How sad is that comment? As an author, I spend a fair amount of time searching the web for places to promote my books. I search and search, and search, and I find some. Lately, I have been finding some very cool and clever sites, but I won’t promote them or use them. Why not you ask?
My honest answer is snobbery–theirs, not mine.
There seems to be a rise in the number of promotional sites that will not promote your books unless you have a certain number of 5 star reviews. Really? Personally, I find this ridiculous, unfair, and discriminatory. It’s like saying that beautiful girls who are overweight cannot enter beauty pageants. What about this do I find so wrong? A few things.
1. If a book has 20 5-star reviews, it is already obviously doing pretty good and people are finding it and liking it. Yea, for them. If a book has no reviews, does that mean it is a bad book? Hell no! It could mean that no matter how many hundreds of FREE books the author sent out for review, the people who promised to post reviews have not bothered to back up their lip service to get the free books. And even the reviewers who said they MIGHT review never bothered (despite the fact that they have reviewed every Patterson, Grisham, blah blah blah books–even the reissues!).
2. By promoting only those books that have those reviews, these sites are taking away much-needed opportunities for possibly wonderful authors. The already known authors get the prime space and the other (not good enough) authors have no place to promote their books so they can become well-known and well-read. Kinda like collecting food and giving it to the millionaires who can afford to buy their own food, instead of feeding the less fortunate.
3. For me, this smacks of discrimination. By saying you are only going to promote the “Good” people, you are alienating the “Not good enough” people and systematically playing a crucial role in crushing their efforts to succeed.
Go get reviews and come back, you say? Where the hell do you propose we get those reviews when reviewers only want to review books by well-known authors and authors whose books they see promoted all over the place who already have good reviews?
Give away more free books so we don’t make enough money to actually offer to pay for the ad spots that we will be rejected for because we haven’t sold enough books to get more reviews?
This is really beginning to piss me off. I get so angry when I am referred to some promo site with high praise, only to discover that I am not “good enough” to PAY THEM to help me promote my book. Really? Guess what, not only will I NOT promote your site to other readers, but I will whine and complain about your cruel and humiliating rejections and discrimination of me and my wonderfully talented and still un-reviewed fellow authors.
Too bad people have forgotten the golden rule. Some day you may need something from me…how will I react? hmmm
Journey of the Heart 
Amazon has become a primary market for book sellers and self-published authors. Writers can promote and sell their books on the site without ever having to be published in print. It has even allowed a few writers to rise from obscurity to the ranks of national, best-selling authors – all without the help of a publisher. Search marketing can help you to promote your book, helping to get it noticed by more readers to increase sales.