by Anne R. Allen
A lot of authors get that deer-in-the-headlights look when I mention marketing books online.
But it’s pretty much the only way to promote books during this “stay at home” pandemic.
So we gotta do it. I understand your reluctance. Social media is full of trolls, scammers, and vast herds of bellicose morons.
And there’s also a lot of unethical and downright criminal behavior that gets labeled as “online marketing”.
Some online marketing “gurus” teach (expensive) lessons in manipulation, lying, cheating, and general flimflammery. I had one contact me just this week. He’d put a Google Alert on “guest blogging” and this blog came up, with my piece complaining about unethical behavior in requesting guest blogposts.
He’s such a lazy idiot that he hadn’t bothered to read the passage of the blog he cut and pasted into the email. But because I used the magic keyword phrase, he expected me to link to his website that teaches people to send unethical guest blogpost requests to bloggers like me.
Um, sure, right, dude. I’ll send my readers to Moron McSleazy University, so they can learn to use Google alerts to harass me.
Here’s the thing: trying to sell your books or services by gaming the system, abusing bloggers, and lying is a very bad idea. Even if you’ve paid a lot of money to learn how. What you want to do is establish a brand that people trust, like Stephen King, Doris Kearns Goodwin or Lemony Snicket—not Scams “R” Us. How do you do that? As Ruth told us last week, you reach success with patience and persistence, not tricks and gimmicks.
Here are some of the unethical things I see all the time. I hope normal people aren’t starting to think this is okay behavior:
1) Some Authors Claim Scams are “Genius Marketing.”
Some indie author left a Facebook comment on one of my posts about how Amazon scams are robbing real authors of royalties. His comment:
“What’s wrong with selling a 500-word book for $9.99? I call that good marketing.”
I naively tried to explain, “The reader is going to be angry and disappointed at being scammed and they won’t buy any more of this author’s books.”
The man replied, “Is this book plagiarized? Otherwise, this is genius.”
I was gobsmacked. This “writer” equated “marketing” with “sleazy, dishonest behavior.” And he admired it.
You know, those Old West snake oil guys only succeeded because they left town the next day to escape being strung up by a posse of disgruntled customers. Not so easy to do on the Internet where you can be doxxed.
There are also “genius marketing” companies that charge thousands of dollars to authors to “buy in” to 99c boxed sets that may possibly get the author “USA Today Bestseller” status. But there’s also a guarantee of no income–because all the money is supposed to go to marketing. But…
- Most of these don’t work anymore because readers have bought the sets and found most of the books sub-par.
- There is remarkable bad will, bullying and squabbling in these boxed set groups.
- Often the companies simply take the money and evaporate. Maybe to teach at McSleazy U.
David Gaugrhan tweeted about a new one just this morning. $5000 to buy in for “guaranteed” USA Today status. Might we say “caveat emptor”?
Online marketing should be about establishing a brand and growing a readership, not getting fake credentials or making a quick buck and skipping town.
2) Wannabe “Guest Bloggers” Routinely Lie About Having Read a Blog.
This is probably the most infuriating aspect of blogging. Bloggers who get regular traffic see daily queries from people who say they want to guest blog for us. They ALWAYS claim to have read the blog when they obviously haven’t.
Last month “Wendy Anne” sent me a guest blog query that gushed about how she adored this blog and reads it avidly—then pitched a real estate article! She linked—twice—to my post about how to write a guest post query. In which I say no less than 5 times: “Don’t lie!”
I replied with highlights from the blogpost she linked to, listing the rules she’d broken. Silly me. “She” spams me every day now.
Another woman pitched me three medical articles. I wrote back. “This is a writing blog. Don’t lie!”
She responded, “Where is lie? I offering you nice writing article.” So two lies made a truth? Or her English is so poor she didn’t know what her own email said.
Obviously, these ladies went to spam.
Mostly I send them to spam immediately, and I shouldn’t have let those two get to me. I get 20 or more of them a week. They generally use a recognizable template: “I love your blog and read it all the time. And thing is (Always with the “thing is” phrase) I write stuff exactly like what you post! I know your readers will love my piece on how to make coronavirus masks for gerbils.”
In other words, “I’m too %&@! lazy to click on a link to find out what your blog is about. I’m a lazy, illiterate, lying fraud, so you should let me post crap all over your blog.”
The common use of the identical templates shows people are being taught this behavior by somebody like Mr. Moron McSleazy.
3) A Service Provider Lies About Having Done Business with You.
A cover designer “connected” with me on LinkedIn recently. I’ve had such a barrage of LinkedIn connection requests recently that I often just delete them all. But I connected with her because I thought she might belong to one of my Facebook groups.
