marketing scams

My Conversations with the Third Fake Barbara Kingsolver and the Third Fake Suzanne Collins

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Here is my conversation with the third (or is it the fourth?) Fake Barbara Kingsolver (barbarakingsolver205@gmail.com), yet another Nigerian scammer.

FB: Hi I’m Barbara Kingsolver. Most days you’ll find me chasing down the ideas that rise up from the natural world and the quiet corners of human resilience stories about the ties that bind us, the land that shapes us, and the choices we make when compassion is tested. Some narratives arrive gently, like seeds on the wind; others take root slowly, insisting on patience before they bloom. Writing can feel like a solitary harvest, but it’s also how I understand our shared place in the world. I’d love to hear about your own journey what compels you to write, what sustains you when the work gets difficult, and how you nurture that spark of imagination. There’s so much we can learn from exchanging those truths. Best Barbara

ME: Barbara, It’s been so long! How is Frank?

FB: Hi Lee, It sounds like there’s been a mixup, and I’m sorry for that. I’m not actually Barbara Kingsolver, nor do I know Frank. My message was written in a style inspired by heran attempt to speak about writing with the kind of attentiveness she brings to the natural world and the human heart. I can see how that could have been confusing, and I should have made that clearer from the start. What I hoped for was simply a conversation between writer about what shapes our stories, what keeps us going, and how we navigate the work. If you’re still open to that, I’d honestly enjoy hearing about what you’re working on these days and what’s been inspiring you. Warm regards, Lee Gold

ME: Let me get this straight. You call yourself Barbara Kingsolver, and you have a Barbara Kingsolver gmail address, but you are just pretending to be her to write in her style… and now you’re signing your message as “Lee Gold,” an abbreviated version of my name? Are you now going to pretend to be me to ask me about my “writing journey?”

FB: Hi Lee, Thank you for your message and you’re absolutely right to call out the confusion. I want to clarify this properly. I shouldn’t have written in the first person voice of Barbara Kingsolver. My intention was to use a stylistic exercise to talk about writing, but I see now how it read like I was claiming to be her. That was my mistake, and I take responsibility for the confusion it caused. To be clear: I am not Barbara Kingsolver, and I’m not pretending to be you either. I’m just myself a fellow writer who reached out poorly and ended up creating a very misleading impression. I understand why that would frustrate you. I’m sorry for the miscommunication. If you’re willing to reset, I’d be glad to introduce myself properly and continue the conversation as two authors talking about craft. If not, I completely understand. Best,

ME: This is more than just “writing in her voice.” You began your first email to me by saying “I’m Barbara Kingsolver.” You used an email address with her name. You signed it Barbara. And you used her picture as your profile photo. You still are now. In other words, you were pretending to be her. If you want to “reset,” tell me who you really are, what you’ve written, and why you are obviously using AI-written messages to reach out to authors you don’t know while pretending to be someone else.

I’m surprised the Nigerians didn’t walk away after “How is Frank?”

And here is my short conversation with the third Fake Suzanne Collins <suzannecollins113@gmail.com>

FS: Hi, I’m Suzanne Collins. Most of my days are spent shaping ideas that refuse to stay quiet stories about struggle, survival, and the choices we make when everything’s on the line. Some tales arrive fully formed, others take time to fight their way to the surface. Writing can feel solitary, but it’s also how I connect, how I make sense of the world around us. I’d love to hear about your own path what drives you, what keeps you creating when things get tough, and how you keep your imagination alive. There’s a lot we can learn from sharing those moments. Best, Suzanne
 
ME: The UK is offering 3,000 GBP a month to Nigerians willing to testify about their involvement in scam operations that target authors in western countries. Simply go to the British Embassy in Abuja, Plot 1137, Diplomatic Drive, Central Business District, and ask for Matt Helm. Tell him that Lewis Erskine sent you…and use this code phrase: “A good book is like a hard-boiled egg.” You won’t be sorry.
FS: Ok.
I hope I hear back!

Visiting the New Age Literary Scammers

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You may remember that the New Age Literary Agency called me back in February, and left a message offering to represent me and to showcase my book to “book investors” at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. So I called them back the next day and I posted the video of my conversation with them. It was a lot of fun and exposed the utter stupidity of their scam.
 
Although they claim to be a literary agents, they don’t actually sell books to publishers… or to anybody. Their job seems to be to attract some nebulous creature they call “a book investor” to take interest in an author’s novel…and their big way of doing that is to show your book off, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, at their booth. That, of course, is their real business… getting desperate, uninformed authors to cough up hundreds of dollars to have their book on a table at a booth that nobody visits.
 
New Age shared their booth with their sister company Book Trance Media, who claim to be “experienced marketing professionals,” which you’d never know from the amateurish posters in their booth or the half-hearted presentation of books by their poor clients. Booktrance is, of course, on Writer Beware‘s list of fake literary agencies and fraudulent marketing firms. But the firm is aptly named. You’d have to be in a trance to give any money to these scammers.
 
The New Age Literary Agency booth seems to exist purely as a prop they can show in photos to potential victims to legitimaze their scam, perhaps to gain some credibility with aspiring authors who probably don’t know that *anybody* can rent a booth at the Festival. The staff seemed to spend lots of time on Saturday taking pictures of themselves, dressed in New Age logo polos, in front of the booth.
Beyond that, the purpose of the booth isn’t clear. It is staffed by people who don’t know anything about the agency or the marketing firm…or even about the self-published books that they were displaying, mostly just a single copy of each title, which they offered for free to passersby (with handwritten signs taped to the booth — demonstrating the sheer marketing brilliance that Book Trance is celebrated for).
Suckers who paid even more got to have a signing hosted at the booth… I saw a couple of those and it was pathetic. The staff taped balloons to the booth, took photos with the authors, and that was that. Not a single book investor in sight. But hey, the suckers got to feel like authors for an hour…at an exorbinant price.
 
My brother Tod Goldberg and I stopped by the New Age/Book Trance booth on Sunday morning, presenting ourselves as authors looking for new representation. The video is below… but it’s not fun or amusing…it’s more sad and pathetic. These people didn’t really know why they were there or what they were supposed to be doing. Nobody at the head office in the Philippines prepared them with a script of what to say if anybody beside one of their suckers showed up. The staff couldn’t answer any of the questions we had…and when they tried, their answers made no sense. Instead, they referred us to a stack of business cards for their “Senior Literary Agents” none of whom, of course, was at the Festival.
 
As literary scams go, this is one of the lamest that I’ve ever encountered.