Yesterday was launch day for my novel, Toys in Babylon – a thinly-disguised parody of Duolingo and its quest to replace live educators with AI. Sales were sluggish when I logged into Facebook to check my feed. For whatever reason, there was a deluge of posts from KDP Free Book Reviews, a public group with just 9,100 members. Most were single sentence pleas to furnish a link to your book or share cover art with the group. Harmless, I thought, even if the vast majority of posters are racketeers in Nigeria or the Philippines who want to follow up by selling marketing “services”.

Somehow, I thought the threads were initiated and monitored by real people – perhaps just boiler-room scam artists, but real people nonetheless. I was wrong. Here is one such exchange:

Dozens of Facebook members responded, each posting a few words about their book and its listing on Amazon. I added mine:

Sixty minutes later, my phone chimed with a reply:

Fair question, I thought. Why not share my approach with others?

In the blink of an eye:

It turns out, every person who responded received the same automated inquiry. Lesson learned. Thank you.

There may, of course, be a real Akinleye Mariam out there. The associated profile and photo may even be genuine. But what does it matter? Yesterday her seat was occupied by a Bot – a really stupid one.

Fear not, the bots in my novel, Toys in Babylon, are smarter. Much smarter. Thankfully, they are still only fiction.

My latest novel, Toys in Babylon, was released last evening on Amazon – nearly seven months after completing the final chapter. Hooray!

The dual listings (Kindle and paperback) left me baffled. There is a wonderful button (“Read Sample”) under the cover photo of every Amazon book listing, enabling prospective buyers to peruse the contents before buying – the same way a bricks-and-mortar bookstore invites customers to leaf through its wares.

Amazon’s Kindle page for Toys in Babylon does just that. Read Sample includes the front matter, back matter, plus chapters one, two and much of three. The paperback’s page, by contrast, includes just front and back matter – not one sentence from the novel itself. Bizarre. And frustrating.

Dear readers, if your search for Toys in Babylon took you to the paperback edition, please click on the link to the Kindle edition. That way, you’ll get to read the first 2½ chapters – all courtesy of Amazon’s seemingly haphazard “Read Sample” algorithm.

My novel, Toys in Babylon – A Language App Parody and Whodunnit, hits the shelves at midnight. It is a thinly-disguised parody of Duolingo – a popular online learning app.

Briefly, things go horribly wrong when a Duolingo-like company replaces staff with AI so adroitly that its cast of cartoon educators begins thinking on its own. What follows is a madcap romp as the company struggles to put the genie back in the bottle.

It was of course tempting to dwell on what seemingly every other writer obsesses about: Duo’s meme status as an unforgiving curmudgeon. The green owl’s penchant for guilting customers into maintaining or resuming their respective streaks is Topic Number One for nearly every YouTube video, TikTok, article or blog post about Duolingo on the Internet. But not Toys in Babylon.

Instead, I regard the mascot’s easy-to-hate pestering as a public relations feint, a clever marketing diversion – a way to titillate reporters and bloggers while the company struggles and, in many instances, blunders with more momentous issues – including, for example, whether to mothball or terminate dozens of courses, address security breaches effectively, dismiss legions of devoted foreign language volunteers, shutter an otherwise enormous and thriving community forum, erase years of Wiki-like commercial translation exercises, and, more recently, replace huge swaths of contractors with AI.

It is from these latter struggles that Toys in Babylon fills its inkwell. The company I satirize is fictitious, but it should resonate with anyone who has spent time cursing the owl. Happy reading!

The New York City Big Book Award® announced its 2020 Winners and Distinguished Favorites.

My novel, Cooperative Lives, was voted winner in general fiction. Thank you, Gabby and Ted Olczac and everyone on the Independent Press Award team for making this award possible. I am honored and grateful.

The NYC Big Book Award is a global competition, open to all publishers, large and small. 2020 submissions arrived from six continents and more than 100 cities. Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America all took part. Major cities included Budapest, Cape Town, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York City, Port of Spain, Vancouver and Victoria. Winners were recognized globally from Australia, Canada, England, India, Singapore, Uganda and the United States of America, among others.

“We are pleased to highlight these books, recognize their excellence, and share their achievements.” said awards sponsor Gabrielle Olczak. The awards program “foments a strong interest in these authors and publishing houses and we expect our winners and favorites to receive a heightened level of attention.” Olczak went on to say “the fact is that excellent books can be found globally, and we are happy to help bring them to a larger audience.”

