Are you thinking of creating your own cookbook--or have you already created one? Good news: an apparently new venture called Cookbook Marketing Agency is here to help.
Cookbook Marketing Agency (CMA) is a global book marketing agency, publisher and branding consultancy. Along with our partners, we have helped thousands of authors, as well as other publishers increase their book sales potential.Sounds pretty impressive--if not very specific. That's OK, though, because CMA is ready to offer you a whole menu of assistance, including a promotional plan.
Some benefits you will enjoy as a client of Cookbook Marketing Agency:There's even an affiliate plan, where you can earn 20% of "any revenue generated by your leads."
1. Prominently displayed at national and international book fairs and shows
2. Featured in a proprietary catalog of authors and titles
3. Ability to have E-book distribution
4. A professionally written and distributed press release of your Cookbook
5. Access to a full staff of experts to aid with the design, editing, and distribution of your Cookbook
And much more!
If you've guessed that none of this is free, you're right. There's a fee attached to every service provided by CMA--including its affiliate plan, which requires would-be affiliates to hand over $20 for "business calling cards." The affiliate plan page, however, is the only place on CMA's website where it's explicitly acknowledged that CMA clients are buying services:
You get paid if the prospective customer buys any of our products — anything from an a la carte marketing or publishing service or a full marketing campaign.Another acknowledgment that's hard to find: the name of the company that's actually behind CMA. There are hints on CMA's catalog page, where all the listed books are published by a single publisher whose initials may be familiar to readers of this blog. But it's only in CMA's press release that the truth is revealed: CMA is "a publishing imprint of Publish On Demand Global (PODG)."
Why is this a concern?
Well, PODG and its other half, SBPRA (Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Agency), has been on Writer Beware's radar--under a dizzying variety of names--since 2001. Starting as a fee-charging literary agency, it expanded over the years into other agencies, vanity publishers, and marketing services, charging fees all along the way. Writer Beware has received hundreds of complaints. SBPRA/PODG and its owner, Robert Fletcher, recently settled a deceptive business practices lawsuit brought by the Florida Attorney General; among other things, the settlement requires Fletcher to pay $145,000 in court costs and author reparations. (For the full SBPRA/PODG story, including its failed defamation lawsuit against Writer Beware, see our Alert.)
It's always a good idea to know who you're really working with.
