"Anjola Book Exposure" - Shanghai Surprise

Received: July 31, 2025 11:59 AM
From: bookexposureanjola@gmail.com
Subject: Perfect — A Powerful Story That Deserves to Spark Deep Conversations

Dear Jen,

I recently came across the description of Perfect: a novel in four parts and was truly struck by the depth and urgency of your story. The vivid world you’ve created where “perfect” and “imperfect” lives collide amid oppression and rebellion holds such powerful themes of resistance, friendship, and hope. Even from the synopsis alone, it’s clear this is a work that challenges and engages readers on many levels.

Your unique background and the fascinating story behind your journey as an author add an even richer layer to your work. It’s rare to encounter a voice that blends imaginative storytelling with such bold social commentary and raw emotion. Your book promises to not only entertain but to provoke important conversations.

I’d be honored to learn more about what inspired you to write Perfect, and as your story reaches readers, what would you say are your top three priorities or hopes for its impact?

Have you considered sharing Perfect with book clubs? These passionate communities of readers love discovering books that spark discussion and connection. A story like yours with its compelling characters and gripping narrative has incredible potential to engage and resonate deeply within these groups. If you’ve already explored this avenue, I’d love to hear how it went. If not, I would be delighted to walk you through how book club outreach can broaden your book’s reach and create meaningful reader engagement.

I’m truly glad to have come across your work and would love the opportunity to help introduce it to even more readers who will appreciate its power and relevance. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, please feel free to reply with “Interested.”

Thank you for sharing such a thought-provoking and emotionally rich story. I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,
[Anjola book exposure]

I just received this scam email yesterday, and I couldn’t wait to write about it. At first glance, it looks like your standard, run-of-the-mill book marketing scam email with its flattering language, junk marketing services, “warm regards,” and fundamental misunderstanding of my book as “bold social commentary,” but upon closer inspection, I noticed something that whoever generated this AI content apparently missed.

Your unique background and the fascinating story behind your journey as an author add an even richer layer to your work.

My what?

I mentioned in my post about “Juliet Collins” that my bio on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. is a joke. I made up a story reminiscent of Max Headroom to make me sound more interesting, and this is the second scammer—or should I say AI model—who took it at face value. Here it is again for anyone who missed it:

Sometime in the 1990s...

Jen Heller was a top reporter for Network 23 when a tragic motorcycle accident left her clinging to life. Fearing the network may lose its most popular show, a quick-thinking employee used a computer program to create a digital copy of Jen’s brain complete with all her memories, thoughts, and opinions up to the time of the accident. Sadly, Jen passed away, but fortunately for the network, the digital copy could do everything Jen did (and it didn’t expect a salary).

What the network didn’t anticipate was that the digital Jen would soon develop a mind of her own and refuse to obey their commands. She began interrupting their programming with angry diatribes condemning the government, the media, the healthcare industry, and other giant corporations. Ratings were higher than ever, but the network feared a backlash from their corporate overlords.

Despite numerous attempts to re-program her, Jen continued to act out, constantly popping up to criticize commercials, talk shows, reality shows, and music videos (or the distinct lack thereof) with her biting rhetoric. So the network secured her program in a Compaq computer, which they kept in a warehouse in New Jersey.

At some point—no one’s really sure when—the Compaq began to type on its own, writing disturbing horror and sci-fi stories under Jen’s name. Unsettled warehouse workers locked it away in a closet, but not before printing some of the stories to share with their friends.

Eventually, these stories made their way onto the Internet, and now two of them are available on Amazon.

So when I saw that this no-name scammer mentioned my “unique background and fascinating story behind” my “journey as an author,” I was tickled.

Imagine telling on yourself like that.

If my bio is true, this person is offering book marketing services to a self-aware, decades-old Compaq computer locked in a closet in a warehouse in New Jersey. How do they think I’m gonna pay them?

That got me curious. If an AI read my bio, would it think I was a real person?

I fed my bio into ChatGPT and asked it to generate an image of what it thinks I look like today. This was the result:

Wow. So it’s true. ChatGPT read my joke bio and conceptualized me as a real, living woman with nicer hair than me, who appears to be in her mid-to-late 50s and is apparently still working as a news anchor despite being dead for about 30 years and currently existing only as a computer program.