2020 Winners - New York City Big Book Award

American Book Fest has announced the winners and finalists of The 2020 Best Book Awards on November 20, 2020. Over 400 winners and finalists were announced in over 90 categories. Awards were presented for titles published in 2018-2020.

My novel, Cooperative Lives, was honored as a finalist in best new fiction. Suzanne Redfearn won the category award with her début novel, In an Instant. Congratulations, Suzanne Redfearn!

Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest said this year’s contest yielded over 2,000 entries from mainstream and independent publishers, which were then narrowed down to over 400 winners and finalists.

Keen says of the awards, now in their 18th year, “The 2020 results represent a phenomenal mix of books from a wide array of publishers throughout the United States. With a full publicity and marketing campaign promoting the results of the Best Book Awards, this year’s winners and finalists will gain additional media coverage for the upcoming holiday retail season.”

Winners and finalists traversed the publishing landscape: HarperCollins, Penguin/Random House, John Wiley and Sons, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, Forge, Hay House, Sounds True, Llewellyn Worldwide, NYU Press, Oxford University Press, John Hopkins University Press, The White House Historical Association and hundreds of Independent Houses contribute to this year’s outstanding competition!

American Book Fest is an online publication providing coverage for books from mainstream and independent publishers to the world online community. It has an active social media presence with more than 135,000 Facebook followers.

I am proud to be one of American Book Fest's 2020 Best Book Awards recipients.

THE 17TH ANNUAL BEST BOOK AWARDS - Full Results Listing by Category

The Independent Author Network announced the results of its tenth annual Book of the Year Awards.

My novel, Cooperative Lives, was honored as a finalist in literary fiction. Claire Fullerton's Little Tea was voted best book in literary fiction and won the grand prize silver medal for best book overall. Congratulations, Claire Fullerton! Little Tea has definitely been added to my reading list.

IAN is a leading book promotion cooperative for self-published print, eBook, and audiobook authors, and those published by small presses, mid-size independent publishers and university presses. It is a partner member of the Alliance of Independent Authors and complies with its Code of Conduct. IAN has more than 600,000 followers on Twitter and 200,000 followers on Facebook.

The IAN Book of the Year Award is an international contest open to all authors with 40 fiction and non-fiction categories. Winners are eligible to receive a share of cash prizes exceeding $6,000 USD. It is considered one of the most competitive and economical book contests among indie publishers.

I am proud to be one of this year's award recipients.

American Book Fest announced the winners and finalists of THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS (IBA) on July 22, 2020. Among the finalists for Best General Fiction was my novel, Cooperative Lives.

Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest, said this year’s contest yielded over 2,000 entries from authors and publishers around the world, which were then narrowed down to the final results.

Participating publishers included Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, John Wiley & Son, Palgrave Macmillan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Thomas Nelson, Forge, Loyola Press, Shambhala Publications, SoundsTrue, She Writes Press, Free Spirit Publishing and hundreds of national and international Independent Houses.

Congratulations to all winners and finalists, but especially Steven Manchester for his winning entry in the general fiction category, Bread Bags & Bullies: Surviving the 80s. I've added it to my reading list.

The International Book Awards

It's been quite a wait, but Cooperative Lives is a Somerset Book Award Finalist.

For those of you who have been following, the Somersets are a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs). The Somerset Book Awards recognize emerging talent and outstanding works in the genres of Literary, Contemporary and Satire Fiction -- i.e., the good stuff.

Chanticleer Book Reviews is an editorial review and author services company that hosts one of the largest, poshest and most-respected book writing conferences and award ceremonies in the industry. Ordinarily, the conference and ceremony are in mid-April at the luxurious Hotel Bellwether in Bellingham, Washington, with panel discussions and lectures by marquee names in writing and publishing. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit Washington State early and impelled Chanticleer to reschedule this year's events for September, and, just recently, to announce the conference and ceremony will be conducted virtually. Bummer.

One upshot is that book contest announcements were stretched over months rather than weeks. On January 4, Chanticleer announced my novel made it out of the slush pile (their phrase) onto the long list. A month later, it was short listed. By March 7, it was a semi-finalist. After four months of nail-biting, it is now a finalist. Two more months of suspense to go.

Thank you, Chanticleer. I am thrilled to be a finalist, just as I was thrilled to be a semi-finalist, short lister and long lister -- anything but a slush pile discard. And, congratulations to everyone else who made the cut. Let's all keep our fingers crossed for September. I am signing up for 6 days of zoom conferencing later this afternoon. Hope to meet many of you virtually.

