FRAUD AND THE INTERNET PART 3: POST-PUBLICATION

After all these con jobs, attempts at upselling, and data mining my information, you would think that this miserable ordeal was over. But before I could grab a craft beer and pour it down my gullet in celebration, another irritation came upon me shortly after final publication. I will explain this problem in two condensed parts. 

The first problem revolves around the media. A couple of weeks after my book was published, my publisher released a “press release” to hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and websites for promotion. So far, I have done one authentic interview with a small-town paper. Before I explain what happened, I have to provide a little background. As an individual who worked in the television industry for 12 years, I have a firm understanding of how the money was made and how my toast was buttered so to speak. Advertising is the key to making money in television, magazines, and newspapers. It has been the foundation of the industry for generations. Without it, the newspaper industry would not have survived for centuries. But in the present day, there are other types of advertisements. One of the biggest is subscription fees paid by the consumer for a service or money received by a cable provider to carry a particular station to its consumers. Another, which this blog will be focusing on, is sponsored advertisements. If you do a Google search, usually the first search result will say “Sponsored.” Sponsored ads appear in newscasts to promote certain products. On television, the best example of a sponsored ad is a thirty-minute infomercial that usually airs at night. Once my “press release” was sent out into the world, the nightmare began.

First was something called the Spotlight Network. It apparently exists only on Roku. The network contacted me for a ten-minute interview. But being from the television industry, my first question was, “How much is this going to cost me?” Confused by my response, the salesmen asked me why I thought this advertising would cost money. After explaining the concept of sponsored advertisements and the fact I worked in television for over a decade, he came out and stated exactly what I expected. $999 out of pocket for a ten-minute infomercial on a station with virtually no viewership on Roku. I told him I wasn’t interested. This did not stop the calls. For this nightmare to end, I had to register his phone number as spam on my Android Phone to block all future phone calls. Then, two magazines started to contact me (These shall remain nameless). They were only interested in my book based on how much advertising I could spend in their mediocre publications. The problem with both these magazines is that the demographic I was interested in targeting had no relation to the subject matter in either one.

Finally, there is one last problem which will serve as a warning. Once the book is published, third party book services or providers scrape Amazon, my publisher’s website and Barnes & Noble to acquire the information regarding my book. They quickly create a page to buy the book for resale and charge an exorbitant price in a different currency. I have no control over stopping these websites due to them being created outside the United States. Here are several examples on Google alone.

Indigo in Canada
Mighty Ape in Australia
Germany
Bruna in the Netherlands
Libris in Romania
Prospero in Hungary
Rakuten in Japan

And many more. If you are interested in my book, buy it on Amazon, Google, Barnes & Noble, Thrift Books, or my publisher’s website. Do not get conned into purchasing it from any other source. Hopefully soon, this marketing nightmare will come to an end.