How to Hire a Book Marketing Team Without Getting Burned

“Make you a bestseller.” It’s the loudest promise in book marketing—and often the least meaningful.

In this episode, we break down how to distinguish real strategy from fear-based selling, AI-polished outreach, and high-pressure tactics designed to close a sale rather than build a career. From alarming emails about “missing metadata” to vague guarantees and unusual payment demands, we explain what’s legitimate, what’s inflated, and what’s simply noise.

Then we shift to what actually compounds.

We walk through the foundational elements of sustainable book marketing: an optimized Amazon retail page, intentional category and keyword strategy, a reader-focused website, an email list you control, and targeted outreach to reviewers, influencers, and podcasters who genuinely reach your audience. You’ll hear why one-off promotional blasts rarely build traction, how to evaluate podcast quality beyond download numbers, and what meaningful preparation looks like before any pitch goes out.

We also unpack the proposal details that matter: specific deliverables, realistic timelines, strategic positioning, and measurable outcomes rooted in discoverability—not guaranteed sales. A professional team should explain the “why” behind every tactic and connect today’s work to results you can still benefit from months later.

Finally, we talk author readiness. What should you own yourself? How should you think about ROI without chasing instant payoff? And if your budget is limited, where does your money work hardest?

If you want to avoid scams, invest wisely, and choose partners who assess your book instead of selling you fear, this episode gives you a clear, practical framework.

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Transcript

Why Scams Are Rising In Author Marketing

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast. This is Penny Sansaveri and Amy Cornell. And we are, we, you know, we always say this when we start a show. We're really excited about this episode in particular. Um and I know we again we say we say that a lot because we really we love doing this show. And I gotta tell you, we love the feedback that we're getting. Um, we get a ton of listener questions, and we will answer them, we'll try to answer them in one in every episode. But when we were in the green room, Amy was telling me, she says, you know, when we get really long-winded on episode episodes, which I know sometimes we do, then we'll have to punt the question because we don't expect you to sit with us for 40 minutes and then another 10 minutes to answer a question. So, but we will we will pepper them in at the end of the show. So definitely be listening for your question because we get a ton of them. So we're very excited about that. This show was actually Amy's idea. Um, we did a publisher vetting episode last year, and I want to say it was halfway through the year.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Um popular. You what? It was super popular. I mean, I think we have at least a couple reviews like for the podcast, if not more, that mention that show specifically.

Fear Tactics And Technical Jargon Exposed

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, people really loved it. And we actually may want to do an updated version of that show sometime later on this year, just because we I continue to be amazed and surprised and horrified at some of the things that authors come to us with when it when it's to there are a lot of great publishers out there, but there are also a lot of them that are masquerading as not great publishers. Um, but it is a major blind spot, I think, in author decision making. And unfortunately, the same exists in marketing. And I'll tell you something, one of the other reasons why we wanted to do this episode, and this is where I know sometimes that I I was telling Amy again in the green room, I was re-listening to an episode, and I'm like, oh my gosh, sometimes I sound like an auctioneer on these podcasts, and I talk so fast, mostly because we get really excited, um, or um we have very strong feelings about something, and then I just I just ramble because there is so much that really gets me very angry. And one of them is with you know, there's always been a lot of author scams out there. That is unfortunate for this industry. I wish it would go away, but I don't it's not going to. And now with AI, it has made it so much easier for these people to masquerade as marketing people. And Amy, can you share the example that you the we talked about in the green room? Because I was like, just, you know what? Put a fork in me, I'm done. Like, I just don't even get it anymore. Makes me so mad.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, it was pretty scary. I mean, I read through the email and doing what we do, it was pretty clear to me that it was a lot of blowing smoke, but they did a really good job at kind of leaning into the uncertainty and kind of the fear behind not doing everything right. And this email outlined, oh, you don't have keywords here and you're not doing this, and your metadata is missing that. And it was a lot of very, a lot of technical stuff, a lot of technical industry publishing stuff. And then of course, the author kind of just glazed over and was like, oh my gosh, am I not doing all of these things? Because and so I'm glad they wrote to me and I was like, I yes, you are doing all the right things, not to toot our own horn, but I'm gonna do it. A lot of what was mentioned is work that we did with her specifically. So I know for a fact that she's covered in those areas, but the email was very convincing in terms of making the author think that there were all these opportunities that she was missing out on, and that's why she needed to reply to that email and you know, pay the fee and all the you know, scandalous things these scammers try to pull over there, you know, pull off.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Yeah. It's really awful. I mean, it's kind of like anything, like fear sells, right? So, you know, whether you're whether you're marketing your book or you're buying a car. I mean, like, uh huh. Well, you don't want the wheels to fall off of your car in a week, do you?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Well, like, well, right, you get that extra expensive oil, damn it.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, because heaven forbid, right? It's like, well, it's a brand new car. The wheels technically shouldn't fall off, but because I'm so scared now, I'm gonna buy that extra insurance, which is gonna cost me$300 a year. It's the same, you know, it's the same kind of thing. It's fear cell. So that's another reason why we wanted to do this episode. And also because, I mean, frankly, Amy, you mentioned this to me. We get a lot of emails from people who listen to the podcast and have listened ever since we started doing it six years ago, who don't really know what we do, right? I know.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

