Alpha Omega Publications

Update: I was not going to state the reps name I had been corresponding with via email. However, since he has come here and posted a comment it is okay. I have been corresponding with Ryan from Alpha Omega Publications. He has stated both here and in email that him and the company is sorry. In email he also stated they are sorry for stringing me along, and agreed that it should have been handled differently. The company has also offered to send me the Switched on School House 5 cd 3rd grade Curriculum, to show they are sorry and to show they appreciate my honest feedback on this issue. I was not expecting this and that is not why I posted this post. This post was posted to state that I was strung along on this, and to prove a point. The point being, just because posts do not have comments does not mean they are not being read. Please be on the look out for a review on the SOS Curriculum, this is not a stipulation for receiving this product. However, this is something I would love to share with my readers. Thank you 

With Gillian going into the 3rd grade, my husband and I feel it is extremely important to get her in a curriculum. However, money is really tight, and curriculum’s can be very pricey. So I looked around on the internet trying to find something we could maybe afford, when I came across Alpha Omega Publications site.

I noticed they take donations to help families in need. I figured I would reach out to them and see if we could maybe work something out. With them being a “christian” company and all, I thought maybe I had a chance.

I am NOT asking for a hand out. I went on their site and contacted them through their contact page, I explained my situation, and was hoping what I had to offer would help me get our daughters schooling. Keep in mind I only needed help for ONE year, the rest I could do on my own, and I would have stuck with them and the curriculum. I was offering one review a month for 9 months, PLUS one year of advertising, for a 300 dollar program.

I was informed to contact their PR rep, so I did and again I explained what I was offering. After being given a run around and sent to “blogs” stating the FTC guidelines, which I already know thanks.

So after almost 3 weeks of corresponding with this PR guy I am sent a outline on WHY they can not work with me at this time, but later down the road IF I do what they suggest maybe we can work something out.

I guess the part of me sticking with the curriculum for her entire schooling was over looked. Here are the guidelines they gave me. So for 9 post, once a month and a years advertising I need to meet these guidelines. For a $300 program.

Qualifications for Blogger Relations (those who want to review our products)

1. At least 2 years of blogging experience
2. Easily sharable blog posts (social sharing enabled)
3. At least an average of 3 comments per post.
4. Active Twitter account with at least 300 followers that links to blog posts written and interacts with Twitter followers
5. At least 1000 visitors/month to the blog
6. Website grade of 85 or higher from website.grader.com including at least 100 inbound links
7. Twitter grade of 90 or higher from twitter.grader.com
8. Klout grade of 25 or higher for their twitter account

I was even giving suggestion to improve it.   

Suggestions for Improvement for http://www.theneatthingsinlife.com

1. This site http://websitegrader.com/site/theneatthingsinlife.com shows that your blog has only been registered for 7 months. You might have begun blogging before you set up your own domain, but we require at least 2 years of blogging experience.

Actually, just because my domain is only 7 to 8 months old does not mean nothing. I have seen some awesome blogs that are less then that.

2. Currently your blog only allows users to post to Digg. We’d like to see more social sharing options available, especially the ability to share through Facebook and Twitter.

Well, if someone really likes a post, they do not need a button to share it. They will share with or without a button. I may however look into getting more options to share. I would love to work with Kodak or HP one day. 

3. Your blog does not currently meet the comment requirement.

Well, not everyone will have a comment about my life rants. My blog probably never will meet this, I am blogging for me, about my family, about products we love, and about home schooling my daughter.  I am not blogging to impress no one.

4. You definitely meet this requirement! Nice work!
5. According to http://siteanalytics.compete.com/theneatthingsinlife.com/ you’re averaging roughly 1373 visitors/month – good work there!

Which is pretty dang good since, I hardly have any giveaways going on. So my traffic is not what you would call fake. 

6. Your current website.grader score is 85 – nice work! However, you have zero inbound links. Work to get people to link to your site (adding more social sharing options will help this tremendously) and inbound links will increase.

Well for some reason www.theneatthingsinlife.com and theneatthingsinlife.com are showing 2 different stats. I have a web grade of 97.7 and inbound links I have 2,354.

7. Your current twitter.grader score is 96.49 – excellent!
8. Your current Klout (www.klout.com) score is 17. You can follow Klout’s suggestions or go to www.twitalyzer.com to analyze your account and get some suggestions for improving your Klout there as well.

Am I pissed over this guideline? Nope, I am glad to see they have guidelines. However, these guidelines did not get put into place until after I contacted them. How do I know, I was told after I contacted them, they was going to see about getting a guideline put together so they could start working with bloggers.

Am I pissed off because I was told No they was not interested in working with me, Nope, I am not pissed about that, I am upset that they strung me a long. A simple “We currently do not work with bloggers, however we will be seeing about putting something together to work with them in the near future. When we do, and you meet our expectations we will certainly contact you back”

Although I do know when one door closes another one opens, I maybe stressing over getting my daughter her school work for next school year, but I know GOD is looking out over my family and something better will come our way. We have already weighed out our options, and we have found another great company who we will be going through, now we will just have to do what we can to come up with the money.

I have faith so all I can do is tell myself, it will be okay and it will all work out the way God wants it to, and obviously God didn’t think Switched on School-House would work out for my family.

Update: I was not going to state the reps name I had been corresponding with via email. However, since he has come here and posted a comment it is okay. I have been corresponding with Ryan from Alpha Omega Publications. He has stated both here and in email that him and the company is sorry. In email he also stated they are sorry for stringing me along, and agreed that it should have been handled differently. The company has also offered to send me the Switched on School House 5 cd 3rd grade Curriculum, to show they are sorry and to show they appreciate my honest feedback on this issue. I was not expecting this and that is not why I posted this post. This post was posted to state that I was strung along on this, and to prove a point. The point being, just because posts do not have comments does not mean they are not being read. Please be on the look out for a review on the SOS Curriculum, this is not a stipulation for receiving this product. However, this is something I would love to share with my readers. Thank you