You know you’re starting to “make it” when… (The story of an attempted book cover scam)
For those of you who are still hanging around on Twitter/X, you know that there has been a massive influx of bots and scammers over the past few months. It’s gotten to the point that more than half of my new “followers” aren’t even legitimate accounts.
To paraphrase Kye from Wraith and the Revolution, “It’s a cesspit of toxic shit.” And the site’s overlords aren’t doing much to curb the problem. (Sadly, when I tried to step away from Twitter/X a few months ago, it did make an impact on my book sales, so I see it as a necessary evil when it comes to marketing. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.)
Most are bots that slide into my DMs to ask how my “writing journey” is going, or who claim they’ve read “my book” and want to help “promote it” without mentioning a title (I have 11 published books. Which one are they referring to?)
It’s annoying at best, infuriating at worst. Until very recently, I was able to ignore the impersonators and go on with my day, because I could mute or block the account and never hear from them again.
Then this happened…
I woke up one morning in July to a private message from another author asking me to verify a claim being made by an account I’ve never even heard of. The person’s post stated they were responsible for the cover design of Wraith and the Revolution (a blatant lie), and the account had gone so far as to block me, so that I couldn’t respond directly to their post.
They probably didn’t realize it (or maybe they didn’t care), but I have made quite a few friends in the writing community over the years, and their lies didn’t go unnoticed. I posted this:
Not only did enough people report the account, but the issue was all over my feeds for most of the morning. Within an hour, the offending account was temporarily suspended while they investigated the reports. Before the end of the day, the account was gone—whether it was disabled by Twitter or deleted by the scammer, I don’t know.
The real cover artist behind Wraith and the Revolution is J. Caleb Design, and he was great to work with! I love the final result, and he deserves all the credit for making that book as visually stunning as it is. That some scammer had the audacity to claim she was the artist instead just pisses me off.
Unfortunately, mine wasn’t the only book cover the scam account was trying to claim as their artwork, and J. Caleb Design wasn’t the only artist affected.
My hope is that the combined effort of the writing community’s reporting took down the account before anyone was scammed out of money for cover artwork that I highly doubt the account’s owner was capable of producing.
Based on the history of scammers plaguing artists and authors, I doubt this will be the last time something like this occurs, which is why I wanted to highlight this event. If it happened once, it could very well happen again.
There is a lesson for new/aspiring authors in this story:
It pays to look up any artist you’re considering for your book. Most published books will list the cover artist either on the back cover itself, or on the copyright page inside, as I do. Legitimate cover artists usually have a website featuring a portfolio of their work.
And if you still have questions, most authors are open to discussing who they used for their cover art and how their experience with the artist was. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and never trust a random account making claims if they don’t tag the author in their posts (and especially if they have said author blocked. Most cover artists don’t do that to people they’ve actually worked with!)
It’s unfortunate, but in this age of online impersonation, it’s hard to trust anyone without doing a bit of research. Be vigilant. And I hope you all stay safe from the scams out there!