It all started with Richard and Angela Hoy's answer to a question they received about a teleseminar claiming to be able to make any author an amazon bestseller.
Apparently, even John Kremer himself, a known author and book marketer, promoted this seminar in his blog.
But Richard and Angela quickly reveal how the scam works:
You find several dozen email newsletter lists with large subscription bases. You convince the list owners to run an ad at no cost for your book. You get them to do it at the same exact time and direct all the buyers to Amazon.com to purchase the book.
...
Now, if you are successful in getting all these people to buy the book at roughly the same time, the book will pop up at the top of one of the Amazon.com bestsellers lists. Then you can claim from that time forward that your book is an "Amazon.com Bestseller".
In addition to getting the book on the bestseller list, the author also gets the email information of all the buyers somehow. I stopped reading after a while; it was right after dinner.
The article explains exactly how the scam works. For those interested in the details and how scummy this scam is, please go to the Writers Weekly site. Or here is the direct link to the actual seminar.
Categories: writing, publishing, marketing
4 comments:
That is incredibly, and truly dreadful.
Isn't it???
There are so many writers, so desperate for success (hence the abundance of self-publishers and vanity presses), it's no wonder that people would buy into this.
OTOH, with just a little effort, a writer can find a posting like this. I.e., be a grownup and research before commiting money and resources to a so-called service.
It's sad that scams exist. But we writers need to take some responsibility as well. No te dejas, Don't Let Yourself Be Taken, as they say in Spanish.
I was wondering what language that was in :)
It's funny you were talking about writers taking responsibility because I was just about to post something else on the subject (of writers taking responsibility), more from the point of view of following guidelines (it might have to wait until tomorrow though), but I totally agree obviously.
Post a Comment