{"id":840,"date":"2011-09-07T19:48:58","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T19:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/?p=840"},"modified":"2022-08-26T08:32:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T08:32:09","slug":"fame-and-fortune-and-everything-that-goes-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/fame-and-fortune-and-everything-that-goes-with-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Fame and fortune and everything that goes with it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Along with the usual random collections of invitations to bid to write someone&#8217;s medical research paper or biographical squibs for a website featuring nude Bollywood stars (I know, I wish I was making this up too), this morning&#8217;s inbox delivers the following treat.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div>&#8220;Dear Ben<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This is $SCAMMING_COW from $SCAMMING_COWS_INC. [<em>Names changed not to protect the innocent \u2013 as if \u2013 but because I have no intention of publicising their scamming set-up.<\/em>] We are a full service media relations company that works with authors, speakers, thought-leaders, coaches, internet marketers, business experts, health and wellness leaders, etc. to secure media exposure for them and their businesses. We&#8217;ve taken specific interest in you and your business as someone we&#8217;d like to represent and would like to further discuss the possibility of representing you.&#8221;<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Well, I do have an agent, y&#8217;know, but okay, I&#8217;ll read further. Nice to know someone thinks I could be a thought-leader, or even a thought leader.<\/div>\n<div>My eye is caught further down by a very promising list of prices. If these people can get me these, I&#8217;ll be laughing.<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Online radio: $60 per booking<\/li>\n<li>Terrestrial radio: $100 per show per market (for example, If a show is syndicated into Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago that appearance would be $240)<\/li>\n<li>Television: $150 for local, $500 for national<\/li>\n<li>$1000 for major network shows<\/li>\n<li>Print media: $750 per placement<\/li>\n<li>Blog features: $50 per appearance<\/li>\n<li>Webinars-hosting and inviting attendees -$250<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div>(Incidentally, are you picking up the vibe that these people think I&#8217;m American?)<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Except that I then read the bit just before:<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We also now offer pay as you go PR. Experts can join the PR company and pay per booking that we get them.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div>So \u2026 you want me to pay you $100 to get me on a radio show? In fact:<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Our media relations representation packages start at just $500 per month and guarantee a minimum of 5 engagements per month!&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div>So\u00a0<em>I&#8217;m<\/em>\u00a0paying\u00a0<em>you\u00a0<\/em>$500 a month. My incentive is presumably the carrot you dangle in front of me of fame, fortune and media exposure. What exactly is yours? You&#8217;re getting $500 a month, and I&#8217;m also paying you for the extra promotion. Why do you want to do anything at all on top of that?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Answer, you don&#8217;t. Children, if you get anything like this, it&#8217;s a scam. Genuine PR agents take a cut of your earnings: that&#8217;s standard and accepted and it&#8217;s what makes them tick. No earnings, no cut. That&#8217;s how the big wide world works. Sadly, it is a feature of the same big wide world that there are people like $SCAMMING_COWS_INC. out there always ready to prey on the needy.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Like all good scams it finished with a morsel of truth.<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;All of the MEGA best-sellers were born in the mass media (Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Tipping Point, Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Success Principles, etc.) here&#8217;s your chance to do it in a very cost effective manner.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div>Well, yes, they grew big through the mass media \u2013 but I promise you, their authors did not pay $500 a month for a minimum of 5 engagements. Or even:<\/div>\n<div>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Reputation Management $250 a month -in which we control the search engine to overtake any negative reputation harming search entries and articles.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div>Oh, and on the credit card authorisation form that they so helpfully send, they manage to say &#8220;Public Relaitons&#8221; instead of &#8220;Public Relations&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Back to the attempts to earn an honest living {sighs}.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Along with the usual random collections of invitations to bid to write someone&#8217;s medical research paper or biographical squibs for a website featuring nude Bollywood stars (I know, I wish I was making this up too), this morning&#8217;s inbox delivers &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/fame-and-fortune-and-everything-that-goes-with-it\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,52,53],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bens-life","tag-life","tag-pr","tag-scam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":842,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions\/842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}