Let’s take a look at this email I received today.
Just like all the other ads are going to get first of all they’re going to try to push you.
For example, in the subject title it says reply fast for toy the gods. The text of the email says hey Sonja Dewing how are you? Do you want to include your book Toy of the Gods in our newsletter?
And send it to 65,000 subscribers. We will promote your book on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter ,etc. and they have a list of a lot of followers.
We will also create an animated trailer for your book. For promotion please submit your book details to all book promotions dot com.
Only 20 exclusive slots are available for promotion.
Sincerely, book promotion agency.
So right off the bat you might think oh my God only 20 slots and they’ve got all these followers and I gotta check this out. Don’t be fooled OK.
Number one right they’re trying to pressure you into advertising with them. But take a closer look. First of all in this email, they don’t share their social media links with you. You have no way to look and see what’s going on. If they’re getting any likes or follows or shares right?
So if they do have 995,000 followers on your Facebook page, more than likely, they are all fake profiles of people who don’t read or not people I should say who don’t read.
But let’s take a look at the website. Right on the first page that they sent you to talk about their advertising and marketing and it says that they would tweet your book 108 times. And 108 Facebook posts and 60 Instagram posts.
I don’t know about you but if you’re following a Facebook page and all they’re doing is posting over and over and over again about the exact same books, I think I would get a little bored. I’d probably unfollow them. So right there, that seems a little suspect.
Do you have no links that I can find to their trailers. No links on their website to their social media pages so I can’t really check them out. Also, on this page they talk about listing on their website now your book will be listed on the website for two years.
That seems awfully strange as well. If I’m going to go visit a website to look at books I want something new and exciting not the same books over and over again.
In addition, they say they get 60 to 80 K visits per month. However, when you look at scam advisor, it says the Tranci rank which is how much traffic they get is rather low.
I’m pretty sure that 60 K visitors per month would not be considered low so obviously there is a discrepancy there.
Here’s my advice. When you get those emails. Make sure you take a double look at their website at their social media is a link to them.
Instead of buying into the scam advertisers do this and I apologize if you can hear my dog walking around. He’s got tippy tappy toes.
Go get Newsletter Ninja it’s a great book about your newsletter for an author. I have a social media class coming up. I think it’s 27 June. I’m not positive but I’ll put a link in the show notes.
Or if your book doesn’t have many reviews think about focusing on getting reviews and a good way is to put your book for free and put it in a legitimate newsletter like Hello books or free booksy. And check out their websites. You can tell they’re legitimate because they are not just focused on authors they’re focused on readers, as well.
And then I would dive into advertising, so Amazon ads and Facebook ads. I feel like Mark Dawson does a great job on Facebook ads. And I recently become an expert in Amazon Ads, so you can always chat with me about that.
And at the minimum sit down and take a few moments to get to know one social media platform, whether that’s Facebook or TikTok or Twitter or Instagram. And get comfortable with it because really your best sales are going to come from you sharing and talking about your book.
And I think that’s it, so go out there and watch out for those scam artists.
Notes:
June 27 Marketing class: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/617917647317