Regarding spam emails

Question

Now after I did publish some work in an academic journal, I receive tons of spam emails that invite me to conferences and ask me for sending them papers. Sadly, these emails seem to easily pass my spam filter.

What is the reason for these mails? Are these "real" but predatory journals? What is the motivation of the people (bots?) to send thses emails in the first place? Are these simply fishing mails? Do legitimate journals send out emails of this kind? Basically, should I ignore all of those mails or might there be some important ones that I dont want to miss? What would happen if someone would actually answer those mails? I dont even want to click on any link in these mails as this possibly would instantly cause my PC to literally burst into flames.

Answer 1

The reason is probably for them to make money.

The "invitations" to conferences as "honorable speaker" or "invited speaker" probably want you or your university to pay conference fees. Some people believe that listing these "invited" talks improves their CV. So the business model is probably selling invitations to conferences. Of course it is also possible that there is no conference at all, but that they would be happy to take payment or credit card details.

However, it would be too easy to write every email off as a fraud immediately: if there is an actual conference and enough educated people end up going there to give interesting talks, the conference could be interesting. I would not count on it, but assuming malice may not be necessary. Someone could simply be trying to set up a "scientific conference organisation business", not necessarily with bad intentions.

A similar reasoning applies to the emails from journals.

Besides journals and conferences, I have also seen emails offering to publish theses as books. These emails often state that your thesis is amazing and should certainly be published. I'm not sure what would happen exactly if you react, but it is very likely that you will be charged publication fees of some kind, and possibly some other fees, and some more, and so on until you stop paying.