BOOK PROMOTION SITES--THE ONES THAT ACTUALLY WORK! > Likes and Comments
Dale, you should see some more sales and you should see new reviews.
Wow, Lexie and Dale. Good work on your hard work!Lexie, all the best on the 16th. I think you'll going to like your results.
Dale, I expect you're going to get more than a few sales, and you'll be out of the "red" before you know it.
All the best, everyone!
Dale wrote: "Bookbub results! As mentioned, I promoted The Fibonacci Murders (Howard County Mystery #1). I have 4 books in the HCM series to date. I had a non-US deal, which cost me $285. The deal went out in e..."Sounds good to me - I bet there'll be a long tail.
Lexie wrote: "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 mont..."
I wish you the very best for the 16th.
Dale wrote: "Bookbub results! As mentioned, I promoted The Fibonacci Murders (Howard County Mystery #1). I have 4 books in the HCM series to date. I had a non-US deal, which cost me $285. The deal went out in e..."Which genre did you choose, Dale? It can make quite a difference. Your results look wonderful.
Lexie wrote: "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 mont..."
Amazing results. Congrats! And good luck with the BB deal.
Dale wrote: "Bookbub results! As mentioned, I promoted The Fibonacci Murders (Howard County Mystery #1). I have 4 books in the HCM series to date. I had a non-US deal, which cost me $285. The deal went out in e..."Looks good to me too. I'm sure you'll get a long tail.
Dale wrote: "Bookbub results! As mentioned, I promoted The Fibonacci Murders (Howard County Mystery #1). I have 4 books in the HCM series to date. I had a non-US deal, which cost me $285. The deal went out in e..."Looks like BB is still a pretty good place to get and ad if you can.
Curious about your ebook distribution through Ingram and why they didn't get the price changed.
I have a friend who is publishing his first book and looking for a formatter. I do my own formatting. Can anyone recommend a formatting tool or someone they use for formatting?
I've used Ant & Aardvark for editing / covers but not formatting but they do offer it here: https://www.antandaardvarkpublishing....
D. wrote: "I have a friend who is publishing his first book and looking for a formatter. I do my own formatting. Can anyone recommend a formatting tool or someone they use for formatting?"Where is your friend planning to publish? I found D2D has pretty good conversion from Word doc to print book with several options and I hardly do anything. Other print services that I am aware of, Ingramspark or KDP both have templates that I don't like much but they at least have some guidelines for formatting. Sorry I can't give you anything better. Good luck to your friend. You might suggest she join this group.
D. wrote: "Dale, you should see some more sales and you should see new reviews."Yep, a few more sales, although radically less. I'm now up to 568 total (12 more than when I last posted here). I haven't seen any new reviews yet, but I expect some will roll in over the next week or two.
Michael reached out to me to read an ARC. I urged him to use D2D or another site to format it himself, but he wants to hire someone. The person he hired dropped the ball. I'll suggest Ant and Aardvark, E.K. Thanks! I also pointed him to Reedsy, which I'm sure is expensive, but he seems ok with that. He's going to publish wide.
Groovy wrote: "Wow, Lexie and Dale. Good work on your hard work! ... Dale, I expect you're going to get more than a few sales, and you'll be out of the "red" before you know it."Thank you! More sales are coming in, but at a relative trickle now. The breakdown for each day is: 322, 163, 28, 22, 11, 10, 7, and 4 so far today, although a few more will likely come in. I'm still about $60 in the hole, but that's not bad, really.
Lexie wrote: "Looks good to me too. I'm sure you'll get a long tail."Thanks, I hope so!
J. wrote: "Looks like BB is still a pretty good place to get and ad if you can.Curious about your ebook distribution through Ingram and why they didn't get the price changed."
Yep, it is! As for Ingram, I have no idea. They haven't yet responded to my support ticket. I'm not incredibly happy with their support in recent years. Sometimes they get back fast, but a lot of times it takes forever.
Anna wrote: "Which genre did you choose, Dale? It can make quite a difference. Your results look wonderful."It was crime fiction. And thank you!
D. wrote: "I have a friend who is publishing his first book and looking for a formatter. I do my own formatting. Can anyone recommend a formatting tool or someone they use for formatting?"Wellllllllll.........I recently decided to start offering book design services. My wife previously did the formatting, but since she passed away, I've picked up from where she left off and have done 6 books, so I think I know what I'm doing by now. (I even wrote an article on typography for self-publishers on Medium.) I know I don't have anything but my own books to offer as samples, but if your friend is willing to take a chance on a newbie, I am offering deep discounts. They (or anyone else interested) can contact me at https://www.daleelehman.com/let-me-help/.
FYI, I'm also doing offering author coaching. Same URL.
Addendum: I am not an artist, so they would have to get any covers and interior artwork from others, but I can incorporate art into the design. And I do both print and ebook formatting.
Dale, his original person resurfaced. But if she bails on him again, I'll let him know.
