Hi alls!
Long time no, uh, anything?
I wish I had better news to report (although I have written and been working on a few different books that I hope to tell you more about one day...), but the immediate situation is that someone is currently impersonating me in emails sent to authors.
The TLDR of all this: if you've received an email from someone claiming to be me, inviting you to be a part of some kind of showcase, it is a scam, and you should not give that person any of your information.
This is, unfortunately, something that happens a lot these days. The best resource for all of this is probably Writer Beware, which has tons of info, including posts about these "impersonation" scams. So, please, stay safe out there!
Regarding my situation specifically, here are a few more details. A fellow author recently reached out to my agent after receiving an email claiming to be from me. The message invited the recipient to participate in an “international broadcast showcase” organized by the (as far as I can tell, completely made up) "Indie Horizon Media Group." The email was not written by me, and I have no affiliation with that organization.
Whoever is behind the scam has used my name, a real author photo, information about my books, and even created a Gmail account that resembles my identity. The account they used is "christopherhusberg.writer@gmail.com," which is not my email address. I’ve reported the impersonating account to Google, and I'm in the process of filing reports through a number of other outlets including law enforcement.
At the moment, I have no reason to believe that my personal email accounts or website have been compromised (which isn't to say that I'm not taking extra precautions, but still.) This appears to be an impersonation using publicly available information rather than a hack of my accounts.
So, anyway, if you receive an unsolicited email claiming to be from me about media appearances, author showcases, paid opportunities, or similar invitations, please treat it with skepticism. I will never cold-email authors from a Gmail address representing myself as a media executive or ask you to participate in promotional opportunities through an organization you’ve never heard of. Also, honestly, I'm just not really engaged in that side of the business at the moment. I write books, and I attend conventions and conferences myself, but I don't do anything on the invitational side of things.
Thank you to the people who took the time to alert me! I appreciate everyone helping to keep our writing community informed and safe.
So, once again, stay safe!
