Stephen King Loved My Book. The Only Problem? I Never Wrote It

Stephen King just wrote me the other day to tell me he LOVED my book!

Yes, for real. And how do I know it was him? Because he told me so.

Stephen King told me he runs a really nice special "authors" online club dedicated to helping and connecting new writers with each other, and Stephen REALLY wants me to join him on that awesome non-profit project. Did I tell you HE LOVED my book(s)?!! He loved my writing !!
And apparently Stephen now lives in India too. How cool is that?

One thing though... I´m not the author of the book(s) he mentioned. I was just the illustrator hired to illustrate that book series almost ten years ago. Oh, but it was not just Stephen King who wrote to me. Since last November, many other established, famous writers have written to me too. Apparently, all of them have online book clubs!!! And all of them want to help my books get noticed!!

Let´s talk about Self-Publishing Scams, Author Impersonation Scams, Book Marketing Scams, and Email Scams Against Writers.

In one day, I had 12 NEW SIMILAR emails not only from other famous writers but also from plenty of book marketing EXPERTS. And all want to make my book a success!!! I´m super lucky, considering I didn´t write any of these books and I just did the illustrations.

It´s essentially the "Famous Author Scam: How Fake Literary Celebrities Are Targeting Self-Published Writers.

Since last November, I have received more than 500 emails from those "experts", mostly from Fiverr profiles and plenty from "famous authors".
The photo you see in the email below was used in at least 8 more emails that impersonated someone else, so either this is an AI-generated woman or some real girl had her photos stolen online.

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Dear Scammers: Thank You for Making Me the Most Popular Author I Never Was.

My new sport is driving these dudes insane. I reply to all of them. I know I shouldn´t be doing that, as that confirms the validity of my email to scammers (DON´T DO IT), but... I can´t help it. It´s just too fun spending a few minutes at the end of the day pretending I´m super thankful for Stephen King himself wanting to help me become super famous with my writing too !!

As I keep doing a lot of work for indie authors, in between my other projects, it now seems my email must be in some "marketing experts" scam database that preys on innocent independent authors.

(Wow!!! I just got another one this instant as I was writing this!!!)

This is like a plague!!

Somehow, through my illustration site ICreateWorlds, I have worked on two indie projects that seem to be the origin of those emails, and I don´t get why those specific ones.

I have a couple of my own personal book projects on Amazon, and I don´t seem to be plagued by anything related to those, which I actually wrote. So Stephen King and all the famous writers out there seem to be more interested in "inviting" me into their golden-marketing opportunities for the books I´ve illustrated than for the books I actually wrote, too. So... any of you authors out there been plagued by this type of email?

I´ve contacted the publishing representatives of a couple of these established authors who have had their identity online STOLEN by those "experts", and they all told me the same.

Plenty of their established writers have had their identities used online for these scams. They told me it seems the new trend right now is to target unsuspecting newbie self-published authors, and it´s been really tricky to fight those.

For example, several of the "established authors" who "contacted" me to offer me "guidance" in making my books super famous "did so" in a way that, at first glance, looks legit. They even add links to the real authors in the email, like their sites, their Amazon pages, and the real thing. So if an indie author is eager to find some publishing support, it´s very easy to fall into that one, because their links really go to the real author´s official pages.

(A good, fun move if you get one of these is to leave a message on the real official Instagram page of the actual writer, telling that person that you are being targeted by this scam being done in his name.) )

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Congratulations! A Famous Author Loves Your Book… Now Here Comes the Scam.

If you Google this new scam. You will find several established authors warning people about this on their own social media. It seems like a scam that is rampant online right now.

I should know. As I update this warning in June of 2026, I have received more than 582 emails with the exact same type of AI-generated text since November of 2025.

And the fun part is that when these scammers respond to me, they all use AI too! It´s so easy to detect that I love to waste their time and play along just to see how far it goes.

Try it. Do a Google search about this.

And if J.K. Rowling writes to you to tell you how much she loves your book, just reply to her and say...
" If you do, then how about leaving me a review on Amazon? "

In short. Be aware that this scam is out there.

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Now I´m going back to my illustration work, but not before I´m replying to this new "expert" who just emailed me minutes ago too. It´s always great to be friends with a famous writer who loves my books.
So, when a world-famous author, or an established literary agency, suddenly loves your book… Check who sent the Email first

PS: JUST IN!
As I was wrapping this post here, seconds ago, I just GOT ANOTHER ONE OF THESE EMAILS !!!

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