I was I was a little surprised, but at the same time, I was like, okay, then this is a great idea for a show. But yeah, we do get a lot of people that write in that are very that's very cool. They compliment the show. And but a lot, I think there's a lot of assumptions out there that because of how our podcast is structured, that we do a lot of coaching, consulting, guiding, but not actual, not a lot of actual hands-on marketing execution, which is not true. We do a lot of hands-on stuff, and so maybe I need to do more shameless plugs because I usually am like, no, that's not fair. I shouldn't just, you know, cram what we do down everyone's throats. But maybe we're just not, you know, maybe we need to do a little bit more of it and just be be, you know, direct with people when we can help out, because that's, you know, that's we love that, honestly. Like I think a lot of people would be surprised too that you and I both have our hands in campaigns, you know, that we're not in email and on the phone all day or just recording the podcasts. We're actually hands-on in the marketing execution. Like it's it's it's definitely, I think, unique for our team that you and I are both so involved as we are.

Strategy Over Short Bursts

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, yeah. It very much is unique. Yeah, no, we're not sitting in our dressing rooms all day preparing for um our next episode, getting our hair and makeup done. Don't, don't we, don't we wish? Um, so uh, so I think, I mean, so let's start with the so let's start with the way the industry is right now. And I think aside from, I mean, we are gonna talk about the scammers, and obviously this whole episode is designed to help you pick, whether it's us or another company, I mean, to help you pick the marketing services that are right for you. Because at the end of the day, we want you to make good choices. And I think, you know, if you do a quick search for book marketing services on Google, I mean, you get thousands of provide providers from PR firms to Fiverr freelancers. And by the way, this is just as a sidebar. I was getting, I was telling my CPA, I'm like, you better hurry up with my taxes because Fiverr's now doing taxes. So if I want to be in jail by Friday, I'm gonna hire somebody on Fiverr to do my taxes. It's pretty funny. Um, but yeah, I mean, you can find all kinds of people that have gotten into this industry, whether, you know, or have been around for a while or whatever. I mean, a search for book marketing services online is insane. And unfortunately, there's a really low barrier to entry. Right. Yeah. So you can have people who are offering book marketing services who literally have no experience marketing a book, which again makes me, you know, it makes us both kind of crazy. So I think that um, you know, the overwhelmed by options. And then I and then, you know, authors, when authors get burned, and we hear unfortunately, it makes me really, really bums me out. We hear this a lot, where authors have gotten burned out on doing book marketing that wasn't was never meant out of the box to be effective, right? Right. So they are they're like a one-time publicity blast, right? Which let me just leave you with this thought. Short-term spikes do not build author careers, only compounding visibility does. So if your first, you know, the first checks and balances is a one-time blast. Walk, don't you know, run, don't walk away from something like that. Yeah. Um, you know, doing paid ads, look, I'm a huge fan of doing Amazon ads, but I think that um a lot of times authors think that you know the the place to be is going to be in social media in terms of selling books, which I I can understand why they would think that, because you can, I mean, look, Instagram, it seems like it has become one big ad, right? I'm really literally just on Instagram for the memes. I'm not there for any other reason, and I continually get blasted, you know, with you know, with ads. And I think because of that, a lot of times authors think, well, I have to I have to advertise on social media, and I'm not 10,000 opposed to that, but it it's not the single factor that's gonna help you to where you want to go. So um so these one off, you know, traffic without, you know, getting traffic without correct positioning is is really just noise. I mean, Amy, feel free to to throw in your ideas because I know we have we both have very strong feelings about that.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah, I think when authors come to us and they've especially when they've hired a team previously and either not a lot happened, or maybe they've just never worked with anybody yet, they've tried it on their own, like for all of those reasons. I think one thing that tends to happen a lot is that there's a lot of busy work without a any without a lot of tangible improvements that they can actually take with them. And we talk about that a lot. Like, you know, when we talk about developing new programs, new strategies, when we build campaigns for clients, we really value what the author gets to walk away with. You know what I mean? Like some things are inherently more risky, you know, like media pitching, things like that you only have so much control over. But we are very careful to ensure that our clients get a balance of actual, you know, concrete improvements, enhancements, something that they can look at six months from now, something that's going to benefit them two months from now. You know what I mean? So I think that's really important too. Like, granted, it's your money, do what you want. But at the end of the day, there are a lot of companies out there that, like Penny said, that are selling a lot of short burst. It sounds really good. They lean into, you know, those goals you have for instant success. But then once you're done, you've spent a bunch of money and don't really have a lot to show for it other than your receipt.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Right. But and part of the issue is is so, so like that email that you mentioned at the beginning of the show, right? So these authors get peppered with these statistics, like, oh, we're gonna send. So years ago, um, and I'm just gonna take my DeLorean and go back in time a little bit, because years ago there was a fax blast program, right? Where publisher, like, so marketing firms within self-publishing companies at that time, it was Author House, now it's Author Solutions, which as we know is was not a great, they don't have a lot of great history, but they would fax blast like a thousand journalists with your press release. Okay, it sounds impressive, right? And every time, you know, authors hear the word press release and they think, oh my gosh, that's great. Um so that's that's kind of similar to what you mentioned about the author who got the email about here are the 90 things that you're doing wrong on Amazon. There is it's tactical without strategy, right? So there's no strategy, first off. I and I talked to some of the journalists I remember around that time, and there were there were journalists from like car and driver getting press releases on newly released romance novels. So right.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

