Is this an author scam? You be the judge.

Authors get AI-generated highly targeted pitches all the time. They’re almost always a scam. But they’re getting better.

As an exercise, examine this email (it says it’s not a pitch) I received last week. It’s regarding a book I ghostwrote in 2018, called Marketing to the Entitled Consumer. The authors (my clients) were Nick Worth and Dave Frankland, who at the time were executives at a marketing technology company called Selligent Marketing Cloud.

Subject: A quick psychological paradox from the Hunt Down We Read community (No pitch)

To: [my email address]

From: Charles Bose <charlesbosem@gmail.com>

Hi Josh, Dave, and Nick,

I just found out that when corporate B2B marketers transition into authors, their email inboxes usually turn into a graveyard of automated agency pitches promising to “take their book to the next level.” It builds a protective stone wall around an author’s time, which is exactly why I’m bypassing the corporate scripts.

If you would ever care to know what happens when you let a group of everyday consumers dissect a book written entirely about their entitlement, I would be glad to share a rather fascinating story with you.

What if I told you that our reader community, Hunt Down We Read, which is entirely volunteer-run and built around readers solving real-life friction, recently hosted a nomination bracket? The theme was navigating a world where buyers demand hyper-personalization but deeply resent traditional marketing noise. Our readers were looking for a blueprint that treats consumers like humans rather than transactions.

A reader nominated Marketing to the Entitled Consumer. It went through our community screening, survived a thematic voting bracket, and emerged as a selected text for our upcoming reading challenge. The paradox of an “entitled consumer” reading community choosing a book explicitly mapping out their own psychological behavior was too precise to ignore.

Would you be open to a completely informal chat about how our readers are applying your 3 R’s framework to real-world brand interactions today, or are you currently too deep into your current consulting/writing projects to peer inside the consumer wild?
Warmly,

—
Charles Bose
Co-moderator
Hunt Down We Read Book Club.

Evaluating this offer

Several factors suggest this might not be a scam.

• The Hunt Down We Read Book Club has an actual website describing a program where readers read and review on books.
• Several authors have posted on LinkedIn about being featured in this book club.
• Several authors who participated appear to have been featured on the web site.
• It mentions concepts from the book.
• It says it’s not a pitch.

However, lots of other factors should make you very skeptical:

• This book has sold two copies in the last two years. It’s an unlikely target for any promotion.
• The “book club” emailed me, even though I am the ghostwriter and not the author. (If you look at the cover, it has the authors’ names “with” Josh Bernoff.) The email addresses of the authors are not included in the email, even though it starts with “Josh, Dave, and Nick.”
• When I put the text of the email into the AI detector Pangram, it rate the text as 100% AI-generated. GPTZero yields the same result.
• I received a very similar email regarding another book I ghostwrote (about AI) on the same day. It reports that the other book, published in 2017, was selected by the same bracket procedure. The other book has sold 14 copies in the last two years, making it almost as unlikely a choice.
• When I visit the web site page for readers, it rates me as #47 on their leaderboard based on my reading 12 books and posting 19 reviews. This is despite the fact that I’ve never signed up with the site or agreed to read or review anything. (Try visiting https://huntdowns.com/dashboard. Are you #47 too?)
• The site features author packages starting at $195. So they are selling something.
• The co-moderator Charles Bose communicates from a gmail address and does not appear on LinkedIn. The only people with that name on LinkedIn are a delivery driver and a bank credit analyst, neither of which are affiliated with Hunt Down We Read. The company doesn’t appear on LinkedIn at all.

What do you think?

What do you think? Legit opportunity or not?

I’ve invited Charles Bose to comment on this post and explain himself and his company. If the company is a legitimate opportunity for authors, he ought be willing to talk about it here where everyone can read it.

If you’re an author, beware pitches that are obviously based on AI reading your online book description. The best opportunities will come recommended by a legitimate source like a book publicist or a publisher. Inbound opportunities, especially “book clubs” like this one, rarely pay off.