I immediately got the dreaded direct message. (It’s bad form to hit a brand-new connection with a DM advertising pitch on any social media platform.) But this one was worse than usual—
“I worked on a project with you a couple of years back. Great to find you’ve finally joined LinkedIn. Here are my services.”
I know all the people who have designed my covers and my websites. This person has never worked with me. (Also, I’ve been on LinkedIn for 15 years—so much for “finally joining.”)
Two days later, another cover designer sent me the same message. Then I realized that once again—it’s a template. Probably being handed out by another sleazy online marketing guru. It makes me sad that perfectly good designers are being taught that stupid, transparent lies are better than honesty.
And apparently they believe that making enemies of influencers is good business.
Of course, maybe these are not cover designers at all. Maybe the requests all come from one sleazemaster who pretends to design covers, pockets the money and disappears.
I rather hope it is one guy. Otherwise, designers are purposely branding themselves as lowlife scum for no reason. Why would anybody do that?
4) A Book Marketer Threatens “You’ll Never Work in this Business Again” if you Don’t Respond to a Nasty Email.
Last year there were some marketers who emailed me three times a week or more with the kind of “negging” bullying that young men claim works to prey upon women.
“Negging” is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “a tactic used by predatory pick-up artists to undermine a woman’s self-confidence, leaving her vulnerable to attack.”
This is the gist of what they said in their emails.
“Your book _____is not selling as well as it should. Your pricing/cover art/product description/blurbs are terrible. You obviously don’t know anything about the book business, sweetie. Give me money and I’ll send 1000 tweets a day to bots. Otherwise, your book will never sell another copy. I guarantee it.”
They got very ominous and threatening there at the end.
There are dank, nasty little corners of the Internet on sites like Reddit where misogynist “pick-up artists” ply their trade, selling books that teach young men to become rapists. I have a suspicion some of these online marketing “experts” may come from this same school of bullying, cruelty, and misogyny.
Maybe McSleazy U. offers advanced courses in using “negging” in online marketing.
5) Charity Emails Change the Amount of Your Donation—or Make it Monthly Without Consent
This is why I never donate online anymore. A charity or political candidate sends a pleading email that bleeds neediness, whining for “just five dollars.” You click to donate, but when you get to the payment page, there’s no way to donate only five dollars. The opener is ten or twenty. And worse, one candidate this year required you to check a nearly invisible box, or that $20 would be taken out of your account every single month.
Yeah. The default setting is “we gonna bleed you dry, sucka.”
The online marketer the charity hired is gambling that the donor will be embarrassed they wanted to donate less and go ahead with the bait and switch. Or not notice.
But the marketers are not gambling with their own money or reputation.
Sure, the people who were duped will never donate to that charity again—and they’ll never vote for that candidate.
Who cares? The marketer got paid and will be long gone when the election comes around.
I fear most political email marketing campaigns have completely lost sight of the fact their goal is to get votes, not line their own pockets.
The worst new form of donor abuse is that when you donate money, they demand your cell phone number. Then they harass you with texts 25 times a day. Along with the 150 pieces of email spam. You can’t unsubscribe because they demand your phone number for the “unsubscribe” form. (I sometimes make up a number, but it doesn’t work all the time.)
Harassment creates ill will, not donations.
Why would anybody want ill will?
Be careful about who you hire for online marketing. Look for a long-term reputation, not short-term results.
6) Online Retailers Force You to Give up Personal Information to Enter their Stores.
This is a pet peeve of mine. I’ve been followed all over the Web by ads for a clothing retailer and a furniture store. If I click on the ads to find sizes or prices, their sites are blocked by an uncloseable window that demands my name and address.
These people want to extort my personal information in exchange for knowing the price of their merchandise or what sizes they carry.
I usually make up some name like Fartie McFartface or Petunia LePue and a fake email address. Why? Here are some things scammers can do to wreck your life with your email address.
One of these stores pays for television ads now. But if you go online to buy something—you still have to sign up for spam. Or disguise yourself as Fartie or Petunia. Apparently they want to make sure we know they’re the same old sleazebags.
Why would a company work so hard to get customers and then turn them away before they’re allowed buy?
I guess they believe that gathering that email list of fake addresses is worth alienating thousands of real potential customers.
7) An Author Uses Shocking Clickbait to Sell an Overpriced Book.
You know the ones. They say something shocking like “Why you should NEVER eat this toxic food! Dr. Snake Oil will tell you why in his breakthrough book!” This is illustrated with a picture of an egg, avocado, or banana.
Once I decided to click on one. And I clicked and clicked. I was determined to find out what kind of nonsense this guy had to say against avocados. But 45 minutes later, I hadn’t learned anything about avocados, eggs or bananas. I had seen the life story of the author in an endlessly boring Power Point presentation and a smarmy infomercial for an overpriced book.