My BB deal ran on Feb 5th for a week. I ran a few promos before and after, resulting in about 15k downloads overall - roughly 13k from BB. I’m pleased, as that’s above my category’s 10k average.
Promo stacking sucked out some of the profits as I’ve overused many newsletters, but I have made a profit and hopefully it will help with the algorithm. Since the BB, I’ve had around 300 full-price sales of other books in the series and ~80k in page reads.
I’ve also seen a small surge in ratings across all books and platforms. The main book has gained about 35 new ratings on Zon. There have been a handful of reviews and they’ve been mixed.
It wasn’t my first-choice category, and having Book 1 wide while the rest are in KU was tricky, but overall, I’m very happy with the results. (Thanks for the advice on this. 😁)
Effie and Lexie (and anyone I’ve forgotten) wishing you the best of luck with your deals.
Congrats, E.K.! That's the power of BookBub!
Hi, all,My Bookbub deal was yesterday so I'm still looking at tails, but 141 sold on the day was quite pleasing. However, in the midst of it I got into a conversation with a reader in Australia who was trying to get the deal there and couldn't. But something they said I thought might bring hope to all of us plugging away thinking our freebies and bargains aren't working ...
'A few years ago you made all the then published titles free (including Australia) and I grabbed them and got hooked.
'Since then I've bought all the new ones plus most of your other series and I've plugged them on a couple of mystery listservs (DorothyL and Crimethrutime) where they have garnered a lot of hard core fans.'
So maybe we do have good tails from our promos after all!
Lexie, how much was your book? I've found that you can only reduce the price in the US and UK on Amazon, but a free book will be in every market. I wish Amazon would fix that.
I agree that Amazon only has free book in the US but my books are available at Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, Everand and many others.
Wow, congrats to all who got Bookbub deals. I had been turned down again, but I am not wide. It's also possible they are looking for specific genres etc right now. It's only my 2nd time trying, so we'll see down the lane.I had a bargainbooksy deal set up for my newest book where I manually lowered the price through Amazon to 99 cents, but I didn't get it through in time because I lost track of my days. My mom had heart surgery a couple weeks ago, and I had this set up before then, and I dropped the ball. So I didn't get as much exposure as I hoped (last day is today).
I did another one for book 1 for ereader cafe on the 13th and that got 8 sales and 428 KENP reads. 4 on the day of the sale and 4 others spread out in the days right before and after. Won't break even, but it keeps visibility up.
Lastly for this month, I have a tour with Lovebooks tours starting on the 24th. I will be interested to see how it fares vs. IBBB where I normally do tours. Hoping for some good results!
When you reduce the price of a book on Amazon in the US, you have to reduce it separately in the UK. Sometimes I forget to do that. Also, if you're Amazon exclusive then you have to make sure it doesn't interfere with your auto-renewal date.
Lexie wrote: "Hi, all,My Bookbub deal was yesterday so I'm still looking at tails, but 141 sold on the day was quite pleasing. However, in the midst of it I got into a conversation with a reader in Australia w..."
That sounds promising! Was it an all territories featured deal?
Theresa wrote: "Wow, congrats to all who got Bookbub deals. I had been turned down again, but I am not wide. It's also possible they are looking for specific genres etc right now. It's only my 2nd time trying, so ..."I used Love Book Tours for my latest release, as opposed to IBBB. Very pleased with the exposure and reviews!
D. wrote: "When you reduce the price of a book on Amazon in the US, you have to reduce it separately in the UK. Sometimes I forget to do that. Also, if you're Amazon exclusive then you have to make sure it do..."It was totally on me, because it wasn't done via a Countdown. I literally just lost track of what day it was. Happens to the best of us.
Carmen wrote: "I used Love Book Tours for my latest release, as opposed to IBBB. Very pleased with the exposure and reviews! ..."I remembered hearing good things about Love Books so I want to check it out. I have it set for book 1 of my series and am excited to see how the exposure and potential reviews go. I am glad you were happy with your tour through them, Carmen!
D. wrote: "Congrats, E.K.! That's the power of BookBub!"Thanks!
Lexie wrote: "Hi, all,My Bookbub deal was yesterday so I'm still looking at tails, but 141 sold on the day was quite pleasing. However, in the midst of it I got into a conversation with a reader in Australia w..."
Good results, as that was International, right? Congrats!
Great feedback from the reader too :)
Theresa wrote: "Wow, congrats to all who got Bookbub deals. I had been turned down again, but I am not wide. It's also possible they are looking for specific genres etc right now. It's only my 2nd time trying, so ..."Good luck with the tour!
E.K. wrote: "Good luck with the tour ..."Thank you!
Is Goodreads no longer notifying us when our conversations are active? I havent received a heads up since December 14th last year.
No more notices. Great to see results from BB. I'll be trying to get a featured ad again. Still looking for my first one.
G.G., Yes! Goodreads no longer sends notifications out. We have to sign in to see if there are any new conversations. Sometimes I forget.Congratulations, Everyone!
