# New Fiverr Gig - tweet ebooks to 29K Followers- readers, writers, reviewers etc



## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

*Check out My Gigs on Fiverr*  [URL=https://www.fiverr]https://www.fiverr.com/laughoften[/url]

[size=14pt]*I Will TWEET Ebooks 4 times to 30+K Readers, Bloggers, Reviewers --

[size=14pt]I'm a best selling author who has been meticulously growing my twitter followers the last 4 years. I belong to writers' groups that retweet each other. I use relevant hashtags- your cover and your amazon link. I tweet at high traffic times

Mention you found me on the kboards and I will tweet you for an extra day for free!!*


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## R. M. Webb (Jul 24, 2014)

Boyd said:


> I love trying out new things. I threw my hat in the ring and did a couple of add ons. I generally sell about 80-100 a day on the title I put up for promo. Ranking is 1300ish currently. Will report back when I have numbers


Looking forward to hearing how it goes.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

I'm interested, but I have 2 questions.
1) Are you only going to tweet the link to Amazon Kindle store, or can I have a link to somewhere else?
2) Are there any kind of books that you don't or won't tweet?
I've favorited the gig on Fiverr already so I can find it again quickly.


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## ArchangelEST (Jan 19, 2015)

I'm sorry, but you don't average 70 retweets. At best, you average 1-2 retweets. Even the tweets of other people that you've re-tweeted haven't gotten to 70. Let alone averaging 70 overall.

I don't mind supporting a good service, but if you start off with a strong claim like that, you better have proof that cannot be disputed.

You do tweet a lot, so I only went back a week or so on your Twitter profile, but nowhere did I see anything even remotely close to 70 retweets.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

SB James said:


> I'm interested, but I have 2 questions.
> 1) Are you only going to tweet the link to Amazon Kindle store, or can I have a link to somewhere else?
> 2) Are there any kind of books that you don't or won't tweet?
> I've favorited the gig on Fiverr already so I can find it again quickly.


Any link is fine- I like to have the amazon like too to use the blurb and reviews if you do the blog post
I haven't come across a book I wouldnt promote but I do reserve the right to refuse


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

ArchangelEST said:


> I'm sorry, but you don't average 70 retweets. At best, you average 1-2 retweets. Even the tweets of other people that you've re-tweeted haven't gotten to 70. Let alone averaging 70 overall.
> 
> I don't mind supporting a good service, but if you start off with a strong claim like that, you better have proof that cannot be disputed.
> 
> You do tweet a lot, so I only went back a week or so on your Twitter profile, but nowhere did I see anything even remotely close to 70 retweets.


On my Fiverr gigs I most certainly do average 70+ retweets for the gig of 4 tweets. Gigs are different than regular tweets- I use hashtags and writers groups to get retweeted. I retweet a lot but don't expect those tweets to be retweeted- I didn't write them. In fact if it's a genre I don't usually use I research hashtags that may work. not one of my clients have been unhappy and if they don't get retweeted I tweet their books more than four times - trying new hashtags and post times. I happen to care about my reputation. It's five bucks and I have used fiverr where exposure was promised but there wasn't a reader among them Ive also used some great gigs. 
*These are two of my own tweets from June 9th as you can see one was retweeted 38 times and the other 42 times. If I posted them 4 times as per my gig I think 70 retweets is a good assumption. 
*
Kathleen Ball ‏@kballauthor Jun 9
Everyone loves a winner- Winter's Embrace by Kathleen Ball #ASMSG #iartg - http://bit.ly/1n38N1D 
38 retweets 2 favorites

Kathleen Ball ‏@kballauthor Jun 9

Fall in Love with a Cowboy- Ryelee's Cowboy Best Selling Western Romance By Kathleen Ball #ASMSG #IARTG - http://bit.ly/1fg6QXN 
42 retweets 3 favorites


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## sugarhit (Feb 9, 2015)

Color me confused. I checked, too and only see about 4-10 retweets on other authors books. Are you combining a total of all the tweets?

I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison to show your own tweet stats-- that I'm guessing you didn't post a Fiverr gig fo--and say that " If I posted them 4 times as per my gig I think 70 retweets is a good assumption. " That's just funny math.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

For 5 bucks, I'll give it a try, too. I'm always looking for decent fiverr gigs for my free books (since I don't want to spend more than that on them).


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

Kathleen,

I just placed an order with you for a promo that will run at the end of the month, and I asked for certain dates for the tweet. I hope you can do this, since the book will be on sale at that time. It just won't be effective if it isn't.

Is that possible?


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

T. M. Bilderback said:


> Kathleen,
> 
> I just placed an order with you for a promo that will run at the end of the month, and I asked for certain dates for the tweet. I hope you can do this, since the book will be on sale at that time. It just won't be effective if it isn't.
> 
> Is that possible?


 I can do certain dates no problem - the only thing is wait to put the order in- fiverr gives an average response time three days before would be great


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

I Compose the tweets. All you need to do is give me the amazon link- it should have your cover art on it. Lots of people have gigs on fiverr. I actually make 4.00 fiverr takes one as their cut. I've been working on my twitter followers for years and when I saw how many retweets I was getting I thought why not? I'm sitting here writing anyway. It's for all priced books- I'm not getting much on facebook anymore. Too many people dropping off posts in groups. The twitter groups I belong to -- I share them they share me- the more active you are the more retweets you get. I'm not guaranteeing book sales I can only say I do have an average of 70 retweets per gig- a gig for me is 4 tweets.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

Kathleen Ball said:


> I can do certain dates no problem - the only thing is wait to put the order in- fiverr gives an average response time three days before would be great


Sending a PM...


