Funny Bookwhirl.com SPAM e-mail

So I got the following e-mail today with the subject line “Promoting Your Book.”  I knew it was SPAM, but sometimes it is fun to read them to see how much of a train wreck they can be.  Here it is, unedited and unfiltered. 

 -----

Hi Julie Ann Dawson,   

 A pleasant day to you!

 I’m Ryan Holt, a Marketing Specialist of Bookwhirl.com.

 I came across your book entitled, “Karma Roleplaying System”. We are interested to promote it and we’d like to help post your book up to 1,000 highly traffic websites and increase online book exposure.

 If you are interested, please give me a call at 1 801 827-0322 or you may reply to this email. I’d be grateful to give you more information about this.

 Hope to hear from you soon.

  Best Regards,

Ryan Holt

Consultant

Marketing Services - BookWhirl.com

 Office No. : 1 (801) 827-0322

ryanholt.adsbook@gmx.com

www.BookWhirl.com

 -------------

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I had to go visit the site.  And while reviewing it found this little gem.

 

Our commitment: To empower upstart [emphasis mine] authors all around the world by offering highly-effective online book marketing tools at easily affordable rates.

Now did someone change the definition of upstart, or am I misreading this sentence?  It isn’t a typo, because they use this same phrase in several places.

 

As I am reading the site, I am wondering if English is the first language of the people who designed it.  They have a tendency to drop indefinite articles from sentences.  I must have seen a dozen places where the sentence needed an “a” or “an” in it. 

 

And I found this on one of their Author’s Corner pages.  Note that the author is NOT dead, by the way.

Driven to devote results than reasons, Patty James is an epitaph [emphasis mine] of a woman whose life has been an inspiration to hundreds of lives. She is a dedicated teacher that conducts life sessions on subjects as: Spirit, Soul, and Body, and the laws of life.

Did someone change the definition of epitaph while I wasn’t paying attention?

 

I could go on, but do I need to?

 

I’m not going to even get into their overpriced services (like $349 a year for them to host a FOUR PAGE website for you, $299 to list your book on unidentified but “highly traffic” websites, $300 to write a press release---and they had the most GODS AWEFUL examples posted!, you get the picture).

 

Actually, I can’t let it go.  You need to go read some of those press release samples.  I don’t know if I should laugh that they pass them off as legitimate releases or cry that someone would actually pay for that.

 

Now that I have publicly ridiculed them, let me look into my crystal ball and tell you what will happen in the next couple of days.

 

*Grabs crystal ball and peers deeply into it*

 

I see several "new" Gather members joining this site in the next couple of days.  They will come to the defense of Bookwhirl, citing talking points that can be found on their website.  They will cite unconfirmable, anonymous "clients" that are happy with the service, and infer that the service has generated sales without actually citing any verifiable books.  Most will seem to ONLY be here to defend Bookwhirl, even though they will claim they are not affiliated with the company in any way.

 

So, I thought I would share.  I thought you would all be amused!