clever scams

When you're a writer you get inundated by people asking you what inspired your writing. They send the same message to thousands of writers, so if it implies they've actually read your writing it's probably a wrong inference. In fact they are rarely specific about what actually they have read though when you ask them they will immediately find something. If you're quick you'll notice that it's total bullshit every time. They haven't read anything.

I have noticed several things besides the fact that talking to them at all is generally unproductive. It's unproductive because I'm 100% indie and they are totally focused on making me a trailer movie, or helping me find my perfect audience and exploit its infinite opportunities. We go back and forth sometimes but generally it's unproductive for both of us. If they want to hear about what inspired me, it's only because they want to use it to get a foot in the door.

Finally one of them found the perfect thing to say to me. It was that they were in contact with a film producer and wanted two works to present to them for making possible movies. Yes! I'd always imagined someone making movies of my book(s). So I answered. Big mistake. Now he wants to know if I have a professionally done film trailer.

Disappointment; he's just like the rest only slightly more clever with the foot in the door. Oh did I mention that the vast majority are from an oil-rich nation in Africa with good internet access but thousands of people with no way to make a living. And did I mention that they have found e-mail - not that my e-mail address was ever a secret, but more that using e-mail seems to them a better way of getting you to talk about what inspired you (this seems to be a hook, to flatter an author's ego), than other methods. It doesn't work for me. I don't really want to talk about inspiration on e-mail.

Apparently the vast majority of them are unsuccessful, too. They are in no better position to find my ideal audience than I am, and are a wide ocean away from it which is more important in terms of understanding it than actually reaching it, which is easy in this virtual age. So they make a trailer, you give them $20, or $50 or whatever, but then what do you do with it? I don't really need a YouTube presence, or TikTok for that matter though I realize that's where millions of young people are hanging out. But these days it's contrddictory: if they're hanging out at Youtube or Tiktok, they're not reading, and probably not looking for books to pick up either.

My default response is to ignore them: ignore the email, ignore the private FB message, ignore their question about my inspiration. Yes I was inspired, somewhere back there, for each book. It's none of their business how, not that they'd even care.