Back at it. So I’ve been going on about protecting yourself from scammers and predators who love to take advantage of creatives like us. It’s sad, but there are a lot of them out there. I’ve just ferreted out two who were emailing me.
So what can you put in your arsenal to help you? Glad you asked 😉
One, if you don’t have a PayPal account, get one. Paypal allows you to pay via credit/debit cards and it creates a layer between you and people you’re doing business with to protect those cards. The bigger advantage with PayPal is that they will step up if you have an issue with someone you hire. I know for fact because I did run into an issue early on in this game. Some guy on Twitter was talking me up about hiring him to get reviews and marketing, etc. There were red flags but he wanted $100, so I took a chance and hired him. I set up for him to do his thing two months later.
I paid via PayPal and then that August I contacted him to see where we were at and he tried to sell me another package. When I called him on it, he disappeared and never answered me back. So I went to PayPal, complained that I didn’t get the services I bought and in less than a week I had my money back in my account. Yeah.
I’m sure they’re not perfect, but PayPal has done well by me.
Next, if you’re not already, start saving any communications you have with potential people/businesses when you do contract work. I save all my emails with people in various files. If you’re on social media or Discord, screenshot conversations about what people say they will do for you if it’s all you’ve got. Depending on the situation, you can use those as evidence to sway PayPal into getting your money back from some scammer.
Next, you’ve got tools with this fancy thing called the internet–use them to run people down and make sure they’re who they say they are. When you get approached by a potential business or related person, search their name. Get people they’ve worked with and hunt them down too. Don’t respond if you get email addresses from them to back up their work–that’s a RED flag. I discussed it last time but I’ll say it again–I can make a gmail account in a few minutes and then direct you there to talk to my good friend Jack Fullovitt and he’ll tell you I’m a swell guy and you should invest everything you’ve got with me because I’ll take you places….
Yeah.
These days, you’ve got a bigger bullet in your arsenal and most of us don’t even know it. It’s new on the scene and for creatives it’s like garlic to vampires but I’m here to tell you, I can save you precious time if you’re willing to use it.
It’s called AI. Yeah, I know. AI is the reaper for creatives, it’s going to replace us and take away all the jobs for writers and artists…
It’s time to look at what AI really is. It is not sentient. If you interact with AI platforms like ChatGPT it will respond to you like it’s a person, but it is absolutely not thinking on its own. Truth. What AI really is, is a program that can sift through all of the information on the internet at insane speeds and sum things up for you in a matter of seconds and maybe minutes.
AI and programs like ChatGPT are like a Google Search on adrenalin.
AND without ads.
It will search for what you want to really find out and do it in moments.
Now–caveat–it is not 100% accurate and it makes mistakes. Sometimes the way it interprets data is dead wrong so you do want to double check its mental math, and especially for important things.
Now what can you use AI for? It is NOT for your creative side. I do not write with AI and I never will. What, honestly would be the point? The greatest part of writing, for me, is that creative side figuring out what Riker’s going to do next when she’s running up against some earthen entity. I love the unfolding plots while I’m tapping away, and if I used AI to help, it would steal the adrenalin and my love of story creation. No, that’s NOT what it’s for.
Now, I will use Google searches and AI to figure out the weather patterns in Arizona and the general climate to know where I’m sending my teams so I can gauge how they’re going to dress and what tech equipment they’re going to bring. Those are little things you can research, or like figuring out how many rounds a KelTec shotgun holds
MY big use for AI is to help me with Marketing and Advertising.
It’s for all the tedious things I’m not as excited to jump into to try to get the word out about my books. ChatGPT is amazing for sifting through tens of Google pages trying to figure out where I should focus ads and the best way to reach my horror crowd.
Do not be scared of AI and give it a shot. Serious. It is a tool like Google, just a thousand times quicker and better.
Next time I’m going to show you exactly what to do with it and how to use it to cut out the nonsense when it comes to marketing. And to help with scammers…
Craig