How to Evaluate Book Promotion Offers

Do you ever get those emails that say I'll promote your book to 50,000 readers or we'll help you boost visibility in sales? I get them too, and almost all of them are worthy of the trash button. But how do you know? Well, today I'll show you how I evaluate these offers that hit my inbox. So if you get a lot of book promotion solicitations and you want to save money on things that won't do anything, well, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad, founder of self publishing services company called Book Launchers. Once you've launched your book, you become a target for all the folks who want you to hire them for book marketing. And sometimes that service might be exactly what you need, but a lot of times it just sounds so good and it's too good to be true. So let's take a look at a couple and if you want a good laugh, definitely watch the video I link to at the end where where I paid for a media feature and uncovered a scam that I now see operating everywhere. And I never knew quite what the scam was until I actually paid for it. So check that video out. Okay, so here's the email I got that made me decide to shoot this video for you. Their email heartily welcomes me onto their email promotion platform and lets me know they have promo pricing. Let's collaborate to create a personalized promotion plan that maximizes your book's potential and captivates readers worldwide. Well, the email has a few things that set me on guard right from the start. It's from a Gmail account for starters, but it's a getresponse account that also looks like it has Arabic symbols on the bottom. That's just not common. And then I click the link and I'm taken to this website. On the surface, there's nothing that seems too off here. It's not super well done, but it doesn't look off. But as you look around, there's a handful of things that stand stand out to me. And feel free to comment below if something's standing out to you. But the first is that the English on the website isn't great. The site also isn't secure. If you check up where the URL is, you can see that it is not secure up there. Then the other thing is that the dollar signs on the price point are on the wrong side of the number. Oh, so then I look at what the actual promotion is. It's a permanent place on their website. Well, I'm not too excited about being featured on this website. Really? That would only ever matter if my reader is going to be visiting their website anyways. Same with their weekly newsletter. I mean, I could put you in the Book Launcher's newsletter, which goes to more than 35,000 readers and that might sound great, but my audience is there for book writing and book marketing tips and invites to our monthly deep dives. Not to hear about your book that you wrote on environmental issues and solutions. So it doesn't really matter how many people are on a list if they aren't interested in the book you've written. Okay, so let's check out the social media because a little push can be helpful and they are promising social media pushes. I head on over here and they have 4,000 followers. Okay, so let's see the stats on engagement on a tweet. 17, 1922 and are the books like you and the books that are like your book? Do they get any engagement? Oh my gosh. Are they producing any books other than Alyssa Roberts? I guess she paid for the daily three posts and that's what you get. Are you excited for this promotion yet? Because I know I'm not now. I couldn't even find books ride on Instagram, but I was curious what 60 posts meant. Okay. I also kind of feel a little mean picking this offer apart because there's hundreds of other companies that also do this and I'm picking on them. But they hit my inbox when I was thinking about what videos to do and I didn't want you wasting your money because that is what this is. It's basically taking your money and flushing it down the toilet. And yes, it's only $35 or $85, but you could still up your bid on Amazon and sell a couple books for that. Or do a great promotion with Written word media, which is a legit and really awesome company. Oh, speaking of written word media, let me just show you the comparison. So when you arrive at written word media website, there are a few things that immediately strike you and should help you also see what a ripoff and scam the other site was. First of all, the written word media site is secure. See that lock on the top? Yep. They have clear offerings and clear segmentation. And there's no sales gimmicks here. There's no flashing signs or bad English that says hurry, deal goes fast. When you click on the About Us, you also see pictures of people and there's nothing here that seems too good to be true. Now I know feral from Written Word media and we use their services all the time from at Book Launchers. We use Bargain Booksy in particular, so we know they're legit and offer great value for authors. They also probably aren't going to land in your inbox with a weird Gmail invite to use their services. And because you'll find them through ads, promotions, referrals, meeting their team at conferences, and other more normal marketing processes. Now that doesn't mean cold email is always a scam. It's not, but 98 or 99% of the time it is. Okay, let's take another one, a different one, more in line with the video that I'll share at the end and I'll