So done

May 24, 2026

No, I'm not done writing. I'm just, so done with wasting time posting my writing.

It's not the difficulty in gaining readers, or the fact that most readers don't leave comments or likes or whatever. It's not for lack of attention. No. It's the amount of scammers and spammers that flood just about every writing site with their fake comments about how much they enjoyed your story, followed by a sales pitch on making it a comic and/or make a vague mention of an idea they had that they'd love to talk to you about but you HAVE to contact them on instagram/discord/etc! (Nothing suspicious about luring people off a website!)

And it happens on EVERY. SINGLE. WRITING. WEBSITE. Wattpad, Penana, Inkitt, Royal Road, Scribblehub, Purrfiction, Booksie, ao3. I've gotten those types of comments on every single one of those sites! Some websites are better at deleting those accounts than others. (Royal Road and Scribblehub in particular almost always have them deleted before I can even see what the comment said.) But it is still. so. god damn. irritating!!! Especially when it's literally the only comments you get.

But you know what's even worse?

These scammers are now literally RUNNING WORK INTO AI, and having it GENERATE COMMENTS SPECIFIC TO THE STORY! So that it looks like they read it!!! A few weeks ago, someone made so many in-line comments through one of my stories, like way back in the day when it was a common thing for people to do. Comments that someone can only leave if they were actually reading through the story. I was suspicious at first, as I always am. Especially when a couple of them kinda had that AI voice to them. But... what scammer would put in that level of dedication? Plus, a lot of the comments did sound genuine. Then, they left a comment on my wall saying how they loved it, and asked me questions. My suspicions were raised again when they were acting weird over a piece of worldbuilding. Like they didn't fully understand what they were talking about. On top of that, they kept asking questions about publishing- like they were ready to pull a scam publishing sales pitch. (Those are almost always scams and should be avoided. Legit publishers don't contact writers.) I asked them a question about something that did not happen in the story, with characters that do not exist, and they commented like it actually happened. Proving that they did not actually read the story, and were just running everything through AI! (Yes, I called them out on it. No, they never responded back.)

Now, I just went on Purrfiction for the first time in forever. (I stopped posting there because it wasn't getting any action except spam bots so why bother?) I only went there to change my email address because, long ramble short, I'm seriously considering dropping rileykifer.com because I've officially decided I do not want to get published in any way, so why am I throwing $12(?) a year at a domain name/email when I can buy a meal at Burger King instead? I saw my story had a comment. I click said comment. It was a very specific comment on a very specific scene that, to the untrained eye, would prove the person read it. But in reality, they ran the chapter through AI and had it generate that comment for them. (The confirmation of my assumption is how they ended their comment with a "I have ideas to share plz message me on discord.") And I am just... ready to quit posting. I am so ready to quit posting and keep my writing to myself. The only reason I'm not is for anyone who does want to read my work. (And quitting means the scammers win.) But if I suddenly vanish, that's most likely what happened. I got fed up with scammers, spammers, AI, and depressing analytics.

Whenever I finish up Outcasts and Rebels, which I'm about ready to take a long break away from, due to aforementioned bullshit, future stories are only gonna be posted on here. Because at least nobody can leave spam comments, and I won't find myself getting caught up in stupid analytics that make me forget why I write. Maybe I'll keep posting on Inkitt and Scribblehub cuz I spend a lot of time on their forums anyway, and I really like Inkitt's UI. But other sites? I'm done wasting my time with.