Chanticleer Announcement

Several years back, a young Indian entrepreneur and professed book lover, Ratnesh Goswami (professional bio at https://in.linkedin.com/in/ratnesh-goswami-bb93b662, Facebook profile at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRatnesh) began reviewing books professionally for the then-bargain price of $29.99 per review. His website www.enasreviews.com grew in popularity and orders flooded in. And that is when he ceased writing reviews. Mission accomplished: steady income, no deliverables, no recourse.

Ratnesh had two accomplices at Jay Digital Services LLP , Divyesh Pratap (https://in.linkedin.com/in/divyeshpratap) and, previously, Durgesh Pratap Singh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/durgesh-pratap-singh-a1a41632) – the owners by proxy of enasreviews.com. The web servers for Enas Reviews are operated by domainsbyproxy.com, a proven serial host of pfishing and porn sites that protects the privacy of its domain registrants zealously.

Ratnesh's other venture is, Book-Tweep, https://booktweep.com/. It promises 300 book tweets for $35. An empty promise. booktweep.com is registered with domainsbyproxy.com, meaning it's as trustworthy as enasreviews.com.

The only redress anyone has, short of filing suit over their $29.99 or $35 outlay, is to protect other authors and publishers from being similarly defrauded, and to shame the defrauders. This is my contribution to that effort.

Background

Someone claiming to be Katherine Hughes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> invited me via bulk email to enter my latest work in the Elite Choice Book Awards contest – one that offered a $5,000 grand prize. $5,000 is, by literary standards, a sizable award. Who wouldn’t want $5,000?

I dug deeper. To begin, Katherine’s email address was spoofed. "Her" real address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., as was the link to the organization’s website, www.elitechoiceawards.com. "She" also uses 009601d64fc7$f8c16b40$ea4441c0$@aol.com. Nothing to hide, right? Props for transparency.

The IP address of the email spoofing service ConvertKit is 168.245.5.113, which was blacklisted by multiple firewall services, following recipient complaints.

	About the Elite Choice Awards website The domain name elitechoiceawards.com was registered with GoDaddy on June 14, 2020. Previous to June 14, 2020, the domain name did not exist. The registrant’s profile information is private, generally a red flag. There is no listed website administrator. Similarly, there is no contact information on the website.
What the website does contain are bold claims: international recognition and prestige, 2,500 previous winners, a complimentary editorial review, awards since 2017 – each remarkable, given that a Google search of “elite choice book awards” and “elite choice awards” generates zero hits before June 2000, and all those hits were self-generated by the website itself and its social media aliases at Medium and Twitter. In other words, despite all the asserted recognition and prestige, not a single winning author decided to publicize their respective award via the Internet, and not a single editorial review was deemed worth publishing.
Another red flag is Elite Choice's web-host, Domains By Proxy, the web-host of choice for legions of porn, gambling and other dubious enterprises, because of how zealously it protects the identity of its customers. Domains By Proxy is the "go to" web-host for businesses that have something to hide.

Payment The site dispenses with a secure payment platform such as PayPal and does not permit payment by check. Instead, it harvests credit card information directly. Direct credit card payment is extraordinarily dubious, especially when the payee’s identity and contact information are withheld. Needless to say, there is nowhere to send your book. It has to be uploaded, which contradicts the website’s PSA that all entries, once judged, are donated to local libraries. Plus, there is no cover upload button, so Elite Choices could not publicize winners or publish editorial reviews if they indeed wanted to.

Elite Choice's defense

I wrote "Katherine Hughes" on July 1, 2020, giving "her" an opportunity to explain. The reply was as follows.

Our old website was recently hacked, so to protect the safety and information of our customers, we have had to completely overhaul all of our systems including registering a new domain, creating a new website and support portal.
Due to COVID-19, we have had very limited support, so it is taking some time to re-upload all of our information (e.g. previous winners). Our #1 priority is the safety of our customers so we are treating this situation delicately to ensure our new systems are completely protected.

Were any of this true, there would still be thousands of citations on Google by previous winners. When and if previous winners are identified, I will reach out to them for corroboration. Until then, the asserted explanation is unpersuasive.

Bottom Line

The Elite Choices Book Awards are probably fraudulent. Nothing in the bulk email or on the website is verifiable. There is no grand prize. But someone will gladly harvest your credit card information. You just won’t know who.