From Predatory Publishing to the Book Club Scam

The attention our recent volume on premodern public health received was not all welcome. Within days of it being announced on the publisher’s website, I was contacted by no less than three people presenting themselves as book club organisers and expressing a real interest in our rather niche collection of essays. It sounded too good to be true, and it was.

Are you aware, I asked the purported coordinator of an English-language book club in Paris claiming to have 1300+ members, that this is a specialist, academic volume, not a novel or even a work of popular science? Indeed, we do, they answered. “Our community includes many readers with strong academic, interdisciplinary, and historically focused interests, and we regularly feature scholarly works by university presses. In these cases, we introduce the volume thematically and guide readers through selected ideas and questions, rather than expecting a cover-to-cover reading.” That struck me as surprising and refreshingly thoughtful. It was also an AI-backed hoax.

Another international community of…you guessed it, 1300+ book lovers reached out. Their frontbot waxed lyrical about how our book’s “examination of how earlier societies understood sanitation, disease prevention, and communal responsibility offers a compelling historical lens on governance, social order, and collective wellbeing—topics that resonate strongly with our members’ interests.” Was I headed towards early retirement? More likely, bankruptcy.

A few days later, a Warsaw-based club with 825 members made their pitch. “We are fascinated by your concept of ‘dynamic balances’. It offers a perfect lens for our members to discuss how societies historically managed systemic risk and public trust long before the digital age.” Of course they would! And to help them digest this delightful dish, it turned out after some exchanges, I was going to be charged a modest sum, just to help “spotlight” the title and secure it the discussion it deserves.

To be clear, there is flimsy proof that any of these clubs actually exist. The sums we would be forwarding would flow into a scam-artist’s pocket, at best, or more likely enable an elaborate phishing expedition. Using accessible, anthropologically informed AI tools people can now hone a personal and sector-specific message, flattering authors with limited resources and promising their work exposure (and profit) they could only dream of, especially if they are self-published.

But even fully employed and seasoned academics with a solid publication record of books may find such approaches exciting. As our institutions continue to pressure us into demonstrating the “real-world impact” of our work, ideally in metric terms, a major book club based in some world capitol hits the spot. It is a small step from what we used to call vanity publishing to DIY, web-based marketing. And the bots approaching us make a dangerously compelling case; we feel seen, but we are scanned and then scammed.

In neo-liberal academia, when authors are also expected to be impresarios, marketers, distributors and agents, and where a pay-to-play mentality is a given, scams like these will proliferate, alongside predatory publishing.