So not the impression you want to be making.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

It's not the impression you want to be making it because it's all you know, everything is part of your reputation. But but the other reason that I mentioned it is because don't be don't be influenced by noise, right? Don't be influenced by numbers, like, oh, we're gonna do a thousand or five hundred or ten thousand or whatever, because spray and prey doesn't is not a marketing, it's it's not a it's not a marketing strategy, right? Where you spray a whole bunch of stuff up against the wall and you hope that some of it sticks.

Spray And Pray Is Not A Plan

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Okay. Right. And should we should we run through the vetting criteria real quick, like the higher level points? Uh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because these ones I think really are, and I will say, and I obviously just speaking from out the old our own processes and things like that, there's a lot for what it's worth when you when you start to talk to a marketing firm, there's a lot that you information that you can get through what they offer. So for example, when people first come to us, our priority is learning about your book, figuring out what your goals are, things like that. And then a lot of what we actually recommend and what we feel will work for you and benefit you is woven into the proposal that we would build. So for what it's worth, you know, I can say from experience, when you first start talking to a team, if you send them a list of 20 questions you expect them to answer on the first email, they probably won't do that. No offense. But you can learn a lot, but if but understand, check out their website, check out their philosophy, see how they approach things, let them give you a proposal, read through that carefully because a lot of what we do, we do explain through our strategies, justifications, things like that. And you you learn a lot about us by getting by reading through our proposal as well, in addition to our website, our FAQs, things like that. But for what it's worth, I want to say, like, I just wanted to point out that it's worth vetting different points and different elements of what they provide you and not just the surface level, you know, like, well, they didn't tell me about, they didn't give me a full market analysis on my first email. So I don't know if they're the right fit. That's probably not gonna happen if we're being realistic, right, Penny?