Will I buy a book from a guy who scammed me out of 45 minutes of my life? That would be a big, fat, never.
8) Why Aren’t you Answering my Emails?
This is epidemic right now. Half your spam folder is probably filled with phishing and bogus emails claiming they’ve been writing to you for days and you haven’t responded, you cad!
Most of us are onto them, but it’s such a nasty way to manipulate us. It suggests you’ve been shirking your duty and hurting somebody’s feelings.
But these aren’t somebodies. They’re bots.
Or unfortunate graduates of McSleazy U.
9) Authors Spam Other Authors
Last month a guy posted an ad for his book—a self-published neo-Nazi screed—on my Facebook profile page. It hasn’t happened for a while, but it always happens a couple of times a year—usually on my birthday. “Happy Birthday, sucker—and here’s an ad for my book!”
…aaand the author has made an enemy. Yay! Really?
And of course there are the dreaded unsolicited newsletters with no unsubscribe function. Which are illegal as well as annoying and unethical. One woman claimed I’d given her my business card so it was okay to send me her little narcissistic essays. I asked where—not that it would have made it okay. At a Miami book fair, she said.
I have never been to Florida.
She went into a rage and refused to unsubscribe me, so I reported her. I’m not sure what happened, but finally the “newsletters” stopped.
Then there are the authors who leave comments on this blog saying “If you really want to learn about this stuff, you have to read MY blog, which is much better than this one. Hope that helps.”
Usually the spam elves will block them, but even deleting that stuff makes me feel slimed.
I will remember your name, and the name of your book, and you should not be happy about that.
10) Authors Buy Amazon Customer Reviews
Even after Amazon’s draconian purges, lots of authors are still trying to game Amazon’s system by buying positive reviews. Even though the authors will be banned from Amazon for life if they’re caught. In the last week, I’ve had at least a dozen solicitations from different review scammers.
They say things like “I write real reviews for Amazon. Don’t contact me unless you’re serious about your writing career.” No mention of price, but I don’t think these people are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. 🙂 That little hint of menace lets us know the fees will probably be hefty.
Amazon did close down a lot of the third world review mills during their last purges. New rules about being a regular Amazon customer in the country where you’re posting reviews made it much harder for the review mills to operate.
But these new email solicitations I’m getting seem to be written by native English speakers. This suggests that individuals are starting a cottage industry of writing bogus reviews as an income stream during the pandemic shutdown.
But please don’t be tempted by them. Send them to spam.
Review sellers are still perpetrating the myth that you need X number of reviews in order to rank on Amazon. This is simply not true.
Industry watchdog David Gaughran has a great new video on Amazon review myths. It’s worth your time. And maybe it will stop you from being tempted by the review sellers.
“It Works!” Online Marketing Gurus Say, But Does it Really?
These marketers say: “You have to get used to it. This is the way we’ve always done things online. We treat customers with contempt because it works.” I’ve heard versions of this from online marketers for years.
Okay, yes, much of online marketing has always been sleazy, but the people who are succeeding in today’s Internet have learned that being classy pays off. Being Don Draper buys more elegant suits than screaming about Veg-O-Matic on late night TV.
I wonder if sleazy marketing became a habit with online marketers because the people who were online first were young men and teens, mostly gamers. When businesses wanted to target those teens, they chose to use crude, manipulative means to “game the gamers.”
But that doesn’t work on grown-ups.
To quote a Tweet I saw recently: “Not getting caught for weeks/ months/ YEARS doesn’t excuse your decision to cheat the system. Getting away with unethical behavior doesn’t magically make it ethical.”
Scammers Abound, but Don’t Go Over to the Dark Side
With all the scamming of authors that goes on, you may be tempted to be scammy back. But it’s never a good idea. Here are some of my posts on recent publishing scams you want to stay way far away from.
10 New Publishing Scams to look out for in 2020
The #1 Mistake Self Publishers Makes that leaves them open to scams.
Writing Scams to Look out for in 2019
Don’t Fall Prey to Publishing Scams
Be Ethical. It’s Good Business.
Treating customers as equals rather than prey is not “wimpy.” It’s good business.
It is possible to do online marketing without resorting to the tactics of Moron McSleazy.
Proper use of social media and learning to create ads on Amazon, Facebook and Bookbub will sell your books if you do it right.
Want to learn how to do it right? I recommend the blogs and books of ethical, helpful online marketers. Here are some of my favorites
Frances Caballo at Social Media Just for Writers
Rachel Thompson at BadRedhead Media
Barb Drozdowich at Bakerview Consulting
Penny Sansevieri at Author Marketing Services
And here’s a great post from Joel Friedman’s blog this week from Beth Baranay on how marketing is about forming relationships.
