NaNoWriMo :: NaNoWriMo Blog

Milka Zartherb - good decision! But a simple Zartherb- tree is definitely not enough!! You need a lilac cow too if you want to be a real Milkanian! No Milka without a cow! So be prepared if you order your chocolate tree, you will be in need of a stable too! ;-) alir.

cheers on the Milka Zartherb chocolate from an NaNo in Vienna! thats also my favorite chocolate. I would do the same with $10,000.

great blog !

AFAIK the answer to the "Baty family?" is yes

wow, cheers on the Milka Zartherb chocolate from an NaNo in Vienna! thats also my favorite chocolate. I think I would do the same with $10,000.

hey! "water for elephants" was a nano book!!! i read that earlier this year because of great reviews it got from readers on bookbrowse.com
it really was an intruiging book. way to go nanowrimo writers!!!

People will try anything. I missed the fact that there's a blog for NaNoWriMo! I should have known! Oh well. I've started talking about it and provided a link back to the site, but I will be sure to send some link love your way too, Chris! Got your book! I do so love Borders... I mean Amazon. Ahem. :) Thanks for blogging about it all!

You're sure you don't have an alter-ego caused by stress, that is dreaming up devious stuff at night and getting you into trouble by inching his fingers towards the key-board, are you?

*grins cheekily* :p

I loved the email from you to you. I told myself about it over breakfast, but I was too upset over the dangling participles to listen.

"OF WHICH YOU'RE A MEMBER OF?" I shouted at myself. "REACH YOUR AGENT AT?"

"Calm down," my reasonable self said to us both. "I am tired from chasing the run-on sentences and I now have a headache. What's wrong with a coupel of mispelled words?"

"Couple", we replied. But I paid ourself no notice. Whats this world comeing to.

Cinserlee,
Jawbone

P.S. As you might have guessed, I'm reading a Tuesday Next novel. If you haven't read one, you are missing out.

I got one of these today. Strange thing is I've competed in NaNoWriMo once before, in 2005 (2006 was a bad year for me) and only got half way. I knew it was a scam instantly, because I despise Amazon.com and all things Amazon.com related. I wouldn't be caught dead on there.

Either way, thanks for the heads up for all my fellow NaNos!

...the INFAMOUS Chris Baty.

I'd get it imprinted on your letterhead if I were you: "From the Desk of the INFAMOUS Chris Baty."

People will take you much more seriously after that I bet.

My favorite scam mail came through one day at work, where I run the web site. It said some mail wasn't deliverable because the security people noticed viruses. The email was supposed to be accessible from some obscure looking folder in the server.

I like it because I make and manage the folders on the server, so I know that suchandsuch.com/files/inbox.php? doesn't even exist. I also know that the site runs something that doesn't use .php (Apache?) so such a folder is doubly obvious.

The sender's spoofed email address was even better, because I make and manage the emails for the web site, so I know that security@suchandsuch.com also doesn't exist.

But then there's the fact that the authr cannot correkt his own spellign misstakes that really gives the scam away.

You sent yourself an email expressing a wish to republish your own book? Niiiice.

*clutches her copy of No Plot? No Problem! protectively*

NaNo will protect me from the evil scammers! Hahaha.

Seriously, though. I'm glad you were able to laugh about that. I know people have commented several times on the fake you's inability to spell correctly, but honestly! If I were running a scam like that, I'd try to make sure my spelling/grammar were at least correct. *shakes her head at the idiots of the world*

At least with NaNo, I won't have much time for internet craziness, eh?

Okay, that's just weird. LOL. I do get stuff similar to this in my inbox, and from myself!!! Usually, they want me to send them (or if it has my own name in the 'TO' section... me) my bank information so they can wire millions of dollars into my account. HA! I laugh at those. But this one, this one is by far the funniest... with the spelling errors and all. If you're gonna pretend to be a 'master mind' and want have people send you x-amount of money to replublish a book in order to fix all the spelling and gramatical errors, be sure to fix your own spelling errors before emaling anyone with a proposal, even if it is just a bogous one. Too funny.

I've gotten emails like this myself. People telling me they'd like to publish my books. You know what the really weird thing about it is? I'm not only an editor, but I own a small press publishing house, and it was from the home page of my publishing house that they got my email addess! LOL! I think some scammers spend so much time thinking up scams, that they forget to actually use their brains!

