WRITERS & SCAMMERS – REVIEW PURVEYORS…
Looks like there was some unfinished business in last week’s piece…too much for a single additional blog, so let me take it one subject at a time. Let’s settle, this week, on a relatively quick discussion regarding book reviews and their purported suppliers, the review purveyor.
Anyone who publishes (whether through a NY Trade house, or via the self-published, POD route) comes to the realization that their book must be reviewed many times, and each time as well as possible. I don’t speak for authors published by major Trade Publishers, but am assuming their publishers have made arrangements to have their books reviewed in venues such as the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Poets and Writers, etc. This may NOT always happen; I have been told that, in some cases, the author has been called upon to assist in lining up reviews for his or her book. Should the reviews disappoint, or the cover, title and edited contents not enthuse the publisher’s marketing & sales department, money and effort earmarked for the promotion of that book may be applied elsewhere. The author is deprived of a sincere sales effort by the company’s distribution arm; book tour and advertising money is diverted. What else might set off this ugly chain of events? Perhaps a block-buster book by a certain celeb. needs a greater initial push (if only to recover a huge advance). Suddenly, a chill wind is felt – you are left very much alone. At publishing conferences, I’ve heard several such stories directly related by the victims.
Unfortunately, this is similar to the spot you may find find yourself in should you decide to self-publish. It matters little who you’ve selected as the publisher, nor if you decided to produce the book yourself. And I don’t care what you are told by any POD publisher; their vaunted promo package, which seemed so alluring and exciting, will in the great scheme of things, probably turn out to be totally inadequate. The real promo and the bulk of the reviews rest solely on your shoulders.
In this situation, as a first-time self-published author, what will you do to contain the damage? The realization hits you, right at pub. date, with books rolling off the press, that what you should have done and failed to do about a year prior to setting that pub. date has gone critical at launch time. Your newly published book will just sit there without anyone touting it. Friends and relations, along with some hastily arranged local promo and signings may stir up some brief excitement.
How about a putting your book up on its own Amazon sales page? Certainly, you should. But your Amazon page nestles amongst MILLIONS of other authors’ sales pages. (And every year 500,000 more newly published books hit the market, a good portion of them creating more Amazon sales pages.) There is a spot on each Amazon page for reader reviews, and you should promptly solicit all the qualified (friends, professionals, etc) reader reviews you can possibly obtain. That’s one key way to make your Amazon page visible. Social networking on Twitter and Facebook with references to your new book can help. A blog of your own, with regular postings relating to your book’s topic or to the book’s general readership, over the course of a year will draw additional attention to your Amazon page.
Review-related spam abounds on the net. For something less than $200, a number of services will post the name of your book on a regular flyer they transmit to review services. Because you have no such list, you fall for it – and this, in my opinion, rates as a scam. You are removed from direct contact with the reviewing party. How do you land a review without a personal plea to the potential reviewer? And how about the timing? You must line up a reviewer at least 6 months before your pub. date. It takes time for any reviewer to examine the book and decide whether they will commit to reading, then reviewing your work.
Dirtiest of all are the scammers who claim they will do it all for you if you remit them, say $600, and 50 or so new books (gratis) for circulation among their numerous review contacts. That done, they infer that at least a dozen prime reviews will come sailing in. They stir up your hopes, citing names like Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Library Journal, and ALA Booklist. Do they send your books there? Maybe…maybe not. Upon receiving such unsolicited books, name news organizations offer these “gifts” not to their overloaded star reviewers (already back-logged with material from major Trade Publishers) but to resellers. Imagine your surprise when you see what has to be the beginning of your “gratis” books offered for sale by “associate retailers” as “used; but like new” on your own Amazon sales page – at prices far below your book’s retail price. And, really, what’s to prevent the scam purveyor from coining a phony reseller identity, bypassing all but a few reviewers they know will bang out a so-so review to keep you happy, and lo-balling the bulk of your “gratis” books directly on your own Amazon site? Neat stuff, eh?
Okay, the only way to beat this scam is with hard work. Query GOOGLE for reviewer names and lists. You can also purchase reviewer names from “the dean of self-publishing,” at Para Publishing, Dan Poynter. Dan has any number of unique and up-to-date lists designed to assist self-publishers. I know and trust Dan Poynter and make no money from this recommendation.
So, summing it up: start your reviewer work a year to six months ahead, and make the contacts yourself from your own lists. Send out the books yourself, and send them only to qualified reviewers who agree to work with you. That’s it. Good luck.