And Kris Rusch explains why the old ways of selling books aren’t going to return.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) June 7, 2020
What about you, scriveners? Have you taken courses that teach you to use online marketing unethically? Do you know people who have studied with Moron McSleazy? What kind of marketing do you feel stretches ethical boundaries?
UPDATE:
Here is the new template for blog spammers. NEVER RESPOND to one of these or you will get dozens a day. I learned the hard way. This came in this morning. June 10th. The irony is almost to heavy to bear. The post linked to tells guest posters never to send a query like this. And her “love” of my “most recent post”–that would be this one–is hilarious. And of course, we write so often about cars and trucks. 🙂
Hello ,
My name is Catalina from Clazzio Direct and I’ve been reading https://selfpublishingsites.com/2016/12
I first got hooked by reading your most recent blog post.
I’ve got a site that focuses specifically on car and truck
accessories, and I’m trying to get my name out there as best as I can.
I had a couple of ideas for guest posts that I thought might be a
really good fit for your site.
Let me know if you think it might be valuable to your audience, I’ll
pass on some ideas so you can decide whether it’s a good fit for your
site.
I’ll write up everything and send it according to your guidelines,
paying special attention to the tone of the blog, in general, shouldn’t be
too hard.
I understand what your readers love as I am one.
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Anne—The oldest profession? Forget sex. Scamming writers. Probably started the first time someone chiseled a short story into a clay tablet. If you think I’m joking, you’d be wrong. 🙁
BTW, when someone demands your email before they send whatever they’re peddling, try 15 minute email:
https://15minute.email
Depending how mad you are, there’s even 10 minute email (just because):
https://10minutemail.net
Ruth–Those 10 and 15 minute emails look like a great work-around for the sleazy marketers. And I’m sure you’re right that as soon as Hammurabi got his laws written down on that tablet, somebody was trying to steal his copyright or sell him a bogus marketing package. 🙂
I love that idea, Ruth. Thank you!
Such a good – and scary – post, Anne! It’s hard to believe how the book promo game has changed in ten years. I started in 2010, quite naive. Thanks for the years and years of good advice, backed by incredible research.
Melodie–Back in the early ‘oughts, my publishers still marketed the old fashioned way. They booked me on signing tours and speaking engagements and book fairs. I had to make big investments in transportation and presentable clothing. Seems so quaint now. Then in the early days of the Kindle revolution, it seemed all you needed was a blog and some social media accounts and Amazon would rocket you to the top of the bestseller list. But things are more hardscrabble now. I don’t have the answers, but I know that doing unethical stuff is not the way to build a brand.
Painfully brilliant Anne. I am SO DOWN on the marketing aspect of this, and more than half of my reaction is just self-pity because I don’t want to have to learn the long hard way. I avoid the scams, sure, I behave honestly for all the reasons you point out- what are we without our reputation?
But I shrink from the brink of advertising (and its cost); and I guess that has to stop. It’s probably time to bet on myself, at least a little. And of course, that starts with reading something- there’s irony, but thanks for the list.
I would suggest you are possibly still being too nice, as several of the variations of scam you’re talking about are likely driven by automation. “She” might just be a program left on automatic, looking for any response at all from anyone about any scam the programmers thought up. Two or three responses in, maybe, a human will start looking at it. You don’t fall for it, but they’re not looking for you. Economies of scale apply to wrongdoing too.
I’ve taken to giving out my authentic, absolutely-is-real email address at Kindle. I figure Zon can handle the storage and it doesn’t interfere with me sending over the mobi files. I sometimes wonder how many emails are languishing over there!
Will
Will–I think you’re right that some of these “writers” using templates are just bots. Some are real though, and occasionally I feel the need to rescue them from their stupidity. Doesn’t usually work.
As for the cost of advertising, I hear you. I’ve used the bargain newsletters with mixed results. Haven’t ventured into Amazon ads myself.
I really don’t know what the advance is in annoying a ton of people online. The Internet has an extremely long memory. So the way I see it it’s to your advance to treat everyone decently. The best online marketing strategy is a service to readers–I have a book I think you’ll enjoy reading. Here let me tell you a little about it.
Leanne–I have no idea why people think this is okay. I wonder if they think they’re in a videogame and when it’s “game over” all their nastiness will be forgotten? You’re absolutely right that the only way to sell books is by hand, one-on-one. Bookstore clerks used to do it. Now we do it online.
Anne, I never heard the term “negging” before but my email inbox has quite a bit of experience with the concept. I don’t get as many bot/wierdo/negging messages as you apparently do, but there’s a steady stream of scam.
In particular, I get “I want to write for your blog about piano lessons/fishing/hotels” emails. I have a stock cut-and-paste polite refusal response.