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## Guest (Jun 11, 2015)

We know that BKnights results in more than 100 downloads of a free book for 5.50 bucks. That's what we expect from you. Two days ago another Fiverr advertised her gig here and her results were dismal and we told her so. If I were you I'd be tweeting till the pigeons came home. Good luck!


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Listen up= my gig is I will tweet you 4 times and the total retweets are an average of 70- actually that has been a low number- so no fishy math- I'm an accountant. I retweet many posts but without the right hashtags and group participation they don't get retweeted. I'm talking only about posts I write for gigs. And I don't need threats that I'd best get tweeting- Bknight has a website and mailing list- all gigs are different. I'm an author not someone looking to screw people over - I'm not talking about sales- just retweets that could lead to sales. I'm well respected in the writing community. I even pinned, google+, and put on facebook those who chose the blog gig. Retweets from pinterest too. So don't expect a certain number of downloads just a certain number of retweets- plus I have 30K followers- usually people are thrilled when I help them- I didn't realize the kboards were so harsh- almost like goodreads. But really- use my services- don't use them- wait until tomorrow for a few people to say if they think i did a good job or not.  How many times do you get retweeted?


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

Hey, I'm willing to give her a shot. I don't care if I get a single sale from it, because I'll be getting what I need: word of mouth. It may only result in someone remembering the book title or something, but that's all I ask!

I understand what I'm getting for my five bucks: 4 Tweets from the gig provider. That's all I'm guaranteed, and all I'm asking from her. Retweets will be wonderful, but she can't guarantee them, and she is by NO means guaranteeing sales.

I have a major background in radio. Radio ads don't guarantee sales. They guarantee that the listener will hear the business name, and maybe what they do. That's what is being offered here: Your book name out on Twitter, by someone that isn't YOU.

I'll take it, and I'll be happy!


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## Holly A Hook (Sep 19, 2010)

How far out can you book?  I am prepping for a huge sale in early August.  I know BKnights only books out 21 days in advance.  I would like to try this.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Kathleen Ball said:


> It's for all priced books-


My order was for my permafree. Since you accepted and scheduled it for tomorrow, I'm assuming you will be tweeting that it is currently free on Amazon.

Is that right?

Philip


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Philip Gibson said:


> My order was for my permafree. Since you accepted and scheduled it for tomorrow, I'm assuming you will be tweeting that it is currently free on Amazon.
> 
> Is that right?
> 
> Philip


Of course- I always check price- best selling status etc


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Kathleen Ball said:


> Of course- I always check price- best selling status etc


Thanks for the prompt reply. Best of luck with this!

Philip


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I'll probably try this as well in early July when I do my first promo for my second book.  Posting here to follow this thread as well.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Holly A Hook said:


> How far out can you book? I am prepping for a huge sale in early August. I know BKnights only books out 21 days in advance. I would like to try this.


 just asked Fiverr and according to them you can't book ahead


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## ArchangelEST (Jan 19, 2015)

Boyd said:


> My notes - I haven't noticed anything sizeable over the past 24 hours as far as bumps in sales. Tweets take time for everyone to see them, so I'll keep checking my stats. Kathleen, is there one genre that does better than others? I know you said you use genre specific hashtags on your tweets.


To be fair - hashtags barely do anything. Technically they make your posts visible to millions who might be searching for those hashtags, but in reality - not many will be during the days of your promo and those that do, will be bombarded with thousands of books of a similar nature. Yours will not stand out.

But for your sakes, I hope the OP is some sort of a miracle worker.


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2015)

Tweets are a form of advertising.
Advertising puts your brand in front of people. Nothing more.
But that promotion alone is valuable.
There is no way a advertiser can determine how many people made a purchase because they drove past his billboard on the road.
The advertiser hopes that when the driver is in the mood to shop, then the advertiser's brand will be remembered.
The CEO of a major company once figured that HALF of his advertising budget was wasted.
But the problem was, he couldn't tell which half.
So he continued his advertising.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Archangel, Kathleen isn't claiming to be a miracle worker; she has been very specific.

Kathleen,

Welcome to Kboards! [br][br]You're welcome to promote your business and website here in the Writers' Café![br][br]Now that you have an official thread, you'll want to add your listing to our Yellow Pages Listing, found here:[br]http://www.kboards.com/yp/[br][br]The listing is free to KB members and is completely self-service; you can add and edit your listing from the page. More information on our Yellow Pages listing can be found here.[br][br]In your thread here, we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have this one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service wil be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days. If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks![br][br]Betsy[br]KBoards Moderator [br][br]Note that this welcome does not constitute an endorsement or vetting of a service by KBoards. Members should do due diligence when considering using a service, for example, by asking KB members for feedback and doing an Internet search such as "service provider name" complaints.


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## ArchangelEST (Jan 19, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Archangel, Kathleen isn't claiming to be a miracle worker; she has been very specific.


I know Betsy, sry if I seem overly critical. But I just feel like people are getting their expectations up too high. 



Okey Dokey said:


> Tweets are a form of advertising.
> Advertising puts your brand in front of people. Nothing more.
> But that promotion alone is valuable.
> There is no way a advertiser can determine how many people made a purchase because they drove past his billboard on the road.
> ...


Except it isn't comparable. Tweets especially are very tiny, lost amongst thousands of others that look 99% identical. There is no "brand" that's being advertised. Author name isn't even mentioned half the time. Heck - the name of the book isn't always fully written out because the tweets only allow so many letters. And images aren't automatically displayed either.

