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Authors Beware!
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Sites that are reputable:After warning you away from some promotion sites, you are probably wondering which ones can be trusted. In my experience, there are only three that have actually done what they promised and helped me get sales.
1. BookBub
Bookbub is the best book promotion site, but they are damn near impossible to get into. I have only managed to get them to promote my book once and that was five years ago. They were pricey then—I paid $300 to do a free promotion—and their prices have gone up. Now, you can pay almost $1,000 to promote a mystery novel. They have also gotten more picky, and they were picky before. Your book has to have a professional cover and have been professionally edited. It must be more than 150 pages in length and have a minimum of 10 4 star or higher reviews. If you do manage to get BookBub to promote your book, and can afford their price tag, it is worth it. When I did my promo five years ago, I paid $300 for a free promo of one of my books in my mystery series. By the end of the day, I had over $1,000 in paid sales from people buying the other books in my series. So, it was worth it. However, I have not been able to get Bookbub to promote any of my books since, and their prices have significantly increased. If you can afford them, they are worth it. Also, Bookbub will only charge you if they decide to promote your book.
2. Freebooksy.
Freebooksy promote free books and a re good for when you’re running a KDP free promo. I have used them several times and have had decent results. They are not as pricey as Bookbub, though their prices have gone up in the last three months, but they are still affordable. You won’t get thousands of dollars in sales, but I use their series promotion ever three months. They ask you to wait 90 days between promotions to avoid spamming their subscribers. Each time I use their series promotion, I get about $100-$150 in paid sales. I pay $150 for the promo. I basically break even. I do get paid sales and out of those sales, one or two reviews might show up. You won’t get rick from using freebooksy, but you will get exposure. If freebooksy decides not to promote your book, for whatever reason, they will issue you an immediate refund. They refused to promote one of my books once and issued me a refund the same day they sent me the message. I was disappointed that they couldn’t promote it, but they said they did not have enough readers in the genre my books was from, and at least I got my money back without any hassle.
3. BookGorilla
BookGorilla is another reputable site that I have used. They are affordable, but do require you to have a professional cover and editing. I used them to promote a science fiction novel of mine and got about 1,000 downloads and 20 paid sales. You won’t make a lot of money in sales, but you will get a exposure. BookGorilla is good to use
Thanks for the info! I've discovered that writing was the easy part. There are so many avenues out there, some will work better for different people, but it's nice to have someone taking a bit of the trail and error out of the mix.Leon
Thanks so much, Janet. This was a real service to others.I used Blue Ink Reviews and was pleased. Less pricey, but correspondingly not as professionally polished, is Reader's Favorite.
Midwest Book Reviews is excellent, also.
Author Uproar is another bad one. I paid 15 or 20 bucks for a promotion that did literally nothing. All the guy did was spam my book on social media and it got no likes or anything. I thought it was a company but it's one guy named Philip Sousa. I asked for a refund because he said if you aren't satisfied you can get one. I asked for one and he said he did everything and that there was no refund for what I purchased and the refund was for another promotion he showed me. I specifically told him in the beginning I wouldn't do it unless there was a refund. So I threatened to tell the BBB and that went uneventful so I lost money.
Does anyone know anything about Awesome Gang, Choosy Bookworm, or ManyBooks? I've heard mixed things about them.
I'm not an author. I know this is about services for authors and I do love BookBub, Freebooksy and Book Gorilla to find books. However, I'm a book reviewer of 8.5 yrs and I just wanted to mention to all authors: Please, please, please do not pay for book reviews.1. In the US it's against FTC law to accept anything except a free copy of the book (or other product) in exchange for a review.
2. Nearly all the readers/bloggers I know view paid reviews as tainted. Huge red flag that the review is not honest, even if the reviewer truly is. Is that fair? *shrugs* All I know is I would not want my reviews being called into question. I pride myself on my honesty, so I do not accept money, services, or goods in exchange for my reviews.
3. I consider Kirkus reviews to be the worst violators of all since they charge an insane amount for a review. I'm not even sure how they get away with their practice except maybe because it can be sneakily listed under marketing/promotion. In any case, if I see a Kirkus review quote on a book, I will avoid it like the plague. Just my opinion.
Janet wrote: "Being a self-published author is one of the hardest things a person can do. First you have to write the book, then you have to get it professionally edited and get a cover for it, but after all of ..."Thank you so much for posting this info. Very helpful!
