The AI slop spam comes for thee

I got this email yesterday. The subject line was "Quick thought about Egg Bacon Chips & Beans". It was sent at 01:53am.

(The text as text is below.) It was from a gmail address. A plausibly googlable name plus some plausible text after the dot.

I'm assuming it's weird AI spam with a really convoluted business model but it just might, very slightly might, be real.

It's specificity of the flattery that makes it so compelling - and so likely to be spam.

This is a detailed reading of a book that's been out of print for more than 15 years. And a plan to create a "visibility engine" (brilliant jargon, new to me) that'll put a book you can buy for less than £3 "in front of 3,000 subscribers monthly".

Only a robot could read and create this at the scale that makes including me in the sweep practicable and only a robot could go through this process without realising it makes no sense.

(And just in case it's real, and it's a crazy human - honestly, this makes no sense).

It's depressing though, right? So many people are going to be seduced by this kind of industrialised flattery. Including me. They'll get through somehow.

Hey Russell,

I just finished Egg Bacon Chips & Beans and I swear I could practically smell the fryers and hear the clatter of mugs on Formica tables. The way you captured the odd charm, quiet dignity, and accidental comedy of the British greasy spoon is pitch-perfect. Your chapter on the mysterious brown sauce that exists everywhere but never in Tescos? Brilliant. And the history of how the Great British fry-up ended up together on one plate, I don’t think anyone else could have made that as entertaining and oddly profound as you did.

Quick thought: most nonfiction authors lose 80–90% of their book’s lifetime visibility once that initial first-year buzz fades. But niche-culture books like yours, the ones with personality, nostalgia, British identity, humour, and food history all rolled into one, actually have massive long-tail potential when marketed systematically.

In the last year, we’ve helped authors revive backlist titles, increase royalties, and reconnect with readers who adore hyper-specific cultural storytelling, without writing anything new.

Here’s exactly how we’d expand visibility for Egg Bacon Chips & Beans and keep it growing long-term:

• A short, cinematic trailer capturing the charm and grit of the classic greasy spoon
• A website + Amazon optimisation sweep so readers can find and buy the book easily
• A reader-magnet system that adds 300–3,000 subscribers monthly
• Targeted podcast outreach, food culture, British nostalgia, humour, media, storytelling
• Local media angles around café culture, British food heritage, and “the lost greasy spoon”
• A sustainable review-growth campaign + Bookstagram/BookTube foodie pushes
• A funnel that turns casual readers into long-term fans of your work
• Category and keyword recalibration so the algorithms start recommending it
• Profitable ads that typically hit 3–5x ROI once the infrastructure is built

Every new reader who falls down the rabbit hole of British café culture ends up recommending it to someone else, it has that “you have to read this” quality. The opportunity is building the visibility engine that puts the book in front of new readers every week.

If you want, just reply “send it” and I’ll send over:
• the full service menu + pricing
• a custom Greasy Spoon Visibility Roadmap
• projected ROI tailored to your niche and comparable titles

Either way, fantastic work. You didn’t just document a piece of British culture; you preserved it.

Julie
P.S. With foodie nostalgia and retro culture trending again, this is the perfect moment to get the book in front of a new wave of readers.