Hang in there, Theresa. You'll get a BB one day. All the best on your tour.
Groovy wrote: "G.G., Yes! Goodreads no longer sends notifications out. We have to sign in to see if there are any new conversations. Sometimes I forget.Congratulations, Everyone!
Hang in there, Theresa. You'll..."
So we have to sign out each time in order to see new conversations?
No, you don't have to sign in or out each time. I'm automatically signed in each time I click into Goodreads. But if you want to read any new conversations, you have to check in on your own, Goodreads is not sending out notifications anymore. (Hope I answered that correctly:)
J. wrote: "No more notices. Great to see results from BB. I'll be trying to get a featured ad again. Still looking for my first one."
I'm still looking for my first one as well, J. Best of luck to you.
Groovy wrote: "Congratulations, Everyone!Hang in there, Theresa. You'll get a BB one day. All the best o..."
Thanks Groovy! I appreciate the encouragement! Hope you are doing well.
G.G. wrote: "Is Goodreads no longer notifying us when our conversations are active? I havent received a heads up since December 14th last year."Sadly no. If I'm busy, sometimes I don't check in for a week or better and miss dozens of replies on my groups.
Groovy wrote: "No, you don't have to sign in or out each time. I'm automatically signed in each time I click into Goodreads. But if you want to read any new conversations, you have to check in on your own, Goodre..."Groovy wrote: "No, you don't have to sign in or out each time. I'm automatically signed in each time I click into Goodreads. But if you want to read any new conversations, you have to check in on your own, Goodre..."
Grrr. Thanks Groovy.
Theresa wrote: "G.G. wrote: "Is Goodreads no longer notifying us when our conversations are active? I havent received a heads up since December 14th last year."Sadly no. If I'm busy, sometimes I don't check in f..."
Theresa wrote: "G.G. wrote: "Is Goodreads no longer notifying us when our conversations are active? I havent received a heads up since December 14th last year."
Sadly no. If I'm busy, sometimes I don't check in f..."
Theresa wrote: "G.G. wrote: "Is Goodreads no longer notifying us when our conversations are active? I havent received a heads up since December 14th last year."
Sadly no. If I'm busy, sometimes I don't check in f..."
G.G. wrote: "Theresa wrote: "G.G. wrote: "Is Goodreads no longer notifying us when our conversations are active? I havent received a heads up since December 14th last year."Sadly no. If I'm busy, sometimes I ..."
Me too. Amazon buying Goodreads seems to be ruining a good thing.
Hi all,Here's wishing everyone a happy, productive day.
Quick update on my latest promo attempts. Not a good round, to say the least, disappointing.
These ads were for my suspense/thriller book 1 reduced to 99 cents.
ebookstage - 0 sales
book doggy - 0 sales
Booksends - 3 sales
book doggy - 5 sales (rerun same ad)
book adrenaline - 3 sales
Fussy librarian - 3 sales
Not sure why this did so poorly since several of these sites have managed better numbers before. Anyway, data FYI.
Bummer, J. I've found that readers just aren't that interested in my books unless they're free. None of my books have been selling except my Christmas series and the first book is perma-free. Actually, they don't sell much. I get page reads. Very disheartening. I think the best boost is a BookBub featured deal. That works better than anything in my experience. A book tour got lots of reviews but didn't really move books.
E.K. wrote: "Lexie wrote: "Hi, all,My Bookbub deal was yesterday so I'm still looking at tails, but 141 sold on the day was quite pleasing. However, in the midst of it I got into a conversation with a reader ..."
No, just U.K. It came out at 175 in the end, so it just about paid for itself. Now to try and get an international one!
Carmen wrote: "Lexie wrote: "Hi, all,My Bookbub deal was yesterday so I'm still looking at tails, but 141 sold on the day was quite pleasing. However, in the midst of it I got into a conversation with a reader ..."
No, just U.K. Still hoping for that international one!
Problem #1: I distribute through IngramSpark for both print and ebooks, and KDP for the Kindle edition. KDP is no problem. I set up the price changes on the preceding Friday and it was in effect within a few hours. For some reason, the Ingram price change never went into effect, so I lost all the links for retailers other than Amazon. I'm still waiting for Ingram to get back to me on the support ticket I submitted.
However, I expected most business to come through Amazon, so that probably wasn't a great loss, just annoying. At this point, I have made 556 sales, broken down as follows:
HCM #1: 536
HCM #2: 11
HCM #3: 4
HCM #4: 3
Penitence: 2 (I don't know if these sales are related to the promo; this is a dystopian SF novel, so maybe not.)
Estimated royalties on this come to $214.36, leaving me only $70.64 in the red. I expect a few more sales may trickle in, and maybe I'll get some after the deal ends, so fingers crossed that I finally break even on something. But if not, I can't complain too much. That's a lot of new eyeballs on my work and might pay dividends down the road.