Okay. This isn't just a pointless phishing/spamming attempt, it's clearly stupid as well. I mean, the first paragraph alone shows that it's a very dim individual sending out the letter (and I don't just mean the misspellings, either...)

"I found your book on Amazon.com and I was intrigued by the potential it had."

A book that is already listed on Amazon.com = a book that is already published or is already slated for publishing.

How hard should I fight the urge to run along now and sign up batyfam on about a hundred email advertising distribution lists? :P

Oh. Wow.

You have got to be kidding me. I have seen many scam emails in the past, but this one really takes the cake. If I wasn't laughing so hard my spleen might burst, I might actually be annoyed.

Sara Gruen. She's published two of her NaNo novels, but the one that hit #1 on the NYT bestseller list is called Water For Elephants.

Thanks for being vigilant about that!

The interesting thing is last year we actually had someone who publishes a literary mag called No Limit go through and read every single excerpt on the site, and then get in touch with the ones he liked best offering to publish a bit of their novels in his magazine. Which he did, and it looks great. We have some copies in the office that we'll be giving away at the Write-a-thon on November 17th. So sometimes the implausible offers really are legit.

But not that often, sadly.

Chris

Hi Suelder,

You're so right. Sorry about that. There's a link to the blog from the main site under Fun Stuff, which used to be sleekly accessible via drop-down menu. But when we changed over to Drupal we lost our drop-down menus. Russ has had their recreation and reinstatement on his immediate to-do list since launch, and will hopefully get to them this week.

Chris

Gayle! I want you on WrimoRadio! I'll drop you a line about it today.

That's amazing... I receive emails similar to this all the time from people asking for money loans out of my bank account, among other things. I love how they just can't spell. One claimed he had a Ph.D in English from some South African University that I don't think existed, yet he wrote the worst email imaginable. I almost couldn't read it because of how cryptic it was! I hope we get some more so we can laugh, though I also hope people get published!!! Cheers!

Daniel

Ha! I'll mention this to Russ. I think that bit of text must have been written by the Drupal robots. Thanks, Marrije!

gotta love the non-english speakers that come up with this crap.

kinda reminds m e of that commercial where the creepy old guy comes up to a woman on a bus and tells her she's won a certain amount of money, and all she has to do is cash this check. . . .

oy.

I noticed many erors that a gud editur shoul have noticed, but I noticed them insted.

Hahahahaha! Anyone who wants to edit my book had better be able to spell (and write a decent sentence).

People get more and more unoriginal every day...they must be bored or something. I think it's funny that they tried to sound like you and failed; it doesn't even read like something you'd write.

I'm with you on the Jelly Bellies though. ^^

Wow. Somebody needs to scambait ( http://scamorama.com/ ) that sucker!

Mmm... Milka. I'd love some of that.

I know this ... being a NaNo carries with it an enormous burden. Not only am I locally famous for being a contributor, but I've been asked many times if I knew where I could get my hands on 10,000 extra buckaroos.

Gosh, had I thought of this, well ... life would have been much different.

Pear-flavored jelly beans?

Don't you get it? It's a scam for your agent's phone number!!! This is from a sad, unintelligent writer (no pointing fingers everyone) that just wants to get in with an agent somewhere.... wish I'd thought of it, although I would have used the Dahli Lama's name.

Phoenix

You know you're somebody when people steal your good name to run an email scam!

Here's to notoriety!

Deanna

If you ever get those sour Jelly Bellys, send a pound my way. Besides, when are you going to eat 500 pounds? :)

Sour jelly bellies? The pear are the best! Yum! I like the thought of a tree made of chocolate...that's going on my When-I-Win-PublishersClearingHouse list =)
You're are the funniest person!

Man, that's amazing. Spam mail never ceases to amaze me. Nor the idiots who fall for it. I had one of my friends go through all the crap to get a free Wii online, and wow! What a surprise! It never showed up.

Yeah the spelling errors top the cake on that one though.

Man, and I thought I had a crazy original idea when I came up with the plan to get the NaNoWriMo tattoo. Well, I still probably will, it just won't be original anymore. Oh well.

I also got warning from my comrades at Absolute Write that Publish America (scary vanity press) is lurking around the NaNo forums. I think it's worth making a serious warning about them.

What?! It's a scam?! Crap! I just signed the paper agreeing to give away my first-born!

What a world, what a world!!!

/jannin

I'll add a couple details in, seeing as how I'm the ML that forwarded it to Chris in the first place.

