[MPTPGV]

Okay, so I've been a Kindle Author now for 7 Months. Just like all of you, I've been struggling to get reviews, I've been struggling to sell books, making 150 to 300 sales a month, wanting more, wanting to sell more, wanting to write more, wanting to get more done. So I've bought product after product, looking for ways in which to achieve sales, reviews, and more visibility. I've spent more than a few hundred dollars and I've had blunders in advertising that have cost more more than a few hundred dollars.

This site has been a godsend! It has been absolutely amazing! I have been able to see people who have gotten the success I hope to one day attain in some small way for myself. And so, I want to share with you all a product I just found and have already begun to use and have already gotten two responses back from possible reviewers.

This is not an affiliate link! I am not trying to make money off of this forum. I'm hoping I'm not violating any forum rules. I think this product might be what everyone is looking for and I think everyone here should know about it. This board has been a huge help to me, lifting my spirits, giving great advice, and I have of yet been able to return the favor, but to congratulate, offer some basic marketing information, and some branding information.

[link deleted]

Give it a look, take a look at the video. I am not the creator of the product. I have no relationship with the creators. I have bought only one of their other products and wasn't hugely impressed. This one here is awe inspiring in my opinion. Check it out for yourself.

Link deleted. It activates a script that runs an audio message when you try to leave this thread. - Admin

 

[Lummox JR]

Too many red flags.

First, this product just goes through Amazon reviews scouring for website links and contact info. I've never seen a review include that information. Maybe other sites make it easy to contact the reviewers, but I can't think of any good reason why.

Second, once you have the list, you have to send out a batch of unsolicited e-mails, or as the video says you can hand it off to an "outsourcer" (read: spammer). Anyone who hires a spammer to send out a mail blast is automatically a bad person, so this is a DIY situation--but it's still technically spam.

Spam is, sadly, effective; its response rate is low but out of hundreds or thousands of e-mails, that small percentage means a lot of responses. But it will also elicit a lot of very angry, negative responses, and unlike traditional spam where the easiest option is to ignore it, you've just given people you wanted as reviewers a very good reason to slam your book instead.

This is no way to get ahead.

 

[James Bruno]

I've been pretty successful in scouring Amazon for Top Reviewers and Vine Reviewers, also NYT bestselling authors, and getting them to do reviews of my books (see especially the reviews for my book, TRIBE). Yes, it was time consuming, but it paid off. So, I'm open-minded about this product if paying the creators $17 would save me tons of time and get me the same, or better, results. But I'm in no hurry at the moment, being between books. So, what would be most welcome for KBers is for those who take the plunge with this product to report back here their honest evaluation.

 

[George Berger]

In a just world, links to or mentions of WSOs here would be a bannable offense...

 

[BrianKittrell]

It doesn't necessarily have to be spam; you can simply use the collected information and write personal emails to those reviewers. That would be no different than doing the same thing manually.

First, this product just goes through Amazon reviews scouring for website links and contact info. I've never seen a review include that information. Maybe other sites make it easy to contact the reviewers, but I can't think of any good reason why.

Reviewer profiles do sometimes contain contact information. Many people getting reviews already do this, but manually or via homemade tools. This program claims to do these things automatically, which could save someone searching for reviewers many hours over days or weeks trying to accumulate the same information.

There are ways to abuse any tool, any system. I've contacted a couple of Amazon reviewers in private to see if they'd be interested in reading one of my books. We had polite conversations both ways, whether they agreed to review it or not.

I don't recommend mass email blasts (impersonal) or outsourced PR workers (sometimes unprofessional and definitely impersonal). That sort of thing won't net you many reviews anyway. People don't like being treated as meal tickets.

ETA: I haven't used the above product, but I think I'll try it out for my new book. It's a debut in a new genre, and I have no reviewer contacts in science fiction yet (or my niche). I know a few books in the same niche of the genre that I could try the program on and I'll let you guys know how it goes.

 

[Guest]

I've been wondering why my inbox has been overrun these last couple of weeks with review requests. 

Yeah, as a Vine Reviewer, you don't do yourself any favors spamming me asking me for a review. particularly when I no longer do reviews for indies and only review books I buy and/or get from Vine. Further, even if you use something like this, have the courtesy to understand what a reviewer does and does not review before sending a request. And frankly, if it sounds like too much work to be bothered to know what my preferences are as a reviewer, reviewing your book is too much work for me. 

 

[Soothesayer]

Spam is, sadly, effective; its response rate is low but out of hundreds or thousands of e-mails, that small percentage means a lot of responses. But it will also elicit a lot of very angry, negative responses, and unlike traditional spam where the easiest option is to ignore it, you've just given people you wanted as reviewers a very good reason to slam your book instead.

And they will slam your book for a very, very long time. Most marketers do this to make up for shoddy writing. Spam (i.e. marketing) will kill a fiction writer's career faster than anything else will. They might get a few sales in the near future, but will kill many more sales in the future to obtain those few in the present. One step forward, three steps back kind of thing. I avoid all the idiots using Twit & Facebook and every other spammer tool, instead letting more books do the marketing for me.