Today in “Things that ‘AI’ has ruined”:

No, I won’t be able to show up to your book club’s online/offline gathering, and the reason for this is simple: I, and likely every other author you might care to name, am so inundated with “book club” spam that it’s become impractical and often impossible to suss out the solicitations by actual book clubs with actual humans, from the literally dozens of “AI”-generated spam book club emails I get daily. I don’t have the time to attempt to sort the real ones from the fake ones, or to go through the multiple emails that might be required to assure myself that there’s not a money ask somewhere in there. Plus there’s the additional risk that if you respond to even one spam email, your name is added to the a list of potential suckers which is then itself offered up to other spamsters, thus continuing the cycle of bullshit.

Bluntly, I can spend my days sorting “book club” spam, or I can write books. One pays me money. The other does not. So until further notice, I’m not entertaining book club invitations from anyone, and I likely won’t respond to your invitation at all. I’m sorry but this is the reality of the moment.

To be clear, it’s not just your book club that’s being ruined by this crap. It’s also become exponentially more difficult to suss out legitimate convention/book festival invitations and paid speaking gigs from a sea of “AI”-generated asks that ultimately try to scam money from me and other authors (and from any other person who might even attend a convention or conference; writers aren’t special to scammers). I am fortunate to have actual publicists and a speaking bureau that act as filters for me (plus I have a working knowledge of actual conventions, at least here in the US), but a lot of writers don’t have that, and it’s become an actual stressor for a lot of them to sort the real stuff from the fake stuff. It also makes it harder for them (and other creatives) to effectively market themselves to actual humans who might actually read, and pay for, their work. It sucks for us all, some of us more than others.

If you’re a scammer who uses “AI” to try to defraud actual humans, please die in a fucking fire, thanks. For everyone else, sorry a flood of spam has ruined book clubs. It’s awful for every one of us.

— JS