There is almost zero brand exposure generated.

Conceptually I agree with you, but internet marketing is a bit different than traditional forms. The casual browser is de-sensitized to advertisements to such a degree that the vast majority of ads don't even register in their mind.

Using your billboard analogy - tweeting a book is like lining 500 miles of highway with billboards every 10 feet and hoping your billboard out of the thousands is the one that someone notices. It's wishful thinking.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

(This isn't directed at the OP - just a general observation of Twitter)

Folks, Twitter isn't about direct sales. And number of followers doesn't really mean anything unless the account owner is following ten people and has 30k followers. THAT person is talking about something people want to interact with. More followers than following is a good indication of an account that's offering something of value to its followers.

'Buy my book' isn't going to work on Twitter. It's the same as standing in a stadium and shouting 'buy my book' into a rowdy crowd. 

Be a person on Twitter, chat and interact, and gain followers who want to interact with you. That's the best way to utilise Twitter. If Twitter isn't your thing, then focus elsewhere (on whatever you enjoy, blogging, Facebook etc). Buying RT's/followers etc is money down the drain. 

This is my personal opinion/experience.


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## ArchangelEST (Jan 19, 2015)

D-to-the-C said:


> (This isn't directed at the OP - just a general observation of Twitter)
> 
> Folks, Twitter isn't about direct sales. And number of followers doesn't really mean anything unless the account owner is following ten people and has 30k followers. THAT person is talking about something people want to interact with. More followers than following is a good indication of an account that's offering something of value to its followers.
> 
> ...


Yup. That's how it is.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Archangel, there's nothing wrong about talking about reasonable expectations from Twitter... Just avoid making comments about the OP. Thanks.

Betsy


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## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

I'll be paying attention to the feedback.
When I have the next book available the decision is which advertising to go with.
As long as the advertiser does what is promised that is all that I can expect.

I look forward to some feedback from the users!


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

She has 29,000 fans who "follow" her. They are interested in her genre and probably others to a lesser extent. If she pitches a book to them this way, and its not Cowboy romance, only a fraction might be interested, maybe a quarter like fantasy or half like werewolf romance. Maybe only 10% like science fiction.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I would like to chime in here. I chatted briefly with Kathleen about promoting my RBC website through her Fiverr $5 tweeting deal and I had a huge boost in traffic. It was well worth the $5. I know it's different than tweeting books but the traffic and eyeballs are certainly there and that's what she is providing, not guaranteed sales on anything.

I plan to possibly purchase another round of tweets from her next week.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Boyd said:


> My notes - I haven't noticed anything sizeable over the past 24 hours as far as bumps in sales. Tweets take time for everyone to see them, so I'll keep checking my stats. Kathleen, is there one genre that does better than others? I know you said you use genre specific hashtags on your tweets.


Erotic/erotica- they don't seem to get retweeted- I think people read the posts but don't want it on their twitter feed- Tried everything with one the last two days - meanwhile one client got 119 retweets and another 121 - I did have a children's book that didn't do too well today so I'm redoing it tomorrow hoping Saturday will be a better fit. Anyone with a low number I redo- changing times looking for new hash tags- trying to tweet to the right market. I write romance- that flies really well as does horror or thrillers. The retweeting groups I work with have all genres- I'll have to see if certain ones don't get retweeted- I don't mind all genres on my twitter feed but others might


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> I chatted briefly with Kathleen about promoting my RBC website through her Fiverr $5 tweeting deal and I had a huge boost in traffic. It was well worth the $5.


Can we have numbers so we can compare it to BKnights?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

drno said:


> Can we have numbers so we can compare it to BKnights?


Does BKnights give you numbers on traffic? That's what Kathleen is advertising...

Betsy


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## Guest (Jun 12, 2015)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Does BKnights give you numbers on traffic? That's what Kathleen is advertising...
> 
> Betsy


You can see the results of a campaign in your KDP account. It shows you how many sales or free downloads there are for every single day for every single book. So a campaign for a book either leads to a bump or not. For BKnights I can say that his bumps for Free thriller downloads are about 140 at the moment. I remember a few months ago it was closer to 300. I pay BKnights 5.50 bucks.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

drno said:


> Can we have numbers so we can compare it to BKnights?
> [/quote
> Are you kidding? BKnight has a website and mailing list- that is direct marketing- I'm doing indirect- two different things. You can't compare gigs. I've used bKnight and have gotten to the best seller's list every time- now for indirect marketing- it's about getting your name- your cover out there. At any author conference they will tell you it takes the consumer about 10+ times seeing a product before they consider buying it. so, no there are no numbers to compare. There are many fiverr gigs that do all kinds of stuff from putting your books in facebook groups to making you a cover. Would you compare those numbers to bknight? I think not. I don't understand the nay saying- Authors who know me think it's a favor for me to put them on my twitter feed. My motto is think outside of the box and get your name out there in all different ways just as you build your platform with many different accounts where you can have a bio and display your books.- You use amazon, facebook, goodreads, google+, pinterest, twitter etc. Where do you find fans? they are everywhere and you have to get their attention and let them know you and your book are there. People all have different marketing tactics. I've tried most and and have been successful. Some people hate marketing I happen to like it.


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## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

KB don't worry about the nay sayers.  

Everyone is looking to far into this and it looks to me like they want to compare apples to oranges when looking at the services.

I agree with you.  Get your name out there and of course your book covers....

Stay Positive!


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

The BKnights gigs on Fiverr have a good name around here. Deservedly so in my opinion.

