BOOK PROMOTION SITES--THE ONES THAT ACTUALLY WORK! > Likes and Comments
Sounds good to me, Groovy :) the narrower the better because Amazon generally adds the broader categories to a book's listing anyway. Just wanted to add something about free promotions...free downloads are verified purchases. This means they get the verified purchase labels on reviews as well as increase visibility on "also bought" lists.
Many people who download free and 99 cent books will not get around to reading them. Honestly I'm grateful someone clicked download on my book. Whether they read it or not just isn't something I worry about. I've seen over twice as many sales on Book #2 in my series than on Book #1. This tells me that people are reading the free book and continuing with the series. It's nowhere near the volume of people who downloaded the free book, but still it's something :).
I would say a downside of free promos is the potential for lower ratings since the book may be in a genre a reader doesn't necessarily care for, but they figure "why not?" since it's free, then rate it low when they don't like it. This happens sometimes. Others get the book for free and love it. So are free promos worth it? For me they are.
Thank you, Marie Silk. You've given me a lot to think about.
Me too, Marie. Thanks. This is so helpful.
My promotion starts tomorrow. I'll give everyone the details day by day.
I’ve been really pondering the free download thing. I wound up with about 2000 downloads. I did the math. If only 5% of the people read them that’s still more than the fifty or so sales I usually get for paid promotions at .99-and that’s assuming that every single person who paid for the book reads it. Those are 100 people who may talk about my book, read my other books, etc.
We shall see. It's all an experiment, right? Last countdown I had 450 sales for the duration. Plus a huge spike in KNEP.Let's see what this one holds starting tomorrow.
I have both books on ROMANCE DEVOURED - That's a new one for me $30 for each book.
Also READING DEALS FOR BOTH at $29 each.
RIFFLE BOOKS at a whopping $100 for Evanthia's Gift - I'll strangle myself if that doesn't pay off. It's new for me and an investment.
JUST KINDLE BOOKS for both - $38 each
KINDLE NATIONAL DAILY WITH A BOOK GORILLA SLIDEOVER - EVANTHIA'S GIFT $72
They say to stack the ads, and God, I sure did that, and spent a fortune. and that's just one day. I may not get my money back in sales, but I'm hoping to. But the aim here is exposure and also KNEP. I'll let you know how my first day works out the following morning.
Did Riffle give you a 1/2 off discount for being self-published? My feature with them was $50. The original price was $100 but they said they give indies a break. Not sure if they have different feature prices for free vs. 99 cents.
No, They didn't ask and it was a form. Maybe it would have been a different price if it was free. Hopefully It's worth the price. The only other ad I spend that much money on is ENT.
Ah yay, great to connect with you lovely lot again! Well solved. I obviously do not come on Goodreads enough, because whenever I check the thread there is oodles to catches up on!
Effie and Shannon wow what great news!
I just got turned down by Bookbub so that was rather a disappointment, if not a surprise.
I have a few promos booked with successful companies that you guys recommended but even when I see a spike in sales, it never seems to be in the figures you guys talk about.
I have made the hard decision to dial down all marketing actions for now, as I have put so much in, and just don't get much out. Hard to swallow, but it seems like the right thing to do for now :(
Hi Mark!It's so good to see you here.
I know what you mean about dialing down. Sometimes it's just too much and very expensive. I only do paid ads when i run a countdown, like I'm doing now.
The rest of the time I create my own social media posts and it doesn't cost me anything.
So glad you joined us, Mark. I'm sorry your sales aren't at the level you want. But at least you're getting some sales and exposure. Step away, reboot, and retry.I've never heard of Romance Devoured or Riffle. Need to add them to the recommended list.
With all this talk about free giveaways, I have noticed one positive theme that's often mentioned: "Exposure" (if your book gets read) which could lead to sales of your other books.
Hope everyone's promotions go well.
Just received this from the Goodreads' staff about my complaint. Seriously?***Hi Groovy,
Thank you for your email. We’re looking at this thread and though those specific comments don’t violate our Terms of Use, we’d recommend reaching out to the group moderators, who are able to decide whether or not this activity belongs in the group. If you have any further questions or concerns, please let us know.