Then there are the emails from folks wanting to create backlinks, who cite a particular post on my blog and request that I update it with a link to a post on their blog. While backlinks are a legitimate win-win website-traffic building technique, there is never any compatibility between my post and the one the writer is peddling, which means there’s no benefit to me for agreeing, just extra work to update an old blog post. I expect some bot did a keyword search and my post came up on page 100 of the search returns.
It’s too bad, because even if they were seeking to expand their readership in good faith, so many of these messages are off the mark that even legit efforts are discounted as scammy spam.
Technology helps us in so many ways, but it has also created permission for what-can-I-get-away-with behavior and unwanted contacts. 99% is wholly impersonal and should be treated as such–straight to the Trash folder.
Those guest blogpost requests and backlink requests drive me batty. No benefit to me, but I should spend half my day dealing with them. We used to send out a form email that says we aren’t taking guest posts and we don’t rewrite old posts. (Often the backlink people want us to write a nice recommendation for their product in our old blogposts. For free of course, because bloggers are a slave caste to these people.) Problem with the form letter–this automated a$$holery took that to be a “yes” so I’d get these blogposts and more demands for backlinks. So now they go to spam with no response.
You’re right that tech has created a “whatever I can get away with is right” culture that pushes people into unethical and criminal behavior.
Can I say how much I hate the word “genius” as marketers use it? Ugh.
I suspect all of this is because everyone is rushing to the next silver bullet, figuring something will stick and make them lots of money if they throw enough paint at the wall. No one seems interested in taking the time to learn something and how to do it well, even if it takes years (https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/01/27/info-overload-fake/).
Linda–Thanks for that link. So true. Most of the “information” online is repetitive. And nobody wants to actually do their homework. It may take quadruple the time to get a guest blogpost by the spaghetti method, but visiting the blog would let the blogger “win.” The whole point is to make the bloggers do all the work. Everything is a weird competitive videogame to them.
Thanks for this piece, Anne. What gets me is how so many people fall for scams – they must, or scammers wouldn’t keep scamming. BTW, I just realized I haven’t heard from that Nigerian Prince in months – may he finally ran out of money to park.
And thank you for linking KK Rusch’s article on 2020 book marketing. Love the closing line, “Book marketing is dead. Long live book marketing.” This is a must-read for indies who are serious about making marketing work for them.
Garry-Kris’s article is eye-opening. The “good old” publishing ways were not good for authors.
The Nigerian Princes are alive and well, but now they’re devout widows. They have to give away their husbands’ money to someone they know loves the lord. (No mention of which lord, so there’s some wiggle room there.) I still find them in my email spam about once a week.
Great post! Years ago there was a guy who’d re-SPAM the phone callers and he’d record it. He actually convinced one of them to send HIM a couple hundred bucks. That guy is my hero, lol. As are bloggers like you who are out there educating people about these scams!
Loring–I think I remember hearing about that guy. Back in the day when phone scammers were real people and not robots. Now the robots are scammers and they are everywhere!
Threaten me and I’m definitely not working with you!
Both my email and the IWSG one get those repeated ‘did you get my previous email?’ ones. They are never genuine.
I’ll stick to doing the old fashioned and honest way.
Alex–Seriously. The menacing ones are the most startling. I want to say “really? That works for you?”
Amen!
I’m usually happy to defend ‘marketing’, online or offline, because it’s just a neutral tool that can be misused, but morons like these put a black eye on the skill so bad.
Probably mostly because those bad tactics are also easiest to do. ‘One button system will automate everything and you will not need to lift a finger to make money’. It’s an easy sell for certain group of people who are too naive, but often too lazy to work and just look for easy way out.
And there will always be people seeking the easy way to profit, like people who use peaceful protests as an excuse to break into shops to get some sneakers for free! Just awful…
Adrijus–I think you’re right that the appeal of a techy “hack” to get “passive income” is pretty powerful. People only ask if it works. Not if it’s right or wrong. And you’re right. It is kind of like taking advantage of a peaceful protest to vandalize and steal.
At least in the long-term those muppets do usually disappear.
Anyway, looking forward to future blog posts!
I really appreciated your post. Illuminating and brilliant as usual.
You often refer to ethic. No doubt, that word is an important one. Unfortunately, those who know how important it is need not be reminded of what they should and should not do. Instead, those who don’t know it lack of the very moral compass that should inform their choices.
Besides, it seems to me that the virtual space creates a psychological distance between scammers and scammed that allows the former to tell themselves they are just “gaming the system”, not robbing actual human beings of their hard-earned money.
Peter–You’re right. The distance provided by the screen makes some people feel as if they’re outside of reality, in some videogame. Hurting people in a videogame doesn’t make you a bad person, so why should this?
