JILL KLEIN
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AK Booster Pro: Should You Buy It? Nope!

1/27/2014

5 Comments

 
The short answer... NO! Run away as fast as your feet will carry you!

It was on sale during its product launch. It was only $17.00 for a single user license. So, I thought what do I have to lose? After all, it said that if I wasn't satisfied with the software within the first 30-days, that I would get a full refund.

What is AK Booster Pro? It appeared to be a nifty app that did targeted Amazon-specific keyword research. It was supposed to tell you what the leading indicators on Amazon were. That's what people were actually searching for on Amazon-specifically. It then ranked these keywords. It also was supposed to tell you what the demand and competition ranks were for each keyword.

The submitter tool, was supposed to submit your Kindle eBook to a whole slew of websites (including Facebook Groups and Pages) that promoted eBooks.

The reviewer tool was supposed to find reviewers on Amazon, Goodreads and Facebook according to keywords of your choosing. It was supposed to list their rank, reviewer ID, email, website and the source of their reviews.

Did it live up to the hype? Not even close! AK Booster Pro did absolutely nothing that it said that it was going to do! The Get Keywords tool showed me all of the Amazon leading indicators for any keyword of my choosing. I liked to click at the top where it said Rank, to organize the keywords by rank. The Get Scores tool let me know which exact keywords had high demand and low competition. The Total Score turned green if it was a good keyword choice. So, what was the problem? Amazon's algorithms and logarithms were constantly changing, as was consumer demand. Keywords that were High Demand/Low Competition... Were Low Demand/Low Competition an hour later!

I changed my Categories and Keywords based on recommendations from AK Booster Pro. Did my book become more discoverable/visible? Nope! Sales halted! I changed everything back to the way they had been and sales resumed immediately! I won't even bother going into the specifics of the Submitter and Reviewer Tools, except to say that they too were bogus.

On top of everything else, the software was glitchy and kept crashing.

As per the Refund Policy, I e-mailed support@abhid.org. I explained the reason why I was requesting a full refund. As per the Refund Policy, I should have received my refund within 48 hours. It's been nearly a week. I've sent several e-mails and reported AK Booster Pro along with Ben Murray and Abhi Dwivedi to my bank, the BBB, the FTC, my ISP and the companies their websites are registered through.

UPDATE 2/5/2014 9:39 AM: I have received two abusive e-mails from support@abhid.org. I filed a police report, as per the Florida Department of Law Enforcement this falls under Florida Statutes for Internet Crimes. They didn't even want to follow their own Refund Policy. They wanted me to sign into their website and submit a support ticket requesting a refund and that I'd receive a refund within 30 days.

UPDATE 2/5/2014 10:30 PM: I finally received a refund... Along with yet another abusive e-mail. These people just don't know when to stop. I've forwarded the e-mail to the police, because they told me earlier that if they sent me any further communications that they could pursue it under Florida law. I shouldn't have had to involve the BBB, FTC, my ISP, the Registrar of their websites and the police in order to receive a refund. I didn't even receive an apology... It just paints a clear picture of the kind of sociopaths I was dealing with.

Here is the Refund Policy from their website:

"First 30 Days

If the products aren’t functioning, producing errors or you haven’t received access to them at any time during the first 30 days after purchase, simply delete all digital files and license keys you obtained from us, and ask for a full refund. You will get your money back within first 48 hours. That’s a firm promise and commitment.

There is no refund offered after the first 30 days.

Contacting Us

Email your refund requests to support [at] abhid.org. Please include the words “Refund Request” in the subject line of your email.

To serve you and others better in the future, we require that you tell us why you want a refund and provide us with an opportunity to help you fix the issue. We want satisfied customers.

Please remember that asking for a refund but continuing to use products purchased from us is the same thing as stealing and may also violate applicable intellectual property rights law.

This refund policy was last updated on March 01, 2013."

I've been searching high and low for legitimate customer reviews and have not found any yet. It's entirely possible that the people behind AK Booster Pro might be working with Reputation Management companies, who game search engines into hiding negative reviews of a person or product. This is purely speculative. I tried searching and not even my review came up in the results, which is why I thought that it was possible... But, I really can't know for sure.

Honestly, I took a huge leap in buying this software. In the past I've tried four other products that were supposed to take the guesswork out of keyword research, listing my eBook with free and discounted mailing list sites and finding reviewers. When I used the suggested Amazon leading indicators, sales completely stopped. I found reviews written of those products written by other authors who said they encountered the same exact problem. I was unsatisfied with the results from those products. I had hoped that AK Booster Pro would be different. Yet, it was no different. It was the same story, different day.

Plus, the Kindle Publishing Roadmap Webinar with Ben Murray and Tim Castleman was a sham! It was a get rich quick scheme involving outsourcing everything from cover design and writing content to editing and formatting in order to publish two non-fiction eBooks a month. All of my questions were ignored for one thing. They asked questions that had nothing to do with me. One question they asked was about how many of us have ADD and can't stay passionate or motivated about something? That doesn't describe me at all. I'm an ENFP! We are nothing if not driven, enthusiastic, excited, motivated and passionate to the point that some people find us smothering in our enthusiasm. They also asked if they said give me $100 right now and we'll give you $20 a week forever, would you take it? I said no. Apparently I was one of the only people who said no and then they went on to say that only an idiot would say no. Actually, that's not true. A recent study conducted in Las Vegas did the same exact thing. They went up to strangers making the same offer. 95% took them up on it and 5% declined. What the study revealed was that the 95% who accepted the offer had low self-confidence and low self-esteems. The 5% who said no had high self-confidence and high self-esteems. Also, the 5% who said no; were found to be much bolder, tenacious, well-adjusted and much more intelligent then the 95% who accepted the offer. So, you'll only accept the offer if you're the sort of person I wouldn't even go near wearing a hazmat suit just in case stupidity happens to be contagious and I'd lose IQ points just by being in the same vicinity as you.

Plus... I'm an artist/author/editor as well as having this illusive thing called integrity. I write all of my own content and design my own covers. I do some of my own editing, but leave the rest up to a couple of my close friends who happen to be editors. I looked up the books that Ben and Tim were using to illustrate their points (during the webinar), which were published by Emily Castleman. Yes, they were popular within their sub-genres within their category... Yet, their Kindle Store ranks were really low. My book is ranked much higher, so why would I take any advice from them? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I can't believe that this software was recommended by TheBookDesigner.

Here are a few screenshots that I took of AK Booster Pro. I have more that I will upload later that illustrate the shifts in keyword demand.
Thank you! I hope you all have a smashing day!

Stay Wicked,
Jill
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