Sincerely,
The Goodreads Team***
Well, how do you measure success? It depends on how you look at it. I spent a lot of money stacking ads on this first day of my promotion. A frightening amount when I added it up to see I spent $366. I only had 53 sales and oddly, less KNEP than normal. Only 966 compared to yesterday 1,700.On the up side, my ranking for all three books is in a much better spot. even the new release which is not on sale. The first book, which still outsells all of them is, right now, ranked at 7,000 in all kindle paid books and 103 in women's fiction. I'm hoping with the rest of my ads this week it will get even better.
My conclusions - I'm not sure which sites produced the 53 sales but I can say that the $100 price for riffle was not worth it, nor was the Kindle national Daily. The only site that tracks clicks on the one I used today is Kindle national daily. I'll have to check to see the results. Maybe these sites work better for free books. I don't know.
Here is what is on the agenda for tomorrow - today really, since I'm writing this at 2 AM.
Book Gorilla for EG $50
Book Grow - Cupid's arrow site (new for me) EG $55
Fussy Librarian - both books $18 each
bookcave - EG $18
On the positive side, 53 sales, your books rising in the ranks, and still getting KNEP is something to be proud of. Here's hoping it just gets better.Question: So, do you recommend riffle, or not?
I’m not sure about riffle and KND. I have to see how today is. Sometimes people don’t open the newsletters until the next day. I’ll let you know tonight
I’m already up to 43 sales today so I think I’ll surpass yesterday. I’m not sure if that’s solely on today’s ads or partially from yesterday’s. Like I said, some people open their emails a day later.
So today (actually 6/21) I spent $141 on advertising. considerably less than the day before and I had 61 sales, 7 more than the day before. My Knee also doubled. It's hard to judge if any of those sales were as a result from the ads from the day before. All of the ads were for Evanthia's gift. Only with fussy Librarian I advertised both. I had the most sales from EG but almost as many for Waiting For Aegina. The new release, Chasing Petalouthes, had 10 sales at regular price on this day.Based on past experience, fussy librarian always gave me good results, and for 18$ it's cost effective.
Book gorilla has given me 40 -50 sales in the past, so this may be why I had the jump in sales. Bookcave never produces heaps of sales, but I happen to like the site. They are reasonable, reliable and growing.
Cupid's arrow with Book grow was new for me and I suspect they don't have a big following yet.
Here's what's up for tomorrow 6/22:
Bargain Booksy for EG - I can usually count on them for big sales -
Hidden Gems - new for me
I think one more but I forgot to log the date!
I hope this info is helping.
Always helpful, thank you. Well done on the sales!
Thank you, Marie Silk. It’s all speculation on what works but I’ve done enough promotions to have a good idea which sites work the best. Your insights are always very helpful to and I’m seriously considering trying the free promotion based on your experience. I may pick your brain a little further.
Congratulations to Effie and Marie Silk! Thanks for sharing.
I also say thanks Effie and Marie Silk. If it weren't for everyone willing to share their experiences, a lot of us would still be sitting around scratching our heads wondering what to do after you hit that publish button; using scam sites thinking our books are getting loads of exposure; or just stuck on GR as our target audience. That was me before all of this.I can't wait to finish this next book so I can dive into promoting all of them. You are all such an inspiration.
Marie, your book was on the #1 bestseller's list for a day. Good for you!
And Effie, as always, you're doing great! Congratulations!
Congrats Marie and Effie! I'm thinking of redoing book 1's blurb. I did it when I was totally green and didn't understand what I needed to grab readers' attention. I think it is too long. Hmm...
Hoping to set up another promo, but thinking I might try to time it closer to book 3's release. Decisions, Decisions...
Just found this group. Support indie authors! I'm on the Indies Unlimited email list for authors. There was a link to a post from May by an author who tried Voracious Readers Only, which is a site that gives your book away to 20 readers who agree to be added to your email list and review your book. Though she only got 3 reviews, she also noticed a spike in sales. I decided to try them and offered 3 of my books for free. (PDF or mobi formats so it doesn't cost anything.) My book genres were Inspirational, Literary, and Chick Lit. So far, the first 2 books got 20 takers who I added to my email list. It's only been a week so no reviews yet, but I did sell some full price books.
The customer service is great. At one point, they contacted me and said one of my books wasn't getting much interest and did I have an alternate cover or blurb. I quickly wrote another blurb and the requests increased. That was good information for me and I changed the blurb on the book page.
