Authors get them constantly.
Those AI generated flattering emails asking you to give permission for a book club to discuss your book. But one I received a few weeks ago made me do my research.
This email came from a gmail account, asking if I’d like to be interviewed online for The European Book Club. I found their website, and because I was about to rush out, I emailed them directly to see if it was legitimate.
I once got correspondence from someone claiming they were from Oprah’s Book Club, and another author friend had a fake Reece Witherspoon contacting them about making their book into a mini-series.
The response from the site was unexpected.
We can confirm that the email you received is a legitimate outreach from the European Book Club. Kialuusua is a member of our team, and the invitation regarding The Midnight Man was sent on behalf of our organization.
We completely understand your caution. Given the increasing number of AI-generated and fraudulent solicitations circulating in the publishing industry, it’s entirely reasonable to verify unexpected invitations before responding.
So I delved deeper into their website.
All the books listed on their homepage are best sellers, and while there is a book listed for the current month, the rest of the books were read back in 2025.
Then there is their discussions page.
The buttons on the top (Current Book, General, Reading Tips) aren’t links. And the ‘View Discussion’ links all go to ‘404 Page not found’.
There is another page which lists the amount of people who showed up for each live discussion, and it’s usually 200 or less. Strange for a worldwide site. What’s even crazier is these books aren’t works of fiction.
We live in an age where you have to check new followers on our socials as many pop up with thousands of followers but no posts. Or there’s the barrage of AI emails asking for permission to use your book for their book club – something no one needs permission to do. But this scam is next level.
For an actual website to exist to draw you in, is too much. What worries me is that we are probably close to AI working out the flaws of this site and making sure the next one has no mistakes.
UPDATE: I got a reply from an author who was duped. There were around seventy-five emails to set up her appearance, and a payment of $US100 even though the scammers wanted more. The interviewer could hardly speak English, and the connection was so dodgy, they had to bail out of the conversation early.
kevin klehr 