Ran across this story from the POD-dy Mouth blog:

Raves For Sale

It is about how BookSurge, a competing POD publisher bought out by Amazon last year, sells a service where for $399 a New York Times bestselling author will write a custom review.

This sort of “marketing” service makes me ill, as it is an unbelievable waste of money. Author advocate MJ Rose explained why this is so a few years back.

But I shouldn’t criticize without offering alternatives, so here is what I’d do if I had $399 earmarked for book marketing.

#1 - Set up a blog on Wordpress.com (or, if you are a BookLocker author, ask for a free one - like this author did).
Cost: $0

#2 - Fill the blog with content aimed at attracting the target audience for the book. I’d get at least 10 posts up on the blog before I started publicizing it. I’d try to post once a day, but not less than once a week.
Cost: $0

#3 - Register the blog in as many blog-specific search engines and directories as possible.
Cost: $0

#4 - I’d register the blog in subject-specific search engines and directories.
Cost: $0

#5 - I’d work on getting links from related sites.
Cost: $0

#6 - I’d buy 20 copies of my book at the author discount, then find 20 bloggers willing to review the book.
Cost: about $250 (including cost of book and shipping costs to each reviewer)

#7 - I’d open an account on Overture and Google Adsense, buy $50 worth of advertising on each, and run test campaigns.
Cost: $100

#8 - I’d do a WebRelease through WebWire, after I wrote a press release with a good PR hook.
Cost: $49

I can’t guarantee doing these things will get you book sales, but I can guarantee you’ll have more to show for your $399.