I agree--lots of sharks out there. I put together my own team, going local as well as I could. For marketing, I'm trying a company in Vancouver--they tell me what to do, and I do it. Keeps costs down and keeps me from second-guessing everything I'm doing. We'll see what happens!Also avoid any vanity presses, and definitely connect with indie author groups, whether local or national or even international. You'll get lots of recommendations and warnings there, too.
Thank you so much for the info. Any suggestions on publicists, or ones to stay away from? Also, any regrets about self publishing?For me, my only regret is that my local indie book store will not support any books self-published through Amazon.
By the end of March, I'll have published 6 novels within 18 months. If I'd tried going traditional, I'd still be waiting for that first one to come out. Granted, the road has been bumpy, but I'm learning.Do not publish only through Amazon. You just found out why. Also go through Ingram Spark. (Look for coupon codes online. If you play it right, you often don't have to pay their setup fee.)
I'm trying ZG Communications. They're out of Vancouver, but I think they're part American, too. (They pronounce it Zee Gee, not Zed Gee :) ) No marketing consultant can guarantee you sales--I'm a copywriter, so I already know the general marketing industry (and still hate writing book descriptions :) ). There are too many variables. But they've given me very personalized attention from day one and are helping me sift through all the book marketing advice and telling me where I need to focus (getting reviews).
So, although I can't announce that my sales have shot up or anything drastic yet--we've only been working together for about four months, and most of that was during my really busy Christmas season, when I could barely do much of what they'd suggested--the stress that's gone from marketing is incredible.
They currently work in two packages, the most expensive being 750 CAD. They act as your consultant. You pay 30% upfront and the remainder when you've used up your hours (8 hours, I think). There's a time limit to using up those hours, but it's very reasonable, e.g., 6 months or something like that. Based on all the advice and feedback I've been getting, they work really fast.
I'm in self-publishing because of the speed (idea to published book in five months) and the autonomy. Yes, it's expensive (about $2,000 per 45,000-word book, including a graphics designer and two editors, but not a proofreader at this stage), but I need the autonomy.
One last resource relevant to your original post: https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/...
A trusted website for sharks to watch out for.
You're welcome! Just got an unsolicited form letter from BookBuzz. Don't know them, so I just deleted it.
1. Books Go Social
Number one on my list of promotion sites to stay away from is Books Go Social (BGS). This site is operated mostly out of Ireland, but has a physical office in the United States and is run by a man named Laurence O’Bryan. When you go to their site it looks professional with all of the right buzz words and testimonials from supposed past clients who were happy with the service. Reviews are easy to fake, and when you do a little digging, all he promises to do is tweet your book to his thousand of followers. Problem is, he doesn’t have thousands of followers and the followers he does have are all authors who have paid for his promotions program and are desperate for their books to sell, but they aren’t looking to buy. Books Go Social has one main Twitter account and other fake accounts. These fake accounts come and go. When I was a member of Books Go Social, because I stupidly believed their lie about how they could promote my book and help me get sales, I noticed that the Twitter accounts members were encouraged follow, would disappear after a few months and a new one would spring up. Also, the Twitter promotions that BGS conducts are nothing more than spam tweets. Basically, they just release a bunch of posts on these Twitter accounts in a short period of time. This is basically spamming and no one on Twitter is going to see anything about your book. Instead, they will just ignore these posts.
BGS also has Facebook pages where other authors can connect, and that is the only saving grace of this sham company. However, if you don’t worship the ground Laurence O’Bryan walks on and you start to question him, he will ban you from the group and block you from being able to contact him, especially if you want a refund for services you paid for that he refuses to fulfill. Their other Facebook group is a review swap group. This you should stay away from. Amazon has a strict policy about review swaps and authors have lost their kindle platforms for participating in review swaps. To have access to these Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, you have to purchase a BGS’ membership.
What do you get with this membership? Absolutely nothing. Supposedly, a membership gets you promotional tweets and a promotion in a newsletter. That’s it. What is your return on investment? $0.
I was one of the authors that got conned into joining this sham promotional site. I purchased a membership even paid for extra Twitter promotions, but saw no increase in sales. I never saw any evidence of my book being promoted on Twitter or their newsletter. Despite their 30 day money back guarantee (they have since extended it to a 60 day guarantee) I never got my money back, beside repeated requests.
