Complaint Review: Booksbutterfly

First off, they're absolutly right - Christina George is my pen name. But I am not my marketing company. In fact if you dig around to find my real name, you'll see that I am not connected to this company in any way. In terms of AME filing a dispute, or losing such dispute - I would have no idea. Also, I'm not sure what all of that has to do with the fact that their product is awful. I found the work they did, their response - and lack thereof, appauling. The fact that I complained is my right and the fact that other authors do not complain should be fairly clear from this bullying post: 

Here’s a very interesting discussion on a Kindle Board about how they bully people who post less than positive reviews of them: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,270085.0.html?PHPSESSID=1754961e42ffa62d74a334b1d9c1feb2

And here: https://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=249403.0

1) Cristina George is a pen name. 

Author Marketing Experts have been purchasing packages from us and reselling them since 2016. For 2 of these they filed wrongful diputes. They lost both disputes (screenshot attached) which shows the bank agreed with us that disputes were unwarranted

We have had only 12 disputes filed out of the last 3,920 book promotion packages sold - https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/2018_LowDisputeRate1.png 

We found out that Author Marketing Experts are resellers, and were buying $150 packages from us, bundling with other items (perhaps worth a few hundred dollars or less), and reselling for $3,700 to authors

This was very disappointing as it is taking advantage of authors

After they lost the first dispute they resorted to posting a false report here on RipOffReport, pretending to be an author

2) Cristina George (a pen name, with no real person associated) also shows up with a positive comment on this author's post where the author talks about losing thousands of dollars with Author Marketing Experts

Here: http://3tpath.com/news/how-to-market-your-book-my-experience-with-penny-sansevieri-and-author-marketing-experts-ame/ 

Hers is the only positive comment and she says: I’ve worked with AME for 5 of my books and I can’t say enough wonderful things about them. They’re really a great group of women and did all the work they promised to – and then some

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We can all agree that it is one amazing coincidence that

- Cristina George is the only author defending Author Marketing Experts on a post where an author talks about how their service produced zero results for the author's book

- Cristina George is the only author who has written good things about Author Marketing Experts anywhere. All the other reports are negative

a) https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-diego/profile/publicity-service/author-marketing-experts-inc-1126-171996738/complaints 

b) https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/author-marketing-experts/-/author-marketing-experts-penny-sansevieri-pure-scam-san-diego-california-1198863 

- Cristina George is a pen name and may or may not be a real person. The people who are writing negative reviews are real people with real names and their photos displayed. Yet, the one sole author writing good things about Author Marketing Experts is a 'pen name'

- After Author Marketing Experts lost a dispute with us, Cristina George shows up pretending that the disputes are filed by her, and not by Author Marketing Experts

Please do read the comments on the blog post: http://3tpath.com/news/how-to-market-your-book-my-experience-with-penny-sansevieri-and-author-marketing-experts-ame/ 

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3) Author Marketing Experts, under the guise of 'Cristina' and 'Cristina George' have made some wrong claims

Claim: upon asking for proof of this, some kind of a report, or anything to prove their work - to this date they have provided absolutely nothing.

Rebuttal: Absolutely Wrong. Attached is screenshot showing live chat with Author Marketing Experts where we shared links with them of where book was promoted. They had the links and despite that, both in dispute and here, they are claiming we did not provide proof of book being run

Claim: changing their terms of service *after* a promotion was purchased

Absolutely Wrong. The two packages that were disputed were bought in mid 2018 and promotion was run Dec 2018. Terms were not changed at all in 2018

Claim: Posting two forum threads and making false claims about us

One is by a gentleman who runs a book promotion service, and is not an author. He has resorted to personal attacks on one of our employees and made many wrong claims

Second thread is by an author who we refunded. His book was not covered under the guarantee and he was aware of that

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We have only 12 disputes out of the last 3,920 book promotion packages sold - https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/2018_LowDisputeRate1.png 

There is absolutely no reason any author should be buying $3,700 packages from resellers like Author Marketing Experts. A major part of that package is a simple $150 promotion package from us. We would strongly advise authors to cut out middle men. You can see how 

A) They are taking packages from us, and then filing wrongful disputes. Then when they lose the disputes, they are pretending to be authors and filing false reports on RipoffReport