So many good links to follow in this article. Thank you, Anne!
My inbox gets slammed with ALL of the scammers you mentioned in your post. Rather than attempt to unsubscribe to lists I’ve never joined, I just block the sender. It’s easier and saves me the frustration of trying to unsubscribe. Even so, the persistent ones find a way to worm their way back to my inbox. *facepalm*
Sue–You’re right that the “unsubscribe” function is often a trap to get further information. Mark as spam and block is the only solution. But somehow they find a way to sneak back into your inbox. I’m so tired of them. I wonder if they know how many people hate them?
As if these trolls would give a care? Lay down with dogs, come up with fleas. (No, I love dogs. Try again.) Lay down with trolls, come up with warts!
In this world, more of the same BS is simply unacceptable. People are dying on the Covid front lines. I know who I’ll read. Humans who care and evidence ethics.
(Getting through this whole post is gonna take a day by the time I do all the links and well freaking worth it!)
Love ya, Anne!
Moeryn–I like the trolls version of the saying much better. 🙂 Much kinder to dogs. I agree that something is changing. Same old / same old evil behavior is not being tolerated in the same way. Maybe more trolls will get caught. We can hope.
I’ve had a few of those “negging” emails myself. It took me about three seconds with the first one to figure out what was happening. (Flag as spam, delete!) Using our friendly librarians’ CRAPP test works like a charm:
Currency
Relevance
Authority
Accuracy
Purpose.
Oh, and Moron McSleazy University isn’t accredited.
Liz–I love your CRAAP formula! The neggy ones are the worst, aren’t they? To be insulted first thing in the morning when you’re just trying to get through your email is the pits. I can’t imagine it ever works, but they sure tried for a while there.
Oh, no, so I shouldn’t send my application to McSleazy U for the fall? But it’s expensive, so it must be good!
😀 😀
Thanks for catching us up on the latest scams! Mostly I get notifications that my Netflix account has been suspended, even though I don’t have a Netflix subscription, lol. Re: book marketing, I’ve only ever seen two techniques that really get people excited about a book. The first is to post excerpts that are juicy. A friend of mine posts a paragraph or two from her WIP as she’s writing it on her FB group. Her readers get more and more hyped, and snap the book up once it’s available.
The other one I’ve seen is artwork. Dave Farland talked about how he commissioned 12 paintings based on a book series to make a calendar. He also showed the artwork around the internet and eventually used some of it for book covers. He said that it raised a ton of interest really fast, and really helped the books sell.
I observed this when I was writing fanfiction. You can’t market fanfiction in any way, because you can’t make money off them. But if you do a bunch of artwork based on those stories, with links to the stories with each artwork, you suddenly have a lot of funnels leading people to the story.
Kessie–Those are two great suggestions that don’t involve buying ads. Very helpful. I think posting excerpts in a group rather than in your newsletter probably gets many more new readers. I love it! And David Farland’s calendar sounds brilliant.
I haven’t got the Netflix scam, but this week I got no less than 18 voicemail messages telling me my iPhone will stop working if I don’t call Scammer central. Of course I don’t have an iPhone. 🙂
Anne, thanks again for all you do for us. As others have noted, some great links here. I have three email addresses–my main one that I use for bill-paying and writing contacts–like this blog. I have a gmail account for two or three personal contacts, and a yahoo account. Anytime I do anything on line that requires my email address, I give them that one and I never give that one to anyone or anything important. Four or five times a week, depending on my spare time, I delete about 90+% of them and read the few that might be of interest.
I’ve managed to not fall for any of the frequent scams because I’ve always read the offers carefully…usually before sending them to the trash bin.
Fred–I have three email addresses, too, but somehow the spammers have got them all. I think I probably spend at least an hour and a half a day deleting spam. I need to go through it, because every so often one is from a reader who is reaching out and I never want to ignore a reader. But oh, my these people try my patience.
I used the name Twinkie once and it gives me a chuckle every time I see it in my email. Yeah, I made up a name but not an email. Tch. I make up phone numbers all the time and then feel slightly guilty about the person who probably owns it.
Gigi–Or should I say Twinkie? Haha. It’s true that those phone numbers probably belong to somebody, and I feel a little bad, too. But so often they’re necessary. The demand for phone numbers is epidemic. “If I can’t harass you, I don’t want your money” is such a strange message for a charity to put out there. It’s why I only give to a select number of charities–mostly local–who only ask for money a few times a year.
Thanks so much for all this information – GREAT! I have a question about author review services like AuthorsXP and Hidden Gems – ARC readers who leave a review for the author; however the service itself the author pays for….
