I’m six months into promoting my historical romance novel, and I’m beyond disappointed with the marketing service I hired. I spent $2,000 on their “Bestseller Package,” and my sales are still abysmal—maybe 3-5 copies per week.
Their communication has been terrible. The initial calls were great, but now I’m lucky to get a response within a week. The quarterly report they promised was just a generic template with basic Amazon ranking screenshots and social media impressions data. Nothing actionable or insightful.
They promised Amazon ads with “strategic keyword targeting,” but when I finally got access to see the campaigns, they were using generic keywords that anyone could have thought of. No wonder the click-through rate was 0.08%!
The blog tour was equally disappointing—they got me featured on sites with barely any traffic or engagement. One blog hadn’t even been updated in six months before my post appeared!
I feel like I’ve wasted not just money but precious launch momentum. Has anyone else had similarly frustrating experiences with book marketing services? Or better yet, has anyone successfully recovered from a failed marketing campaign?
I’m not giving up on my book, but I’m definitely rethinking my entire approach to marketing. Maybe I need to take courses and do it myself rather than trusting supposed “experts” who don’t deliver.
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