Hey. We’re diving back in.
Your job as an Indie or self published author is to put the marketing of your books in good hands. Not just any hands.
So, how do you figure out who’s who? Ever watch a fav movie of mine called The Thing from John Carpenter? Yeah. How do we tell who are people and which are “things?”
We need a test. 😉
And no, taking blood samples doesn’t quite work here…well at least not in the traditional sense…but we can do a metaphorical blood test, looking for those particles that tell us someone is outright trying to scam you, or cannot come close to what they claim they can do for you.
- It’s an ‘old’ term but it makes me laugh. Watch out for those who “butter your muffin.” 🙂 People and groups who talk you up, tell you how great your stories are represent the 1st Red Flag. It’s one thing if they’re professional about it, but if they start telling you how great of a story teller you are and how even greater you could be if you let them take on your marketing needs, you need to be careful.
- Making claims about what they can do for you. I’ve had people & “companies” tell me they can get me hundreds of reviews for a cheap investment. I’ve had others tell me they can make me the #1 search on Google. I’ve had people tell me my books will be put in front of thousands of readers. This is Red Flag#2. If you think about the time involved in any one of those boasts, and use a little common sense, you quickly see those teases are just that.
Side line time out–everything has a cost to it. Either in time or money, or both. As an author, you know it well–better than most. Costs for book covers, formatting, editing, book trailers, artwork, and fifty other things I’ve forgotten…they all cost. And if someone’s offering you something for cheap, figure out what they’re getting from it because they’re not helping you for free and if their rates are low, count on getting low quality assistance. Remember TGTBT??
3) Being offered all these things with very little details. This is Red Flag #3. “We’ll get your books in front of hundreds or thousands of readers.” How? Every time someone offers you something ask HOW are they going to achieve it. AND, ask THEM how they’re going to achieve that. If they talk in vague terms using words like “increase visibility” or “optimizing” or “building xx” and so on, those are vague terms that don’t have any value. They don’t offer concrete examples of anything. They could “increase” your sales by one book and they’ve succeeded.
Yeah.
It’s B.S. verbage that sounds great but isn’t anything you can bank on.
4) Giving you claims of how many sets of eyes they can put your book in front of. This is Red Flag #4. Do they have legitimate metrics they can show you? I can claim that I have “way over 4000 followers on Twitter and if you advertise with me, that’s 4K viewers” and we all know that’s bullshit. Sure I have that many followers, but not all of them are watching everything I post and a good portion probably never check in on me at all. They may have 10,000 subscribers on their site, but that does NOT mean all 10K are checking in every day on every new ad.
Think about it. How many emails do you get every day and how many of them do you actually click on if they don’t really grab your interest??? See what I mean?
Make them back everything up with facts you can verify.
There are more Red Flags of course, but we’ll start with those. You’re sitting there going, okay, smartass, yeah, I’ve heard all this and been approached with these tactics, but how do I make them give me the goods?
Thanks for asking 😉 Next blog we’re going to pick these things apart and I’m going to give you a cheat sheet and tools for figuring this stuff out. I’m handing out weapons and armor so you can walk onto the battlefield of marketing and kick some butt of your own.
Let’s go get ’em!
Craig