SPEAKER_01 14:58

No, that's very true. But I mean, what what you point out. So whenever I talk to authors and and I, you know, I get on the bow with them and they say, well, I hired a marketing company and I wasn't happy with them, or I'm considering another marketing company along with yours. And sometimes authors hire two or three companies just because for whatever reason, like maybe they want somebody that specializes in something that we don't do, for example, right? And one of the recurring themes that comes up in these conversations is there is, and I know we're we're definitely gonna get to that, but but there is a nebulous nature to basically everything that so there's a serious lack of specificity in their proposal, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yada yada, not a lot of this is what you get.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Not a lot of the, but but also it's not there's not a lot of of market focus. So is the positioning right? What's you know, where are the pitches, you know, not necessarily who the pitches are going to, because like we vet our pitch list on top of the campaign, meaning that if you get on the phone with me and your book is out in three months, I can't tell you off the top of my head who we're gonna pitch, right? Because we want to make sure we want to make sure that they're still taking books and that they're you know open to pitches or whatever. A lot of things can happen between what their content plan has looked like. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. But I think that a good marketing company is gonna care about um, they're gonna, they're gonna want to be specific because the other reason that you don't, you know, it's just a bad business plan not to be specific in your deliverables because then you as an author can come back to that company and say, well, you know, you weren't specific, and then you're all you're everybody's making assumptions in terms of where these pitches are going to. And you're gonna have a lot of really unhappy authors because the author has with the cookbook thought that you were actually gonna pitch people about cooking, right? When in fact, for example, the publicity firm pitched something that was really unrelated and unsupportive of the author's career or their brand. Like to car and driver. The car and like the facts go in a car and driver, right? That's exactly right. And it actually happens, it happens all the time. It happens all the time. But the other piece that I want to say too is that you have to get everything in writing. So, so I had a gal contact me, and I think I shared this with you in the beginning, and this was probably like, I don't know, six months ago. And she sounded great, but again, they can all sound like they're like, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna put this out there. They can all sound like they're like native English speakers, right? Email sounded great, could have been AI, could have been legit, but I thought, you know, I'm just gonna find out. So her email to me was, we're gonna get you tons of reviews. It's gonna be super exciting, we're gonna be great, we're gonna get you a ton of reviews. So I forwarded it over to Amy and I'm like, well, you know, I'm just gonna see what she says, just out of curiosity. So the further that we get down the road, the more that I realized that a ton of reviews was really just basically it was a branding statement for her. There was no number attached to it because as you started, as I started to dig into this with her, well, we can't really promise a number because blah, blah. Okay. So I I get that in many cases, like Amy mentioned about national media, right? You cannot guarantee people are going to be on all the morning shows and all the this and all the that, unless you're buying ad space, right? But you have to get as specific as you can. You have to get as many specifics in writing as is reasonably possible. And if they can give you specifics, like for example, if somebody says to me, if we do this book marketing campaign with you, how many books am I gonna sell? And basically, I get a if you've listened to the podcast for any length of time, you know that you're gonna get a blank stare from me. And I'm gonna say we can't promise book sales, like full stop. Nobody can promise book sales. That's another thing. If the company is, you know, if they're promising book sales, run as fast as you can. Because the fine prints probably in the contract, you know, if you're lucky to get a contract, because a lot of times they don't even have a contract, they just say, send me Bitcoin. Right? It's the cra I mean, it's just it's the it's such a crazy thing.

Reading Proposals For Real Deliverables

SPEAKER_00 19:46

But yeah, to your point about specifics, like they they should be talking about your long-term career. And I think that's that's an area that gets lost a lot because again, a lot of these companies hate to say it, but they do, they prey on kind of the big, higher level hopes and dreams that everybody has of finally breaking it out and hitting that big bestseller list and all that stuff. And so they use language that kind of plays to that. But if they're not talking about long-term and they're only talking about what they're gonna do in the next, you know, couple of weeks and what you can achieve in that period of time, they're not that's not working in your best favor. You know, you you need somebody that is talking about how what they would like to do for you will help your long-term author career. Because I would like to assume most of you listening, you plan to do this more than once. And even if you only plan to do it once, you hope your book sells for more than two or three months, right? You want that moment to continue, and that really matters. And like Penny said, positioning and strategy, absolutely important. There needs to be some strategy behind it. They shouldn't just be throwing a bunch of things at you, like we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. Why? What's the reason? What's the goal behind doing that? How will that benefit you? There should be clear language that tells you why what they want to do makes sense for your book, your goals, things like that. Those kind of details absolutely matter. And then platform and brand development. I mean, again, that kind of I, you know, I think that kind of ties into the long term. But like Penny said, if they're just, you know, showing you a bunch of big flashy numbers and we're gonna pitch a thousand people and we're gonna do this, that is not your platform and brand. That is here and gone in a few days. You know what I mean? Like there are some things that are, they don't last. So you want to go with a team. Unless you just have a bunch of money to blow, then you do you. But a lot of times you want to make sure that some of what you're investing in is going to stick around after the campaign is over. There will be something to show for what happened that is actually within their control. Like Penny said, sales not within our control. Whether or not every podcast we pitch wants to interview you, you know, much to our chagrin, also not within our control. But how we can help your Amazon presence, how we can help bolster your brand. And those are within our control. And those are things you walk away with. When I mentioned that before, we are very much about balancing things that get your book attention, but also things that you will walk away with that you can continue to use down the line that will support your book in all of your goals.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Right. And I think that we don't talk about this enough in book marketing is what are you doing that's helping your to compound your assets? Right. So compounding assets might be like email lists, um, helping to optimize your website. We don't design, I mean, we do design uh websites, but in terms of when I say optimizing websites, we're talking about making your website such that it's, you know, reader-friendly and giving you some feedback there and creating evergreen um media slash influencer slash reviewer relationships, strong Amazon retail pages. Compounding assets are something that we just, I mean, it's sounds a little bit like banking and math, but it's something that we don't really talk enough about in book marketing because so many times the flash is seems on the surface more attractive than the substance, which is actually the thing that will get you from point A to point Z, which is you know, obviously where you know where you where you need to be. So um I think that's you know, again, the nebulous, nebulous language, you know, one day adverse. And the other piece of it though, too, is that I think you know, um podcasting, and I just felt like I need to mention this because podcasting has become a very popular tactic for pitching. And I'm a huge fan of that. But and I'm pretty sure we did an entire show on this, Amy. I don't know if it's been recent, about pitching yourself to podcasts. And I'm actually writing a chapter um in the re revamp of Five Minute Book Marketing for Authors about, you know, getting on, you know, getting yourself on podcasts. And and I think that I talked to an author two weeks ago, and she said that she hired a company just to pitch her to podcasts, and she wound up on all these random shows. And when she finally looked at one of the show's metrics, because she really just she when you when you're hiring an expert, you expect them to do their job. And in this case, that was obviously not happening. She went to look at this one show, and they had they had only been on the air for, I don't know, uh well, actually, no, that's not true. They'd been on the air for like six months and then only record recorded one other show. Yeah. So so that's the other piece of it though, too, is is that we, you know, you get these flashy offers and on the surface they seem really good because they're using jargon that is out there in the industry, like podcasting and oh, influencers. But again, um ask better questions. And if you're if you were considering hiring a company that doesn't invite those questions, that is a huge red flag. Yes, you know what, you know what I mean? Like it and and a lot of times they'll say something like, Well, we know better, or and literally, like I've seen authors forward me emails where they'll you know that the company is clearly discouraging an author from asking better questions. If you're not if you're not invited, or you know, if questions aren't welcome, then you should be taking your money elsewhere. Uh all right, so um what's what's next? All right, so um, did we do the we did the we did real marketing engagement, did we not? Or have we kind of we have we pretty much covered that one.

