The Pay-to-Play Dilemma: Paying for book reviews & coverage

I think people just want to hold them , they want to write in them , they want to highlight in them , which I love . That's so anyway . That's , if you haven't , if you were deterred from getting the ebook , deter no more because the print book is launches the same day .

So I'm really excited about that and I want to thank everybody for your support and got some really , really , really nice emails from authors about how excited they are for the next book and things like that , and I'm going to keep writing . I'm hoping to release another book this year . Aside from that's actually not Amazon focused . I know what a shock .

So there's a lot . There's . There is a lot more coming , but the conversation today is a really interesting . This is just comes up more and more and more and I used to be a really hard no on this and we'll talk a little bit more in the show about how that's changed and the issue is paying for reviews and coverage

. And , amy , you actually stumbled on this , do you ? And I don't want to get too far ahead of what we've outlined in the show notes , but you stumbled on this conversation in Reddit . Right , we love Reddit , we just love Reddit . We apparently on Reddit is .

Just to add one more you know factor , you know consideration to this conversation about when to do it , when not to do it , all the things you have to consider , but they were , they specifically said , and I thought this was interesting . Again , you know , not to get off into an entirely different conversation , but for what it's worth .

They said you know , I wanted to get this review because I'm just starting out and I need reviews . I don't know how else to get them . So I definitely paid for some reviews , but some of the reviews they were getting back , they said , just didn't sound like they were written by somebody that actually read the book , and they were this .

One author said that the review that they got actually revealed some of their biggest plot twists and spoilers . Oh , no , yes . And so they said I paid for it , thinking , okay , I'm just starting out , I'm a debut author , I'm going to , I'm going to invest a little bit to get some reviews from these known outlets , you know .

And then the review came back and they said I can't even use it because I don't want to reveal this , you know . So they were in a really tough spot . But so when I saw that and then I brought it to you know , we chatted about it .

I just said , you know , as if we needed to make this more complicated for authors to decide when it's appropriate or , potentially , you know you should consider paying and when you should definitely step away from that , like you know what I mean .

So this just adds a whole other layer the idea that you know , getting AI involved and having it make things easier on some of these outlets , but then it's like , wow , then what are you actually getting ? What are you paying for ? You ?

I mean , we still work with a lot of , we continue to work with a lot of really amazing influencers and if you're listening , shout out to y'all because you do amazing work . But you know , even then we've seen influencers get look , my TV red pile is 72 books deep , and so you're going to be waiting for three months .

And a lot of times you know it's both , it's both , like you said , the author on Reddit , you said , you know , look , I'm new . And in other cases the author just like realized oh my gosh , my book is coming out next week , I need a review .

And they feel this pressure , this general industry pressure , that I have to get lots and lots of reviews , and I don't know how to do that except to pay for reviews . And so that's why we thought that this episode was a really good idea . I mean traditionally , and this is where I used to be a real hard pass on this . Traditionally , editorial

reviews were earned and not paid for , right ? And then some of the legacy outlets like Publishers Weekly and Kirkus . I remember when Kirkus first started doing paid reviews , I mean they got a lot of backlash . Now they started doing paid reviews . I want to say , gosh , maybe seven , eight , maybe even nine years ago , so it's been quite a while years ago .

So it's been quite a while , but they got a lot of backlash . So in order to offset that backlash , it used to be like a joke in the industry that if you paid Kirkus to get a review , it would always be a bad review .

Because at that time , you know , everybody was like oh , you know , if you're paying for a review , it's always going to be a good review . And Kirkus was like neener , neener , neener , like I got you there , I'm going to , we're just going to put a whole bunch of bad reviews out there . So , and now obviously that's kind of leveled out a little bit .

Um , but that's where you know , that's where things used to be . And now you know , really the rise of the influencer has changed and you know the combination of there are so many books published .

There's a book published every eight seconds , and the rise of the influencer has , you know , they're like well , we , you know , we really only have so much time and here's what we charge . And I mean , amy , you've even seen some independent book bloggers have tip jars right and how do they use ? those .

I can honestly say I never did , it's like I never . But yeah , same thing , tip jars , buy me a coffee , there's all these . Now there's just like these little nickel and diming ways to kind of jump the line , so to speak .

Right , but to your point , so many books being published , there is a finite number of outlets and or thought leaders that have big enough platforms to where you know what I mean . People are pitching them over and over and over again .

And , yeah , I mean I don't have the exact right answer for how to make all of that work , but it seems to be going to having tiered options , including some that are paid or , like we've seen before , penny too .

The type of coverage you get may change based on you know how much time the influencer has , so they may offer you just a spotlight or something where they're not actually reading the book , but they're going to give you a little coverage or something like that . So it's amazing how many different options are out there now .