It's a friend of my sister's, so my sister gets some credit for being on the ball and realizing NaNoWriMo was that weird thing her sister does every November. So she brought it to my attention. The book in question was actually done with PublishAmerica, which is one of those not-so-great vanity/PoD publishers, so the whole "republish your book" makes sense from that angle.

I figured it was a scam from the get-go myself, but sometimes the best way to get the stars out of somebody's eyes is to get confirmation that the email is most definitely a scam. I've done NaNo enough to know that Chris doesn't look at winning entries, for starters. Plus, it didn't read right. But you never know, and if it was somebody trying to scam authors in Chris' name, then he needed to know. Plus now that the entry is in place, the blog will give it some google mojo, which means that searching for it will bring a response and thus, it'll help other people from not being taken in by the scam.

-kat

You'll be paying us in Jelly Bellys and chocolate instead? It might be worth it then...

ROFL! Tis cool you are a great sport about it.

GO NANOWRIMO!!!

Don't be fooled! O_O They actually want to give you 100,000 but they're scared you'll think it's a scam! What a waste of an opertunity!

*laughs ridiculously and falls off her chair*

I have read the email several times and I don't get the purpose... I mean, I know, citizens of crazytown don't always have a clear purpose in mind, but aren't scam emails supposed to solicit money or information or... something? This person is asking on your behalf for permission to give away money and republish an already-published manuscript. Where is the motivation? What, in his ideal scenario, is supposed to happen next? Even the Nigerian prince's attorney has a clear plan of action in place.

He doesn't even spell 'opertunity' with a consistently incorrect number of p's.

This sounds like a picture perfect example of an intro into an advance-fee fraud or check-mule scam to me. If one was foolish enough to respond, they would probably actually receive all or part of the promised advance in the form of a check or money order.

Next, a frantic message from the pseudo-Chris: "OOPSIE! I accidentally sent you too much money (or have run into some unexpected publishing costs & etc...), would you be so kind as to go down to Western Union and send some of that money back to me?"

Having already deposited said check or money order in your account, and happy to oblige your new patron, you would hurry off to Western Union and wire the money as requested.

Of course, two weeks later when your bank calls to tell you that the check you deposited was a fake, and that you are now on the hook for the money you sent to pseudo-Chris and/or have already spent (at least) and/or that you are facing charges for check fraud (at worst) your new patron will have strangely fallen silent...

Always beware of editors bearing amazing opertunities...

Some people have a lot of nerve. And spelling issues.

But hurray for them anyway, because they got us another brilliant Chris-post, and I know again why November is my favourite month of the year :-)

As an aside: the blog's error message is perhaps a tad tech-oriented, dudes: "Remember that it must be fully qualified," when I've not put http:// in front of my url is a stretch for me (the person who works in websites for a living!) and maybe not even strictly necessary if you arrange things differently? Ross? Or are you not the tech guru anymore Ross?

Ha. 'Opertunity', 'master mind', 'till'...
... I was waiting for pseud0-you to sign your name as 'Christ Baty'; it would somehow top off the amazing offer.

Maybe NaNoWriMoing does destroy your mind after all.

That's awesome.

...in a kind of disturbing way.

Congratulations! You have reached an internet milestone!

Wow Chris!
That is pretty sad. Offering ten thousand dollars for the right to republish an already published book. I'd hate to think of anyone falling into this trap.

Somehow I also don't see you using the phrase 'Master Mind behind NaNoWriMo'. Grand Poobah, maybe because it has a more "Chris Baty" ring to it.

If they really wanted to sucker someone, they should have offered considerably less and avoided the Amazon site.

Cheers,
chris AKA insp_nelson

I don't know why, but the scam-mail amuses me. :D (I noticed places where commas or semi-colons would've made the flow much better! xD)

Also, you have a very interesting ambition for $10,000... It would take you AGES to eat all of that, and you'd end up round as a giant basketball.

D'you think you'd bounce like one, too? :D

~Inoru~

Of all the scams I haven't received, I already miss this one the most.

On a side note, good to see my tattoo's been memorable.

Chris,
I probably missed an earlier post: Who is our NYTimes best selling author?

You're so darned famous now, Chris, that people are using your name and reputation to exploit others! Wow, you've really made the big time!!

Wait... you mean...? The check is NOT in the mail?

Darn. I guess I'd better re-cork the champagne and get back to work.

Chris, that's hilarious. If you decide to proceed with the investment in sour Jelly Bellys, please advise. I'd like to get in on that action.