Anyway, the best news of all is that this is FREE. Hopefully, my books will get some reviews, but in the meantime, I've added many readers to my email list, which was almost nonexistent. I'll let you know if I get any reviews. Let me know if you try this, too, and what kind of results you get for your genre. It's hard to find anything free that actually gives you results nowadays.
I'm thinking of redoing book 1's blurb. I did it when I was totally green and didn't understand what I needed to grab readers' attention. I think it is too long. Hmm...
..."
I had a look at your blurb and I think you are right that it could benefit from a rewrite. Blurbs that tend to get the best results are no more than 3 short paragraphs, or even 2, if you can manage it. Blurbs that are written as a wall of text could be holding back sales and promotion opportunities. Good luck with what you decide to do with your next promo. A compromise might be setting the 3rd book on preorder before the promotion :).
As usual thank you everyone for the updates. They are so interesting. Marie Silk, all that data on free promos has definitely changed my mind on them and I am going to give one a go. Welcome D, this is a great group of people and I am sure you will enjoy it!
OK guys can I pick your brains on my strategy. Very soon the final touches to the first two books in my new series will be done, and so I want to pick a release date and make a marketing plan. So far my ideas....
Pre-release:
Find some people willing to read ARCs to get some reviews set-up for the release (hopefully).
Promote on all social media channels and through my mailing list.
Release & post-release:
I found out I can hold a launch in Waterstones, even though I am an indie-author. I am thinking of doing it in my local town. Get friends and family down, and hopefully some media exposure as a local-interest kind of piece.
Use a promo company and maybe a blog tour to gain exposure and hopefully sales and reviews.
Set up Amazon ads. Maybe Bookbub and Goodreads ads (anyone had experience with these?)
Hope all of the above works and I build up enough reviews to then use some of your recommended promo sites (which I have never tried) to get a spike in sales.
Through all this continue work on social media and mailing list.
Is there anything else you think I should add to this? Anything you think will be a waste of effort?
I basically want to do a big push, over maybe a two month period. I don't have the money to keep it going long term, but I want to try and make the release as big as possible. Giveaways? I tried a Goodreads one once for ebook copied and didn't see any ROI at all!
Thanks in advance for all your help. I really do appreciate it.
Hi Everyone and welcome new members!I'm on the road so I haven't been responding. I just arrived in NC for a family wedding.
Marie Silk, I was on the riffle site. My newsletter came in my email. It was a bit disappointing for the money I spent though.
Congrats on the #1 status! I'm trying to get there in at least one category. currently I'm at 83 in women's fiction
Theresa, I'm sure many of us would be happy to look at your revised blurb.
D, I get the author's Indies unlimited too. I didn't happen to see that article. I'm going to look into it. I don't think I utilize that site the way I could.
Stephen, everything you plan sounds great. Make sure you use twitter and instagram too. I've found it so helpful in making contacts and finding new readers. Instagram, I keep reading, is the most useful marketing social media for authors right now, and I have to agree. Don't forget about newsletters either. I just ran a giveaway on my own and the enthusiasm was so encouraging.
Run a paperback giveaway with amazon. The kindle one was not as effective. In the giveaway you ask that entrants follow you. The more you personally connect with your readers, the bigger the fan base you will gain.
Hi Stephen, it's great to see that you're planning ahead for your launch. Although I've written a full series, I only did an official "launch" on one of the books. The basic concept involves running promotions day after day to get picked up by Amazon's algorithm which causes effortless exposure in targeted audiences. (This is what "also bought" lists and ranks are for.)Reviews will not get you sales or help on the algorithm, but if you are hoping for early reviews, you might look into NetGalley. Imo it takes too much time and effort to contact individual blogs or reviewers, which may or may not result in reviews, which may or may not be deleted by Amazon later.
The bookstore launch sounds awesome. I haven't done this before so I don't have any advice from personal experience, just that I have read the biggest issue with physical book launches is authors don't get their books and promotional materials in time, even when estimated shipping times say they will! So it's a good idea to order your books months in advance so you know you'll have them for your launch. These launches can be a good time to get email signups for your newsletter.
