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Book Promoters and Empty Promises

Becoming a successful author

By Aaron DennisPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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Hello, readers, writers, authors, and book promoters. My name is Aaron Dennis. I’ve been writing for almost 10 years. I do a pretty good job of it, too.

I’ve released numerous short stories and novels, plus I release a bunch of articles, like this one. In this article, I want to talk a little bit about what happens to an author after a bit of notoriety; everyone comes out from the woodwork to ask for money.

They promise to promote your book, or republish your book to their platform, and for just a small fee, they can make you a big success. Over this past year—2019—I’ve received numerous phone calls and emails, practically begging me to either publish through a company, or to promote my books through a company.

Here’s a screenshot of my most recent admirer.

As you can see, Book Vine Press wanted to help me promote my book in Asia, which is pretty cool. Their representative called me. I actually missed the call because I never answer my phone, but I checked my messages, and then decided to give the gentleman a call back.

We spoke at length about how his company, Book Vine Press, is participating in an annual event in which books are promoted and sold across Asia, mostly the Philippines, because many of the inhabitants speak English and enjoy American books. His sales pitch was very warm and friendly without being pushy, and at the end of the pitch, I asked if he minded emailing me with a little more information, so that I might make an informed decision before handing off $700.

Once I received the email, I took a look at the company’s website. They offer plenty of publishing and marketing services. They also feature some snazzy titles backed up by what appear to be real testimonials, but a nice website isn’t enough to secure my money.

Their mission and vision is, according to their site: "To provide authors the most cost effective and quality service. We’re here to correct the major mistakes that most self-publishing companies have done, i.e. high retail pricing and printing cost, poor editing and erroneous marketing approaches, which are main reasons why a book is not in the hands of most readers."

First of all, I’m not sure that self-publishing companies exist. Self-publishing entails that the author is publishing their own work. I publish through Smashwords. Smashwords is a distributor. I’m the publisher. I have previously published through Xlibris. Xlibris is a print on demand company, not an actual publisher, but I digress.

Furthermore, I don’t think that the above reasons are why a self-published book is not in the hands of most readers. The reason most self-published books aren’t bought by readers is a lack of knowledge that the book in question even exists; poor marketing, or no marketing at all, is the reason readers aren’t purchasing a self published-book.

At any rate, before agreeing to spend $700 for a book expo in the Philippines, I wanted to see just how many readers are aware of Book Vine Press; if readers don’t know that press exists, they aren’t buying those books. How can they? How can you purchase a book from a press you don’t know publishes books?

In this particular case, the Book Vine Press representative wasn’t trying to publish my book, just market it, which is why I inspected the website. Since the Book Vine Press site has a book fair tab, I clicked it to take a look. Here’s a screen shot of that tab.

As you can see, it’s just four videos from YouTube, which, I’ll be honest, I didn’t view. I’d much rather read about what they do at the fair and see some testimonials from authors who participated in the event. Feedback from readers at the event would be even better.

Finally, I decided to check out Book Vine Press on social media. They have 138 likes on FaceBook, and each of their posts have between one and 10 likes. No comments or shares, of course. They have 37 tweets and 16 followers on Twitter. I didn’t find an account on LinkedIn. They also have 1,051 followers on Instagram.

Does this sound like a company that can promote your book? Does this sound like a company that can sell your book? Does this sound like a company who finds an author who is already doing well and hoping to piggyback off their success?

Look, lots of book promotion companies exist, but 99 percent of them DO NOT have a reader base. They don’t have access to readers, and without an audience, they can’t help you become more successful. This means that most self-published writers would do better spending that $700 on printing out flyers, business cards, key chains, and t-shirts, buying a few of their own print copies, and setting up a book-selling stand in their front yard.

Book Vine Press is just one example.

After I had a book reviewed by Kirkus, and received a positive review, I forked over a few hundred bucks for them to promote that book to producers. Obviously, that book has not become a major motion picture, but that in-print promotion has gotten me more phone calls and emails from companies like Book Vine Press than I can tally.

As a matter of fact, just months before being contact by Book Vine Press, I was contacted directly by Mark Abbott from Publishers Weekly, a promotional company that’s been around for a long time. He offered me a similar deal for a book fair event for roughly the same amount of money as Book Vine Press. Publishers Weekly also runs Book Life, which supposedly allows self-published authors to promote their work. They're also supposed to review books, but every time I submitted a book for review, even brand new books, they declined performing a review.

I'm not sure what that's about, since real companies have always reviewed my books and positively.

Anyway, I’ll ask you the same thing I ask every reader I know in person.

Have you heard of Publishers Weekly? Have you heard of Book Life? Did you buy a book because you saw it promoted by one of those companies?

You don’t have to answer. I already know. You, me, and everyone else; we buy books because our friends told us the book was good. We buy books because we saw it promoted on our favorite book distributor’s site, a site like Barnes and Noble online.

Naturally, any kind of publicity will help to make potential readers aware of an author or a book, but being aware that a book exists isn’t enough to sell thousands of copies, so I recommend to all writers, next time someone calls you and asks you to fork over $700 to promote your book, just drop that money into a mutual funds account. It’ll grow exponentially, and you can earn more from that than a book promotion package.

If you want to sell books, build your own fan base. Release a quality product, and your fan base will tell their friends and family about that product.

Here’s the trick, when people find something they enjoy, they can’t wait to share the experience and discuss it. Conversely, when people find something they hate, they behave much in the same way, so be sure that your product isn’t a bunch of crap, or you’ll never get off the ground no matter how much money you throw at it.

If you’re truly interested in becoming a successful author, I suggest you try reading my book, How to Become a Successful Author: Secrets the Mainstream Publishers Don’t Want You to Know.

It’s only $0.99. You will learn something you didn’t know, and I outline my own publishing journey throughout the title. I also include various links to other sites that can help you. Among those links is a link back to my site’s editing and free resources tab, where you can read a multitude of articles.

You don’t need to buy my book to view those articles. They’re published right here on Vocal, but I amassed them all in one place, so be sure to check out that tab.

Thanks for reading. Think twice before giving someone your money, and just keep writing. The only way to fail is to quit trying. Good luck to you.

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About the Creator

Aaron Dennis

Creator of the Lokians SciFi series, The Adventures of Larson and Garrett, The Dragon of Time series, and more.

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