BOOK PROMOTION SITES--THE ONES THAT ACTUALLY WORK! > Likes and Comments
Dale wrote: "Lexie wrote: "Good luck with the coaching, Dale. There's a lot of interest out there..."Thank you. I have one client and one potential client, but I could use more. If you know of anyone looking,..."
That sounds very good :)
I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times. I have a question for anyone who has done one... Book 1 (the book included as a Featured Deal) will be wide. Should I put Books 2-5 wide too or stick with Kindle Unlimited? I.e. Do you think I'm likely to make more money from wide sales or KU page reads?
And to make the question extra tricky... Book 3 has just auto renewed on Kindle Unlimited, so I will only be able to add books 2, 4, and 5. 😬 (And they have to be read in order.)
E.K. wrote: "I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times."Congratulations! I haven't gotten one yet, but then I haven't tried too hard.
Leon wrote: "I think you might know this person I interviewed for my blog on Friday: http://linesbyleon.com/2025/01/10/fre...
Thanks D. Thrush for the chat. The..."
Great interview and I'd like to read it more than once, which I rarely do.
Many congratulations, Dale, for taking the plunge and branching out into coaching - how's the guinea pig doing?Sorry E.K., I've no knowledge whatsoever about going wide. Sticking with KDP seems less complicated and time consuming and so there I stay.
I've recently done two KCDs. Results:My latest, still showing a new release banner on Amazon, did well on The Fussy Librarian, possibly because it's not been advertised on there before.
FL - more than 37
Faithful Reads and eReader Café - more than 87 (couldn't believe that!)
My Book Cave - more than 49
I can't be accurate as readers naturally don't necessarily see the offer immediately. Altogether, there were 197 sales and some follow-on KU reads.
Another of my books made over 200 sales. Again, I was flabbergasted! Instead of jumping around for joy, I stared wide-eyed and kept checking. This was courtesy of a BookBub feature mostly! Robin Reads, usually very good, made only about 15 sales - my fault for choosing a not-so-good genre. The Fussy Librarian was even worse with about 5 sales (but it was cheap!)
Dale wrote: "E.K. wrote: "I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times."Congratulations! I haven't gotten one yet, but then I haven't tried too hard."
Thanks!
Anna wrote: "I've recently done two KCDs. Results:My latest, still showing a new release banner on Amazon, did well on The Fussy Librarian, possibly because it's not been advertised on there before.
FL - mor..."
That's amazing! Congrats! Was that a BookBub Featured Deal for the one with over 200 sales?
E.K. wrote: "I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times. I have a question for anyone who has done one... Book 1 (the book included as a Featured Deal) will be w..."
Oh, well done! I've just heard this morning I've got one, UK only. For what it's worth, mine is just Kindle and I'm leaving it that way (it's a three-book boxset from a longer series). I'd say if you can't do all of yours, and they need to be read in order, then don't bother with the later ones. But that's just my instinct.
Hope it goes really well!
Anna wrote: "I've recently done two KCDs. Results:My latest, still showing a new release banner on Amazon, did well on The Fussy Librarian, possibly because it's not been advertised on there before.
FL - mor..."
Wow, well done!
Lexie wrote: "E.K. wrote: "I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times. I have a question for anyone who has done one... Book 1 (the book included as a Featured De..."
Congrats! Hope yours does really well too. Very nice having it just on Kindle - you should get lots of page reads!
Thanks - I think I'll leave them on KU and mention in the backmatter that they can join my mailing list to find out when they are available outside of Zon. I get quite a lot of KU reads every day, so I'll annoy everyone halfway through the series if I suddenly pull them as well. I would do it if I could do the whole series, but as I can't put Book 3 wide...
Are you stacking promos? (I've started as my last BB still sells itself and I'm assuming that's from the stacked promos but it feels like a lot of money.)
E.K. wrote: "Anna wrote: "I've recently done two KCDs. Results:My latest, still showing a new release banner on Amazon, did well on The Fussy Librarian, possibly because it's not been advertised on there befo..."
Yes, much to my surprise.
