Booktour.tips

Does anyone have any information about booktour.tips? I'm wary because they seem to have ties with Orangeberry.

I had a tour with Orangeberry that, along with being just a bunch of fabricated spammy websites, also promised a couple dozen reviews, only a couple of which materialized. I contacted them several times, asking for my reviews. Sometime after Orangeberry closed (supposedly due to illness) I came in contact with "Kate O'Connell." She said that she was helping Orangeberry owner Pandora fulfill promised services. I was instantly suspicious, mostly because pretty much every aspect of Orangeberry I have seen has not been truthful, but I asked her when I could expect my (very, very late) reviews. She said I should get them by June. It is July. And no one is at all surprised that I have gotten a single additional review, nowhere near what I am owed.

With what I've seen posted here, I am even more convinced that this new book tour group is just Orangeberry slapped with a coat of paint and a new name.

I took another look at one of the images above of the Twitter account. Interestingly, she apparently had a group for the Quality UK Reads, the (by all appearances fake) group that supposedly did the blogs and reviews for Orangeberry.

I recently came across this interview with the owner of Booktour.Tips: http://www.authorceo.com/2015/03/vetting-vendors-blog-tour-tips-with-kate-annamal-oconnell/

The thing I find most interesting is this passage:

"I have nothing against writing forums that help authors develop better writing skills, but I see so many authors use writing forums as a platform for, “but this happened to me” and “that happened to me.” Book marketing does not work like that. While you have some common ground, books are like individuals. Each one is different. Blog Tour Type 1 from Company A worked for you. It might not for anyone else."

I find it interesting that she is actively discouraging authors from comparing notes about what has worked and what hasn't worked. While she's right that all books are different, when authors do not get together and compare notes, they are easy prey for scammers like Orangeberry. And possibly Booktour.Tips. (And, in my experience and many of the people I've talked to, book blog tours in general.)

Any doubts that Booktour.Tips is Orangeberry under a new name are put to rest by comparing the Booktour.Tips faq with the Orageberry faq. Much of it is identical.

http://www.orangeberrybooktours.com/faq/
http://www.booktour.tips/faq/

I've taken screenshots of each page in case they try to delete or change them.

Looks like the site has vanished I wonder if/when/where they'll pop up again?

Nope, it's back up now. Too bad.

And it's gone again, hopefully for good.

AND they're back. Pity. They don't seemed to have updated their book of the day since February, though, and the @booktourtips twitter account is full of spam.