Here’s a new type of scam, sent from various @kbookbuzz emails over the past many weeks:
Re: Stunning graphic banner for your book! Check it out – KBookBuzz today!
Hello {{author-name}},
We invite you to feature your book “{{book-title}}” on KBookBuzzand get new readers through social media.
Kbookbuzz promotes your books to over 115 thousand readers on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Threads. Also, get:
– Featured Book Listing
– Professional Custom Banner
– Learn more at the Website KBookBuzz
Limited Time Offer – Use coupon code “BUZZ10” for a $10 discount on all plans!
Warm Regards,
KBookBuzz Team
On the surface, it looks like a garden-variety scam, but it’s a little more polished than usual: the emails are coming from own-domain addresses (plural, probably to avoid getting blacklisted, or maybe these guys are working on commission), there’s a link to the actual website, and they even have a discount coupon code. Whoa!
Not that any of their claims hold under scrutiny, mind.
Let’s start with the easiest one: “over 115 thousand readers” over LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
The website has links to various social media profiles, many of whom belong to a man named Kevin Thompson rather than the company itself.
Let’s start with Facebook, where “Kevin Thompson”, a.k.a. “kbookbuzz”, has 1.6k followers, and his cover photo is a collage of popular authors. I doubt he’s ever crossed paths with any of these guys, gals and pals, but hey, who’s gonna tell them.
Kevin’s last public posts are from 2018. In 2024, he changed his profile picture and cover image to K Book Buzz-related stuff, but I’m seeing zero promotion from this account, so the 1,600 follower number might as well be zero.
On to Twitter, Kbookbuzz has…
Books they advertise: “Raven is a werebear who f*cked a reality TV chef.” (Yes, really.)
…a little more than 600 followers. Yeowch.
Kevin Thompson’s Instagram (yup, same guy) has 212 followers:
KBookBuzz, “Webmaster at Fiverr” on LinkedIn, has 78 connections and 86 followers. Interestingly, his location is listed as Uttar Pradesh, India, which very much makes me doubt his name is “Kevin Thompson” in the first place. Either he’s an expat, or — you guessed it — this is just another fake profile to support the scam.
As an aside, a lot of the book promotion scam emails I’m getting come from IP addresses that trace back to somewhere in India. I miss the days Nigerian princes promised to send me millions for a small account-opening fee of a couple hundred bucks.
Do we even need to look at Threads? Fine:
To recap, we’ve got:
- 180 followers on Threads
- 86 followers on LinkedIn
- 606 followers on Xitter
- 212 followers on Instagram
- 1,600 followers on Facebook
Hey Siri, what’s the difference between 115,000 and 2,684?
Anyone care to guess how many impressions “Kevin Thompson” / KBookBuzz’s social media posts are getting?
We’ve already established that the number of followers is bullshit and the person running the accounts is an Indian scammer using a fake identity. Let’s look at the next part — the “professional custom banner” they use to promote the books of the poor, unfortunate souls who fall for the scam.
First one: Blue on green, really? The book blurb is barely legible. The series title is even worse (I’m 99% sure that says The Enoch Chronicles, right?) There are four different fonts on there, five if you count the Barnes & Noble one. And, yeah, the cover of the book they’re advertising isn’t anything to write home about, either but at least it’s honest about what it’s trying to be.
Second one: I’m no designer, but even I know your CTA buttons need to be readable. The middle one that says “Buy on Amazon” is so squished you can barely make out the text. The ebook cover is stretched vertically (and that’s 100% AI art), and the readability of the whole thing is somewhere in the toilet.
Third one: I’m sorry, my brain bluescreened at “Mating the Chef”. I’ll be over on /r/brainbleach for a bit.
The sad thing is, judging by the number of books featured on KBookBuzz, there are at least a handful of authors who got scammed into paying for a graphic banner of dubious quality and a bunch of no-name social media accounts shouting their book into the void. The highest paid tier of book promotions is $99 for a 90-day “plan”, and that’s nothing to scoff at when the vast majority of indies lose thousands on their self-published books and will never make that money back.
And, sure, many of these authors probably don’t know any better, which makes this even sadder. They could have easily taken that money and invested it into a book marketing course or a few self-driven Kindle ads.
Stay safe out there, friends.
