{"id":1284,"date":"2008-02-03T17:22:15","date_gmt":"2008-02-03T17:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicityhound.com\/blog\/index.php\/why-i-hate-amazon-bn-best-seller-campaigns\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T19:19:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T19:19:25","slug":"why-i-hate-amazon-bn-best-seller-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/marketing\/online-marketing\/why-i-hate-amazon-bn-best-seller-campaigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I hate Amazon, B&N best-seller campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

My blood boils when I see authors wasting time on Amazon.com<\/a>\u00a0and Barnes & Noble<\/a>\u00a0best-seller promotions\u00a0in which they rally their friends and their friends’ friends to buy their book on the same day so it\u00a0jumps to the top of the list.<\/p>\n

Unless you’re already a big-name author, these campaigns rarely bring lasting results. Besides, so many authors execute them so poorly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Barbara Rozgonyi\u00a0got me all worked up again when I read her explanation\u00a0of\u00a0why\u00a0she sees little value in participating by donating an info product that the author will give away as a bonus\u00a0to anyone who buys the book.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The enticement, of course, is that everyone who donates a bonus—and lots of marketers usually step forward—must agree to email everyone on their lists and push the book.\u00a0 That means that in exchange forgiving away one of your\u00a0ebooks or a special reports, you can get in front of thousands of people who might not know about you and convert them into your own newsletter subscribers or customers. Barbara writes:<\/p>\n

\n

“When I had the chance to participate in one of these book promos, I jumped on it. Dreaming about adding hundreds of names to a list overnight is heady.<\/p>\n

“But, it\u2019s just that—a dream. Almost every ‘lead’ that came in unsubscribed. Immediately. These people have no interest in a relationship, only collecting products.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the comment I posted at Barbara’s blog:<\/p>\n

\n

I despise these Amazon and B&N campaigns.<\/p>\n

Back when I didn\u2019t know any better, I\u2019d gladly give away my valuable product as a bonus, but I refused to do special mailings to my list. Why? Because my list of 40,000+ trusts me. And one book title will appeal to such a small slice of those people, anyway, that I can\u2019t justify pestering the rest of them.<\/p>\n

Today, I neither give away the product nor send a special email to Publicity Hounds\u00a0on my list.\u00a0 So authors, please leave me alone.<\/strong><\/p>\n

These campaigns are like stuffing the ballot box. They\u2019re no reflection of the actual popularity of a book.<\/p>\n

I wish authors would stop wasting time on this and spend it instead doing keyword research, then blogging, writing articles, submitting to content-sharing social media sites, creating videos about their books and posting them to YouTube\u2014the types of things that pay huge dividends weeks, months and even years later.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read what Steve Weber has to say about other disadvantages\u00a0of these campaigns (use the arrows at the top of the frame to move to the next page).\u00a0He’s author of the book Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors<\/a>, and this is apparently excerpted from his\u00a0book.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you participated in an Amazon or B&N campaign as the author or the person who donated the freebie, let’s hear your take on this.\u00a0\u00a0Worth it? Or a waste of time?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My blood boils when I see authors wasting time on Amazon.com\u00a0and Barnes & Noble\u00a0best-seller promotions\u00a0in which they rally their friends and their friends’ friends to buy their book on the same day so it\u00a0jumps to the top of the list. Unless you’re already a big-name author, these campaigns rarely bring lasting results. Besides, so many\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":3,"wds_primary_category":612,"footnotes":""},"categories":[612],"tags":[608,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-1284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-online-marketing","7":"tag-authors-publishers","8":"tag-book-marketing","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41642,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions\/41642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}