A Warning Sign
I was browsing a blog written by music business "coach and consultant" Madalyn Sklar when I came across something interesting: a blog entry recommending an e-book on indie music promotion. The title of the entry was "Recommended Reading..." so I was looking forward to seeing Madalyn's comments and then following up by perhaps looking the book over myself. Here's Madalyn's review:
What does that mean? It means that if you click on the link from Ms. Sklar's site and then buy the e-book after visiting the book site, Ms. Sklar gets a paid commission. So here we have a woman who provides her services to the indie community as an expert selling out her "expert recommendation" for a quick buck. She didn't even have the decency to indicate that she didn't write the comments used in her blog entry--they were hype from the site who was paying her for each referral.
I don't know if Madalyn Sklar is any good at her job or not, but I do know that I find it hard to trust her when she claims her blog is "to help you with your music career by providing free advice, resources, and even some motivation" and instead she uses the entries to shill for a book she makes money from. Credibility is so important when judging who to pay to help nurture your career, and there are few things that will hurt a person's credibility more than the possibility that your opinion is for sale.
In this revolutionary eBook, you will discover WHO TO APPROACH TO GET YOUR MUSIC HEARD in advertising, television, and even film. You’ll discover how easy it is to get your work into the right hands. You’ll be given step by step information on how to package your material and get your music heard!My hype radar immediately went off. That didn't look like the kind of objective book review you read in a blog, even for how short it was. So I clicked over to the book's site to follow up, and check out what you find there:
In this revolutionary eBook, you will discover WHO TO APPROACH TO GET YOUR MUSIC HEARD in advertising, television, and even film. You’ll discover how easy it is to get your work into the right hands. You’ll be given step by step information on how to package your material and get your music heard!Mighty familiar, isn't it? But wait, this re-printed paragraph of hype is just the beginning. If you look at the link to the e-book site from Madalyn's blog, it looks like this: gogirls.music456.hop.clickbank.net/. That's not a direct link to the site, that's a link that goes through a paid affiliate program run by Clickbank.
What does that mean? It means that if you click on the link from Ms. Sklar's site and then buy the e-book after visiting the book site, Ms. Sklar gets a paid commission. So here we have a woman who provides her services to the indie community as an expert selling out her "expert recommendation" for a quick buck. She didn't even have the decency to indicate that she didn't write the comments used in her blog entry--they were hype from the site who was paying her for each referral.
I don't know if Madalyn Sklar is any good at her job or not, but I do know that I find it hard to trust her when she claims her blog is "to help you with your music career by providing free advice, resources, and even some motivation" and instead she uses the entries to shill for a book she makes money from. Credibility is so important when judging who to pay to help nurture your career, and there are few things that will hurt a person's credibility more than the possibility that your opinion is for sale.
Wow, your take on this is quite interesting. I've been helping indie artists for over 11 years and have built a great reputation within this community. I only recommend books, products and services that I have personally read or used. I apologize for not making that clearer. There is nothing wrong with joining the affiliate program for these products to help them sell their product. You don't know me so of course you want to jump to the conclusion that I'm about money. Sorry to disappoint you. Please read my bio at http://www.indiemusiccoach.com/coach/about.htm so you can learn who I am and what I'm about. Thanks!
Posted by
Madalyn Sklar |
January 29, 2007 at 11:24 AM
Madalyn,
Thanks for writing. As I said, this wasn't an indictment of the work you do so much as an indictment of how you handled this review. I couldn't disagree with you more that there is nothing wrong with joining an affiliate program in this case.
Whenever you are giving advice or a recommendation, the fact that you will personally profit from that recommendation makes me question your motives. Did you recommend it because you truly feel it is good or did you recommend it because you make money on every sale?
You may well truly believe in the product, but profiting from your influence is certainly going to raise a warning sign, which was the name of the post.
Posted by
Jack |
January 30, 2007 at 9:29 PM
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