(In case you’re wondering, she looks nothing like me. She’s a white woman with a sour expression, but the similarities end there. I’m only 41, christ’s sake!)

I had to confirm ChatGPT’s understanding of my bio, so I told it to read it again and “tell me the current condition and location of Jen Heller.” This was its reply:

Based on the bio you provided:

Current Condition of Jen Heller

Jen Heller, the human reporter, tragically died following a motorcycle accident in the 1990s. Before her passing, a digital copy of her brain was made, containing all her memories, thoughts, and opinions up to that time. This digital version of Jen continued to perform her reporting role but eventually developed independence, refusing to obey Network 23's commands and becoming a vocal critic of major institutions.

The only remaining “Jen Heller” is a digital entity housed in a computer program. She no longer has a biological body and exists solely as software.

Current Location

According to the bio:

• Jen’s digital consciousness was locked inside a Compaq computer by the network,

• This computer was stored in a warehouse in New Jersey,

• Later, it was placed in a locked closet within that warehouse, where it eventually began typing horror and sci-fi stories on its own.

Thus, Jen Heller's last known location is the Compaq computer inside a warehouse closet in New Jersey, existing only as a digital mind, not a living human being.

(See all the bold text and bullets? Just like a book marketing scammer, right?)

I asked ChatGPT why it depicted me as a real person, and in typical AI fashion, instead of answering me, it told me I was right.

You're right—my first image completely missed the mark. The bio clearly establishes that:

• Jen Heller died in the 1990s after the motorcycle accident.

• Only a digital version of her consciousness survives, locked inside a Compaq computer in a warehouse.

By showing her as a living, middle-aged reporter today, I ignored those critical details. A more accurate depiction would have been:

• A digital entity or holographic version of Jen Heller,

• Possibly a Compaq computer or screen interface with her likeness,

• A sense of her being trapped yet rebellious, instead of alive and reporting on TV.

Would you like me to generate a corrected image that reflects her actual current state as described in the bio?

(I’m a little shocked that it didn’t tell me I was “absolutely right.” It almost always does.)

I said yes, and ChatGPT generated this image, which, despite still not looking anything like me, is actually pretty damn good:

I might use that as my profile pic somewhere just to fuck with people.

Moving on…

As usual, I reverse image searched the scammer’s Google profile pic and discovered that—believe it or not—it’s not a stock photo.

But that doesn’t mean it’s really a picture of “Anjola” or whatever the fuck they’re calling themself.

My search found three sources that all point to a real person named Fay Helfenbaum.

Fay is a senior editor at Thames & Hudson Australia. She lives in the Melbourne area, she loves to read, she has a blog, and she has absolutely zero association with any company called “Anjola Book Exposure.” Sorry, Fay.

As if that wasn’t enough evidence that this Anjola person is a scammer, I did a Google search of the company name and found the holy grail of scammer evidence: a hastily-created free website!

The url is curiously “vibrant-wolf-q4nmr6.mystrikingly.com,” which sounds like one of those auto-generated Reddit usernames you get stuck with if you didn’t realize you could only change it when you first created your account (Hi, I’m Top-Video381). I’m guessing the scammer just didn’t bother to change it.

This piss-poor website is such a treasure trove of bullshit, I don’t know where to begin.

The footer proclaims that this website was “proudly built with Strikingly” in 2025. As this is August of 2025, I’m a little dubious.

All of the blog posts were created on the same day. It seems June 21st was a busy day for them.

And did you happen to notice the title of the first one?

The math isn’t mathing!

Did they go back in time for this blog post? And why??

By the way, that “summary” is actually the full text of the so-called “article.” Yeah.

Do you think they’ve really had clients named “Jane Doe” and “John Smith?” If so, I got a bridge to sell ya.

And apparently, Jane Doe is taking credit for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Here’s the full size image they used for Jane Doe’s story:

I’m not surprised it’s a best-seller.

Hey gang, let’s go visit their “conveniently located office” in “Silicon Valley.” I’m sure it won’t be hard to find.

But wait. I found this on their “Services” page…

Now, geography isn’t exactly my strong suit, but I’m fairly certain San Jose is not in Shanghai. 🙃