I received the following two emails:

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Angela,

I have been contacted concerning a Boxall reading challenge linked to Amazon’s Goodreads. It requires a registration fee of $235, which made me very suspicious. I contacted a couple of authors who seem to have taken part in the past and everything seems to be legitimate, but I am nevertheless still a little uneasy and wonder whether you have any thoughts about the legitimacy of this challenge (designed to get a little more readership for my book/s).

Thank you very much for your time and any thoughts you might have.

Best wishes,

Mark

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Hi,

Do you any information about Anna Everett John? She contacted me with a proposal to have my novel added to the Boxall List of Books that should be read. Her emails were professional in tone and content, but also contained a request to pay 252.36 dollars to be added to the list. I attempted to verify her background via the web. I couldn’t. Then I used the google AI tool, which concluded Anna is a scam. I am still turning over her proposal, because, if it is genuine, it might be the best promo I have found to promote the novel I wrote about the antiwar movement of the late 1960’s,

Your thoughts?
Roger

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I, too, have received several emails from scammers pretending to be running the “Boxall Reading Challenge.” And, they all want me to pay them a few hundred dollars as well.

Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die IS a real group on Goodreads. However, here are two things you need to know:

1. They don’t charge authors to be on the list.
2. You can’t add your book to the list. The moderators of the group choose which books are on it.

Per their FAQs:

This is just another impersonation scam being run by the overseas crime cartels.

Per Google:

The “Boxall Reading Challenge” is actually a known scam targeting authors. Legitimate reading challenges (such as those run by libraries or online communities like Goodreads) are typically free. There is no official, legitimate “Boxall Reading Challenge” that costs money to enter.

Be sure to listen to the WritersWeekly Podcast – Episode 37, which features more “fake services” that scammers are offering. We also discuss impersonation scams in that episode.

EPISODE 37: BEWARE! New FAKE “Services” Being Offered to Authors by Scammers

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