Long‑Term Assets That Compound

SPEAKER_00 26:02

I would say just know that, you know, I'm gonna speak for what we do, just so you have something again. I think, you know, to your point, Penny, asking smart questions, I think that's what kind of, you know, pulling back the curtain a little bit on our process helps authors understand where they're they might be able to set a bar, you know. So, like you said, if they hire us, if they shop around, if they talk to other people, we get it, we support doing your due diligence. But I think letting you know what we do gives you kind of a standard to go through. So if somebody was like, oh, absolutely not, we don't do that at all, it's like, okay, like if that's important to you, you might want to rethink whether that's the right team. So, you know, I want to mention that when if you hire us, we have a dedicated prep phase where that's where we, that's where the magic happens, honestly. You know, that's when we do a full-blown assessment of the book. We get your branding and messaging in order. We do our, like Penny mentioned, we do our media research, we do that kind of vetting. I mean, this is like that is a really important phase for us that I think a lot of authors don't realize is built into what we do for every client, no matter how big the campaign is. Like that is such a critical phase. And so it's worth asking the team like, what do you do to prep before we start our work? Like it's worth asking. And if they say, oh, you know, there's not much, we just, you know, you need to send us a file and we're good to go. It's like, okay, you know, but that's like Penny said, we can't answer a lot of specifics necessarily up front because we do the work when it matters and when it's timely and when it's appropriate for when your book's entering the market, there's a lot of factors to consider. And that's why this is so complex. So if anybody that you're talking to blows it off as if this is not complex, think twice, honestly. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Exactly. I also think, you know, again, throwing out terms like we'll make you a bestseller is Amy just fell off her chair. When if somebody says we'll make you a bestseller, that is always a big red flag. So, in terms of red flags, you know, we talked about the the pressure, not not communicating, we'll make you a bestseller. I think also pressure to sign quickly. And I see that a lot because I get a lot of these spam emails from because I'm also an author, so I get a lot of these spam emails like, oh what if you sign by the end of the day. Um, so I think that's a that's another piece of it. The other thing, and I know this sounds like super obvious, but the other thing is the money, right? So the majority of so you know scammer companies will not have I don't know if I want to use the word reputable, but I'm gonna go ahead and do it anyway, will not have reputable ways to collect your money. So a lot of times they'll be going, like as I mentioned, Bitcoin. I'm sorry. Okay, is Bitcoin real money? I still think it's just it's you know, uh we had an author who found me on LinkedIn and she's like, I I'm getting ready to send you Bitcoin, and I'm like, what? Because it was it was one of those people that was pretending to be me, pretending to be us, and was asking for Bitcoin. I'm like, yeah, that's not that's that's not how we work. Um so you know, I again the money is always a weird kind of a thing. Pressure design quickly, positioning is a big, big, big deal because that is that's gonna matter to your success if you're pitching the right people.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Right. I think a big red flag too is when they are hyper-focused on just your category. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? And not if they only mention the fact that you write fiction or even like a higher level category, like you write romance, so this is what we're doing. It's like not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, but I think that opens the door to you asking some more um specific questions about how exactly they plan. And again, that's why we're so transparent. We're pretty transparent about our positioning and how we've viewed the book in the market and who those readers are. And we do that up front, just so you know, like this is what we have in mind, you know. So, but if you're talking to any firms or any individuals that have very vague ideas of what your book is, ask a few more questions to make sure they really understand it. And they're not going to pitch it as just a generic romance title because there's too many books out there right now to do that. So that's another thing. Like, you know, when Penny mentioned money, you know, leading into that, what does quality marketing support cost? And I mean, I realize money is a tricky one. There's there's ranges, but I will say if the pricing feels too good to be true, try to figure out why. What's missing? What are you not getting that you might get somewhere else that really matters to you? You know, a lot of times you do get what you pay for. So keep that in mind. So if something seems really cheap and really quick, and like Penny said, they can take your money really fast, like just through a simple PayPal link, like not knocking PayPal, but when it seems too quick and easy to get going, that's when you have to start asking like, am I really getting personalized quality positioning, targeting, marketing assessments, things like that that are actually going to move the needle, or am I just checking off a marketing box and I'm not likely to see much from this later? Like that's it's it's a serious question.