B) Using exact same 'pen name' author Cristina George to claim their service works on real author's negative reviews of Author Marketing Experts. Actual authors are posting that Author Marketing Experts does not work. Just this one 'pen name', Cristina George, claims it works

C) Massively marking up packages. Taking $150 packages from us, perhaps bundling with other items of a few hundred dollars, and selling that for $3,700

Authors and Readers and Book Promotion Companies would all be better off if we remove all these middlemen layers from the ebooks ecosystem

This is Christina George, I am not sure where this respondent is getting this information, but I am NOT an employee of Author Marketing Experts – though I have hired them to do my book promotion for a number of years. This campaign was based on the AME team purchasing two of these ads, and not part of a big campaign. So I’m not sure what this response is in reference to, but it seems very odd that they’d automatically make these kinds of assumptions.

My book was forgotten, point #1 – and point #2 the second book was promoted at the wrong price. As I mentioned previously, this is really an ongoing issue with them – and it seems that anyone who complains, gets blasted or threatened. Much of this has been documented on the Kindle Boards. I’d wholeheartedly stay away from these folks. I’ve used them maybe twice for my book, each time with lackluster results, but this was the first time their work was SO sloppy.

Finally, as an author of many books – I have to say that reporting is an issue here. Reports were promised and never delivered.

Here’s a very interesting discussion on a Kindle Board about how they bully people who post less than positive reviews of them: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,270085.0.html?PHPSESSID=1754961e42ffa62d74a334b1d9c1feb2

And here: https://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=249403.0

Firstly, this is a reseller (www.amarketingexpert.com) who are purchasing $150 packages from us, bundling them with other packages, and selling for thousands of dollars (please see BBB complaint about them where author says she paid $3,700 to them

You can see Author Marketing Experts BBB complaints here: https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-diego/profile/publicity-service/author-marketing-experts-inc-1126-171996738/complaints

And a review from an author who spent thousands of dollars with author Marketing Experts - http://3tpath.com/news/how-to-market-your-book-my-experience-with-penny-sansevieri-and-author-marketing-experts-ame/

Secondly, we ran the two books, provided this person proof, and offered to re-run. WE were not aware they were resellers. After they did disputes on two packages, we searched their email address domain and found they were buying $150 packages from us, bundling with other services such as 'emailing reviewers requesting them to review' and selling the packages as $3,700 packages

If we had known this we would never sell them anything. The last thing we would want is for new authors to be misled into buying $3,700 packages by a reseller when they can get the same package for $150 straight from us. And we could point them to lists of reviewers in every genre which can be bought for just $37 from various sources

Thirdly, we have a very low dispute rate

Only 12 disputes from 3,920 book promotion packages sold in Jan 2018 to Feb 2019 - https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/2018_LowDisputeRate1.png

And only 6 disputes from 3,183 packages sold in April 2017 to Dec 2017

https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/LowDisputeRate_2017.png

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The package this reseller bought is a package with no guarantee. After the book (novellas) performed poorly we offered to re-run for no charge

Instead the author filed disputes. 2 of the 12 disputes in 2018 we've had are by this reseller/marketing company that is just buying packages from legitimate promotion companies like us and bundling them and marking them up massively

Now as the Credit Card company has decided one of the disputes in our favor, this reseller is writing false things about us on ripoffreport, out of anger

It is interesting that they are pretending to be an author (Cristina) when actual purchase was made by them (www.amarketingexpert.com) 

Buying $150 packages from us, bundling them with other packages, and selling $3,700 packages to authors

It's sad that they are trying to take advantage of both legitimate promotion sites and authors

Authors who don't know they can get a $150 package from us, are ending up buying packages for thousands of dollars from resellers like this

Here is proof of purchase by AMarketingExpert. It is only after dispute that we searched and founded out they were reselling our packages. Authors can rest assured that we will no longer let them mark up packages and resell. We have banned them and also check using IP address to make sure that resellers like this cannot mark up our packages and sell at high premiums to unsuspecting new authors. It is taking advantage of authors who don't know they can get a $150 package from us and don't have to pay $3,700 to some reseller

1) https://www.booksbutterfly.com/images/AuthorMarketingExpertB.png

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