I do agree that there's a difference between a doctor certified by a government agency and someone who is not, although I'm only familiar with how it works in the U.S.

However, I don't think that the analogy works in this case. There's no accreditation for being an author. If Foos had published his manuscript, he'd be the author. Having seen some of the awful things on Kindle that pass for books, pretty much anyone can get anything published and call themselves an author. Having had several works published before doesn't change the morality question.

I don't see that as a big distinction between Talese and Foos in terms of the morality question. The only difference between Foos and Talese was that Foos did much more of the questionable behavior. But also bear in mind that the only lens that's possible to view all this through is the view painted by Talese. He is obviously painting Foos in a poor light while painting himself in a better light. I'm not condoning anything that Foos did. I'm just not giving a pass to what Talese did either.