Scam book clubs?

A friend reports being beset by requests from book clubs, readers circles, reading groups, to prepare some remarks for the edification of their members on the subject of his most recent book. He has a website, which may be critical in attracting these enquiries. Interacting with these requests eventually leads to a request for a donation to defray the costs of the event. The same problem was being reported recently on the SHARP listserv (Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, & Publishing). I don’t know of anyone who’s gone through with this invitation, but we all assume that when you’ve made your, probably quite reasonable, contribution, you’ll find further larger charges arriving at you credit card or bank account. His book, a non-fiction social history, is published by Yale University Press. The membership of SHARP, presumably, skews academic. I wonder if scamsters like to focus on what university presses like to think of as their “general books”. If you are intent on…