Promotion Offers
I was recently contacted by Authorhouse, (my publisher), with the following offer:
_____________________________________________________
Reach up to 10,000,000 potential book buyers with our
new E-mail Marketing Campaign service!
Dear Robin,
We’re celebrating the launch of a new Web site and new packages! Now, it’s time for you to celebrate the introduction of our new marketing service, E-mail Marketing Campaigns.
An e-mail marketing campaign allows you to reach a substantial number of potential book buyers quickly and efficiently. Our campaigns are designed to help you reach as many as 10 million recipients. You have the option to either promote your book individually, or through a more cost-effective shared campaign.
Here’s how it works:
* We will create a list of opted-in e-mail recipients for your e-mail, and send it on your behalf.
* A professional, creative team will write and design a customized e-mail for your book. An engaging subject line, book cover image, and description of your book are used in a way to catch the attention of the recipient.
* A click-through link for book ordering is integrated into the e-mail to our bookstore or your personal Web site.
* You will receive a report within a week following the e-mail launch that details: number of e-mails sent, number of e-mails that were opened, and number of people who clicked through to the Web page link you selected.
Call today to find out more about how our E-mail Marketing Campaigns can work for you or visit our Web site to learn more.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Bookseller, Director of Marketing
____________________________________________
As a Class A sucker, I felt obligated to explore this further. How much money can I flush down the toilet? Inquiring minds want to know. Here’s what I saw when I clicked on the link:
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An e-mail marketing campaign allows you to reach a substantial number of potential book buyers quickly and efficiently. For AuthorHouse authors, our campaigns are designed to help you reach as many as 10 million recipients. You have the option to either promote your book individually, or through a more cost-effective shared campaign.
Personalized E-mail Marketing Campaign
E-mail Recipient List: Quantity 200,000 | 500,000 | 1 million | 2 million | 3 million | 5 million | 10 million
Shared E-mail Marketing Campaign
E-mail Recipient List: Quantity 200,000 | 500,000 | 1 million | 2 million | 3 million | 5 million | 10 million
____________________________________________
Now, they started the original communication with “Dear Robin”, so I know they really like me. We’re like one big happy family, and they’re the needy and annoying sibling who is always asking for a loan.
I mock this communication, but don’t think I’m not tempted. How the heck did they get 10 million people to agree to get their e mails? If even a portion of this amount of people went to my book website, it would be incredible. Could this be a good opportunity, or only one more way to separate me from my hard earned cash? Mark my words: I’ll stew on it for awhile, and then I’ll do it. I’m doomed.
zoewinters
Moriah Jovan
R.J. Keller
robinaltman
Evangeline Holland
alanbaxter
Robin, I love these types of investigations and perhaps the eventual debunking of the scheme. Certainly, be careful. I imagine your email would come from a source that isn’t in the US and doesn’t have certain business requirements. I also would imagine it would be spam.
Ara
You don’t really want to spam people, do you, Robin?
And I thought this was funny:
“A professional, creative team will write and design a customized e-mail for your book. An engaging subject line, book cover image, and description of your book are used in a way to catch the attention of the recipient.”
So are they more professional, creative, and better writers than you? God forbid that you, a writer yourself, should write your own spam email.
You know, judging from the success of the Nigerian 419 scams, I’d say that clear, careful writing isn’t a requirement for getting people to respond to an unsolicited email.
Ara: It was from Authorhouse, and sent out to all their authors. I recognize the name on the e mail, as one of the marketing people who nag me all the time, so it’s from the company that publishes my book. They’ve come up with different products to “sell” as marketing packages to their authors to squeeze more money out of us.
JM: I thought the part about professional writing was funny, also.
You’re right. It’s a form of spam. And no, I don’t want to send out spam either individually or as a group effort. Yet they specify “these people agreed to receive e mails”. I have a sneaking suspicion that “these people” include me, and are the authors, themselves. If that’s so, we are marketing our books to fellow writers.
Robin,
OK. That makes it a little less frightening. But, how do you know they don’t outsource this marketing effort? In fact, I’d guess that they do.
Ara: You’re right! I never thought of that. Yet, I must admit that I’ve never really sold many more books from the legitimate publicity stuff I’ve invested in. Perhaps it’s time to invest in the illegitimate. Kidding, (I think).
My next plan is to try to get Toys R Us to sell my book at the register to help people understand childhood psychiatric illness. Toys R Us doing a good deed while selling my book. I can dream, can’t I?
For what it is worth, I would first google “Authorhouse email marketing scam” to try and generate some negative comments for you to read. I do this all the time when reviewing a product; like “Kenmore washing machine sucks” or a move, like “Iran Documentary Historically Inaccurate” (I’m making this up, but you get the point). I don’t put more stock in the negative than the positive, but at least I can generate counter opinions, sometimes very informative ones.
