From Rags to Riches: Advertising on Goodreads.

By Mike Jastrzebski

Over the past seven weeks I've been running an ad for The Storm Killer and Key Lime Blues (A Wes Darling Mystery) on Goodreads. I was skeptical about the results, but I only invested $60.00. The ads in Goodreads are click and pay ads–you are only charged when someone clicks on the ad.

To date I have been charged $45.20 against my initial $60.00 investment. According to Goodreads the two ads have been viewed a total of 455,242 times and 136 viewers have clicked on one or the other of the ads. There is no way of telling if the clicks result in purchases and although I keep a log of my sales I have not seen any kind of a sales jump when the ads are showing.

The following are the figures I can track:

When I started I had 35 unique users who had added my books to their lists, that number has increased to 60.

The total books added to members to-read lists has increased from 45 to 73.

Total starred ratings have gone from 25 to 33.

Total goodreads reviews have gone from 20 to 23.

The ads are not expensive. The advertiser can set his price anywhere from .10 cent per click on up. The recommended price point is .50 cents but Goodreads claims that this will not guarantee an ad will be shown more often. Clicks determine ad placement.

I started with .10 cents a click and found that my ads were not being shown often. To be fair, there were not a lot of clicks on the ads, but it was Memorial Day weekend.

I then raised my price to .50 cents a click and saw an increase in ad showings and clicks. At this time I lowered my price per click to .25 cents and I have seen a good number of clicks and showings. Again, over the past seven weeks my ads have been viewed 455,242 times.

Would I recommend advertising on Goodreads? Because it's so hard to show a direct correlation between sales and clicks, it would be hard for me to come right out and say yes. I think that as more people add me to their to-read list I will see increased sales.

I do feel it's worth another $60.00 commitment from me. I intend to advertise on Goodreads through the end of the year, and to add my new book to the ad mix when it comes out next month.

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