Patricia–I think Book Funnel, Hidden Gems, Authors XP etc are good tools for indie authors. They provide a service, which is sending your ARC to people who have requested books in your genre. That’s a tech service, not a review service. The reviewers are not paid. Reviews are honest and often not favorable, and they make it very clear they don’t guarantee a good review or even a review at all. I haven’t gone there, but I might. I think it’s not a bad way to get reviews before you launch, and probably worth the price. Alli–the watchdog organization for indie authors–approves.
I strongly dislike marketing scams and the sleazy scammers. What really irritates me are the people that call my phone number, or worse, have somehow discovered my parents’ number – that’s really not okay. I had to explain to my parents that “no, the marketers aren’t going to help me market my books for a mere $600 at a trade show I have never heard of – they’re just planning to take my money.”
Tyrean–Those book fair marketers hit your parents? OMG, they are the worst. They phoned me, too. Not a robocall, so they almost seemed legit for a minute and a half. Using the old fashioned cold phone call instead of email is kind of disarming. These people are one of the branches of independent scammers in the Philippines who broke off from Author Solutions. Author Solutions trained them to scam authors and when AS went under, they kept up their evil ways. Your poor parents. I hope you were able to clue them in.
Hi Anne, I get Wannabe “Guest Bloggers” requests almost everyday. I do send many to spam, but some I respond back and state that I charge £100 to have a guest post published on my blog. I never hear back from them ever again.
P.S – I never charge for guest posting on my blog.
Hugh–Haha! I never thought of that! They do often ask how much we charge for a guest post. I should tell them $10,000. But it would be awful if they took me up on it.
I also add some more requirements of guest blogging to these wannabe guest bloggers, Anne. here’s what I add –
I do not allow any affiliate links in guest blog posts, other than to the author’s own blog.
All guest bloggers must respond to all comments left on their post.
Any images in posts must be owned by the author or be free to use (details of the site providing the free image must be provided along with a link to the site).
Posts must be the author’s own work and have been written solely by the author.
Posts must not have been published anywhere else before, or be published at or on any other source.
Posts must be accompanied by social media links and a photo of the author.
Submission of a guest post does not mean that it will be accepted for publication.
I charge £100 for the publication of a guest post on my blog. Payment must be made in full after acceptance of the post and before the post is published.
I’ve set the above up as a template. So far, it’s always worked and none of these wannabe guest bloggers have ever come back to me. I wonder why?
Hugh–Those are good rules, and most guest post guidelines include versions of them. But they do absolutely no good if they go to a robot who is programmed to send a guest post in reply to any response. You need a human to read it, and that’s not happening with a lot of these spammers. It’s all done by robots. That’s why I send them all to spam. I got too many auto replies.
I hate to be one of THOSE people, but I’m gonna trot out the old ‘there’s two types of people’ saw. Perhaps due to current political circumstances, it’s more obvious than ever that some people embrace and enjoy the experience of gaming the system aka running a con. I’m just not one of those people. Thank you for writing this article and enlightening us on the scams that surround us.
Dear Anne,
I’m happy to discover your blog. I was beginning to worry that all of the writers out there had succumbed to the idea that they must pay to play.
I must admit that I’m mildly obsessed with the ethics of book marketing. It all started after I self-published my first novel and its 30 point plot was plagiarized by a young man who shortened it and made it more political, polemical, and pornographic.
I first started with a length, almost crazed rant about the state of online publishing and influencers:
https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/the-fake-economies-of-the-internet/
This evolved into an analysis of the limits of an individual author’s productivity:
https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/how-do-people-publish-multiple-novels-in-a-single-year/
And a look at plagiarism law:
https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2019/11/18/down-with-opp/
https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/what-qualifies-as-plagiarism/
A look at what originality even means in a story:
https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2019/08/06/the-original-author/
Then I found another plagiarist to keep my eye on:
https://kirstenhacker.wordpress.com/2020/05/03/alone-in-the-new-pollution/
And now I’m digging into book review purchasing schemes, but I haven’t finished that article yet.
Looking back at all of these articles, I conclude that I really should give this topic a rest, but I guess I’ve gotten a bug in my bonnet.
I wouldn’t go so far as to ask to guest post since my style would need some toning down to make it journalistic, but I would be thrilled if you could include any of these links in one of your future pieces on the ethics of book marketing or publishing.
Regards,
Kirsten Hacker
Kirsten–Your posts are fascinating–and hair-raising. I have heard about this kind of plagiarism, because it happened to some very high profile romance writers, including Nora Roberts. Luckily enough fans read these bogus books and recognized passages from their favorite authors. I don’t know why every time there is innovation in tech, the first thing people do is try to “game the system.”