As per you at Toys R Us, etc. ROBIN, I see you as highly marketable! I wish I had your kind of niche. Obviously, by your comments regarding legitimate publicity stuff, you’ve put some efforts into the traditional marketing arena. I imagine you will keep refining your efforts.
Perhaps if you strayed from marketing your book, and made YOU the namebrand to market. You should be popping up all over the news, commenting on anything remotely related to your expertise. You book would be the contingent product to market. Have you thought of a publicist? You need media exposure to distance yourself from others in your field.
Ara
Woohoo, do you know they pay writers to write spam (sorry I mean ‘email marketing campaigns’)? It’s an opportunity.
Ara: Thanks for your encouragement! I’m frequently told how marketable I am, but it’s not panning out that way. My niche is so bizarre that no one seems very interested. It’s beyond a niche. It’s more like a personal orbital ring around Saturn.
I actually do have a publicist. She’s great and totally adorable, but nothing has really panned out in that arena yet. You’ve inspired me to start answering reporter queries again.
You guys have really helped me say “no” to useless marketing offers. You’d rock at an AA meeting.
Paul: If you have a gun at home, could you travel to Pennsylvania and shoot me?
In all honesty, I’ll admit that I too have been tempted by the siren song of spam marketing. Studies have shown, though, that only a very, very small percentage of those who receive unsolicited emails respond by purchasing the product listed. The question I asked myself, then, was this: if I send out a million emails, is the 50-100 sales that I might make worth annoying 999,950 other people? I decided that it wasn’t.
This is a great story about how a neuroscientist from Harvard self-published and after like 10 months managed to get picked up by a major publishing company. She wrote “Still Alice,” an amazing book about Alzheimer’s Disease.
Anyway, here’s the link to the post.
http://www.stillalice.blogspot.com/
I’m a sucker for salemen, or sales letters, or phone calls…I’m just a sucker. I’d do it too.
-FringeGirl
JM: That’s a very logical way to look at it. To tell you the truth, the moment you called it “spam” and it became “spam” in my mind, the offer looked a lot sleazier. The bloom is off the rose. (In a good way.)
Domestic: The “Still Alice” story is way cool.
I am a sucker for any scheme. When I’m an old lady, all my money will be with some criminal in Nicaragua. Maybe I should just donate my money to criminals when I turn 75 just to save them the trouble of trying to coax it out of me.
Okay, well they say it is an “opt in” list. maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. The only way to be completely safe is to build your own list so you KNOW it’s actually opt in and people aren’t getting spam. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s fair to just assume that it “must” be some kind of scam and these people can’t “really” be opted-in. (And yes, it may be all authorhouse authors, who knows really?)
Tons of people opt in for all kinds of emails, and this company may have a legitimate newsletter of which advertising like this is a small part of it. I subscribe to a free newsletter that has lots of industry news and tips and also lots of ads. I’ve opted in to receive this and I would bet that this particular person has a LARGE subscriber base.
And to answer the question before it’s asked, since I’ve been subscribed to this newsletter for so long, yes, I would consider buying something advertised in it, at least checking it out further. A customer hearing about a product or service isn’t the only step, but it is the first step.
So who are we to assume that there must be something “off” about it? Want to know how you can find out? Find out the newsletter itself that these people are subscribed to and subscribe to it yourself. (If Authorhouse won’t release this information to you then what they are doing isn’t legit. It’s standard practice for an advertiser to see what they are advertising in and to be able to subscribe to said thing themselves.) Then you can see for yourself first hand how they handle ads and how easy it is to opt in and out.
If you sign up and watch it and it seems above boards, and then you opt out of the newsletter and they actually do remove you from the list, then it’s a legit opportunity. All email marketing isn’t slimey. Please let’s keep that in perspective.
I understand we have to be careful to avoid scams, but there is a thin line between careful and paranoid. And also a thin line between cautiously warning someone and libel/slander.
You can’t say something is a scam if you don’t know for a fact that it is. (And I know you aren’t necessarily saying that, Robin.)
In a related topic, email marketing to an opt-in list newsletter isn’t a bad idea, though even if this is legit it’s probably like throwing a needle at a bulls eye 30 meters across the room.
The best way, IMO, of taking advantage of something like this would be to find free informational email newsletters that deal with the issues your book does, find out if they accept advertising, and how large their opt-in list is, and then go from there. Then while the percentage of actual responses may not be gigantic, your conversion rate will be much higher than it would be in a completely generic newsletter.
Zoe, really helpful comments – thanks! I’m sort of nervous about becoming “Robin the Spam Queen”, so I’m unlikely to go with Authorhouse on this one, but your idea about getting on that “approved list” was awesome. I’m going to do it, to check it out.
I love your idea about advertising on reading sources more directed towards the demographic I’d like to target. I’m going to look at that possibility right away.
I’m glad it was helpful! And I don’t blame you about being afraid of becoming “Robin the Spam Queen.” No one wants to be the queen of Spam. Even the kind you eat isn’t all that appealing.