The Worst Part About Publishing a Book in 2025 Is The New Kind of Spam

I don’t like getting spam emails as a general rule, but they’re usually pretty easy to filter and don’t cause more than a momentary spasm of irritation:

Zodiac Signs That Were Born To Be Billionaires

You earned this: $5 restaurant credit

Follow up: Rib Remodeling Craze: How Patients Are Losing 4 Inches - Not Ribs

Beauty Marks or Cancer Clues?

You’re so close to 60% off…

Risk-Taking Is Biblical - New Book where leadership, business and spirituality connect

Meet the Mom who Turned her Child’s School Anxiety into a Nationwide Movement

Usually when I have a book coming out, I’ll see a slight uptick in PR-related spam for a few weeks following the release date. Nothing too serious, much of it doesn’t make it past my spam filter, and historically they’ve been easy to spot and block from the subject line alone.

This year has been different. Everything takes about five seconds longer to sniff out and they’re using irritatingly relevant target words that make me think I’m hearing from a human being who likes my work:

Invitation to Showcase Your Book at Our November Literary Awards Event

Christmas at the Women’s Hotel feels like a return to form in the most Lavery way possible

I recently revisited Women’s Hotel and found myself utterly charmed

Invitation to Feature Your Book in Our November Program

Once I see the email is signed “Curator Miracle,” sent from “elitebookagency@gmail.com,” or contains a sentence like “It’s both a celebration and a diagnosis of community” I know where I’m at, of course, but those five seconds make all the difference in the world. I don’t yet have a protective spam filter for someone emailing me to say that they just reread something of mine. It’s not that AI has made spam emails significantly better, but they do read significantly differently, especially at first glance, and it’s taking me just long enough to catch on that I’m reliably devastated a few times a week.

And they’re negging me! They’re hinting darkly about how other people just don’t understand Women’s Hotel, which has led them to feel sorry for me and want to unleash their bot army (of “40 new, deeply considered responses which reframe how readers engaged with the work”):

Kirkus and Booklist clearly understood. They recognized the wit, the period precision, the restrained heart. But online, it feels as though the nuance has slipped past many of the casual readers who’ve reviewed it.

The real dagger in the heart is the “casual readers” bit; obviously only someone who skimmed my last book would dislike it, is Serafina Loxey of Genuine Readers Community’s kindly suggestion, and wouldn’t it be worth parting with an unspecified dollar amount in order to meet local single (readers) in my area, just waiting to understand me?

I ought to know what I’m reading from the first line, but it took me until “but what I found was something far more mischievous and heartfelt” to find my bearings. “Hey Daniel, I wasn’t planning to message anyone today” sounds so friendly and casual. I often hope I’ll get through the day without emailing anybody, too!

“Visibility Atelier Diane B. Hernandez” wants me to know that “if I’m open” (she cares about consent!) she would be “delighted to share a customized visibility plan to ensure Women’s Hotel continues to find the readers it was written for those who see both the absurdity and courage in living slightly out of step with one’s time.” Perfidy and wickedness! Spam PR bots ought never to employ the phrase “slightly out of step.” I don’t mean to claim that AI is getting “too good,” merely that the labored strangeness of this new style is taking too long to recognize. I need them to go back to “URGENT: Get five-star reviews NOW” and “Visible Engagement for your book” so I don’t waste precious minutes trying to figure out if the “Düsseldorf Book Club” really exists (it doesn’t. I’m sure there are real book clubs in Düsseldorf, but this one isn’t one of them).

The only upside is that feeling targeted by emotionally-squishy AI-generated PR scams goes a long way towards making me feel beleaguered and martyred, a position that suits me very well. How I suffer!

[Image via]