Anna wrote: "E.K. wrote: "Anna wrote: "I've recently done two KCDs. Results:My latest, still showing a new release banner on Amazon, did well on The Fussy Librarian, possibly because it's not been advertised ..."
Very good! Congrats!
E.K. wrote: "Lexie wrote: "E.K. wrote: "I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times. I have a question for anyone who has done one... Book 1 (the book included as..."
I might stack one or two but I'd just set up some promos for the start of February (my deal's on 15th) so I haven't much extra budget. I'll see how rich I feel!
I think 20 times seems to be a reasonable amount for Bookbub! I've set up a reminder to apply with one of my boxsets once a month - just keep plugging on!
Congratulations, E.K., on that coveted Bookbub deal. You should get some very, very, good results. Let us know.
And to your sales, Anna! Hope you celebrated!!
Groovy wrote: "Congratulations, E.K., on that coveted Bookbub deal. You should get some very, very, good results. Let us know."Thank you! 😁
Groovy wrote: "And to your sales, Anna! Hope you celebrated!!"Oh, now there's a good idea!
Anna wrote: "Many congratulations, Dale, for taking the plunge and branching out into coaching - how's the guinea pig doing?"Thanks! He proved a short-lived guinea pig, although he might be back. After a few exchanges, we decided he really needed to just write his first draft. Unfortunately, it seems he's the way most of us are in the early stages of our writing career: "I have this brilliant idea! Do you think it will work? No, no, you don't understand my brilliant idea. Nothing has to change. Do you think it will work?"
To be fair, I think he has an interesting idea. It's just a matter of execution. We'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, the interaction did help me see a few things I need to do up front, so it was useful from that perpsective.
Oh, I missed a lot here! Thanks to Groovy and Anna about the interview with Leon. It was fun. I urge all of you to contact Leon for an interview as well. Congrats on your promo, Anna! Congrats E.K. for your BookBub deal! It pays to be persistent.
I've been lucky to have had 2 books accepted for BookBub deals in the past. I'd recommend stacking other promos in the days leading up to it. That should really affect your ranking which will make the algorithm show your book to more readers. You should see a long tail of sales afterward and lots of new reviews.
BookBub prefers wide books. My prequel The Santa Secret is permafree and wide, but the rest of the series is Amazon exclusive because they get so many page reads. The Santa Secret isn't one of the books BookBub accepted. :(
However, leaving the rest of the books in KDP is probably best since, like you said, people who are reading the series would be annoyed if they were suddenly unavailable.
D. wrote: "Oh, I missed a lot here! Thanks to Groovy and Anna about the interview with Leon. It was fun. I urge all of you to contact Leon for an interview as well. Congrats on your promo, Anna! Congrats E...."
Thanks. Very helpful. :) Hope your prequel gets accepted soon. I'm going to keep submitting my others once I'm 'allowed' to.
E.K. wrote: "I finally got a BookBub deal for the first book in my series. 😁 I did apply over 20 times. I have a question for anyone who has done one... Book 1 (the book included as a Featured Deal) will be w..."
Congrats on the BookBub deal. Many attempts and zero ads. Let us know how it works.
Oh one other thing - Faithful Reads. Never heard of it. Anyone know more about it?
Never heard of Faithful Reads. Usually if we haven't heard of a site, it's not the best to use. But there could be new sites popping up, so who knows? In my experience, a new site will offer great deals to get going. I think Fussy Librarian was free at first until they built up a reader base.
D. wrote: "hanks to Groovy and Anna about the interview with Leon. It was fun. I urge all of you to contact Leon for an interview as well. "Yeah that's probaly a good idea!
J. wrote: "Congrats on the BookBub deal. Many attempts and zero ads. Let us know how it works."Thanks! Will do. It's not until February.
I think Faithful Reads is for Christian Books.
J. wrote: "Oh one other thing - Faithful Reads. Never heard of it. Anyone know more about it?"I used it once for a YA Christian book I was helping someone with. According to my notes, nice to work with and moderately good results - this would have been a couple of years ago.
I landed my first BookBub promo! I requested it for The Fibonacci Murders for both US and international. I only got international, but it's a start. It will run on February 2nd. I'll let you all know how it works out.