But the paid thing really seems to be something that even influencers are able to jump on now and demand some form of payment for their time .

Uh , broadcast media , tele televised media has done the pay to play , but and I and I don't believe that they still do it . I mean I have never pitched somebody in television and they said , oh well , give us $5,000 and we'll put this person on television .

I think because for them Because for them it's really it's a very slippery slope , right , because there's sort of a I mean it's not that different from an influencer , but it's very different . I mean there's a perceived sort of endorsement behind , like if you're going to have somebody on your show or whatever , and that kind of died .

I mean there may be still some places out there that do it and if I'm wrong , by all means reach out to us and let us know and we'll put a correction up in the next show . But they used to do that and I remember the first time somebody wrote me back . They're like yeah , for X amount . I was just like who are you Like , are you serious ?

It was the weirdest thing . I think this was maybe 12 or so . It was a while ago . It was 12 or so years ago . But you know , and to some degree part of the reason why I was very much a hard no on this , where I've sort of changed , that is , it's hard to be an unknown , right , it's hard to be a first time author . We get it .

A lot of our shows are dedicated to first-time authors . You have no platform , no newsletter , no audience and getting all of the bigger things that other authors have or that somebody that you're following has or somebody in your book group . It's harder to get to that place . It's harder to get traction right .

It's not impossible , it's just harder just because you know there's just there's so much competition out there .

Your rite of passage is just get that first one done and then everything falls into place and it's amazing from there .

Yeah , exactly , it's kind of an impossible decision sometimes and that's why it is getting to the point where sometimes the only options in terms of especially if you want to get to that next level you know you can definitely get reader reviews without spending a bunch of money I mean , it takes a bunch of hard work , you know there's no magical way around that ,

but when we talk to authors all the time that say I want to get on a podcast , I want to get covered by a big time influencer , I want to get interviewed by a magazine , like these are the kinds of things we're talking about in terms of these are next level opportunities , and it's really hard to get these if you don't have a platform already in existence ,

you know . So you really have to build that resume and sometimes paying for opportunities are it is going to be the quickest and most direct way to get there and even though I gave the Reddit example , as you know , something that may not be what you're looking for . There are a bunch of great .

I mean , we see this with podcasts , penny , you know these great kind of mid-level podcasts , not ones that if we said it right now , everybody listening would know what they're called . But these shows are getting some good following and they will even have small fees just to cover production costs .

You know , yeah , and things like that that are starting to be a lot more common than they used to be .

listen to the show , pay attention people . But I think you know , in particular , I think , the rise of TikTok , because I noticed this , you know , a handful of years ago , however long TikTok's been around , that these creators were charging for coverage due to the volume of requests and so , which , again , I understand .

But here's the thing , and I guess maybe it's a good time to really dive into , should you , should you not ? What to look for ? Because the example that I'm going to give you is so there was a TikTok influencer who came to us , wanted to review a book , charged a substantial amount of money to review it , so I want to say it was like $3,500 or $5,000 .

It was somewhere in that range . But when you looked at their TikTok account and then their Instagram account , because they both mirrored each other the she , she did ads , but but her ads were , you know , her ads were like , like they weren't traditional ads . They were real time ads , like she was , and she did everything , like she did books .

But then she also got invited onto a cruise . And so then she was in a room and I'm like I want to get invited onto a cruise , like how do people get like , how do you get that Right ?

But but , um , so she got invited onto a cruise and then , when you looked at her feed , you noticed a real separation between the volume of plays and likes that she got for her authentic cover . It's like this is just me in a car getting you know my morning Java or whatever , versus her on a cruise , as lovely as that video was .

So that's something that I think you know .

I mean , we'll talk about the money in just a second , but that's one thing that I think you really have to look at , too is if somebody is asking you there's a whole bunch of different markers that we're going to cover in this show but if somebody is asking you to pony up some money to be in their TikTok feed or Instagram feed or whatever BookTube , whatever

, take a look and see what they've produced previously , Because this was something where I don't blame the influencer for doing all these things , because they're getting paid and she's , you know , half my age , maybe more . That's embarrassing and she's making bank and she's going on cruises and all this other stuff .

But it doesn't really benefit our author because every time that she does something that dips into the ad side of things , the visibility drops tremendously .

I mean , I want to say like she would get 10 000 views on a regular post and she got something like 300 on some of the ad posts that I saw , so there was a tremendous drop in coverage exactly you know , Mm-hmm , Exactly , yeah .

we have a long-term relationship with them . But on the occasion when that does happen , um , because we're you know , we try to reach out to new people and make new relationships and stuff it's like I'll tell an author , I'm like there's literally no roi in a five thousand dollar ad . I mean I just , I mean , I mean you , you do .

You know how many books you'd have to sell to make up that $5,000 that you're paying this influencer . And then the problem with that is is that I mean especially like you also have to look .

