in Nigeria sending highly personalized, AI-generated email solicitations to authors, posing as marketing or PR experts. Authors are offered various marketing services for a fee, typically a few hundred dollars, and are then referred to a Nigerian contact.
Summary from writerbeware.blog.
Reports
One report so far. Additional coverage will appear here when it is linked to this story.
Community reactions
Each reaction summarizes sampled comments from the linked discussion.
Hacker News · writerbeware.blog
Hacker News discussion ↗
Historical count: 5 · 5 saved in sample · Historical sample
Analysis ready
Read this discussion’s reaction
Based on 5 sampled comments from this thread. Analyzed 2026-07-05.
- Praise: Giving away eBooks for free is a way to achieve fulfillment and support the community, which resonates with many indie authors tired of the marketing grind.
- Praise: There's a sense of camaraderie among indie authors who prefer creating for passion rather than profit, reinforcing the idea that art should come first.
- Concern: The ecosystem stacked against indie authors is disheartening, making them susceptible to scams, which highlights the pressing need for better safeguards.
- Concern: The prevalence of scams in the book industry signals a troubling trend where genuine creators are often exploited for profit.