Are Book Marketing Programs Scams?
The short answer is: Not all of them.
The better question is to ask “How can I tell the difference?”
I hope by the end of this article you’ll know enough to tell the scammers on sight, and learn a few critical thinking tools to help you sort through the rest.
Let’s start by setting out what book marketers do.
Generally, they’re the people who want to insert themselves between your manuscript and publication. They take several forms.
There are those who offer services for a fee. They’ll help shape your book for publication: editing, formatting the print and ebook versions, designing the cover, and writing the ad copy. They’ll offer marketing services. They’ll handle copyrighting it. They’ll even help you place your book with movie and TV producers.
They offer their services piecemeal, or as part of a package that can reach several thousand dollars.
Then there are those who offer to teach you how to do everything I listed above. Many of them promise to help you become a best-selling author. They give advice on what makes a kick-ass cover. They sell courses on using Amazon and Facebook ads. They teach you about social media, and how to write your blurbs and ad copy. They’ll sell you books, video courses, and even one-on-one consultations.
Now, these can be very useful products and services. These can also break your heart and empty your bank account, paying for services that you never receive, or don’t give you the results you want.
How can you tell the difference between the gold standard and fool’s gold?
By thinking critically, educating yourself, and doing a little research.
Let’s start by directing you to the Writer Beware site, run by Victoria Strauss. In particular, this post from a few days ago about book marketing scams run out of the Philippines.
If you’ve never heard of Writer Beware, then bookmark it and start reading it.
After you read that post, you’ll understand the first sign that you’ve encountered a scammy service:
They call you first.
Rule one: Never deal with any salesman who calls or emails you first.
Note I said salesman. Reject them out of hand. Everyone else, listen to their pitch, but keep in the back of your mind that chances are they’ll want money from you. But who know? You may hear from the local library wanting you to join their local author festival. A reporter may have heard about your book and want an interview. It could happen.
It could also be someone representing a sketchy “book festival” wanting you to pay to play. Or it could be someone offering you a slot on a “nationwide podcast,” but you need to fork over the bucks to participate.
Apart from those rare exceptions, it’ll be someone who is trying to sell you a service. You were put on their list because you just put up a website and recently published your first book.
They won’t just call, either. They look for author websites and send you an email offering their services. I get those pitches often. I don’t respond to them.
Your response is easy: hang up. Don’t engage with them. Don’t listen to their pitch, just hang up. Your time is limited.
The logic is simple: People who are good at their jobs are swamped with work. Good cover artists and editors with a reputation are booked months in advance. Good marketing and publicity services don’t need to blind call someone who self-published their first novel. They’ve got plenty of authors knocking on their doors to pick and choose.
So if someone calls offering a publishing package, or an introduction to a Hollywood producer, hang up.
Identifying the White Hats
If you are shopping for publishing or marketing services, you have to turn on your brain and think critically about the claims and advice you’ll hear.
Years ago, a book came out that took a critical look at Wall Street.
It was called “Where Are the Customer’s Yachts?” Fred Schwed Jr., a stockbroker himself, pointed out that of everyone involved in the stock market, the only ones who got consistently rich were the brokers and advisors.
Not the investors.
It was written in 1940, and the advice still holds true today. In fact, it’s been shown again and again that investing in an index fund that matches the ups and downs of the stock market will do better than investors picking their stocks.
And whether the stocks go up or down, the businesses in the middle always make money.
There’s a similar gold rush going on in indie publishing. It seems like for every person that tries to offer clear-eyed advice on how to write, publish, and market your books, there are a dozen who promise riches if only you buy their advice.
The question is: How can you tell the difference between them? This is where thinking critically comes into play.
Recently, I listened in on a pitch promoted by a well-known name in the book marketing field. The person, call him Mr. Greene, claimed to have had great success putting authors on the bestsellers list, and he promised to share what he learned with us.
Now, I knew Mr. Greene wasn’t going to tell us everything. He was offering his free lecture to sell us on his services. That’s fine.
But I listened critically to what he was saying. I also listened to and what he wasn’t saying.
Could he get me my yacht? Or was he the only one who was going to sail away?
Here’s what I learned:
What Are His Qualifications?
Who was Mr. Greene? Where did he learn his job? Where did he work?