So if you're debating this , I recommend we did a show on how to market your book without social media , which I realize is like anti-this show , because we're talking about social media influencers , but in that show we talk about the burn rate , right , so there is an instant burn rate or an instant decay on TikTok .

So you only have like a microsecond to get people interested in that video that you paid $5,000 for , and the same thing really is true for Instagram too .

or and it's like it's an account that I don't follow , and then you like , your finger hits the screen or something and you lose it and you'll never see it again .

I mean , TikTok has a different algorithm , but it's still the same problem . So when that vanishes , it's just gone . You know which is ? Which is a little terrifying . Everybody right now is listening . It's just like why are they even doing this show ? They just both they're hating on it .

You know what I mean and I think that's something , too , that stands out as well . So to your point about the gal , that kind of is a little all over the place . Yes , she's got a great following . Yes , she probably sells a lot of product for some of the companies that partner with her , but is she necessarily the right match for a book ?

So be really selective . The other thing is is that if somebody and we had this , actually we we this , for whatever reason .

This came up on a team call and I was talking about when I used to run Google ads for our company , which we don't do anymore but and at that time some book bloggers were saying well , ok , so we'll review your book if you buy an ad on our site and this was again , this goes back 10 years , whatever .

And when somebody invites you to put an ad , says look , you can put an ad up on our site , they have to release their metrics , right , they have to be transparent about their metrics . You should be able to get and I don't necessarily mean just here's a page on my website so you can see my numbers . Depending on how much you .

I mean for a hundred bucks , you're probably not going to get a real deep dive transparency , but you should be able to get metrics . You know what I mean . I mean , if anybody wants me to pay , anything I'm asking for I want to see your , you know , and I want to see your best videos and I want to see what they're about and I want to you know .

So those are some really smart questions that you can ask . If somebody is offering this and it is very it's super tempting to do it . Oh , yeah , it's super tempting .

You know , I like to use the term owning more online real estate and I think that's a fabulous thing and there's nothing wrong with that .

But when it comes to how much you're going to pay if we're talking about pay to play opportunities , really deciding , you know , be very strategic about if you're going to have a budget for paying for some opportunities , be really careful about which ones you choose .

You know , because you can get on some smaller like we're talking quality over quantity here smaller sites that have maybe a smaller reach , but the people they do reach really listen to them . You know things like that niche podcast that don't charge anything . You know right , it takes some hard work but it's worth it and it's work you need to be doing anyway .

Sorry if that's a huge spoiler , but it's work you need to be doing anyway and we've talked about that before on media shows Penny about balancing , going after different levels , different tiers , knowing what makes sense for your platform , for your brand , for your budget . All those kinds of things come into play .

So we're working in conjunction with her publisher and they're doing a lot of the big media and she's like you know , I'm really and I thought this was such a savvy thing to say she goes . Like you know , I'm really not that impressed with big media . She goes .

I would rather have somebody that is narrowly focused , that is a quote unquote sort of micro influencer that has , you know , because she goes , it's better for me if somebody has 10,000 followers and they're all like eager and excited to hear everything that this person says , versus if they have 10 million followers and , like you know , four of them go out and buy

something like that . You know what I mean . So I think that's another thing , too .

As an author , we always feel especially if you're new in this , because you , you know , you read a lot online , maybe you're in a writer's group or maybe you went to a writer's conference there's all these authors doing all this fabulous stuff and oh , I'm so famous and all this other stuff .

I get it , I get that it's really hard to not want to pay to be part of that exclusive group , right .

But the other thing , though , too , is that I think looking for those micro-influencers who are really dedicated to your topic , who are dedicated to , you know , putting out really , really quality content , you are so much better served , and a lot of times , building relationships with them starts early , and I'll mention what I mean about that in a second .

But I mean , those are some relationships that , especially if you're writing more books on this topic , that you can carry through year after year after year and I don't know , I'm pretty sure after five years , I'm almost positive we've done a show on brand marketing versus book marketing .

So talking about , because a lot of times authors ask us I mean , we've done a show on this . How many like when authors ask us okay , my book comes out in three months or five

months or two months or whatever , what can I do now ? And we talk to them about brand marketing . Five months or two months or whatever , what can I do now ? And we talked to them about brand marketing . So getting out there and talking , following influencers , commenting on their posts , making friends , networking , doing all the things .

Have we done a show on that ?

So that's the other thing too is that as you start to build those relationships like we have built those relationships after 25 years of being in business , those same relationships you can also foster and grow , and then the issue of paying becomes potentially , hopefully , less prominent .

I mean , I don't think that , I don't believe that this is going to be like a universal thing in the industry where everybody , you just pay to play , all I , just I . I find that really hard to believe that that's ever going to be really a thing .

