DON’T FALL IN — COLD PROMOTION EMAILS, WHAT AUTHORS SHOULD KNOW
What is a cold email?
A cold email is where a company sends an email to a potential customer offering their services without having any previous business relationship with them.
Many authors receive cold emails from book promotion sites claiming they can boost your book’s visibility and exposure. It is always tempting to try something new especially as book sales in the current climate are getting harder to come by. There are some potential issues which you should be aware of before giving your hard-earned cash away.
Problems With The Language
It is always a good idea to go on the book promotion website and see how their paragraphs are structured. If there are several typos and grammar mistakes, this is a sign that the website might be run by people whereby English is not their first language. As an author, alarm bells should ring. If you wouldn’t accept a book written by yourself to be riddled with mistakes, why would you accept this from a company that wants to promote your book?
Unattractive Book Covers
When you are on the website, click on a tab which should show you what books they are currently promoting. Do the book covers look cheap or expensive? Have a click on the book link to Amazon or to another retailer. Does the link work? If the book covers are not that attractive, it is unlikely potential customers will stick around long enough on the website anyway. So your book being placed on a site that isn’t visually appealing may hurt your chances of making sales on that particular website.
Any Reviews
Before you decide to pay any money towards a book promotion, you should always do a search on Google or your search engine of choice to see what other customers think of the service that the book company provides. If there are more negative than positive reviews, then you have your answer. Also, if you cannot find any reviews, this would also be a sign the website is either new or not reputable.
Is The Website Safe?
Considering that a book promotion company wants you to purchase their services, you must be aware of whether the website you want to make a financial transaction on is safe or not. Type your request into your search engine along with the name of the book promotion site. You should get a list of different websites that conduct checks regarding the safety of business websites. Usually, these websites will classify the book promotion website as either positive or negative, while other websites just give a mark from 1 to 100 in terms of safety. Many of these websites show these results for free.
Social Media Following
Some book promotion companies tend to overinflate how many social media followers they have. This is an easy one to check. Just go on Twitter or Facebook. Type the book promotion company name in the search box. This will bring up the real figures for their social media following.
Do Your Research
Whenever you are about to purchase a service for your business, you should always do your research. Search your instincts. If it all sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Many reputable book companies don’t need to send cold emails to reach potential customers. The authors, through word of mouth, reputation, or a combination of both, come to them.
It is a good idea to follow some of the tips in this guide. This may stop you from making a costly mistake.
Writing under the pen name of Annette Austin, she has written and self-published seven novels. Her first novel, The Fall of the House of James, reached the Number 1 bestseller list on Amazon (U.S. Antebellum Chart.) If you would like to join her newsletter, please go to her website.
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