Anyone ever heard of The Cadence Group?

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 1:24 am

I'll try to make a long story short. I have a book I won from Librarything ER giveaway. I'd heard about it (as did a couple of other reading friends), but we'd shied away because of the gushy Amazon reviews, as well as the attacks on the critical reviews, so I couldn't resist entering the LT contest. The book is very likely self pubbed (nothing wrong with that mind you), but some of the claims for awards and sales history I've spotted on the Ammy page and elsewhere on the net kind of raised eyebrows.

Anyhoo, the giveaway copy came not from the publisher (said publisher only has two books to their credit on the website), but from a firm called The Cadence Group. I've just been perusing their website and one of the testimonials kind of stood out,

I was very pleased with the Amazon reviews Cadence Group obtained for my book. They were well-written, professional and geographically disperse. Many other reviews look and sound like friends and family, but these did not, which added to their credibility. My sense is that many store managers, librarians, book groups, etc use Amazon reviews as a resource before agreeing to schedule an author event, and these reviews were very helpful in presenting my book in a positive light.

Erm...

Anyone heard anything about them?

annis · Post by **annis** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 4:42 am

Crikey! If any Joe Bloggs author can use a hire-a-review company to hype their book, there goes any credibility Amazon reviews might ever have had

It's a pity for those few of us who actually post the odd genuine review there.

I see that publishing and book marketing are Cadence Group's business -"We get your Books on their Shelves" is their slogan.
http://www.thecadencegrp.com/who.html

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 12:43 pm

That's what I'm guessing. The book I got from them has so many gushy reviews on Amazon, and now that I've finished (review pending) I am seriously scratching my head over those ratings, especially since the lone dissentor got attacked every which way but Sunday in the comments.

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 5:29 pm

Wow! Wish I could afford to hire people to write realistic-but-fake reviews for my work.

On second thought...no, I don't wish that. I wouldn't mind being able to afford it, but I'd rather have an honest negative review than a fake positive one.

Nothing wrong with helping authors get some attention and shelf space, but that is absolutely the wrong way to go about it.

Ariadne · Post by **Ariadne** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 6:52 pm

How do we know they're fake? Their website says that as part of a marketing plan, they approach Top 500 reviewers at Amazon and ask them to review their books. Not something that a lot of other marketing firms do, but Amazon's a visible source for reviews... and what's the big difference between that and, say, a publisher's offering up books for review on LibraryThing?

I think the testimonial's wording is unfortunate, and is probably written by an author who didn't realize how it sounded. But I looked at the company website and it seems like a typical firm that offers various services to writers and small press publishers - PR, editorial, etc.

annis · Post by **annis** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 7:07 pm

As far as marketing strategy goes it's probably a sound one. Amazon reviews seem to be a surprisingly significant factor in book sale numbers. I've come across more than one author begging readers to post Amazon reviews to help them out - and it seems to be the volume of reviews that is important rather than quality or even positivity or negativity.

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 7:14 pm

[quote=""Ariadne""]How do we know they're fake? Their website says that as part of a marketing plan, they approach Top 500 reviewers at Amazon and ask them to review their books. Not something that a lot of other marketing firms do, but Amazon's a visible source for reviews... and what's the big difference between that and, say, a publisher's offering up books for review on LibraryThing?

I think the testimonial's wording is unfortunate, and is probably written by an author who didn't realize how it sounded. But I looked at the company website and it seems like a typical firm that offers various services to writers and small press publishers - PR, editorial, etc.[/quote]

That is an excellent point, but I was rather surprised that they put those quote on their website. That said, the book I did win off of LT most definitely has some very questionable reviews on Amazon and not from your ususal Top Reviewer reviewers.

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 7:15 pm

[quote=""annis""]As far as marketing strategy goes it's probably a sound one. Amazon reviews seem to be a surprisingly significant factor in book sale numbers. I've come across more than one author begging readers to post Amazon reviews to help them out - and it seems to be the volume of reviews that is important rather than quality or even positivity or negativity.[/quote]

I know a lot of people that just go to Amazon and see all those five stars and click buy without researching further.

Ariadne · Post by **Ariadne** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 7:27 pm

Dunno. Their name sounds very familiar, and I don't recall dealing with them myself, but they may have submitted self-pubbed books for HNS before. I've got a low threshold for those sort of shenanigans and am not getting bad vibes from their website overall (one of their other testimonials is from Borders!) but I agree, that quote wasn't worded quite right.

I guess people look at the quantity of Amazon reviews and are reassured that others have at least read it. It's an interesting phenomenon, isn't it? I often see authors requesting Amazon reviews via my Facebook wall, and these are mainstream-pubbed writers.

Misfit · Post by **Misfit** » Fri February 18th, 2011, 7:34 pm

[quote=""Ariadne""]Dunno. Their name sounds very familiar, and I don't recall dealing with them myself, but they may have submitted self-pubbed books for HNS before. I've got a low threshold for those sort of shenanigans and am not getting bad vibes from their website overall (one of their other testimonials is from Borders!) but I agree, that quote wasn't worded quite right.

I guess people look at the quantity of Amazon reviews and are reassured that others have at least read it. It's an interesting phenomenon, isn't it? I often see authors requesting Amazon reviews via my Facebook wall, and these are mainstream-pubbed writers.[/quote]

I'm fairly positive my book was self pubbed. The *publisher* has a website but surprisingly only two books under their belt, the other being a self help one. Found a blog interview with an agent for the publisher that went on and on about the sales figures which I'm not smart enough to figure out if they're inflated or not. The blogger who interviewed said agent was a book promoter herself. The most critical review of the book on Amazon has been severely hit with critical commenters. All of which adds up to things that make you go hmmmm.

I'm sure Cadence is just doing their job, which is promoting the book.

I've a several Amazon friends who have accepted review requests, although they always advise the person offering that they only give honest reviews. They have had several offers withdrawn because of that. I took my email off my amazon profile page as the offerings I was getting weren't really to my taste. Or they asked for a review and then told me where I could buy it