Opportunity Knocks … Right?

Just this morning I received an email with wonderful compliments on my book, The Lady of Dungeness:

Hello Fernando,

The Lady of Dungeness is a beautifully layered tale that blends speculative fiction, quiet romance, and philosophical depth against the backdrop of a pandemic-altered future. Colin Petrie’s grounded humanity set against Beatrice Mirza’s cosmic trajectory creates a compelling emotional tension intimate and expansive at once. The journey into the infectious zone and the mystery surrounding the Lady of Dungeness promise readers not only danger and discovery, but also transformation rendered with poetic nuance.

My name is V*** R*****, and I’m a book visibility specialist. I work with authors to ensure their books continue reaching the audiences most aligned with their themes and tone, maintain strong positioning within their genres, and generate sustained engagement beyond launch. For a thoughtful speculative work like The Lady of Dungeness, a targeted visibility strategy could connect it with readers of literary science fiction, book clubs drawn to character-driven futurism, and communities interested in pandemic-era speculative narratives with emotional depth.

I would be glad to outline a tailored visibility approach designed to highlight the distinct voice and atmospheric strength of your story. Would you be open to exploring this further?

Respectfully,

V*** R*****

Book Visibility Specialist

Quick summary of the story: Colin Petrie, former professor of literature, former rock drummer, now barber, lives in a future London, say 100 years hence. For 5 years the world has been gripped by a pernicious pandemic with no vaccine possible. Colin has a romantic relationship with Beatrice Mirza. a spaceship designer who will soon depart on an interstellar voyage, without Colin. When Beatrice is infected by the virus, Colin turns to his eccentric scientist friend Chester, who offers the possibility of a cure. But Chester has a price: Colin must travel to Dungeness, which is an “infectious zone”, a region where the infected are quarantined, to deliver a message to the mysterious Lady of the title.

SHAMELESS PITCH: The Lady of Dungeness is a mere $0.99 for Kindle, and $8.75 for audio-book. It is an accessible, light-hearted story, that I guarantee.

Anyway, the email calls out many things I hoped to achieve in the book, like Colin’s “grounded humanity” compared to Beatrice’s “cosmic trajectory”. And “transformation rendered with poetic nuance” – sounds like I must be an undiscovered Cormac McCarthy!

Except this litany of praise was obviously created by AI and is in service of scamming me. Sigh.

Scamming Authors? Do they even have money?

By now I expect virtually anyone in tech can recognize AI slop when they see it – and a great many non-tech people as well. Here’s some of what you get when you ask ChatGPT to write a review of The Lady of Dungeness:

One of the novel’s greatest strengths lies in its characters. Elena, the enigmatic “Lady” herself, is portrayed with such depth and vulnerability that she feels utterly real. Her quiet strength and layered past unfold gradually, rewarding patient readers with a profound emotional payoff. Thomas, whose steady loyalty and internal conflicts ground much of the narrative, serves as a compelling counterbalance to Elena’s guarded nature. Their relationship is tender, complex, and refreshingly authentic.

I’m sure you’ll agree the vibe is similar to the email I received. A big difference: ChatGPT does not have the text to my book (which I confirmed) as there are no characters named Elena or Thomas in the story. The “Book Visibility Specialist” may have gotten my text somehow, perhaps from a pirate site; or maybe they just inferred stuff from the Amazon blurb for the book.

On one hand I’m baffled why scammers would bother with targeting authors. Unlike retirees, authors generally don’t have large amounts of savings to pillage – nor are we, as a class, polite and deferential. But on the other hand, authors can be desperate for validation, as evidenced by the long history of vanity presses, which charge authors fat fees just so they can say they are “published”.

This is not an isolated case. The New York Times this past week published on this very topic: Writers Are Being Targeted by Scams. This Reporter Knows the Feeling. – The New York Times I don’t think this is behind a paywall, but here’s some key points:

• “Real” published authors – ie, with agents and who receive advances and royalties – are getting solicitations to revive their backlists. 70-80% of all published books don’t earn back their initial advance, meaning their authors never receive any going-forward royalties. Getting some payback out of these dormant creations is a temptation.
• These scamming messages often include impersonations of famous authors or real organization, like Margaret Atwood or the National Book Foundation.

If you want to learn more, the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America has created WRITER BEWARE® – SFWA – The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association a site that lists all the different scams – there’s like a 100 of ‘em, at least.

I thought Skynet was going to blow everything Up?

If you give ChatGPT the full blurb of my book, you get a more truthful-sounding review:

In The Lady of Dungeness, Fernando Salazar delivers a quietly luminous work of speculative fiction that feels at once intimate and vast. Set in a future London still reeling from the long shadow of the PLQ pandemic, the novel artfully blends personal longing with existential stakes, creating a story that resonates far beyond its dystopian premise.

At the heart of the novel is Colin Petrie—ex-professor, ex-drummer, and now barber—an unlikely but deeply compelling protagonist. Salazar renders Colin with such tenderness and nuance that his small rituals, private doubts, and cautious hopes become as gripping as any interstellar mission. His love for Beatrice Mirza, a brilliant starship designer preparing to leave Earth forever, is portrayed with exquisite restraint. Their relationship is not melodramatic but oceanic—calm on the surface, fathomless underneath.

What elevates the novel is the tension between departure and devotion. Beatrice’s impending journey to colonize a distant world is already a poignant metaphor for the distances lovers must sometimes endure. When she contracts PLQ, that metaphor turns urgent and visceral. The stakes sharpen, but Salazar resists easy heroics. Instead, he explores the moral and emotional costs of hope. The bargain struck with an eccentric virologist—and the haunting quest to find the mysterious Lady of Dungeness—adds a mythic undertone to what might otherwise have been straightforward science fiction.

Salazar’s prose is measured and elegant, capturing both the melancholy beauty of a wounded London and the eerie promise of a future beyond the Solar System. The infectious zone and the titular Lady take on an almost folkloric quality, suggesting that even in an age of starships and pandemics, humanity still depends on legend, risk, and faith.

Ultimately, The Lady of Dungeness is less about escaping a dying world and more about what it means to choose love in the face of uncertainty. It is thoughtful, emotionally intelligent, and haunting in the best way—a novel that lingers long after the final page.

Yowza. Even free AI tools can make you sound like a literary expert with only a few clicks. When I think how easy it is to generate this stuff, on any conceivable topic, its pretty clear we don’t need to worry about AI destroying our civilization.

They’re going to pick our pockets instead.

ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING: Check out The Lady of Dungeness .

Till next time …