Scammers are impersonating Silent Book Club cofounders and local chapter organizers to ask authors for money in exchange for being featured.
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Silent Book Club does not solicit individual authors. We do partner with publishers and businesses.
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Any official outreach from Silent Book Club LLC will come from a @silentbook.club email address.
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Some local chapter organizers do use gmail accounts, but they are not authorized to solicit payment from authors or businesses.
If you are a recipient of an email impersonating a chapter organizer or member of the Silent Book Club team, please block the sender and report the fraudulent account directly to the service provider.
- Google - Report abuse from a Gmail account: support.google.com/mail/contact/abuse
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Microsoft - Report abuse from Outlook: https://support.
microsoft.com/en-us/office/ phishing-and-suspicious- behavior-in-outlook-0d882ea5- eedc-4bed-aebc-079ffa1105a3 - TikTok - https://support.tiktok.com/en/safety-hc/report-a-problem/report-a-user
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Twitter - https://help.x.com/en/safety-
and-security/report-abusive- behavior -
Substack - Go to the impostor's profile page. Click on the three dots menu (...) near the "Message" button. Select "Report" from the dropdown menu.
We encourage any recipient of an imposter scam to report the fraudulent activity to your local authorities—DO NOT FORWARD THE EMAIL TO SILENT BOOK CLUB. We can't stop Nigerian spammers and AI bots from impersonating us.
- Federal Trade Commission - Report fraud: reportfraud.ftc.gov
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: www.ic3.gov/Home/Index
- European Commission: commission.europa.eu/live-work-travel-eu/consumer-rights-and-complaints/resolve-your-consumer-complaint_en
This is a widespread scam affecting many book clubs and businesses, not just Silent Book Club
Electric Lit published an article about it here: https://electricliterature.com/that-personalized-email-about-loving-and-marketing-your-book-is-a-scam/
Even Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast has been targeted: https://parade.com/news/soap-actress-scam-amy-poehler-podcast
Please do NOT forward the scam email to us
We have received—and reported—hundreds of these emails. Unless the service providers (Google, Twitter, TikTok, etc) block bot farms and spammers, there is nothing we can do beyond sharing the information on this page. We are aware of the issue, we hate it as much as you do, and it has taken a significant hit on our resources and productivity. We try to respond to every person that reaches out to ask us if it's a scam because we care about authors and our community.