Why I Ignore Emails from Book Promotion Companies

I want to tell you about the thing that made me write this article.

The ‘thing’ was an email from a company purporting to offer a book promotion service, something I always ignore. Why? Well, have a look at the following. All I have done is taken out the name of the company; the rest is copied word for word and symbol for symbol. Bear in mind, this email came from people who want me to believe they deal with literature.


*Hey- Jackson Marsh,*
*I hope that you have been enjoying your recent book "Bitter Bloodline" 

**This mail is to introduce you to our "services" of “company name” which can be used to enhance the reach of your book all over the globe.* just upload your book at *company name.*  

*We have 1 Slots  left for the next promotion in the Featured Book Category (High demanding).* *Hurry!!!! Grab your slot now.*

Eek!

Let me go through the ‘thing’ line by line *starting with* the unnecessary use of ***.

Why? What are they meant to do? Make me think, ‘Oh, that’s pretty, I’ll sign up with this lot right away.’ ? They sent me in the opposite direction before I’d read a line.

*Hey- Jackson Marsh,*
Why the dash?

*I hope that you have been enjoying your recent book “Bitter Bloodline”.*
I published Bitter Bloodline in November 2019, and why should I be enjoying it? Yes, it’s a good read, but I don’t sit around reading my own work three years after I wrote it.
(note from PA, it is a great read but please start with Deviant Desire and work your way through the series to get the very best out of Jackson’s writing)

*This mail is to introduce you to our “services” of “company name

which can be used to enhance the reach of your book all over the globe.*

What are these “services”? Putting any word in quotes that isn’t a quote makes me feel the word doesn’t represent the thing it actually is. For want of a better way of putting it, wrapping a word in quotes makes the word feel pretend. So, “Services” aren’t really services, they’re a sham because this email (not mail btw) is a scam. I’m not sure about enhance the reach of either. My books have heart, but they don’t have arms.

*If You like to register your book on our web portal for more than one year
just upload your book at *company name.*

A few pedantic points here:

If You… why the capital letter? If You like… Where’s the would? … upload your book at… TO. Upload my book TO your spurious web ‘portal’ which, I assume, will send it whizzing off through time and space to land on another planet. Or, more likely, on a pirate website where twats steal authors’ work and give them away, or worse, sell them and make money from other people’s hard graft.

*We have 1 Slots…

See above regarding unnecessary asterixis and inappropriate capital letters, and while you’re about it, take note that we always write numbers from one to ten as words, with ten/10 being optional. One slot, by the way, is singular. 1 Slots, or even one slots is just plain wrong.

…for the next promotion in the Featured Book Category (High demanding).*

You certainly are. What does High demanding mean? Why the stray capital letter? Why is it in brackets?

*Hurry!!!!

Don’t get me started on the use of the exclamation mark, let alone four.

Four!

Grab your slot now.*

Don’t be so personal.

I mean, honestly. Are we supposed to take this kind of thing seriously? It’s as if I received a letter from the child-catcher from Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang offering to look after my offspring for a day. Or, worse, an email from the UK Tory party asking me to trust them and promising to improve my quality of life.

The message here is simple:

Ignore Emails from Book Promotion Companies

unless it’s a company you know, one that someone you trust has recommended, or one you have researched and found for yourself. Otherwise, offers such as these will only lead to your work being pirated and sold with no income coming to you.

Trustworthy Book Promotion Companies

I use two and have no qualms about using them.

The first is All Author, where you can list your books, grab promotional tools, make memes and gifs, have an interview, pay a little extra for a front-page promotion and other handy things. It’s also a good place for readers to find authors.

As is the second place I use, Queer Romance Ink which is run by the same guys as Other World Ink. OWI does my book layouts for me, and they offer many other author services at affordable prices such as blog tours and reviews.

If you are going to promote your books, I highly recommend those sites, and even more highly recommend you never consider replying to an email from a company offering *“Services!!!!”* Especially those that tell you to grab your slot.

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