From PR UrgentJuly, 23, 2009
The Instock Conference was a great success, generating impressive feedback among the participants. "I very much enjoyed my day at InStock. Being around so many talented and enterprising writers was both an inspiration and a pleasure”, said one of the participants.
BookWhirl.com co-sponsored the InStock Conference in full support for self-published authors to gain additional knowledge from the experts and experienced icons of the publishing industry. The conference became a great venue for self-published authors to ask advice on the experts of the fields and share ideas and information with other self-published authors.
BookWhirl.com believes that good marketing services perfectly complement a strategic marketing plan.
About BookWhirl.com
BookWhirl.com is an online book marketing service company, specializing in providing low-cost, high-quality marketing services for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. Through its unique, inexpensive book marketing services, BookWhirl.com helps authors promote their published works more effectively and connect to readers in a more effective, more efficient system. BookWhirl.com employs an experienced team of online marketing strategists, ad copywriters, graphic artists, and web designers, whose combined talents ensure an effective online marketing campaign at easily affordable rates.
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Edited to add: In light of recent comments by Emily, I am posting a Writer's Weekly Beware Alert. See here for Details.
See also [added by veinglory]:
BBB page
BookWhirl Can't Even Sell Itself
Absolute Write thread
20 comments:
Based on how the market, what they deliver, and the price--I would advise avoiding Bookwhirl like the plague.
The services are the standard type stuff: press release, web design etc., and their prices are comparable to many other firms out their offering marketing services, like Readerviews ... I have no experience with marketing firms like this cause I don't use them, so I can't really comment on their affect on the book buying public.
I have tracked experiences of authors approached by this service and a few who used it. Based on this what they are experiencing may not be what Bookwhirl states they do. There are relevant threads in most large writers forums.
Thanks Emily.
I posted a link to the Writer's Weekly forum which addresses some issues with the company and has provided a few more links.
Again though, I have no personal experience to I can't make any comments or assessments myself.
Bookwhirl seems to be doing heavy phone marketing for their own sake. They've called me twice this week leaving messages about assisting with my first book.
Delete.
I have been an avid reader of self-published books. Indeed, self-publishing is flourishing these days.
I’m thinking of using BookWhirl.com’s services as soon as I publish my first book. I was able to check with their testimonial page and they do have some satisfied clients. I’ve also checked with the Better Business Bureau to see if they received any complaints against Bookwhirl and it stated on their website that they received zero complaints and they gave Bookwhirl a rating of B+.
Zero complaints = zero information. I went by the comments made by my writing peers that Bookwhirl spam freely and write poorly. If that is how they promote themselves it gives me no faith they will promote my book any better.
I added a link to their BBB page. For information, they are not BBB accredited. Their score of B+ is a standard default grade for any new business.
It's not what i've read on BBB. According to their official page, ratings are based on points. B+ isn't a default rating. There are even book publishing companies who garnered a C-.
They list exactly what is contributing to each rating. the only factor currently contributing to Bookwhirls rating it the length of time they have been operating--nothing ealse. To my mind that makes it a default rating--that is one made with no reference to what they have actually done during that time.
Threads can be easily made up. You cannot say that they are all relevant. Have you already experienced their services? I visited their website's testimonials page. (http://www.bookwhirl.com/Testimonials.html) To tell you honestly, i'm very well pleased on their designs. I've also verified the names on the page, and yes, they are all existing and credible authors. How are you doing with your book?
If you are happy using a marketing service with a bad reputation given to spamming people, go for it. The authors who are complaining about them are also quite real.
My books are doing fine, thanks for asking.
Did the 'complaining authors' experienced working with that company?
Every individual has a bad reputation, its subjective. =) I also had a fair share of critics on the way i write. I'm sure William Shakespear had an 'anti-crowd' too.
Some things are objective. Like spam. Egregious and incompetant spam which has been documented reliably by many reputable authors not least the one linked above. And from a "marketing company"... well, spam is pretty much the cardinal sin of the industry.
The idea that a valid complaint can only be made by an employee strikes me as disingenuous at best. That is a gold-plated Catch-22.
Are you are such an employee, in which case perhaps that have been disclosed by now.
I respect your opinion but the fact of the matter is that all companies have their share of bad publicity. Take Author Solutions Incorporated, if you google Author Solutions, a bunch of Beware or Warning Blogs also appears. However, the said company has published several thousands of books. They have some satisfied clients as well as pissed off clients. For BookWhirl.com, I’m sure they have both as well but from the blogs I’ve read about them, most of the blog writers were never their clients…
I am not an employee or a client of Bookwhirl. I just came across this blog entry, and since I found an interest on it, I decided to leave a comment. I was hoping for a good read, well I guess I found what I was looking for.
Bookwhirl is just doing some Marketing campaigns for their business. Maybe they are just too aggressive with their business. I hope you don't judge them that way.
I totally agree. We respect each individuals' point of view however, being a smart author we should also know how to possibly do our own fact-finding and research. Not just relay on tons of bad reviews or complaints online which we can not really tell if 90% of those people even experienced Bookwhirl's services first hand. I myself is not an author yet but I am planning to self-publish my book as soon as its complete. I tried to do my own research as early as now and I was able to come across different publishing companies even marketing firms that offers similar programs. I even came across this blog http://anonymousann.blogspot.com/
which I find very helpful.
I cant help but comment on this thread. I myself was a victim of some publishing and marketing companies. I learned my lesson well by just doing the publications of my books locally to test the waters first before investing more with a publishing company. I regret why I did not do my research prior to publishing my first book before. But probably making a big buzz out of a small marketing company such as Bookwhirl wont actually help us decide which company would really help us best with our works. In reality though a lot of big companies such as SONY, DISNEYS and even McDonalds have there own share of bad publicities too. The bigger the company, the more complaints they get. And even though these complaints are lurking over the net like some kind of worm, it doesnt really stop people from using SONY's products or eating at McDOnalds for that matter. It's just like when somebody is satisfied with the service they tell less people about it but if they are not getting what they want, they would tell the entire world and make a big issue out of it.
You may also check this link btoni72.wordpress.com to help upcoming authors out there decide which is the best publishing and marketing firm for their books.
Whose combined talents ensure an effective online marketing campaign at easily affordable rates.Opt-in Boxes
Over a year ago I self-published my book BAD RAP, The Truth About the Tragically Misunderstood Pit Bull, with Bookwhirl.com. I paid Bookwhirl (up-front - silly me) $2000.00 to publish two books for me. I have not submitted my second manuscript to them due to my experience with my first book:
Bookwhirl promised me a full page ad in a popular internet magazine which I have never received,
After having received no royalties and having found no book sales listed for my book on their website, I wrote to them stating: "Even if my book were the worst book ever published, I have to believe that there would be at least one dummy out there who would buy it!" A couple of days later I again reviewed my list of books sold on their website, and they had added the number "1" for the number of my books sold. I never have figured out just what kind of game they were playing with this one.
I have sent numerous e-mails and made phone calls to Bookwhirl and they have completely ignored all of them.
I have informed Bookwhirl.com that I would like them to return my money for the second book I had originally planned to publish with them as a result of my bad experiences with them (I have not sent them my second manuscript). They have completely ignored my requests.
I have warned Bookwhirl.com that if they continue to ignore my requests, I will file a formal complaint with the Attorney General's Office. This doesn't appear to concern them at all, as they have not acknowledged any concern nor desire to refund my money for the second book. Thus, my next step will be to file this complaint to the Attorney General's Office. In closing, it has been my experience that one cannot be too careful which self-publishing company one chooses!
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