Hi I am new to this bloging so please bear with me.
My son wrote a book which we got self published and now we are trying to get news of his story and his book out there to the public. The company I used mentioned something about needing a book investor but wanted to charge £900 a month for 4 month to try and find one! does anyone know how this works and if it is possible to approach them as a member of the public?
It all sounds so tempting (especially if you can afford it) but the only beneficiaries would be the company offering the service.
Have you looked at Writer's Workshop? http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk
They offer a number of services as well as paid editorial with possible agent introduction at no additional cost. Worth exploring their website.
The company was set up by Harry Bingham who wrote 'How to Write' published by Writer's & Artists. They run the York Literary Festival that has a good number of well known agents, editors and publishers.
Thank you all for the responses and trust me I will not be paying them for marketing services the company I used was Xlibris. The marketing package does involve a lot more than just approaching 'book investors' but nothing that warrants the price they are charging and can't be done for free as long as i'm willing to work at it and do the leg work myself it's just working out who to pester lol. I have been in touch with several traditional publishers just waiting to here back and I have a story going out in a local paper that hits the nurseries and schools.
Be interesting to know which self-pub company you used so we know who to avoid!
Seriously, there are plenty of ways to get the word out there for very little money - you just have to work really hard at it as Susan says.
I had no marketing budget but local press are usually pretty good about publishing stories like this from their areas. They might even do an interview if you're lucky, but initially a short press release with a picture usually works. Websites are getting simpler to set up, too - you can put a basic one on Wordpress or Wix at no cost apart from some time and drive traffic to it from Facebook or similar.
Blogs are quite useful tools too, though I'm not sure whether one's appropriate in this case.
Personally, I'd only pay someone as a very last resort. Actually, I probably wouldn't. I doubt you'd get much return for your investment because if gigantic international publishing houses struggle to market new writers, what change have little people got?
Best of luck :)