The final straw was when they offered their Amazon Ads promotion where, for a fee, they would create Amazon Ads for you, run them, and you would get an increase in sales. So, being desperate for sales, I ignored my intuition, and purchased their done for you Amazon ads bundle. I sent them a link to the book I wanted to promote and received a response telling me that they could not promote the book. I asked why and got a generic “we want to make sure that your book is something we can promote. If it doesn’t sell, we do not want you blaming us for it.” I thought this was an odd response, but sent them a link to another book I had. Once again, BGS rejected the book. Here’s the thing: their done for you ads bundle never said that my book had to meet their standards for promotion. It only said that they would promote any book and help me get exposure and sales. Now, I had already paid for the promotion service and they were refusing to advertise my books, and refusing to give me a refund. After the second book was rejected, I sent them a link to a third book I had and told them that if they refused to fulfill the service I had paid for, then I wanted a refund. A third message showed up, rejecting my third book. At this point I was livid and replied, “Is there any book you’re willing to promote?”
After this response from me, Laurence replied to me personally giving me that same cock and bull story about how they needed to make sure that my books are promotable, otherwise I will blame them for why they don’t sell, subtly implying that it would be all my fault if they didn’t sell, and not a reflection of their crappy promotion services. I asked why my books weren’t promotable. O’Bryan responded saying that my covers were terrible and his company would be happy to give me a new cover. Bear in mind that all my books have had professional covers made for them, covers I already paid a lot of money for and were done by a guy who has been doing book covers for 30 years. I told O’Bryan that I was happy with my covers and did not want to pay money for new ones and that I was willing to take my chances and that if he wasn’t going to fulfill the service I had paid for, to give me a refund and I would go elsewhere. Remember, I had already paid for BGS to promote my book on Amazon and they have refused to do so and refused to give me a refund. At this point I got another message from O’Bryan telling my that my covers were terrible and he would not promote any of my books unless I allowed BGS to design new covers, for a fee of course, and that I should consider their professional editing services, which would have required me to shovel out more money. I replied, saying that I wanted my $250 back since he had no intention of promoting my book, which I had already paid him to do.
I got no response from him after this. I tried emailing him and BGS’ main email account and received no response for over a week. BGS took my money and ran.
Being angry, I went to the BGS Facebook group, and posted publicly that they had stolen my money by refusing to provide a service that I had paid for. I also publicly threatened to open a Paypal dispute, since they refused to issue me a refund despite my repeated requests. Within 30 minutes of me posting this, O’Bryan responded in a public post about how my books were terrible and couldn’t be sold even if it did have a good marketing team behind it, and even posted links to my books so that his faithful followers could look at them and agree with him at how terrible they were. I replied to his snarky post about me, calling him a thief who promised services that he refused to deliver on and posted the messages he had sent me regarding his refusal to promote my book, even though I had paid for his promotional services. Soon after that, I was finally issued a refund, was kicked out of the Facebook group, and O’Bryan himself has blocked me on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, pretty much everywhere.
This is why I say to stay away from BGS. Their Twitter promotions are a joke. Unless you are willing to purchase a cover design and editing services from them, they will not promote your book. If you do not worship the ground O’Bryan walks on and let him have complete control over your book, BGS will not promote it. You are literally flushing money down the toilet if you go to this site.
2. Books Butterfly
Stay away from Books Butterfly. This site claims that it will promote your book on twitter to thousands of followers. I stupidly purchased a $30 promotion from them before doing any research. I could not find a twitter account for them, nor could I find any proof that they even promoted my book. They are supposed to have a money back guarantee, but when I tried contacting them, I received no response and no refund. Don’t go to them.
3. Yourbookpromoter.com
Yourbookpromoter.com is another site that claims it will tweet blast your book to thousands of twitter followers. Stay away. They are owned by Books Go Social. They do not actually promote your book, and if they do, it’s by spamming, so you will get no sales. Just stay away. This is another sham promotion service that takes your money and runs.
4. Indie Writers Support
This is another site that promises to promote your book if you purchase their membership services and other services. I stupidly purchased a membership and some other promotional services from them, where they were supposed to promote my book on Twitter, Facebook, and in their newsletter. I wasted six months with these people and got no return on the money I spent. There was no increase in sales. Nothing. Customer support is non existent and you won’t get a refund. Don’t waste your time or your money.