Podcast Pitching The Right Way

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Well, yeah, it is. And I think that, you know, if I and I realize everybody has a budget and you should have a budget for marketing. Like, know what you're comfortable spending and don't, you know, mortgage your house because the best kind of marketing investment is something that is ongoing, right? So the one and done marketing, and we have authors that return to us again and again, and we love that. But we also work with a lot of authors who want us to help them, you know, launch their book, get the book where they need to be, and then they kind of take it from there, and that is also fine. But cost alone should not be your only metric, right? You should your your metric, in fact, you know, if you want to recoup your investment from, you know, your book marketing investment from the campaign, uh I I discourage that greatly just because the again, the best kind of marketing is long-term. And the majority of books do not earn back their investment, even if you're just talking the investment of the cover design and the interior design during the launch phase. Especially if it's your first book and you're just building your brand, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but serious marketing does require a real investment, whether that is, you know, what whether that's you know,$3,000 or$30,000. I mean, we haven't really worked with anybody recently who has$30,000. But, you know, um, as Amy said, if the pricing feels too good to be true, that's probably that that's probably a good sign that there is something missing. And you should figure out what is missing from that, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Right, exactly. If you're getting very similar offers, you know, service offerings, and one is dramatically cheaper, like I'd be wary of that. Just as much as I wouldn't want to overpay, but at the same time, two companies should not be offering the exact same services for wildly different pricing. Like that should give you flaws.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Right, exactly. The other thing that I am I am now what I mentioned earlier in the show that sometimes authors hire us and then they hire other firms, which again I'm totally fine with. Sometimes authors will hire other another firm. Like let's say they hire us and they want to have another firm that just does all their podcast pitching or whatever. Fine. Right. But hiring a single service, thinking that that is going to get you to where you need to be is probably a mistake. Like somebody hiring some someone just to do podcasts, like the podcasts are gonna make or break my book. But the best kind of marketing, when I when I talk to authors, I always mention this. I said, you know, if you're looking at your your book, your book marketing as a whole, it's like a it's like a pie chart, right? So there's a portion of it that is pitching, there's a portion that's Amazon, there's a portion that's this, and it all has to come together. So I would also be leery of doing one-off things. Now, if you're doing them in concert with other strategies, great, right? Like if you have somebody that's helping you build your email list or whatever, right? Fabulous. But as a solo um strategy, I just don't know that you're gonna feel that much of a feel that much of a balance from that. In most cases, you're not gonna feel any.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Right. You know. Can we talk about the vetting process? I'm really excited about this one.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yeah, I I love the vetting process because I gotta tell you, Amy is a great. She should so when when you come to us, Amy is the first person that you generally have a conversation with. And she's and I'm not just blank smoke, you are a great, you are great at this process. You're great.