You know , there's a lot of ways where you can be strategic about smartly paying for , you know , a well-named review or something like that . But just know what you're getting into . And to the point of the personal Reddit , you know , and , like you said , penny , get to know the person's content .

Get to know , read some of the reviews that that outlet has put out recently . You know , get an idea for whether or not they sound like they came from somebody who really invested time in the book , or if they sound like a glorified synopsis . You know what I mean .

And then you have to decide like do I really want to pay for that or is this something that I'm going to hold off on ?

I'm glad we talked about this because these decisions are hard and especially for those of you that are just starting out . We fully respect that . You have a lot of decisions to make and it gets overwhelming .

nameless , even though you and I both know , and listeners if you listen for a while you know that I really want to name like I want to name names , I want to call people out , know that I really want to name , like I want to name names , I want to call people out .

But there are some companies out there that will resell ad space and package it like they're actually doing PR for you , right ? So I talked to an author six months ago , I guess , or maybe it was late last year , and he was like I'm working with a company and they're doing PR and they had me buy an ad in the New York Times for $5,000 .

It was maybe more , maybe it was $7,500 at that point and basically what he was getting was a tiny little picture of his book with 20 other books in the ad . Like it wasn't , like he wasn't getting buying , buying a whole page of the New York times , right , it was just think nobody's going to see that .

Like , I'm sorry , with all due respect , like we all love the New York times , we get it Like the book section everybody wants to be in there . I get it . You do not want to be in there with ads . So there are some things that are still a hard pass , with me not being one of them .

So that's another thing to kind of be careful of is if you're looking at companies and the entire proposal is just where they're running ads . I would , because you know honestly I mean because people ask me that all the time when I'm on the phone with them like well , do you do ? Do you do paid ads on Kirkus ? I'm like no , why would we ?

Because you can do that on your own Right . You know what I mean Like you want to hire a marketing firm to do the things to get the ungettable get . You want to hire a marketing team to do things that you can't do on your own , otherwise , why you're , I'm a little sure , like super busy is .

I respect that , but I mean you know , no , we're not paying for reviews and publishers weekly or kirkus , not because we're have strong feelings , we're hating on all the things .

I suppose and with that you're right , penny there are plenty of companies that are like , yes , that's what we want you to pay us for . And it's like , oh , you know , that part's not . I personally don't even find that fun , like I tell people all the time that write in .

You know , I was like , believe it or not , penny and I actually have our hands in a lot of this stuff because those are the things we love to do . So , yes , we're in email and yes , penny's on the phone . But believe it or not ? we love the time we get to spend with the actual creative marketing efforts .

We love it and that's what we get excited about and that's why we like doing these shows too , because we get it like that kind of fuels our fire too . But I think some people are really surprised when they find out that you and I just aren't in email all day and that's how we spend our time .

I'm like , no , actually we try to do that as little as possible so we can actually go back to the fun marketing stuff that we like to do .

But also , just , I mean , email kills creativity . I mean it just , you know , I'm sorry , it just does , but we love being in that creative space and I think that that's what makes it hard .

I'm sorry , it just does , but we love being in that creative space and I think that if that's what makes it hard , I think for authors who are also in there doing their own marketing , they're like I , I don't want to do this , like I don't want to do my own accounting , right , right , you know what I mean .

They don't like it just sucks , like this , and I had an author tell me that the other day like this just sucks the life out of me . I'm like I get it . If you don't like it , you shouldn't do it . You know ? Um , I would love to know , and you can leave it in the comments on um social media , cause obviously we promote these on .

So we promote these shows , um , on our Instagram feed and my TikTok videos , which I just started doing . I really hate doing video , but I'm doing tech . I'm going kicking and screaming into the TikTok video thing . Um , finally , like I , I'm such not a trend follower , I I such a camera , but anyway I'm finally here .

So , anyway , welcome me all TikTokers , Cause I'm finally joined the party party . But I'd love to know , if y'all you know anybody , did you pay ? What was your experience ?

Um , join in this conversation because I think the other thing that I really love about this podcast is that it does get authors talking and sharing with other authors , and that is that's a really cool thing . So we also love reviews and , by the way , if this is your first show , we're generally not quite so bitter . So , no , we are , go back through .

If first off . If this is your first show , welcome . We're so glad that you're here , but go back through some of our , because we have five years of shows , so definitely , you know , check out some of our back our list of prior shows that we've done . And we love reviews wherever you listen to podcasts , so please leave us a review .

We got a couple of new reviews , which were always very . We always check that before we start recording the show . We get very excited about that . If it's , you do have to follow the show in order to be able to leave a review , so follow us . You'll get an episode every Friday in your app or wherever you listen to podcasts , and we'll see you next time .

Bye-bye .