Your case is unique because your book wasn’t from a high profile author, so there wasn’t a proven track record for that story. It seems very odd they chose something with such a unique plot. Also that they stripped the story of female empowerment and turned it into a S/M submissive story. It sounds like one of those misogynist ‘Incels” from 4 Chan or Reddit.
Keep chronicling your experiences with this guy. Maybe some other author will recognize the MO and maybe you can finally “out” him.
I agree that the pressure to churn out a book a month is absurd and leads to burnout, bad books, and plagiarism. I believe in slow writing.
Thank you, Anne for all the care and effort you put into this useful post. There is so much time wasted on deleting the scammers rubbish. I have noticed more online courses and flash ads, which is all the same regurgitated nonsense, and it reminds me of the MLM scams of the eighties and nineties. I only clicked on one, because it was a topic I was trying to learn more about and the ‘face’ was a well known industry professional. He talked for twenty minutes into the video and still there was no useful content and I will never trust him again. The other thing I have noticed (especially on Goodreads) is the scammers trying to hook romantically. I am sure I read that you said Goodreads was like the OK Corral without a sheriff. I do not find it a balanced site to be on. My gut about Amazon is we are dealing with bots and not humans. I am assuming that Amazon appreciate the revenue generated from the authors, yet their first line of attack is to always penalise the authors. With the KDP Select ‘clickreads’ scammers, why are the authors banned?? It’s nuts. I am starting to question being on there at all and I know I only have one main book and a few minis under my belt, but this does not feel like a level playing field for authors, regardless of Amazon’s reach. I am leaning towards putting my books for sale from my web site and to market them naturally through the work I am doing. I think it’s fair to say your great post triggered some sore spots in me…I am grateful for your work, Anne. Xx
Jane–I didn’t know about the romantic overtures of scammers on Goodreads! That’s a whole new type of scam to look into. I’m not the one who said Goodreads was like the OK Corral without a sheriff, but I wish I had. Brilliant! What I said is “Goodreads is Mean Girls meets Lord of the Flies.” 🙂
As far as Amazon, I think we need to be there. That’s where the customers are. But keep fighting for authors rights. Yes, 99% of the time you’re dealing with robots, and robots are stupid. But if you keep at it long enough, you can usually reach a human. I even got through to one in Seattle rather than Bangalore once. He fixed my problem right away.
I hear you, Anne. This “recognizable template: ‘I love your blog and read it all the time'” with a link to your home page to “appear” that these “guest bloggers” are familiar with your website is SO annoying! I’m glad i’m not alone (not that I’m wishing you spam :)). I find enlightening how you deal with these spammers-called marketers. The problem with these people is that they detract from the work serious book marketers do. And there you can see why marketing and promotions make some writers cringe.
Kelly–They are sooooo annoying. I’m not a person to go around punching people in the face, but they make me understand the urge. 🙂
You’re so right that these “marketers” and their courses in scamming really detract from good, honest book marketers like the ones I’ve listed here. And often writers see the bogus marketers’ Tweet spam or whatever and think that’s how it’s done. They end up making enemies, not sales, and don’t know why.
I see so much advice that I just look at and say to myself, “I’m not going to do that!” Glad to see an article like this to try to dispel some of the bad advice out there.
As for websites that demand an email before they let you see their wares, I have a dumping webmail for those. Usually I don’t want to see their merchandise enough to bother but I keep the diversionary address for exceptions and online forms.
Another one newer writers should learn to ignore is the advice to get your book into as many categories as possible, especially Romance writers. I just had another conversation with someone yesterday lamenting how careful you have to be in many categories to weed out Romance books trying to present themselves as something else. Al it leads to is disappointed readers.
Jaq–I’m glad you brought up the category problem. This is a sort of scammy thing indie authors have been doing since the Kindle was introduced. It’s not just Romance writers (although they network more, so scammy practices tend to spread around.) I knew an author who got her mysteries into craft categories all the time. So her quilting cozy would get a #1 bestseller sticker for “19th Century Americana Quilting Patterns” or some other obscure category. But then she could say she was a #1 bestseller on Amazon. Or a Romance called “Secret Love Garden” would be #1 in Gardening. That kind of thing isn’t useful to anybody and as you say, it just annoys readers.
Hi Anne,
Found your website while looking for other people that have received the “updated email” template from spam comments – the one that ends with the line ‘I understand what your readers love as I am one.”
Unfortunately I also responded to the first one of these, which resulted in a new one in the exact same format coming through a few days later. ARGH, how could i be so naive? I subconsciously knew something was up as I tried to search the email, and tried to find other content that the “person” had posted.
It seems like I will be in for a lot of spam in the coming weeks / months. I did manage to set up some filters to scan incoming mail for spam, so hopefully that keeps my email clear.
Any other ideas or solutions that you or your readers have come across?
Thanks,
Matt