Dale wrote: "I landed my first BookBub promo! I requested it for The Fibonacci Murders for both US and international. I only got international, but it's a start. It will run on February 2nd. I'll let you all kn..."Congratulations! Hope it goes well :)
Congrats Dale. Still looking for my first BookBub promo.
Thanks, everyone! I think this may be only the third time I've tried. I don't try very often. It probably helped that the book I submitted now has something like 68 reviews with an average 4.3 star rating. (Some of my better books haven't even struggled up above 10 reviews yet.)
(Maybe you should all read and review them, ha ha.)
Congrats, Dale! I'm curious about the genres that the books are in that BookBub accepted.
Hi! I hate that I no longer get comment notifications on this group anymore. I don't know why. So I've missed a lot. Something must be in the air with BookBub be4cause I also got just approved for a deal. I only had one once before in 2016 and it was worth every penny. My book was priced at .99. I did the same thing this time and I am promoting a different book. Like Lexie, I only got approved for UK for some reason, but I'll take it!
To answer some of EK's questions, I would stay with KU. I had hired a publicist with my fourth book release. She wanted me to go wide. The sales still mostly came from kindle but I missed out on KNEP. Those pages read often exceed the revenue of my sales. I eventually took it off the other platforms and put it on KU. I will say that when I had that first bookBub deal, my pages read went through the roof! As high as 8000 a day! And that lasted for weeks. it6 tapered off but for a few months I was averaging 4000 a week.
None of us seem to be getting notifications for this discussion group anymore. Congrats on your BB deal, Effie! I'm interested in the genres, regions, and sale prices that have been accepted. I've been submitting various books at least once a month but nothing since a book was accepted in 2021.
I've done 2 interviews with Rita Lee Chapman and her 2025 schedule is wide open. Interviews are a great way to spread the word about your books for free. Contact her here:
http://www.ritaleechapman.com/
Effie wrote: "Hi! I hate that I no longer get comment notifications on this group anymore. I don't know why. So I've missed a lot. Something must be in the air with BookBub be4cause I also got just approved for..."
Congrats on your deal & thanks for the advice. I'm keeping books 2-5 on KU - although I feel sorry for anyone who gets book 1 from outside of Zon. Hope I get lots of page reads too - I generally get quite a lot, as I suppose it's cheaper for people to read the whole series on KU than buy them.
D. wrote: "None of us seem to be getting notifications for this discussion group anymore. Congrats on your BB deal, Effie! I'm interested in the genres, regions, and sale prices that have been accepted. I'v..."
I'm curious as well. I submit nearly every month. Here are the details of my deals...
Current deal:
Category: Teen & YA (I requested Fantasy but said I was happy with Teen & YA or Supernatural Suspense)
Price: Free
Regions: US & International
Ratings: 260+ (4.4) on Zon and a handful on other sites.
Wide
Submitted: 20+ times
Deal last year:
Category: Teen & YA (which is what I requested)
Price: Free
Regions: US only (which is what I requested). A few months later I requested and got accepted for International deal with same category / price.
Ratings: ~60 (4.3) on Zon and a handful on other sites when first deal submitted
Wide
Submitted: Twice
I'm curious about how they select, as I had submitted my book with over 200 ratings (4.5 at the time) a couple of days before they accepted the one with 60 ratings (4.3).
I have a feeling the Teen & YA category is less competitive than many of the other categories as it's a lot cheaper. The email I receive looks thin this week so maybe it's a good time to submit - although I'm not sure if all the emails are thin or just the genres I like to read. Hope you get a deal too!
Good to see this. I so rarely submit but will based on these notes. I selected fantasy but should have said Teen/YA was also a fit. Next time, I suppose.
Wow, congrats to everyone who got a Bookbub deal. I have only tried once, and I am not wide at the moment. I have a book tour booked with Love Books Tour starting Feb 24th, and did a small after holidays sale that netted 15 and 392 pg KENP read.Kudos to everyone!
