My new favorite book promotion site is Ereader News Today. The Disenchanted Pet is featured on their Kindle Daily Deal today: http://ereadernewstoday.com/kindle-daily-deal-bargain-and-free-books-for-6-17-13/6730827/ I have already sold 13 copies today, and Kindle doesn’t always show sales right away.
They have a really awesome payment plan in which they charge a percentage of your sales for the day in exchange for your posting. Every book promotion site should do this!
Please join me in Friday for the next Discovery! Starting in three days, Jun 14-25, Discover Authors will share great books. Readers, come learn about books straight from the author. Authors, come share your books and your audience for our free author-driven blog tour.
http://discoverauthors.wordpress.com
For more information on how it works: http://discoverauthors.wordpress.com/about/how-it-works/
Please join me in one week for the next Discovery! Jun 14-25, Discover Authors will share great books. Readers, come learn about books straight from the author. Authors, come share your books and your audience for our free author-driven blog tour.
http://discoverauthors.wordpress.com
For more information on how it works: http://discoverauthors.wordpress.com/about/how-it-works/
The next Discovery starts Jume 14th! That is less than 2 weeks! If you want to share your book for free, please visit the site by clicking the logo. All you have to do is post about your book and re-blog about other author’s books. Previous participating authors have gotten a lot of great exposure with the format.
**These ratings for book marketing companies are all based strictly on customer experience and opinion. This is a running list and I will be happy to add other customer opinions of book marketing companies to this list. To include your ratings, please comment on this post or email me at katepolicani@gmail (dot) com.
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I’ve been crazy busy lately! Sorry about the infrequent posts but I’m refinancing my house, doing taxes, enrolling kids in school, and other paperwork. Midwinter is also doing a number on my Coffee Equalization Coefficient. But here is an update on book promotion companies. I heard about a stinker recently and found some sites with personal testimonies, so I added those.
**These ratings for book marketing companies are all based strictly on customer experience and opinion. This is a running list and I will be happy to add other customer opinions of book marketing companies to this list. To include your ratings, please comment on this post or email me at katepolicani@gmail (dot) com.
3/7/2013
| Company Name | Type of service | Pass? | Costs | Comments |
| 99 cent Network | Listing | Fail | $45 | No obvious return for money and no visibility of book on site. No answers to emails inquiring about where to find the book |
| AtoMr Book Blog Tours | Tours, Book Buzz | Pass | $99 | Did ” an awesome job” “super happy with the results” “booked blogs that get awesome traffic and have a lot of avid readers” |
| Archway Publishing | Self-publishing, marketing, bookselling/promotion services | See author Solutions | ||
| AuthorHouse | Self-publishing, marketing, bookselling/promotion services | See Author Solutions | ||
| Author Solutions | Self-publishing, marketing, bookselling/promotion services | Fail | Additonal names: Trafford Publishing, AuthorHouse, iUniverse Inc., Xlibris,
“I simply cannot get anyone to respond to my e-mails on a book I am publishing with the company. The company says my book has already gone on sale, though they are obligated to provide me with a sizeable number of free books for my book launch – they have not and are not responding to e-mails….” |
|
| Bewitch-ing Blog Tours | Tours | Fail | “half the people who signed up didn’t post and only 3 did reviews even though it was supposed to be 15” | |
| Book-Daily | Listing | Fail | $49 | “amount of sales doesn’t seem to be worth cost” |
| Book-Whirl | SCAM | Fail | Scam Report Another Scam Report | |
| Goddess Fish Promos | Tour Reviews | Neut. | $30 | “didn’t break even” but supplied publicity |
| Inno-vative Online Book Tours / Reading Addiction | Tours, Amazon Reviews | Fail | $100 | “A big flop, didn’t follow through as they had promised” “Three blogs didn’t post at all. The ones
who did post had very low followings, and NONE of them posted their review on amazon. Lame excuses from staff.” Bloggers posted ebook giveaway when customer didn’t offer them/wrong day. The ones who did post the correct giveaway all posted separate rafflecopter forms, preventing a fair winner or forcing customer to send 20 prize packs “Hasn’t given me any sales OR amazon reviews. Stay away from them.” |
| iUniverse | Self-publishing, marketing, bookselling/promotion services | See Author Solutions | ||
| Kindle Daily Nation | Listings | Fail | $160 | “no results” (used to be great but saturated with too many books) |
| Kindle Promo Indie Book Listing Service | Tweets | Pass | £15 | “actively promotes books” |
| Nurture Your Books | Tour, Promo, Nat. Press Release | Fail | $995 | Paid for services and “nothing happened” Multiple calls and emails got no reponse. Emails to everyone in the company finally got a response and offer of the book tour but couldn’t make the other person contact me. Customer resorted to refund through the credit card company. |
| Orange-berry Summer Splash Tour | Tours | TBA | $25 | Slots at tail end of month-long tour with 99 other authors, At least one event didn’t happen, never saw promised review, Orangeberry currently compensating author with discount second tour. |
| Partners in Crime | Tours | TBA | TBA | |
| Pump Up Your Book | Tours | Fail | Ripoff Report | |
| Promo. Book Tours | Tours, Release parties | Pass x2 | Facebook Page Increased by 700 fans, Twitter increased by 450 Follows, newsletter increased by 150, “booked blogs that get awesome traffic and have a lot of avid readers” | |
| Schiel & Denver | book publishing, editing, marketing, printing, distribution | Fail | Ripoff Report
“I did not get one on one author support. I did not get a quality product. I did not get the immediate response that they promised. As a matter fact, every time I called the main line and requested to speak to a manager, they were always in a meeting and the call was never returned.” |
|
| Shades of Rose YA | Tours | Fail | $7.50, $15 | Newer company with small following, had trouble filling tours, do refund when cannot fill tour. |
| Sizzling PR | Tours | Pass -1
Fail -1 |
$15 -$75 | “Nice people and very affordable.”
“90% of the blogs were adult blogs/romance/erotica for a YA book” |
| Smith Publicity | Var. | Neut. | “Stellar results, high prices.” | |
| Trafford Publishing
*See also: Author Solutions |
Self-publishing, marketing, bookselling/promotion services | Fail -1 | See Author Solutions (Trafford was acquired by Author Solutions on April 2009.) | |
| Xlibris | Self-publishing, marketing, bookselling/promotion services | See Author Solutions |
Here are some useful Links:
http://www.authormedia.com/3-signs-of-a-publishing-scam/
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/02/happy-valentines-day-from-writer-beware.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/suwcharmananderson/2012/06/01/valuable-lessons-from-self-publishing-survey/ This was a fascinating one on what seems to work/not work for author promotion.
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The author blog-in is starting tomorrow! Sign up now to get in on the action. Feel free to share the page with your author friends too. Spread the word and widen our audience about our wonderful books!
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Thank you!
I forgot one of the contributors to my November success! I signed up for a listing on http://ereadernewstoday.com/category/free-kindle-books/ in exchange for 10% of sales. It netted me 142 sales for The Disenchanted Pet.
I’m adding them to my Book Promotion Companies list with good marks. I really like the pay in exchange for results, and they got results. I didn’t get any notification ahead of time when my book would be up, but it could have been eaten by Google’s ravenous Spam folder.
Be like Lorenzo: patronize an artist like me!
Kate Policani 
Book Cover Remix
After some good feedback from some authors, I remixed my book covers. Visit my Flickr set to see what I’ve done, and please comment below on what you think of what I have so far. I would love some specific feedback! These are not finished yet, and I’d love advice on how to improve them.