Do People Trust Your Book Marketing Emails?

 

 

I recently sent out hundreds of emails to authors, calling attention to a trio of free offers. I was met mostly with silence or questions of trust. Welcome to the world of marketing anything these days. 

The calls to action were: 

* Get free advice from my treasure trove of 5,000-plus book marketing posts from the past 14 years. 

* Be interviewed, at no cost, on my blog and get exposure for your book on a platform that has earned over 4,250,000 page views. 

* Receive a free 20 to 30-minute consultation on how to use my book marketing services to promote their book. 

No fees, no BS. None of the offers were tied to the other. If you just wanted an interview or only wanted to read my blog resources, you could do so. No questions asked. No obligations. 

Surprisingly, a fair share of people did not respond at all. Perhaps spam filters sucked me into the Twilight Zone, but the rest? Are they lazy? Stupid? Perhaps. Mistrusting is most likely the answer. Just the idea of responding to an unsolicited offer that sounds too good to be true can put people into a panic.  

I get it. I filter through emails filled with lies, scams, crappy products and services, fraud, and identity thieves. However, they mostly seem obvious — they ask for sensitive information, they make irrelevant offers, they have weird spacing, multiple fonts, and misspellings. They don’t use my name or they say Dear Brian Feinblum vs Dear Brian.  The list can go on.  

But here I am, a real person and not AI or someone looking to steal anything, genuinely offering useful things to an appropriately targeted readership, trying to help writers and where possible, to grow my business. This is what email was supposed yo be — an effective, free tool for communicating with anyone around the world for the betterment of its participants. 

But the world is regressing. We simply do not trust the information put before us.  

Advertisements, social media posts, traditional media reports, and books each need to be checked out and verified carefully before one can even listen to the merits and substance of a message. We simply do not trust the messenger anymore. 

All of this mistrust is needed, to a degree, for self-preservation, but it has gone overboard. Do your due diligence but also have a reasonable leap of faith.  

If you google me you see a long history of accomplishments and zero bad things about me — not even from my first wife!  

If you go to my blog and scroll down, you can see thousands of posts. 

If you go onto my social media, you will see a 15-year history. 

What is one supposed to do to convince another that they are real, that they mean no harm, and that they can actually help them? 

I can understand how authors feel. Even their offers of free books can get ignored or questioned. They must be wondering what do they have to do to persuade someone to try their heavily discounted or free book. 

I should conclude, however, that the campaign was a success overall. I did see a bump in my blog traffic, I did receive acceptances to be interviewed, and some people did take advantage of the free consultation — which did lead to new client sign-ups. And no one was scammed. But the percentage of favorable responses was way below what I expected or deserved. It was still worthwhile to do, but it reveals to me how much harder we need to work at getting people to even believe that what we offer is legitimate, let alone good. 

If you should happen to get an email from me, please don’t fret or run away.  It might just help you and change the trajectory of your writing career. 

Do You Need Book Marketing & PR Help?

Brian Feinblum, the founder of this award-winning blog, with over four million page views, can be reached at brianfeinblum@gmail.com  He is available to help authors like you to promote your story, sell your book, and grow your brand. He has over 30 years of experience in successfully helping thousands of authors in all genres. Let him be your advocate, teacher, and motivator!

 

About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 4.25 million pageviews. With 5,000+ posts over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2025.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully).

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum