Hey, we’ve got a lot of stuff in the works such as an interview about Christmas in Pandemonium and different formats. Today I’d like to post a warning, not an ad, however.

Silent Book Clubs are local organizations that encourage people to read more and often feature local authors. However, they rarely feature authors from other parts of the world or country and never ask for a fee. This is important to know because someone has been impersonating the head of the NYC Silent Book Club and asking people for fees to be featured as part of their “weekly discussion.” This is a scam, as the Silent Book Club does not accept fees in return for spotlighting authors. You can read about it here:

https://silentbook.club/pages/caution-scammers-are-impersonating-silent-book-club

I nearly fell for this scam, which is embarrassing as I should know better at this point, but the internet is like a dangerous back alley behind the Mos Eisley Cantina where someone’s trying to sell you drugs. If you have to be there, watch yourself. Thankfully, my publisher, I Ain’t Your Marionette Press, caught this before I made the mistake of sending these band of thieves $300 to reserve a “spot” that doesn’t exist.

This guy is using the picture and name of the actual head of the NYC Silent Book Club (“Thomas”). The picture is available on the web and could easily have been swiped. They first made contact with me on Twitter. I’ve reported them to Twitter, as they are a scam. Hopefully, Elon and the keystone cops catch up to these people.

This just goes to a point I’ve made before. Paid promotion is a scam. Authors shouldn’t need to pay someone to promote their book. They need to help promote each other’s books. Like Kent Wayne, whose book, A Door into Evermore, I recently reviewed on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s a great young adult fantasy novel, I highly recommend. You may have heard of his blog, DirtySciFiBuddha. That’s how to promote a book. Don’t give any money to people on the internet you’ve never met.