Red Flags: Guarantees, Pressure, Payments

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Oh, I I appreciate that. And I will say, for what it's worth, this is it's not scary, but this is it is not scary, but it it it is a really important part of this, and it's just as important for us to make sure we're working with authors that are a good fit for what we have to offer and our philosophy, but it's also to protect you too, because I'm very upfront with people that are looking for something very specific that we don't do or that maybe just doesn't fit our approach or our philosophy, you know, because we talk about a lot, like we don't want to do a force fit just to get another client. Like that doesn't serve anybody. So definitely you should feel like you're being assessed, but not sold. That's a big difference. Like, do you actually feel like you are, you know, they are sharing how they work, what works for them, who their ideal kind of partners are. Like that is as much for you as it is for them. So it shouldn't just all be like, we're the best, we're gonna make you famous, everything's gonna be perfect. It's like, eh, let's not do that. Okay. They should definitely be reviewing your platform, taking a look at your platform, asking thoughtful questions, providing specific feedback. I do this a lot. I will absolutely ask an author, you know, why what have you been doing for if a book's been out a while? I will 100% ask an author that approaches us and say, What have you been doing about review pitching? Have you been doing any? And there's no, there's typically not wrong answers, but a firm that you're going to work with that is taking your success seriously seriously as well as what they do seriously, should be asking hard questions. You know, that is that is how that goes. Like they should care if you have a website or not. They should care what your Amazon page looks like, they should care whether or not you've done any marketing to date, if your book is already out. And again, it's not about right or wrong, but it's about really determining where they can step in to support you and what is in your best interest for the very next stage.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Right, exactly. And the other thing is that, and I feel so, so, so strongly about this. Um you should you should feel assessed and not sold. I am so when an author, when I get on, when I get on the phone with an author and they'll say sell me on your services. And I literally will tell them that that is not something that I do. I think that you have to, and I know that sounds a little, maybe that sounds a little like airy fairy, whatever, but I really feel like you have to, you want to hire a company, whether it's us or we're the company, because you believe that they have your best interest at heart, that they know what they're doing, that they're gonna do a good job. But I am not gonna spend my time on the phone telling you why we're fabulous, right? Um, because I feel like you should also have some sort of a connection with your marketing firm, right? Who's gonna because they're gonna be with you potentially for a while, right? And so you want to also feel like they get you. You have they have an understanding, they have a great team and all the things, as opposed to me getting on the phone and telling an author, okay, well, here's why we're fabulous and here's why you should hire us. Because to me, that feels like the hard sell. And I just don't think that any good marketing relationships comes out of a hard sell. And that's just always been my business philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Right, exactly. And that's why we are so specific, like we actually have a section for each of the strategies and the proposal that tells you what you get. Like, here's literally what you get out of this. This is the kind of elevator pitch version of why this is important, you know? Yeah. So we are not sitting there just kind of like la la la la la blowing smoke the whole time. Like, we actually put it in writing per strategy. So you can sit there and go, okay, this is what I'm getting out of this. Okay, this is the justification for why this is going to benefit me. And I don't blame you, Penny. I wouldn't want to sit on the phone and do that either, because that is not, you don't determine a good fit and whether in the benefit based on how well somebody can orate about their services. You know what I mean? Yeah. You want something more tangible than that.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Right, exactly. And I think that, you know, um, when you're vetting a team, you should also be really on it, honest about your readiness. Okay. And and I think that if you're wanting instant results, that's a conversation that you really need to have with yourself in terms of, you know, the real the reality of how much of this is instantaneous, which is basically nothing, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

And the ROI factor. I hate to use the R word, but you know what I mean? Like the R word. Yeah. If you really, if your only way to justify that hiring our team was a good decision is because, as Penny mentioned earlier, you make back all of your marketing money by the time our collaboration is over. That's a hard stop for us. You know, we're never going to tell you that that's a thing. We cannot predict that. We do not have a crystal ball. You know what I mean? Like that is just one of those things that is has so many factors outside of anybody's control to where nobody should be selling you on ROI.