Goodreads has stopped sending notifications out for all forums. Even the little bell at the top of the page doesn't notify you anymore. You're on your own and have to remember to check in. I hate that.But I'm happy for these successful book deals and sales. Good for all of you!!
D. wrote: "Congrats, Dale! I'm curious about the genres that the books are in that BookBub accepted."Thank you! It's a mystery novel.
Effie wrote: "Something must be in the air with BookBub be4cause I also got just approved for a deal."
Congratulations! I've always distributed wide. Yes, most of my sales come from Amazon, but I do get a few from elsewhere, and honestly, I just dislike the idea of giving Amazon (or anyone, really) exclusivity.
E.K. wrote: "I'm curious about how they select, as I had submitted my book with over 200 ratings (4.5 at the time) a couple of days before they accepted the one with 60 ratings (4.3)."It seems to be a complex and probably somewhat subjective process. They do outline the main points here:
https://insights.bookbub.com/tips-on-...
Interestingly, they suggest comparing the number of reviews you have to books in the same genre that were selected. But reviews are also only one factor, sooooo...
Hi all,Glad to see others having better luck on BB than I am. Another rejected attempt to get a promotion. Still batting zero.
On another note, I'm trying to set up some ads for February and mostly going fine. But, has anyone used bookzio? I thought I'd try them and could not get their website to work. Since I never have used them before I don't know if it's me or their website.
Also, similar issue with Reading Deals which I have used multiple times and this time I get to where I have all the info entered and their website says that they will send a code to my email to verify but no email arrives. I tried contacting them and have gotten no response. Anyone know what's going on there?
As a side note, January was very slow for me, as usual. I did sell an audio book, first one ever. I'm taking that as a good sign.
All the best to everyone here.
J. wrote: "Hi all,Glad to see others having better luck on BB than I am. Another rejected attempt to get a promotion. Still batting zero.
On another note, I'm trying to set up some ads for February and mostl..."
I just got rejected again on my first book as well. Although unorthodox, I might try for a different book in the series next time. I haven't heard of bookzio and haven't tried reading deals recently so I'm sorry but I can't be of much help. My sales in January were lackluster, but there were some. We'll see what happens this month. I traditionally do better closer to Halloween, but since I was an honorable mention in the paranormal romance department, we'll see.
J., did you check your spam folder? Other than that, if keeping their customers isn't important enough for Reading Deals to ensure easy access to their website, then I would just take my business elsewhere.All the best on everyone's promotions.
Hi Groovy,Yes, checked spam. Nothing. Disappointing since I've used Reading Deals several times before and while results were not great, they did bring in sales. I might give them one more chance but if nothing changes, I'll just go elsewhere. Which is what I did for my February promotions.
All the best.
Thanks for the link to BookBub, Dale. I always use the Comments box and say that I'm flexible on the date, region, category, and price. I also read to give them an idea of what the book is. Like tropes or a quick sentence.
Hi, all, catching up again. Interesting to see a few of us getting BB deals! Hope they all go well.I'm having a go at running a promo a month, making the first in one of my series free. This month it was my oldest series so there are 13 books and 2 novellas to entice them into! The first book was free from 2nd - 6th Feb:
2nd (no promo at all) 59 downloads
3rd (Bookraid; mentioned it on my Fb page and mailing list) 789 downloads
4th (Fussy Librarian) 1449 downloads
5th (Freebooksy) 2121 downloads
6th (no promo) 292 downloads
Today there have already been 8 full-price sales for the book, and other title sales and KENP were high throughout. Quite pleased with this, so I'll try one of the other series next month (if the budget will run to it!).
My Bookbub UK deal is on 16th and is for the boxset of the first three books in this series I've just been promoting - the coincidence was accidental. It'll be at 99p/c with just one other promo to catch up on the US side. I'm exclusive to Amazon, incidentally.
Thank you. I have one client and one potential client, but I could use more. If you know of anyone looking, send them my way. ;-)
I'm doing an introductory deal until I get things working well. $25/hr, with the first half hour free.
I had been thinking it's probably necessary to keep repeating the book 1 promo to keep the rankings up there and (with luck) increase it over time. I'll probably give that a shot, too.