I would personally skip Goodreads ads and Goodreads giveaways as I don't think they do anything for sales. I'm still experimenting with Amazon ads which sometimes make money and sometimes don't. My experience with Bookbub cost-per-click ads is limited so I can't be very helpful there. I used Xpresso for a "Book Blitz" and paid an extra $25 for a giveaway for an Amazon gift card as part of the blog tour. The lady with Xpresso had great communication and even made some fantastic ads/banners that I could use on social media. Unfortunately the blog tour did not result in sales that I could see. Sales came mostly from features with the promotional sites as I'll post in more detail below.
Marie Silk wrote: "Hi Stephen, it's great to see that you're planning ahead for your launch. Although I've written a full series, I only did an official "launch" on one of the books. The basic concept involves runnin..."Great advice Marie :)
Here is my launch campaign from April 2017. Since this was over a year ago, some things have changed, like "Sweet Free Books" is no longer an active site, most prices have gone up for features, and some sites are ones I don't plan on using again like Choosy Bookworm and Ebookhounds. A little background: this book is a novella (82 pages) and it's basically a spin-off of my series. My series was selling well and I promoted some of my other books during the first few days of this book's launch, so there are some crossover sales to be expected from that. The blog tour with Xpresso ran from the 22nd to the 29th. I think you can get an idea of which sites brought in results and which ones maybe didn't. My book had 0 reviews. As a novella, it was not eligible to be promoted with some sites like ENT. Most of the sites featured it in YA which doesn't do as well as the Mystery or Historical Fiction genres, in my experience. Overall I think this book was a more difficult sell than one of my other novels might have been on the same launch plan. I priced it at 99 cents. Here is what the 2 week schedule looked like, starting April 21, the day the novella released. I only included sales of this book and not the others:
April
21: Release date. No promotion. 120 sales (almost all pre-orders)
22: Book Gorilla, FKBT, 47 sales
23: Bargain Booksy YA, Read Freely, 20 sales
24: Ebookhounds, 14 sales
25: Fussy Librarian, 15 sales
26: Just Kindle Books, Choosy Bookworm, 14 sales
27: Digital Book Today, 6 sales
28: Early Bird Books, 92 sales
29: Sweet Free Books, 14 sales
30: Booksends, 27 sales
May
1: No promotion, 8 sales
2. No promotion, 9 sales
3. No promotion, 3 sales
4. No promotion, 5 sales
Total sales within 2 weeks of release: 296
After the initial 2 weeks, I increased the price to 1.99. The book sold 53 units over the following 2 weeks at the new price point with no promotion. Once a book sells consistently day after day, Amazon helps it sell more by showing it to more customers who might be interested. If I could do it over again (knowing what I know now), I would have skipped the blog tour and lesser promo sites and maybe had some AMS ads running in conjunction with the launch. I also wish there were a way to schedule a KDP promotion with a book that is on preorder, but there isn't a way to do this.
Eldon wrote: "Marie Silk wrote: "Hi Stephen, it's great to see that you're planning ahead for your launch. Although I've written a full series, I only did an official "launch" on one of the books. The basic conc..."Thanks Eldon, I didn't know you were in this group. Hope all is going well with your series :).
D. wrote: "There was a link to a post from May by an author who tried Voracious Readers Only, which is a site that gives your book away to 20 readers who agree to be added to your email list and review your book. Though she only got 3 reviews, she also noticed a spike in sales..... Hi D, it's good to see you. Voracious Readers sounds like a similar concept to Noisetrade, Instafreebie, and Book Cave Direct, with the exception of the review part and 20 reader limit. During the short time when my books were on wide distribution, I experimented with listing two from my series (at different times) on Noisetrade and Book Cave Direct as reader magnets. I also listed them on Instafreebie (without requiring email signups) in the hope of bringing attention to my series. I did see more sales of the sequels when I had my book listed with those sites. I would recommend it for authors with wide books. The sites I mentioned were free to use, but Instafreebie charges a fee if you want to collect email signups.
Marie Silk wrote: "Eldon wrote: "Marie Silk wrote: "Hi Stephen, it's great to see that you're planning ahead for your launch. Although I've written a full series, I only did an official "launch" on one of the books. ..."I didn't know I was in this group either lol. Things are going well! New book and new series set to go in August :)
Eldon wrote: "I didn't know I was in this group either lol. Things are going well! New book and new series set to go in August :) "Wow that's awesome. Good luck with all!
Marie Silk wrote: "Eldon wrote: "I didn't know I was in this group either lol. Things are going well! New book and new series set to go in August :) "Wow that's awesome. Good luck with all!"
