Dr. Bruce Gleason forwarded me a truly enraging email. It’s allegedly from me.
Spoiler: it’s not.
You might have seen or perhaps received a marketing pitch filled with AI-written and deeply florid compliments to your writing and your book.
I’ve received a few and have been trying to track down who actually sent it (mine was sent on behalf of a library in Charlotte which disavowed all knowledge of this person – more on that soon).
But this one just about sent me over the side of my desk chair:
Subject: Partnership inquiry: Editorial collaboration for Cold War Cadence
Dear Dr. Gleason,
I am reaching out from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (SBTB) because we’ve identified Cold War Cadence as a remarkable work that aligns with our community’s interest in European history, military life, and the preservation of historic moments. In an increasingly crowded market, we look for partners who provide the kind of “vivid recollections” and exacting detail that our audience of frequent readers discusses and treasures.
Rather than a standard review request, I am proposing an editorial partnership for your release schedule. In the current publishing landscape, where digital discovery is shifting, having your work anchored on a twenty-year-old authority site like ours provides a significant advantage. We offer a permanent digital presence that ensures your memoir of Berlin from 1988–1991 remains discoverable to our readers, specifically highlighting the unique role of army bandsmen and the “historic ghosts” of the city you so effectively describe.
I have a comprehensive Partnership Brief ready for you that details how we reach our community of over 500,000 monthly readers and our podcast to create what we call the “SBTB Bump.” This brief outlines how we connect our high-trust community with your work, providing the validation of our recognized platform and the sustained reader engagement generated through our newsletters and digital features.
We have identified your writing as a standout that aligns with our audience of dedicated readers who value rigorous historical research and entertaining travelogues. Would you like me to send the partnership brief over for you to review?
Best regards,
Smart Bitches Strategic Partnerships | Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Website: smartbitchestrashybooks.com
I am re-printing the email in full for two reasons:
- If anyone else receives this email, and they google, they will (I hope) find this post where I say again, THIS IS NOT US.
- WHAT IS THIS CRAP.
- One more time: THIS IS A SCAM. THIS IS NOT FROM SBTB.
This is such trash. I have no idea who is behind this, but it’s so similar to other scam email messages I’ve seen that I presume it’s based with the same group of scammers. I wish everlasting diarrhea upon them.
What’s weird is that there IS in fact a “SBTB bump” in that the books we feature in reviews, on sale posts, and Whatcha Reading or Hide Your Wallet posts often do get a bump in sales. Our bi-weekly bestseller list is generated from what sales data we have through affiliate links. But again, this is not from us.
HOWEVER. If YOU are a military historian or a music historian, you may be interested in Dr. Gleason’s books.
Dr. Gleason is the author of Cold War Cadence: A Military Musician’s Berlin Memoir, 1988-1991 and Sound the Trumpets, Beat the Drums: Horse-Mounted Bands of the US Army, 1820-1940.
Thanks to Dr. Gleason for alerting me. If you’ve received an email like this that purports to be from SBTB, please forward it to me at sarah @ smartbitchestrashybooks DOTTY com.
PLEASE share this in your communities if you think someone there might be targeted by this balderdash. Thank you.
There is something strangely bemusing about the idea of a romance blog reaching out to a military/war historian. It does in fact sound like a plot to a romcom to a degree.
Which doesn’t change that it’s not a great thing, but there is at least a sliver of something sort of funny.
Do you ever wonder what these people could accomplish if they put this effort into an ethical enterprise?
Oh yes, the Bitchery are nothing if not famous for our interest in military life.
I have received a few emails in the last week claiming they chose my book for book club and would love to interview me. I did some googling and found that if you say yes, then they attempt charge you for it.
The email itself felt AI generated. They used the book’s description to make it sound like they’d actually read it but it sounded off. Apparently this is going around a lot. Very frustrating!
@Jewel Donovan I, too, received an email from a book group claiming they chose my book for book club and would love to interview me. It felt really off to me, because a) i was frankly surprised anyone had heard of my book—it’s not exactly gotten traction despite my efforts! b) the reasons they chose my book sounded like they had fed the book to AI and generated a summary c) all I had to do was answer “yes” and instructions would follow!
I looked around online and could find no online presence. I asked about previous club sessions with other authors and other books. They were unable to give me any names or titles, and again, the fulsome response sounded AI-generated (perhaps “write in the style of flattering an author”). I also asked how they’d heard of my book, and the reply was a vague “reviews and recommendations.” Buddy, I can count my reviews and recs on the fingers of one hand. You should be able to tell me one of the two places they exist.
John Scalzi had to post a similar note on his blog as well 🙁
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/01/20/reminder-scammers-are-out-there-pretending-to-be-me-and-other-authors-as-well/
Just read the Scalzi blog post. Funny/not funny to see the obvious bot posts in the comments offering the exact same services. AI cannot die a painful death soon enough for me.
DonnaMaire: Less money, I’m sadly assuming. People generally don’t turn to crime for money due to honest work being too profitable for their taste.
Of course, it could be one of those scammers who’s stuck in slavery and forced to write and send this kind of thing. It happens depressingly often.
I’m getting so many of these every day, pretending to be from podcasts, book clubs, marketing consultants, you name it. It’s wild. I get 3-4 per day and lately they sometimes have my name and book wrong …? Because AI are not accurate. 😅
@DonnaMaire, that’s what my mom told me throughout my youth. But @Mikey, I always gave her the fish eye (in my mind, of course, because I wanted to live) because I agree with you.
How annoying. I connect to the mystery writer world also; this crap abounds there, too. Meanwhile, I always enjoy Sarah: lesson in creative swearing.
The supposed romance blog wanting to feature the Cold War historian is the reverse of the supposed International Affairs book club that claimed to want to feature my cozy fantasy, so I guess all the scams balanced out.