If you recently published a book, as I did, you might have this same experience. The scammers are out in full force. Here's what keeps happening to me.
I receive an email with a Gmail address, from a person who claims to represent a “reputable” book club. (I find it interesting that they tell me the book clubs are reputable.) They say lovely things about my book—and the text feels to me as if an LLM wrote it. But maybe these people “polish” their words, so I give them the benefit of the doubt.
In this email, they ask me to speak to their group. Since I love to speak, the first few times I asked, “Sure. Where and when?”
That's when they say, “We need you to cover our production costs.”
Really? They have an “established” and “reputable” book club, but they need me to cover their production costs?
I start to wonder if I'm dealing with a Nigerian prince. That's when I say, “No.”
Several of these representatives then tell me it's not that much money. Or it's an investment!
I'm so glad they can tell me what I should do to invest in publicity for my content. (That was sarcasm, in case I was too subtle.)
This is a scam. A total scam. If they need production money, they are not offering enough value to their audience. Instead, they are monetizing the speaker. That's backward. Money needs to flow to the content creators.
Money Flows to the Content Creator
Who offers the value to a meetup? The person speaking. Why? Because they offer the most value in the conversation.
I use congruence as a way to think about this conversation:
- Imagine I, the speaker, am the “Self” here. I want to offer value to the other people in the audience.
- The “Other” is the organizer, who represents the audience.
- The Context is the value I can offer to the audience.
My job is to know who the audience is and what they might want from me. When I work with conferences or other meeting planners, I often use a discovery call to make sure I know what the audience needs. That way, I can deliver the most value in the time I have.
The scammers are incongruent.
Now, for these scammers? Let's look at a few facts:
- The least expensive Zoom Professional meeting plan cost? $200. If the group is a nonprofit, it's even less. If the group offers value to enough people, they might happily pay $5 each. That only requires 40 people to chip in $5 each to meet the $200 plan.
- There is always Google Meet. (Just because I always have trouble with it does not mean everyone else does.)
- I am sure there are other very inexpensive and reliable meeting software options.
So this is about me subsidizing them, under the guise of publicity for my book.
No, thank you.
Speak for Free or Speak for a Fee?
I do speak for free when the meetup does not charge a fee. However, I expect a fee when the meetup or conference charges a substantial fee for the attendees. While I am taking a hiatus from in-person events due to my health, I hope to return to conference speaking. I might not, because so many conferences no longer pay speakers.
In Effective Public Speaking, I offered several guidelines about when to speak for free and when to speak for a fee.
However, I did not offer guidelines about the speaker paying to speak. Here it is:
DO NOT SPEAK IF YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO PAY TO SPEAK.
If you have the content, they should pay you. Period. You should not pay them to speak.
If you write or speak regularly, I strongly recommend you read the Writer Beware blog. Sure, that blog focuses on fiction writers, but nonfiction writers and all speakers can use it, too. That's because both writers and speakers offer valuable content.
Scammers exist because someone falls for their offer. You can avoid that by following these guidelines:
- Always investigate the people asking you to speak.
- Beware of generic Gmail addresses.
- Never pay anyone to share your terrific content.
Good luck with your speaking and marketing. And see all the other speaking myths.