Thanks!! What's the word on a new book from you?
Marie, thanks for the information. Those were some great statistics and your advice is top notch. Well, I ended up with about two thousands copies downloaded from my free book launch. The aftershock-I've had four sales at full price. But here's the other thing...generally I have about 5000 KENP reads a month, I'm now over 4000 for this week alone and we still have tomorrow, which is going to be a rainy day here. I think I'm going to post an ad on Instagram, maybe will rope some rainy day readers in.
That's great, Shannon! My KNEP is lower right now than it usually is during a promotion, around 2,000 a day. I've had up to an average of 4,000 at other promotional times. Stephen,
Book tours are also great during a promotion or any time. I've done several but the most successful company I've worked with is the one I've been working with now. Itsy Bitsy Book Bits. You may not get a lot of sales but you will get exposure and bloggers will feature your book on their site and many times read and review.
Welcome, D. and Eldon, so glad you joined.And congratulations to all of you on your promotions.
Theresa, I need to work on my blurbs, too. It's not easy taking an entire book and digesting it down to two eye-catching paragraphs.
Have a safe weekend, everyone!
Marie Silk wrote: "I had a look at your blurb and I think you are right that it could benefit from a rewrite. Blurbs that tend to get the best results are no more than 3 short paragraphs, or even 2, if you can manage it. Blurbs that are written as a wall ..."Thank you for your thoughts Marie. I agree completely. I have learned so much since I launched the first book. I looked back over things and identified that as a problem.
Thanks Effie and Groovy. It is true that its hard to condense an entire book into 2-3 paragraphs, but I've gotten a lot better at it. It's time to do it for book 1.
Stephen wrote: "As usual thank you everyone for the updates. They are so interesting. Marie Silk, all that data on free promos has definitely changed my mind on them and I am going to give one a go. Welcome D, t..."
Hi, Stephen, I've done a Waterstone's launch and a Blackwell's launch. Blackwell's was different as it was part of a festival but it was well attended. Waterstone's are much more friendly now than they used to be to indies and the store manager was nice, but they don't do much plugging for you. Mine had the event in Time Out and a good display in the window and at the event, but other than that it was up to me to get people in. It was quite hard work - and I would endorse what someone else said, make sure you order your paperbacks in good time!
Hi everyone,Theresa, the club is such a challenge. I found it easier to write the entire book than I did to come up with the title and the blurb!
What is a Blackstone launch? I never heard of it.
Yesterday's results were not what I hoped for. 31 sales. My KNEP went tup again. It's rising every day with the promotion. but I gad a bargain books ad among a couple others. Last countdown, Bargain booksy brought me 100 sales. So far, I haven't cracked 100 sales in single day. Last promo 3 out of the 7 days I had.
I don't expect too much from today. I only have a booksends and indie author news ad.
Waterstone's and Blackwell's are both U.K. bookshop chains - Waterstone's is more mainstream and Blackwell's more tending to be linked with universities. Hope things improve!
Thank you! I’m in the US. I’ve never heard of them.
Marie Silk wrote: "D. wrote: "There was a link to a post from May by an author who tried Voracious Readers Only, which is a site that gives your book away to 20 readers who agree to be added to your email list and re..."Good to see you too, Marie! You always have such good advice.
Effie wrote: "Hi everyone,Theresa, the club is such a challenge. I found it easier to write the entire book than I did to come up with the title and the blurb!
What is a Blackstone launch? I never heard of it...."
Yeah I agree, Effie. The second book's blurb came together easily but most of the time I struggle with it.
Eldon wrote: "What's the word on a new book from you?"I've got another early 1900s U.S. historical fiction in the works. If all goes well, it will go on preorder soon :).
Marie Silk wrote: "Eldon wrote: "What's the word on a new book from you?"I've got another early 1900s U.S. historical fiction in the works. If all goes well, it will go on preorder soon :)."
Very cool, Marie!
Marie Silk wrote: "Eldon wrote: "What's the word on a new book from you?"I've got another early 1900s U.S. historical fiction in the works. If all goes well, it will go on preorder soon :)."
Awesome :)
LOL! Wow, I'm really behind the times.
Thank-you Marie and Justin. This information is really helpful for me, also. Marie, I may have to call upon you when I need to find the right categories to put my book in.