If I remember correctly, that was far from the case when he first appeared on these boards and encountered a great deal of skepticism. He then offered KBoards authors an exclusive discount (still does) in an attempt to establish credibility here and went on to more than deliver on his promises. I have used his service over a dozen times and will continue to do so.

Perhaps the OP's service will follow a similar trajectory as she continues to tweak it (bearing in mind that 95% of tweets go unread) and hopefully expand across social media. Perhaps not. Time and experimentation will tell. I wish her the best of luck.

Philip


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Kathleen Ball said:


> Listen up= my gig is I will tweet you 4 times and the total retweets are an average of 70- actually that has been a low number- so no fishy math- I'm an accountant. I retweet many posts but without the right hashtags and group participation they don't get retweeted. I'm talking only about posts I write for gigs. And I don't need threats that I'd best get tweeting- Bknight has a website and mailing list- all gigs are different. I'm an author not someone looking to screw people over - I'm not talking about sales- just retweets that could lead to sales. I'm well respected in the writing community. I even pinned, google+, and put on facebook those who chose the blog gig. Retweets from pinterest too. So don't expect a certain number of downloads just a certain number of retweets- plus I have 30K followers- usually people are thrilled when I help them- I didn't realize the kboards were so harsh- almost like goodreads. But really- use my services- don't use them- wait until tomorrow for a few people to say if they think i did a good job or not. How many times do you get retweeted?


Well, I have a new book coming out soon in a different genre to my usual, and as it's the start of a series, I might just give you a go. I will keep this thread handy. I won't know about your claims, because Twitter is a total mystery to me, but I trust you.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Kathleen Ball said:


> Erotic/erotica- they don't seem to get retweeted- I think people read the posts but don't want it on their twitter feed- Tried everything with one the last two days - meanwhile one client got 119 retweets and another 121 - I did have a children's book that didn't do too well today so I'm redoing it tomorrow hoping Saturday will be a better fit. Anyone with a low number I redo- changing times looking for new hash tags- trying to tweet to the right market. I write romance- that flies really well as does horror or thrillers. The retweeting groups I work with have all genres- I'll have to see if certain ones don't get retweeted- I don't mind all genres on my twitter feed but others might


Thanks for being upfront about the lack of retweets on erotica. If you ever find the magic combination to solve that problem, I hope you let us know. I'm always looking for ways to get the word out that doesn't require me to spam twitter myself.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I have used BKnights as well and was super happy with the results. I was happy with Kathleen's promo and she worked with me a bit and I like that communication. But here is the thing folks, it's $5.50 and to me that's well worth the risk to try it out. If it doesn't work out so well then you haven't lost a whole lot but knowing Kathleen she'll work with you to make it worth your while so you will want to come back and use her regularly.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

This service is not worth $5, IMO, not even close.

It's only going to be lucrative for the provider (and the mods really need to stop shielding providers from tough questions - they seem to have their approach backwards on this whole issue).

Let's break it down:

*(a) The Platform*

The twitter account in question has 30.2k followers. That sounds good until you realize this account is following 30.3k people. To me, that says that the operator of this account is just following anyone they can and has just built up a huge collection of follow-back accounts, and not any kind of organic following. But we should be able to get a clearer picture of that by looking at interaction on this account.

*(b) Engagement*

There's a huge amount of activity on this account - 46.9k tweets - which indicates a lot of automation going on. Looking through the feed makes my eyes bleed. One book recommendation (over-filled with spurious hashtags) after another. There seems to be a tweet every fifteen minutes. If I was following this account, I'd unfollow right away. It's spammy - IMO. But that's just my opinion, so let's see how the Twitterverse is responding. I skipped back to tweets from June 11 to be fair (which took a LOT of scrolling, pages and pages of scrolling, maybe 20 pages of scrolling!).

You can go and view them yourself. Most tweets get one or two (or zero) retweets. The occasional tweet gets 20 or 30. And I'm skeptical to the value of those, considering the OP clearly states "I belong to writers' groups that retweet each other."

A real tell-tale sign here is if you click on "Tweets & Replies" and you will see that this account never seems to engage anyone in conversation. No replies I could see, just broadcasting links non-stop. Twitter is an interactive medium, not a broadcast medium. Using it this way - IMO - shows a lack of understanding of social media best practices. Not impressed on that front at all. But let's look at results.

*(c) The Red Flag of "Exposure"*

Effective promo services tout results. Ineffective ones claim that you are getting "exposure." Don't buy it. It's BS. Anyone claiming this is usually hiding something - and that something is usually a lack of results.

I'm also seriously concerned that the provider won't answer straight questions on results. It's simple these days to get basic metrics on this stuff. The OP could use tracking links and/or affiliate codes and tell advertisers exactly how many clicks and sales they got.

Right now, I'm not seeing any value to this at all. I'm happy to be proved wrong - if the OP wants to provide actual data on clicks/sales etc., or if anyone using the service can point to actual results from same.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Again, I was not promoting my book but my RBC site in my signature. Upon Kathleen's promo, and I would say after about 2 hours my traffic numbers picked up and yesterday I surpassed my daily record in page views and I normally approve 15-20 uploaded covers on an average day. yesterday I approved 47 and the uploads were still coming in when I went to bed. Sales were the highest on my site since launch. 

In fact, I know she has some FB groups who work with her because I interacted with many of them via email, which I sorta have to. I was not promoting a book in this case so i can't say anything in that regards, but for my site, I made back my $5 almost instantly and because I was able to network, I can't pinpoint an ROI but let's say it's important to develop relationships, even as an author. I met a few prolific authors and it was such an honor to do that.