I don’t know. He never said. I don’t know if he worked in the book industry, if he owned a marketing business, if he earned an MBA. Nothing.
He did say that he helped authors sell millions of dollars in books. He helped put books on the bestsellers list. And he promised to help you do the same.
That’s it.
Not a good start.
So I looked him up online and researched Mr. Greene. It turns out he did have experience in the publishing industry. He started a distribution company. He wrote a book.
In other words, his silence about his background was simply an oversight.
I looked at his book. Published a few years ago, it described the publishing and distribution process. Worthwhile if you’re looking to sell your books through bookstores, but pretty basic information.
I looked inside. In the introduction, he wrote that Mark Twain self-published his books because no one else would.
That made me frown. I had researched Mark Twain’s life for my book of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Mark Twain self-published his books because he wanted to make more money at it. As publisher, he would pocket the publisher’s profits as well as author royalties. Mr. Greene was wrong.
Oops.
The book has some reviews and a decent rating, but its high Amazon ranking indicated that it wasn’t selling and not much effort has been made in promoting it lately.
The lack of a successful book in Mr. Greene’s past is not an automatic disqualifier. There are a number of reputable teachers in a similar situation.
Robert McKee is considered a creditable teacher of screenwriting, despite never writing a good screenplay.
Authors praise John Truby’s “The Anatomy of Story,” even though his greatest success was writing three (3!) scripts for the “21 Jump Street” TV show (he was also story editor on the show). He claims he served as consultant on more than unnamed 1,000 scripts, and he has a few endorsements from screenwriters and producers.
There’s another author whose courses I’ve taken and learned from.
Some people are better at teaching than doing.
Let’s just say Mr. Greene is falling behind and leave it at that.
Show Me the Yachts
Another way to tell if a person offers a valuable service is to look at his results. If a person is promising to make you a success, then you need to see a fleet of customers’ yachts.
Listen for any verifiable claims. Follow them up. Are they successes? Do the authors have real careers?
Mr. Greene mentioned about a half-dozen authors. Most of them were attached to endorsements, thanking him for getting their books into libraries, or bookstores, or for getting their sales to climb.
Of the rest, two of them got their books mentioned in magazines.
Only one saw a book reach the top of a bestseller list, thanks in part to a Bookbub promotion. The book was traditionally published, so it already had some publisher support. Still you could give Mr. Greene credit for this one.
Looking up the authors who endorsed Mr. Greene’s work showed a variety of subjects: thrillers, business self-help, young adult, and political advocacy. The books look as good as anything put out by New York, but their sales ranks were not very high.
Conclusion: Mr. Greene was a legit book marketer, but the results I saw didn’t justify the price of his services.
Are There Good Marketers?
For a look at someone who seems to offer a good service, let’s look briefly at Mark Dawson’s courses.
(Note: I have no connection to him. I listen to his Self-Publishing Show podcast and am a member of his Facebook group. I’ve never taken any of his courses.)
First, Mark Dawson is a best-selling author, currently making easily a six-figure income each year (and apparently shooting for a seven-figure 2019).
Even if you don’t believe that (and you shouldn’t believe what anyone says online, really, as a general rule), you can look at his Amazon Author Rank and see he’s moving serious numbers.
This is what I mean by critical thinking. I could claim I’m making a six-figure income. I can say anything. But if you look at my books, you’ll know instantly that I’m not a best-selling author. Mark is.
Mark offers several courses, in particular a basic one on publishing (Self Publishing 101, which costs about $500), and an in-depth one on online advertising (Ads for Authors, which I think runs about $750). They’re expensive, but far less than Mr. Greene’s service.
A quick look around online led me to this post about his Self Publishing 101 course. It’s a detailed and positive review.
I also looked at several promotional videos by authors who have taken his course, such as horror writer Christopher Coleman, historical saga writer Octavia Randolph, and romance novelist Maria Luis. Not only were they positive reviews, but they talked about how much they were earning after they took the course. A look at their books show hundreds of reviews, and Kindle ranks in about the 10,000 range (Luis’ latest novel is at #957. That’s for the entire store). Excellent results.
So that’s it. When shopping for services, look around, ask questions, think critically, and research any verifiable claims.
And write great books.