Growth Sparepro does ai marketing
A few days ago it started. A mail from a 'book marketer' called Jane, who sent me this:
I came across Bactine a soldier waking up in intergalactic service only to get shipped off to a planet where "sailing will never be the same again" is such a great hook, and steampunk set partly in space is a genuinely rare combination to pull off well. From what readers who've found it are saying, the side plots keep the story unpredictable in a good way.
That's a weird start. Also, the book was titled Bactine, not the whole slew of words behind it. Also, the book was unpublished over half a year ago, so this reeked weird. Another thing was the sender's mail address: info.simonjanet@gmail.com. Doesn't look like a company's book marketer address. I went out to investigate. Apparently a big company for 'turning books into bestsellers' (see https://www.growth-sparepro.com/) can't afford an @growth-sparepro.com email address. Near the bottom I found:
Chicago, IL, USA
susancarter.user@gmail.com
Mon-Fri - 08:00-19:00
Yes, this surprised me muchly. A company that uses gmail.com addresses. (On the site the entire team is presented. No Jane there.)
Anyhow. I replied: No thanks.
I got back: Thanks for getting back to me. I completely respect the “no thanks.”
Clearly the 'no thanks' wasn't that respected, seeing the long mail that followed that line.
So I replied, out of fun:
Hello info.simonjanet@gmail.com, simon, janet, jane or how you want to be called.
Just a few small bits.
David does not 'wake up' in the intergalactic service. He IS in the service.
Also, you may not have noticed that Bactine has been unpublished about 6 months ago.
Can you tell me instead which company you are a book marketer for, if there is a company?
Their reply: To answer your question, I work with Growth Sparepro, a book marketing and publishing growth agency.
There was a link to the company, which directed to https://www.growth-sparepro.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com. (Do you see what I see?)
After 1 more mail from chatgpt, I got this:
I wanted to leave you with one final note and then step back.
I understand that you’re not looking for marketing support for Bactine at the moment, and I respect that. I also appreciate you correcting me on the details of David’s story. That was my mistake, and I should have been more precise in my research.
If I needed any more red flags that this system had no idea about Bactine, this was it.
The main character is not called David, it's Daniel Zacharias, and it was in the blurb of the book. I just fed that false name to chatgpt, which obediently replied and used that same name.