My only suggestion would be to try it out and see if it works or if you aren't a big risk taker, wait a while until you hear more testimonials.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

stevenremington said:


> Again, I was not promoting my book but my RBC site in my signature. Upon Kathleen's promo, and I would say after about 2 hours my traffic numbers picked up and yesterday I surpassed my daily record in page views and I normally approve 15-20 uploaded covers on an average day. yesterday I approved 47 and the uploads were still coming in when I went to bed. Sales were the highest on my site since launch.
> 
> In fact, I know she has some FB groups who work with her because I interacted with many of them via email, which I sorta have to. I was not promoting a book in this case so i can't say anything in that regards, but for my site, I made back my $5 almost instantly and because I was able to network, I can't pinpoint an ROI but let's say it's important to develop relationships, even as an author. I met a few prolific authors and it was such an honor to do that.
> 
> My only suggestion would be to try it out and see if it works or if you aren't a big risk taker, wait a while until you hear more testimonials.


Others above have suggested that you can't compare apples to oranges. The website you're offering is an author service, so the FB groups of authors retweeting each other would be the right audience for this kind of service. These are authors looking for ways to promote their books and get them out in the wild in whatever fashion they can, especially for free. This audience is not an engaged one for the typical book promotion. Perhaps folk offering book cover design, editing and formatting might find an author echo chamber more worthwhile than book promos.
________

I appreciate only exposure is promised. Fair enough. But in the internet age especially with FREE and 99¢ books we know what a fallacy the need for multiple exposure is for marketing short-term sales and impulse buys/downloads. And those who have said $5.50 isn't much to drop on a service to try them out are right -- if it were only the one service. But there are hundreds (thousands?) of these types of services out there. $5 here, $5 there adds up to a mortgage payment pretty quickly...

Now I can spend $55 on 10 gigs like this to hit the 10-exposure threshold claimed (although conventionally the claim is 7 exposures). Except, of course, the union of all those gigs where the same people see all 10 ads is likely to be nil, so theoretically for the money, I wouldn't yet be getting any sales or downloads for that $55. Or I can spend that $55 for ads on sites that I personally wouldn't recommend using because of the low ROI, yet still come out ahead even if I only get 10 sales or 100 downloads.

When we push to vet a service and ask questions here, it's not just the gig in question we're trying to vet, but to look at the service in holistic relationship to everything out there competing for the authors' marketing dollars.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

dgaughran said:


> and the mods really need to stop shielding providers from tough questions - they seem to have their approach backwards on this whole issue).


David,

I've repeatedly said on our forum that tough questions are fine as long as they are civil. No questions OR comments have been removed from this thread, though a couple of comments early on nearly crossed the civility line.

Your insights are always appreciated--as long as civilly posted (as they were). Thanks.

Betsy


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## Guest (Jun 13, 2015)

All right! I'm ready to review your service. I received 10 downloads of my free ebook. 

BKnights usually leads to more than 100 downloads for the same amount of money.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

drno said:


> All right! I'm ready to review your service. I received 10 downloads of my free ebook.
> 
> BKnights usually leads to more than 100 downloads for the same amount of money.


I know I get about 1000 downloads with BKnight's promo- well worth the 5 dollars. We all have our opinions and we like what we like. Where do I get my followers? I follow readers, reviewers and writers from best selling writer's twitter followers. If someone follows me I follow back. I do have automated tweets- one for each book per day plus I use triberr- I share their blog posts they share mine- the possible views grow exponentially. Those you click on and they will automatically be put on your twitter page every 15 minutes. If I pin something in pinterest it goes to twitter too. I can understand the whole I don't trust fiverr thing- looking through the forum and reading posts- if I hadn't already used it I would have run. It's frustrating trying to market - facebook hardly shares our posts- I organized book of the day with a group of authors and did really well- our reach was greater as a group. I do radio, magazine ads- and have no way of measuring the roi but I keep trying. Free things are best, inexpensive is good- expensive only if you know for sure you will get results- such as book-bub etc. Sales have been the lowest I've seen the last few months. The first time I saw 20 retweets - i did the happy dance. I was thrilled those retweeters were authors with readers as followers. If that doesn't make you happy - pass on my gig. Try pinterest- I have tons of followers on there too- through hard work and following and repinning- kinda like twitter


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

It looks like the worst of what Twitter can be. And endless sea of spam.

I hope it works for the people who've paid, but color me skeptical.


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2015)

Still NO results for a FREE book. No matter how many times you get retweeted, if no one is downloading a free book, the service just isn't working. BKnights gets results.


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2015)

Boyd said:


> It's almost 48 hours after my run. No noticeable big run. Maybe it's better for free books? Thanks for letting me try out your service Kathleen. I don't think I'll target twitter though, no return on investment 48 hours later. My readers seem to find me via facebook and word of mouth from what I can determine.


HUH It doesn't work, but it's worth every penny? What exactly are you giving 5 stars for?

https://www.fiverr.com/laughoften/tweet-book-2xs-17k-readers-authors-reviewers

boydcraven

Outstanding Experience! *****
1 day ago


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## P.T. Phronk (Jun 6, 2014)

I'm glad that people aren't getting results.

I know that sounds harsh, and I wish Kathleen all the best with helping people sell books, but if Twitter is to maintain any value at all, it should _not_ be a place where spending five bucks can get you into the feeds of real users.