Pricing Reality And Value

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Well, and I also think the other piece of it is that you can hire a marketing company, but if the marketing company says that you don't have to do anything on your own to market your book, there we go. Amy just fell off her tear again. Um you need a C Mel. I know. Authors need to be involved engaged in their own success to some to whatever degree that that is. And sometimes I'll get on the phone with authors and they'll say, Well, what do you need me to do? And I'll say, you know, if you do just one or two things, like you don't have to do everything. So we are going to help you build your house, right? Um, and maybe you just want to install the doors and the windows. Fabulous. We'll do the rest. Right. But you can't come in and want to hire somebody to fix absolutely everything without involvement. And I've had hard conversations with authors about that. Well, but I'm I'm, you know, it's kind of like throwing money at a problem, right? I'm just gonna throw money at this problem. And your book marketing should never be a problem, but I have heard authors say that. So just you know, and then the other thing I think is, you know, invest in the long term. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to hire a company over and over and over and over again at all, but you should be really be, you know, willing to invest in some form or fashion in the long term. And by that I mean, you know, maybe learn how to do some like get your get familiar with social media, start working on a newsletter, whatever that is. Invest in, be prepared to invest in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Right. And I like the last point, you know, make sure, I mean, again, you do you, but a a good reputable marketing firm is not going to let you just chase validation. They're not going, that's not going to be their big selling point to you, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? If they can tell you're just looking for validation that it was a good move to produce this book, there are plenty of firms out there that will sell you a program that kind of falsely validates that this is what you should be doing. You should absolutely, anybody that speaks to that directly and that, you know, plays into these big hopes and dreams, oh like these over-the-top, like, yeah, we can do that, no problem. Like, just let us handle, like Penny said, like you can be completely hands-off and we'll handle everything. It's like, that's problematic. You know, you should, I think personally, I think you should look for teams that are honest and realistic. And, you know, like Penny said, looking at the long term, you know, it it's less sexy, but you're going to get more for your money by going with the less sexy option more often than not. Like I hate to say it, but you really are. So if you're really thinking strategically, if you really want to do this, if you really want to be an author and build a brand and have a platform that people come back to and buy the next book, the sexy stuff is not going to get you there, at least, not off the bat. You know what I mean? Like save the sexy stuff for once people actually know your name. And then that stuff actually works really well.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Right, right, right. Exactly. But I think it's a really important point of chasing validation. And I think that it, you know, even outside of hiring a marketing firm, I think that you have to, you know, if you don't believe in your book, nobody else is going to believe in it. So your the belief in your book should not come externally. And I'm not trying to go all like empowerment, self-help on you, but I see this a lot where authors are chasing validation from external sources. And when they don't get that immediately, because it usually has to be immediate, it's not something that they'll wait a year for. They get very discouraged and they give up and they get very angry at the entire process and they're done. And that's it. And that's the end of the story, so to speak. So that's another piece of it too that I think is is also you know really important. Um But anyway, I mean, I think just what just like we talked about in our publisher vetting episode, which again, if you haven't listened to that, definitely go back and check that out. Because much like this, we have very strong feelings about the publishers as well. Um but the most important decisions in your author career aren't about hype, they're gonna they're about alignment, right? Yes. Um making sure that you're aligning yourself with the right strategies, the right partners, the right market, and the right readers, most importantly, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Oh yeah, that's huge.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Um And I think that, you know, if you've been listening to this and wondering whether working with us makes sense, I I think now you know what to evaluate. And whether it's us or somebody else, I mean, I think that it's always, you know, it's it's always good, in my opinion, to never take this journey alone. So if you can find a company that you feel aligned with that you feel really gets you, that is such an important part of your author journey, uh author journey.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Oh, yeah, it makes such a huge difference. And we hear that we hear that from clients all the time, honestly, especially those that have been around a while and work with different teams. I will absolutely shamelessly say that like I love when they write and say, thank you so much. This is this is you know exactly what I was looking for, or you guys are so responsive, or your team is so kind to answer these other questions. You know what I mean? Like, there's nothing better than that very direct, specific feedback that we get from clients that let us know that the alignment was right to your point, Penny. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's more than just yes, you're doing the work you said you would do, but it's that kind of next level, we're on the same page, we share goals, that kind of thing. That's what you really want to aim for. Like you deserve that. So I know it can be kind of it can probably feel overwhelming to start talking to marketing teams and like, am I making the right decisions? Whatever. But you know, trust that kind of gut instinct as well. Like, is this the right fit? Like Penny said, sometimes you need to look beyond just the budgeting. You really need to take all the considerations. Are we aligned? Do they sound like they're really paying attention to who I am, what my book is? Does the budget make sense? Yes. Are they focused on all the right things? Like you really want to mash all those together and have you know checks in all the right boxes, not just one.

Single‑Service Traps Vs Integrated Plans

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Yep, exactly. I totally agree with you. And I think that so we went, we I know we we try to keep these shows at 30 minutes. We went a little bit longer on the show. So we are gonna save the question for the next next week's episode. And hopefully we'll be able because you know, we have strong feelings about so many things. We need to put those on. We really need to put that on a t-shirt. But we hope that you've enjoyed, we hope that you've enjoyed this show. Um, again, we do this with all of our listener feedback. And I just want to remind you, you know, really quickly to text the word podcast, uh, text the word podcast to 888 402 8940. If you're not part of our community, that's a great way to communicate with us directly. Send us your questions, your show ideas. These shows are for you. So we really want to hear, um, we really want to hear what you think. Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next week. Bye bye.