tell you how I evaluated this one. Now what annoys me about these emails is how many dang times they follow up with me. I'm going to have to get a new email address soon just to have a clean inbox again. But that aside, I get these emails every day, many times a day, and I have been chosen, oh lucky me, to be featured in some major publication and all I need to do is pay some money and then I get to be on the COVID In this case it's $1,500 so I can get my picture on the COVID Now click on the website and see what that magazine looks like. It reminds me of a free magazine you might pick up at Denny's to read while you wait for your skillet. Clicking it around the website, I am convinced that this is a magazine with no circulation. But if you're drawn to this offer for whatever reason, dig deeper, Google the magazine. Google it for reviews. But my favorite is always, always to look for who works there. That's why I love written word media as an example, because you can find the people who work there on LinkedIn. You can see the pictures of them on the website. So on LinkedIn I clicked around and found that they don't seem to have an identifiable person there. There were a couple of people in India that have the company name on their profile, but it wasn't really clear if they even worked there. So my question, should I be interested or tempted by one of these things? Would be to ask myself what would be my goal? What do I want to have happen if I were to be on the COVID of this magazine? Because if I think it's going to sell books or get me credibility with my audience, I need to make sure my audience is reading this magazine and would give the magazine credibility so that I get credibility, which is clearly not going to be the case. Okay, I'm on a roll, so I'm not stopping. Bookstagrammers. Oh, my gosh, I love bookstagrammers. They do such creative work. Of course, our favorite is Nick of Book Thinkers because we helped him with Rise of the Reader, which is an epic book. And actually, I think it's on my shelf. Oh, look at that. Here it is. And by the way, Nick is getting international book publishing contracts, which is fantastic because he gets paid again and again and doesn't have to do any more work on his book. Go, Nick. And I love seeing my book in an Instagrammer's feed because they do such beautiful work, even including the one that landed in my Instagram inbox, Book O Feast. Their books look so good on their page. But if I'm paying for a feature, I want either credibility, exposure, or book sales, and ideally all three. So I go back to my original question, which is, is my ideal reader or my ideal client engaged and paying attention to this outlet? Well, how do I know? Well, you never really know. And I have run some promotions with some bookstagrammers like Nick to see what can happen. But the one thing I look at before I pull up my credit card is engagement on posts and which posts get the most engagement and is my book going to be one of those posts? So, taking a look at Book O Feast, I don't see much engagement at all, but they have a lot of followers, so it's likely or possible I should say, that many of those followers are bots. Now, the offer of reviews. This makes me nervous because it's a violation of Amazon's terms of service to pay for reviews. You can use services where the reviewers have the option of leaving a review, but it's voluntary. Also, looking at some of the authors that maybe have paid for this, they have a lot of unverified reviews that are worded a little funny and the reviews are very generic. The one author that is on their page that I am almost certain paid for this because she had only a handful of verified reviews and her unverified reviews were very generic. And everyone should purchase this book. I would recommend to anyone. I love everything about it. A must read. Yes, those are actual words from the reviews and they were all separate reviews. So yeah, you got reviews, but are they going to help you or are they actually going to hurt you? Now I'm feeling like I'm a little negative here, but I'm just being a bit of a mama bear trying to protect you from wasting money because there are a lot of legit places to invest your resources to help you as an author. And and none of them will have guarantees. Or at least if they have guarantees, they're going to back it up with how they can guarantee it in a legitimate way. What the good companies will do is help you build momentum and help you build momentum that is sustainable and growing over time. And not everything you try will work, even with legitimate companies, because that's book marketing. So if you want details on all the things to do to market your book or well, my gift to you, self promote and succeed over there. You can download the audiobook at no charge. Just go to self promoteandsucceed.com audio. Enjoy. Now, have you paid for any of these services that have hit your inbox or your DMs? It's OK. Like I said, you gotta watch the video I'm about to show you because I have. But let's chat about it below so that authors everywhere know what to watch out for. And if you want that laugh and and an important warning. This paid publicity video is one you must see. I paid $700 for a scam that you have to know about and after watching this video, this one on legit book review sites is a great watch. All right, see you there.