As others have pointed out, Twitter is a place where people go to interact with other people. Accounts and hash tags that agree to follow and retweet each other blindly can hardly be considered "people"; they are human-curated algorithms at best. It's a bunch of robots pumping up the numbers of other robots. Luckily, this robot Twitter largely remains separate from the human Twitter where people are trying to chat and share things they genuinely like.

I can attribute almost 100% of my success in selling books to Twitter. But I did it through nearly a decade of hanging out and gradually coming across a few thousand people who I like to hang out with. I quickly unfollow people who are boring, and I hope they'd do the same to me. Real people follow this pattern, and real people are the ones who buy books. That's why this doesn't, and shouldn't, work.

</stampede>


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

I'm waiting until tonight to post my final results, but since sooo many people seem to be critical of the OP, let me say, *I was happy with my results*.
No, it's not BKNights, but you can only effectively run BKNights every 6 months or so.

I've ran 5-7 fiverr promos in the past and with the exception of BKNights (and GenePulse when they were on there), I haven't seen any result from them except for this one.

For $5, I feel like I got my monies worth. Again, I'll post my numbers later, hopefully tonight, but I thought I should at least make a comment now.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

Boyd said:


> Wow, I don't recall typing outstanding experience, I did click on stars for her response time and how she updated me. Weird. Is that an autofill thing? I must admit, I don't use fiverr much more than doing BKnights.


I'm looking at the review above mine, they gave it 4.5 stars and it says, "Great Experience." When she replied to my review, it also says, "Outstanding Experience."

I think _maybe_ Fiverr automatically pots those if you don't write anything--which is absolutely terrible, IMHO. Not the OP's fault, but a [email protected] thing for Fiverr to do.


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## MJWare (Jun 25, 2010)

Dang it. I worked up a nice graphic showing my sales for the period of the promotion yesterday, and now I can't find it. 

In summary, I feel it's reasonable to conclude I got somewhere between *90 and 130 downloads* from the promotion (possably a little more). I had *57 re-tweets* in the two days my promotion ran, including a couple by accounts that specialize in ebook deals.

I shouldn't have ran it on a Friday, because my downloads _always_ drop on Fridays. I came up with my estimated downloads by taking the average of the downloads from the day before and the day after the promotion ran and subtracting that from the number of downloads I got on the two days it did run. This isn't scientific, but is the best way I could figure to give a rough estimate.

While the results didn't knock my socks off, I was felt like they were worth the $5 I spent and would use this gig again, but probably not for a paid book--unless it was maybe as part of a new release strategy, as I think people are more likely to re-tweet new releases.

For free books $5 for 100 download seems to be the going rate, plus due to hash tags there might be some residual effect. As always, your results may vary.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Results do vary- I'm retweeting a second day if the first day didn't result near 70 retweets. Certain hashtags seem to be the kiss of death for my retweets- #YA and #newadult- without the hashtags they get retweeted. If you did the blog- I have my blog shared through triberr and the people who share aren't on triberr every day so those retweets are over a four day period. I appreciate all of you who have used my services- it does auto plug a review if you just rate it with the stars.  Thank you for the business, the kind reviews and a few of you have come back and given me a tip.  The reason I'm retweeting another day is  I'm learning what time of day certain genres are retweeted- cookbook- morning and dinner time. Romance lunch dinner and twice at night. horror after dinner and late night same with a lot of genres.  I have to take time zones into consideration- west coast big book buyers.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Is erotica still a dead zone for you, Kathleen?


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Dragovian said:


> Is erotica still a dead zone for you, Kathleen?


PM me- I'll experiment on your book for free and see if I can find a place for it


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

I missed this reply. PM incoming.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Dragovian- sent you a PM- I did experiment with yours last night. Erotica still retweets on the low side but did a little better than I thought. I'm going to try you on a different night- it's in the PM


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Four sales, the page-equivalent of a borrow, and a pre-order for the next book. Really not bad for a niche erotic short that isn't on any kind of deal.


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## Wolfpack (Jun 20, 2013)

I placed a couple of orders. Good luck


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

I did finally find a retweeting erotic group - On twitter it's basically a share for a share in the groups so you have to be very active and immediately recognizable as a sharer to be retweeted. I also retweet authors with no shares hoping they will remember me.


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2015)

Awesome! 

I will keep you in mind. 

Thanks for the post.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Let me know when you book the gig you are from the kboards and I will tweet you an extra day!!


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## horrordude1973 (Sep 20, 2014)

Not sure how well this is working for folks, I hope its working ok. I have around 42K followers and I have had good success marketing on twitter, but it has been an ongoing work of meeting people, building relationships and the occasional marketing tweets.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Here are some harsh facts. I'll try to say them nicely.

It always stuns me how upset people get over buying something that costs $5. FIVE DOLLARS. Come on. Even if you don't get one sale, if you get your name in front of 30,000 people, what's five dollars? I have to think it's because those people have never had to buy advertising for a business prior to writing books, or had a need to market a business and simply get started on name recognition. It seems people here think every single advertisement and marketing technique should immediately put money in their pocket. It doesn't. If you are hoping to build an author brand instead of a genre brand you need to get name recognition. It's one of the oldest advertising facts around: get your name out, even if they don't know why they know your name. Then, when they see it later they'll feel they've heard about you and are more likely to try your product. 

Too many people on here expect to run a business (and when you publish it is a business) without marketing and advertising. Self-publishing isn't a multi-level marketing scam or something where you don't need to advertise. 

