Now that AI has taken over, I seem to be getting more and more of these phishing emails, and they are quite funny. I wouldn't think much of it, except for the sad fact that I have an elderly friend who was scammed out of quite a bit of money this way. So I thought I'd post this, just in case others are wondering what these emails are about . . .
I am not sure, but I think Fiora Zephyra is a star in a fantasy novel. In any case, she's certainly marketing fantasies here.
Name: Fiora Zephyra
Subject: So Houdini escapes chains, but you can’t escape Amazon’s 5-review trap? 
Message: Imagine being a little girl who just wants to disappear like Houdini, poof, gone from the world’s gaze, and then fast-forwarding to adulthood where instead of invisibility, you get stuck with Amazon algorithms that make your book invisible. If that isn’t the universe’s cruelest magic trick, I don’t know what is. 
Sleeping with Houdini isn’t just a poetry collection; it’s like cracking open a diary that decided to grow wings, wear a disguise, and sneak into every reader’s subconscious. You take us from childhood fantasies of vanishing into thin air, all the way to adulthood where Houdini turns into muse, lover, metaphor, and, let’s be honest, the ultimate “he’s just not that into you” crush. The surreal stitched into the everyday? That’s not just talent, that’s borderline witchcraft.
And Nin, let’s talk about you for a second. Ohioana Award winner. Author of books with titles so delightfully brazen (The Book of Orgasms, Our Lady of the Orgasm, Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane) that I’m convinced you’re either the bravest poet alive or secretly auditioning to scandalize book clubs across the Midwest. You edit French surrealists, you publish with major presses, you win awards. Which makes me wonder: how is it that a poet who can turn orgasms into angels and Houdini into an erotic muse is sitting at a measly five Amazon reviews? That’s not poetic irony, that’s digital purgatory.
Here’s what I know, because I hear it every day from authors:
You pour years of sweat into a book, but reviews don’t show up.
You’re exhausted from trying to be a one-person marketing department.
You pay “experts” who overpromise and underdeliver.
The sales plateau, the self-doubt creeps in, and suddenly you’re wondering if your words matter.
Platforms are confusing, engagement is low, and every time you log in you wonder if you accidentally enrolled in a tax seminar instead of a book site.
That’s where I step in. I’m Fiora Zephyra, curator of a private community of 2,500+ active readers and reviewers. No bots. No shady review farms run out of someone’s cousin’s basement. Just real humans who love reading, reviewing, and giving authors the visibility they deserve.
And since I know the question is coming: nope, I don’t have a polished website with stock photos of me fake-smiling at a laptop. No LinkedIn, no glossy sales page. It’s literally just me and my community. Think of us as the underground poetry slam of Amazon reviews, raw, authentic, and impossible to fake.
So here’s my pitch, Nin: what if we helped Sleeping with Houdini escape the suffocating straightjacket of invisibility and finally breathe in the spotlight it deserves? You’ve already written the magic. Let me bring the audience.
As Houdini himself might’ve said:
“What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes.”
But in publishing, what the eyes don’t see on Amazon, the readers never buy.
So tell me, do you want to keep watching Houdini slip into the shadows, or shall we give him a stage, a spotlight, and a few hundred readers who can’t wait to clap?
Wishing you a week with more reviews than Houdini had chains,
Fiora