I received the following message this week:
Subject: “Your Online Publicist”
I have received several phone calls from this company (YOP), wanting to market my book. Do you know anything about this company?
This was my response:
Lots of people write in asking me if I’ve heard of a specific company that has been calling or emailing them. Authors are usually contacted by phone. How do they find your phone number? Easy! These companies can get on Amazon, see new releases, Google the author, and find their contact information online.
I googled this: “Your Online Publicist” scam
and
“Your Online Publicist” complaint
and
“Your Online Publicist” complaints
Below are links that popped up, along with short snippets of comments posted by authors:
“It is RIDICULOUS how many times a day this company calls my personal cell phone number. I have asked MULTIPLE times to STOP the phone calls, but you call me from different numbers so that I cannot block.”
“Just got lied to by two people about several different things! I was told that a senior member read my book, yet she could not answer a simple question.”
“Not only is it downright harassment, it creates great suspicion as to the quality of their services.”
“I took a look at their website. It’s full of unprofessional typos and would make any author associated with them look bad. Avoid, avoid, avoid.”
“Even if this company offered best product ever (which they don’t) I wouldn’t do business with them because of the harassing and disrespectful sales tactics.”
“I had YOP republish my book and all went well in step one. Then step two (Which I don’t remember hearing about in the beginning) can run you anywhere from $2000-$6000.”
“I then explained that I would report them to the FTC for every unwanted call I receive. ‘Joe’ had nothing else to say – I imagine his pre-written script did not cover that scenario. He then hung up on me.”
YOP responded to that complaint on the website (notice the horrible grammar!): Rest be assured that the action has been taken against the responsible team lead and it is being made sure that you do not receive any call from our end in future.
Then, the author updated her complaint with this:
“EDIT: YOP’s reply to this review is a lie. Just tonight I got yet another spam call from them.”
F RATING
“Your relentless calls are enough to make people NEVER want to work with you – EVER. STOP CALLING ME.”
“You’ve called me close to a hundred times over months from multiple numbers, getting around my attempts to block you…”
“why is this person calling my mother’s phone number claiming to be ‘my agent regarding my authorship’ ?? please leave my mother alone”
“It’s been months. I just want them to stop harassing me.”
Under several complaints, the company posted responses…with grammatical, capitalization, and other errors.
“This company is harassing authors on their private numbers.”
“Each time someone from the company calls me, I have MOST earnestly requested that my name be taken off the call list, as I have no intention of EVER using the company’s services. When I get this far, the person hangs up on me.”
Shouldn’t this company be using their resources to provide publicity services to promote their authors’ books?? After all, that’s what their name implies! AUTHOR BEWARE!
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Angela Hoy is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the author of 19 books, and the co-owner of BookLocker.com (one of the original POD publishers that still gets books to market in less than a month), PubPreppers.com (print and ebook design for authors who truly want to self-publish), and Abuzz Press (the publishing co-op that charges no setup fees).
Angela has lived and traveled across the U.S. with her kids in an RV, settled in a river-side home in Bradenton, FL, and lived on a 52 ft Irwin sailboat. Angela now resides on a mountaintop in Northwest Georgia, where she plans to spend the rest of her days bird watching, gardening, hiking, and taking in all of the amazing sunrises.
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7.625 STRATEGIES IN EVERY BEST-SELLER - Revised and Expanded Edition
At this moment, thousands of would-be authors are slaving away on their keyboards, dreaming of literary success. But their efforts won’t count for much. Of all those manuscripts, trade book editors will sign up only a slim fraction.
And of those titles--ones that that editors paid thousands of dollars to contract, print and publicize--an unhealthy percentage never sell enough copies to earn back their advances. Two years later, most will be out of print!
Acquisition Editor Tam Mossman shares seven essentials every book needs to stay in print, and sell!
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