It's only $5, folks. What a cup of coffee costs at Starbucks. Try her or don't, but going after her about the value of it seems rather trite. I have no reason to say "use her services" but in the scheme of things, if you don't try some different things you can't expect to magically succeed. It took me 3 1/2 years to start making a living with my books. Many here would quit before that because too many expect to be the one in a million who makes it right out of the gate. And still most readers don't know me yet. But I keep branding. By doing so my income will grow.

Build your name. Build a genre brand or author brand. And that takes doing some marketing and advertising that doesn't pay off right away. You might not like it, but it's the truth. Don't try everything. Make a plan. Will I use this service? I don't know. But if I do, I'll accept I've only spent $5 and got my name out there yet once again.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Kathleen, I'm going to be using you again next month for a 99c promo/new release combo. Hopefully we can shove books 2 and 3 into the erotica top 100.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Caddy said:


> Here are some harsh facts. I'll try to say them nicely.
> 
> It always stuns me how upset people get over buying something that costs $5. FIVE DOLLARS. Come on. Even if you don't get one sale, if you get your name in front of 30,000 people, what's five dollars? I have to think it's because those people have never had to buy advertising for a business prior to writing books, or had a need to market a business and simply get started on name recognition. It seems people here think every single advertisement and marketing technique should immediately put money in their pocket. It doesn't. If you are hoping to build an author brand instead of a genre brand you need to get name recognition. It's one of the oldest advertising facts around: get your name out, even if they don't know why they know your name. Then, when they see it later they'll feel they've heard about you and are more likely to try your product.
> 
> ...


I agree entirely. I also know of people who have spent in the region of $500 to get listed with BookBub and not even made back half of that, but they think they did very well, because it's Bookbub. Whenever I read someone complaining that their book is being listed on a marketplace seller, or even worse that their book is listed for a free download on some obscure site which probably only wants to scam people anyway, I think: it's all advertising. Thanks for the rationale.


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## Guest (Jul 28, 2015)

A tip for those buying tweet services:

Check out tweet audit to see how real their followers are. Big accounts may end up with 5-10% fake followers be wary anyone who has too many fake. They could easily use fiverr to build an account of bot followers that they will have you pay for them to tweet to. (Not saying tbis user did that--this is GENERAL advice--her account looks great!)

https://www.twitteraudit.com

Also
Many services out there include tweets with their service, and there are s lot of tweet services out there. Find the one that is best for you ✌ RTs aren't everything. Anyone can get RTs using a RT group. Look for sales ✌


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Thank you - here is the link to my real audit- https://www.twitteraudit.com/kballauthor 97%real- thank you for the validation. I wouldn't even try to buy followers- twitter doesn't like that and they start flagging your account. I advertise on twitter and you have to be in good standing to do that. And yes 5.00 is ridiculously low- the same service is advertised in places for 49.99. Why do I do it? I was doing it for free. I ran a book of the day for one of my publishers- I started it to help the other authors. A lot were new and had no way to get exposure. I got the authors involved in pinterest and twitter. But like most sharing groups- people don't end up sharing other authors so I handed it over to another author. I was sick of messages complaining about so and so.

I worked for years gaining twitter followers- mainly for myself- that's why there are so many readers, authors, reviewers- I went after that audience. I've been able to get numbers as high as 238 retweets and as low as 18. the Zombie genre was a hard sell on twitter but when I threw the books up on my blog- one had 627 hits the rest between 1-2 thousand hits. My blog gets shared by triberr and is retweeted for about 4 days. But that gig is an extra 10.00- yes 10.00 because I realize the worth of my service. It's hard work and I must maintain connections with tribber people and twitter people. It takes a lot of time.

I appreciate the input!!


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## Guest (Jul 28, 2015)

drno said:


> We know that BKnights results in more than 100 downloads of a free book for 5.50 bucks.


Wow, a 100 downloads on a FREE book &#8230; that actually makes me feel pretty good about 15 sales on a discounted book 

OP, I sent you a message through Fiverr - for $5, I think it's worth a try


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## SidK (Jul 7, 2015)

Kathleen, 

I have a question. Do you have followers who read Action/Adventure novels or is it just Romance novels? 

I might try it out when I decide to do a discount promotion. 

Sid K.


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

My followers read most genres- the retweets are usually other authors who have varied fan bases too. Action/adventure does really well.


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## derekailes2014 (Aug 4, 2014)

I'm already doing a free promotion for one of my books.  When I do the promoting for my next book, I will give you a try.

Derek


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## Guest (Aug 11, 2015)

Kathleen Ball said:


> *Check out My Gigs on Fiverr*  [URL=https://www.fiverr]https://www.fiverr.com/laughoften[/url]
> 
> [size=14pt]*I Will TWEET Ebooks 4 times to 30+K Readers, Bloggers, Reviewers --
> 
> ...


*

Hello Kathleen.  I just saw this thread and paid for an express service. (Also mentioned that I found you on Kboards.) Thanks! *


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I signed up today for my 2nd go-round, this time for a Countdown Deal. I can't wait!


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## Tommy Muncie (Dec 8, 2014)

Caddy said:


> Here are some harsh facts. I'll try to say them nicely.
> 
> It always stuns me how upset people get over buying something that costs $5. FIVE DOLLARS. Come on. Even if you don't get one sale, if you get your name in front of 30,000 people, what's five dollars? I have to think it's because those people have never had to buy advertising for a business prior to writing books, or had a need to market a business and simply get started on name recognition. It seems people here think every single advertisement and marketing technique should immediately put money in their pocket. It doesn't. If you are hoping to build an author brand instead of a genre brand you need to get name recognition. It's one of the oldest advertising facts around: get your name out, even if they don't know why they know your name. Then, when they see it later they'll feel they've heard about you and are more likely to try your product.
> 
> ...


