The Pros and Cons of Using a Book Marketing Agency

So you've written a book—congratulations! But as any seasoned author will tell you, writing the book is only half the battle. The real challenge begins when you have to market it. How do you get your masterpiece into the hands of eager readers? Should you hire a book marketing agency or take the DIY route?

With a decade of marketing experience under my belt, both as a professional marketer and someone who has employed marketing tactics, I'm here to break down the pros and cons of working with a marketing agency for your book.

Whether you're an indie author or traditionally published, this guide will give you the insights you need to make an informed decision.

To start, if you are an indie author, then you may have gotten one of these emails:

 I get one in my inbox at least twice a month.

Are companies like these valid?

It depends.

Rather than vetting each company and creating a list of “Christina-approved” agencies, I am going to share the pros and cons of having a marketing agency for your book in general. Then you can make a decision based on that, and your own criteria.

Con: Marketing Agencies Are Costly  

How much do marketing agencies for authors cost?

A lot.

A book marketing agency can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $3,500 a month. Sometimes these costs can be for your entire brand –your email marketing, social media marketing, etc.

Other times, this cost is just for the promotion of one book.

Yikes!

You need to compare that with the highest cost of your book.

Let’s say that a physical hardcopy of your book is $17.95. You go with a $1,500 company that will promote this specific title. That means you need to sell roughly 85 copies of your book to break even. That is assuming that $17.95 is your profit per book after royalties are split between you, the publisher, distributor, etc.

This also does not include taxes or additional charges, so you may need to sell more books.

One of the first things you should consider is the return on investment.

Does this agency seem like they could turn a good profit? If you think they can, did they provide proof? They need to be specific on the return on investment. Not only many times your book is seen or how many posts they can do a week. I need tangible prove of where I will break even and what the profit will be.

Or are these funds better spent for you to market your book directly?

Con: They Are Like Magicians – Promising You “Magic” 

Vanity publishers, author promotion services, book marketing agencies, or whatever name these businesses use have one thing in common – they will offer you a dream.

They will usually emphasize how many readers, subscribers, etc. your book will be shown to. Again, this does not give insight to what you will be concretely getting back.

To illustrate the point, let us go back to the email I got from Author Week.

Here is how much their services cost:

For $30 a week, you will get 35 tweets and a listing on their site for one year.  

First and foremost, their Twitter feed (which has now been deleted) was an echo chamber.

It only had 30k followers at the time of my first viewing, which isn’t necessarily bad, but many of these are other authors who have participated in follow-for-follow trends or outright bots.

Twitter algorithms will also share this to only 6% of followers (typically across the board, not just for this user), so 6% of 30k is only 1,800.

That is the actual amount that you might see your book per tweet.

What about having your book listed on their site for a whole year?

Not only is their book page flagged because it isn’t private and is open to hacking attempts, but when I run the site through an SEO analyzer, I see that the site only gets a handful of keyword hits a month:

If we break down the numbers, this does not sound like a good deal. At all.

If you break even from what you spend, let alone turn a profit, I would consider that a miracle.

Authorweek is not representative of all author marketing agencies, but if the company you are looking at is vague in its promises, I would be wary.   

Con: They Are Not Always Transparent  

Again, they will often sell you on having your books seen by millions, but they are not always transparent about realistic goals or how they will accomplish what they are doing.

A legitimate book marketing agency will be honest about what it can and cannot do.

Back when I was an entry-level digital media specialist, this was one of my selling points as an employee. If an agency was not transparent with its clients, it often meant a high-stress, high-pressure environment that never generated good results.

When it comes to choosing an agency, honesty always wins.

Pro: You Will Save Time

If there was another one of me, I could sell SOOO many books!

Who hasn’t thought that?

If you have the budget for it and find an adequately vetted agency, you can save so much time. Book promotion companies can take over all aspects of a campaign – from email marketing to social media posting.

It is so convenient to delegate book promo tasks to someone else and then work on things like editing your manuscript.

Pro: You Get Access to Expertise and Tools 

Often, an author marketing agency does not just include one expert but also many experts in many different marketing roles.

For instance, one employee may excel at SEO and website optimization, while another may excel at social media. With an agency, you are getting a slew of experts who can work on every marketing aspect suitable for your book.

A similar benefit of having a book advertising agency is the additional tools they will use for your business.

For instance, did you know that there are special tools to see what kind of search engine ranking you have?

There are also tools for video editing, graphic design, site keyword research, and website analytics, to name a few. These tools and sites can also be very costly.  

Pro: You Get Additional Ideas  

Do you know what the best social media scheduler is?

What about the best email campaign manager?

Similarly, what are the exact target demographics for your book?

What makes your book marketable?

Are there any author events you should be aware of or podcasts you can go on?

These are questions that a book marketing agency will be able to answer. They can work to find out what your readers want, but they also can find new ideas.

For instance, they might suggest launching a book trailer or running a special discount for a specific customer group. Being creative is a large part of being a successful marketing agency.

The Bottom Line 

Hopefully, this gives you insight into whether an author marketing agency is right for you. The critical thing to remember is that you need to vet any agency you are interested in. Unfortunately, there are scammers out there that only want to separate you from your money.

Be diligent, be realistic, and consider your individual needs and goals.

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