Golden Box Book Publishing March, 2017 | Page 24

MARKETING SERVICES

Well established book marketing services are effective. Their team of experts work tirelessly on promoting books to readers, book stores, and they use effective methods. They help the authors to write catchy blurbs and teasers, they create professional book trailers, they promote the books in newsletters, newspapers and so on.

The truth:

We did some research and the sad truth is that very few authors can afford this kind of service. Some sites charge $2,000 a month, others charge even more. The majority of the great, yet undiscovered authors don't even make that much money a month with their regular, full time jobs, and the money they make goes to support their families. They write in their free time because they're talented and passionate about writing. Therefore, this effective book marketing option is open only to a fe authors who can afford it.

MORE AFFORDABLE PROMO SERVICES

Most promo services that charge less, usually advertise their services on flashy websites and promise great results. But, the experience of many authors prove that these promo services only give you the false security that your book is well promoted. The promoters are posting books in 600 Facebook groups and tweet ten times a day about your book. Looks good, doesn't it? Wow, your book is seen by tens of thousands of readers, and your links shared and retweeted by many.

The truth:

Usually, these promoters have a group of people who set up automatic retweets for the posts, so when you see that the tweet about your book is shared and retweeted by a bunch of people, you feel satisfied.

The sad truth:

Their proudly displayed 5-10,000 followers are mostly fake profiles, hundreds of them are popping up every day and the fake profiles are only used to follow the people on the list they get from the promoters who pay them. Thousands of followers could be bought with a few dollars and those are just numbers. The so-called followers are mostly from India and China. They're paid a few cents to follow authors and they will never look at your book posts.

AUTHOR SELF-PROMO ON SOCIAL SITES

You might feel satisfied when you post your book in hundreds of Facebook groups with thousands of group members. You think that out of 10,000 group members your book post will be seen by at least 10% and that will generate lots of sales.