You’d think that dodgy publishers, publicists, and others would know better than to spam Writer Beware. But no. Disproving the frequent spammer claim that their email lists are carefully targeted, I get quite a substantial number of advertisements, press releases, and solicitations.
Today’s solicitation (which I’ve reproduced below) comes from Global Talk Radio, an Internet radio network. It encourages me to sign up for a “promotional interview” that “might open doors to new opportunities.”
The catch? GTR is vanity radio. Hosts pay to have shows; guests pay to be interviewed. The carrot? A supposedly large, fast-growing, “highly targeted” audience. GTR’s actual audience metrics, however, say something a bit different.
On GTR’s front page, there’s a screenshot of its traffic ranking from Ranking.com, under the headline “Global Talk Radio’s traffic surges!” The screenshot appears to show a big jump–from the 180,000 range into the 100,000 range over the course of a few months. However, if you look closely, you’ll see that these figures are from 2009 and early 2010. 2012 figures from Ranking.com peg GTR right down around 180,000 again. Three years later, its audience hasn’t actually grown at all.
The info from Quantcast, which measures actual visitors, isn’t any more encouraging. Even if, as GTR claims, “traffic monitoring sites tend to only track about 10% of a website’s true traffic,” 15,000 visitors a month is not exactly a mass audience. Last but not least, GTR’s Alexa ranking is far from impressive (compare, for instance, with the ranking for this blog).
Audiences for individual shows will vary, obviously. But overall, buying an interview on GTR is not likely to get you a lot of exposure. As I say so often here and elsewhere–there are better uses for your promotional dollar.
You do get to download a FREE MP3 of your interview, which you can post on your website. To those who don’t know how GTR works, it will look satisfyingly official–right alongside your faux award from Reader’s Favorite and your claim of Amazon bestsellerdom based on your #2 position on the Spiritual Fantasy Novels for Teenage Misfits list.
Here’s a new and FUN way to promote your book!
Talk about it “on the air” in your own words… reach a highly-targeted audience and you might open doors to new opportunities! By some estimates, there are over 1,000,000 million books and e-books published every year (that’s 2700 per day) — A RADIO INTERVIEW CAN SET YOU APART FROM EVERYONE ELSE!
Global Talk Radio produces 5-minute and 10-minute professional interviews with authors and entrepreneurs for our top-rated “In The News” program. Interviews are pre-recorded by telephone, and you supply “talking points” to help focus the conversation on what is most important. Recent guests included Emmy-nominated writer/producer Dr. Kenneth Atchity, authors Melvin Abercrombie and Kimball Carr, health expert Dr. Herb Ross, executive success coach Susan Freeman, and business owner Cristine Berensohn. You could be next!
Your promotional interview includes:
- A professional interview, recorded by phone
- Your interview is posted on our station’s site indefinitely
- Your archive is fed into Google and other search engines via keywords
- You will also receive “honorable mention” on our home page
- GTR will hyperlink your archive to a website or web page of your choice
- You can download a FREE MP3 copy of the interview
- THIS WEEK ONLY!! Send us your picture or graphic, and we’ll post it with a link back to your website!
Hurry! Only 5 guest spots are available! (Promotion ends Friday, January 11th and is first-come, first-served.)
5-minute interviews… ONLY $97 (regularly $200)
10-minute interviews… ONLY $147 (regularly $300)Sign-up is easy. Please visit us at http://www.globaltalkradio.com/publicityworks.htm for details and to book a guest spot. (Limited spots are available, first-come first-served. Not all applications will be approved.)
All the best,
Jen Harris
Global Talk Radio
406 Amapola Avenue #210
Torrance, CA 90501
I had a woman call me re my Bernado's Circus book. She did not know very much about this book ,only what she had read on the back page. She was situated on Fifth Avenue New York. She had an American phone number to back this up. She just wanted to have me give her $2000 to get my book into hundreds of bookstores. During the phone call a rooster crowed loudly. I remarked on this She said she had a pet rooster in her office. I told her i was an Australian farmer and was quite well acquainted with roosters. Hers was no a farmyard rooster or a bantam rooster. Her rooster was one of the cock fighting rooster they have in the Philippines. She thought for a while then admitted this call was a scam. Pen culture is chasing me now. I can not find the owner Alexa Cotia on google or any other site. Alex Perez is very persistent. I have asked for a street view and a photo of the named door leading into his office and a view of the building on Wilshire Boulevard los Angeles. Could be interesting He wants $1200 Us to get my book onto all of the supermarkets and airport book stores worldwide James Calderwood
As a talk show host on Blog Talk Radio, I want to say that I don't charge for my shows. I don't think that's right or fair. Then again, I do reviews as well as helping with blog tours. I don't ask for any payment. If I did, I'd be rich. 🙂
I did a search several years ago looking in what was then called the Bacons Media Source for Global Talk Radio and didn’t find one.
I just did a search for them online in Cision (which bought out Bacons two maybe three years ago).
They still aren’t listed.
Paul J. Krupin, Direct Contact PR
I was interviewed on GTR at no cost a couple of years back. I saw no actual benefit from it and could not even access the "aired" interview despite the many links I was sent…so I have no proof it aired at all.
File under "Don't Waste Your Time; Go Write That Next Book".
I've been interviewed on real talk radio and not seen my book sales jump at all, so I certainly wouldn't pay for the fake version.
Lol, I just got that same email from them today. 🙂
"Spiritual Fantasy Novels for Teenage Misfits "?
You mean someone started that category before me? Rats!
Oh, now I get it. Thanks for the explanation, JS. So it's like when Disco Stu said:
"Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue….ayyyyy!"
Redleg, it's like Amazon rankings; being number 2 means there's only one ahead of you, being number 100,000 means there's only 99,999 ahead of you, and being number 180,000 means there's only 179,999 ahead of you. So for a brief shining moment, they rose from being the 180,000th most looked at to the dizzying heights of being the 100,000th most looked at. By the crappy Ranking.com algorithm.
LOL, I received the same SPAM message this morning.
Do you mean 180,000 into 200,000? 100,000 would be a dip, wouldn't it? Or is it from the 100K TO the 180K?
I can just imagine what sort of books would end up being plugged on the show.