Absolutely agree with this. There's a much bigger picture to advertising than simply making back all the money you spent on it straight away. Perhaps this is my day job talking, but if you plant an acorn there's simply no way you can look out of the window the next morning expecting to see a beautiful mature oak tree. You get the idea. I'm doing this kind of experiment with Facebook advertising and so far I've only had two sales that I think MIGHT have come from it, but I made it link to my blog rather than Amazon, where there's a clear link to the book in two places. Even if I don't generate a sale, I get something about me known by anyone who clicks on it and has even the quickest of reads. I can hope some of them are bookmarking the site, or might remember me later. I even wrote an article on how one of my heroes got my attention a good five years before I eventually decided to pick up one of her books and a superfan was born shortly after.

Back on topic, I've thought about trying this but always wondered about whether or not a list of twitter followers would be the audience I was trying to reach. I suppose for five bucks though it's a matter of suck it and see. I liked the comparison to Starbucks as well, as a seasoned coffee fiend.

To Kathleen then: has there been any success marketing soft sci-fi to your followers?


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## JV (Nov 12, 2013)

Caddy said:


> Here are some harsh facts. I'll try to say them nicely.
> 
> It always stuns me how upset people get over buying something that costs $5. FIVE DOLLARS. Come on. Even if you don't get one sale, if you get your name in front of 30,000 people, what's five dollars? I have to think it's because those people have never had to buy advertising for a business prior to writing books, or had a need to market a business and simply get started on name recognition. It seems people here think every single advertisement and marketing technique should immediately put money in their pocket. It doesn't. If you are hoping to build an author brand instead of a genre brand you need to get name recognition. It's one of the oldest advertising facts around: get your name out, even if they don't know why they know your name. Then, when they see it later they'll feel they've heard about you and are more likely to try your product.
> 
> ...


Exactly. And if people have a problem with the service or questions they can ask them...or they don't have to use the service. But people get on a roll on here and get out their pitchforks and torches and act like they're chasing some ogre out of the village. It's quite ridiculous and juvenile, a step above (barely) a YouTube comments thread. Sometimes I'm tempted to respond to people on here that think it's okay to go straight jerk level on others...then I realize that it probably wouldn't make a difference and anything I've got to say to them would be against TOS anyway.

Either way, it's sad to see how eager some are to go negative on others.


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## Guest (Aug 11, 2015)

Kathleen, is your service something I could use when I don't do Twitter at all (no account or anything)?


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

you don't need an account- I do everything through my account


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## Guest (Aug 12, 2015)

Cool...added to my Fivrr favorites for my next promo round


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## Kathleen Ball (Aug 23, 2013)

Anma Natsu said:


> Kathleen, is your service something I could use when I don't do Twitter at all (no account or anything)?





JV said:


> Exactly. And if people have a problem with the service or questions they can ask them...or they don't have to use the service. But people get on a roll on here and get out their pitchforks and torches and act like they're chasing some ogre out of the village. It's quite ridiculous and juvenile, a step above (barely) a YouTube comments thread. Sometimes I'm tempted to respond to people on here that think it's okay to go straight jerk level on others...then I realize that it probably wouldn't make a difference and anything I've got to say to them would be against TOS anyway.
> 
> Either way, it's sad to see how eager some are to go negative on others.


Thank you- actually I'm laughing I read a how to book about fiverr- it's how to use the people who do fiverr gigs as outsourcing. Some of the people who have a twitter retweeting site or promotion site charge 49.99+ are using my service as outsourcing- so they pay 5-15 dollars and are collecting $49.99 from their clients. Right now I'm so busy writing I only have time for fiverr but maybe someday I'll hang my shingle out for 49.99 for tweets. The same ones I'm doing now. At first I was mad then I thought the heck with it- they are repeat customers. But I do feel the frustration of fiverr gigs- Some of the claims of what they can do are crazy. Anyone can put their own book on facebook - you don't need someone who puts them in groups with a ton of people who just drop off posts and leave without looking at the other posts. There are reviewers on their that will do a verified review- they have you send the extra money for the purchase of the book they later return and amazon knows who they are and takes their reviews down. So, now I understand the skepticism - it doesn't bother me anymore because I am actually helping people- If I happen to have some knowledge beyond twitter that can help- I tell people.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Ack, I was waiting until closer to my book going to 99c to book you, and now it's tomorrow and I still haven't booked you.  Hope you aren't too busy right now, and I'll drop you a line on fiverr tonight.  Edit: And sent. Hoping the erotica groups/hashtags you were getting some traction with hold true for me.


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## xinamarieuhl (Dec 2, 2010)

Just ordered your services for my fantasy short story collection. Thanks for the heads up!


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## Goulburn (May 21, 2014)

Kathleen, the only tweeting I want to do is twittering back to the birds outside my rural retreat. I'm happy to hand my tweet promotions over to you. I booked your service. I don't expect books to fly off the shelves for $15. . I'm sure that if you do as you say you do, over time, and with repetition, say every six weeks, I'll see a build toward my stated (in the message I sent you)  goal. 
Cheers, Ryn.


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## HN Wake (Feb 24, 2015)

Kathleen is super to work with!  So responsive and friendly.  For $5 this was crazy easy.

I'm not sure about the direct uptick in sales/KU reads but apparently my book went out to 90 tweets and my newsletter went out in 32 tweets.  (No new newsletter sign ups.)  That being said, I will definitely try this again to raise my profile:  I'm in it for the long haul.  Thanks Kathleen.


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