Trying something new for reviews

[Julie]

Hi folks
I signed up for a relatively new site a few weeks ago called Story Cartel.
http://storycartel.com/books/425/esca...

The idea is you load your mobi or pdf or epub, for 3 weeks giving people a chance to read for review. The fourth week if they post a review they can go in the draw for 1 of 3 options. I chose the 3x$10 Amazon Gift card giveaway options. So far I have 15 people downloaded but no reviews, so we will see if is worth the hassle.... I will keep you posted

[Jeff]

Julie -

Thanks for posting. I'm always looking for marketing ideas. Certainly doesn't seem all that expensive. If it works it sounds like a good way to get reviews and exposure.

I've posted my book on Net Galley, which was much more expensive - I'll let you know how that goes. https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/sho...

[Julie]

Thanks Jeffrey, it's all a bit of a fact finding mission lol. I have my name down next year to join a netgalley co-op which as you said is considerably more expensive. My link expires in about 9 days so we will see if any reviews come in. Just another link in the chain for the marathon of marketing middle grade fiction..... Thanks for stopping by

[K.]

Hi,
I heard Dan Blank speak at a virtual conference. Here is his website:
http://wegrowmedia.com

I am not affiliated with him, he just seemed like he knew his stuff and sounded like a nice guy.

Thank you.

[Jeff]

Julie, How did you go with Story Cartel?
I just tried a facebook ad - I liked their ability to target certain groups. I figured it was worth a shot and whilst I enjoyed the experience and it wasn't expensive I wouldn't have covered my cost in sales.

K, I had a quick look at that website you mentioned. It looks interesting and I'll have a better look later. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Jeff (a different one from that above!)

[Julie]

Hey Jeff great to hear from you. I got about 30 requests and only 2 reviews out of it. They give you the 30 requesters email addresses to add into your mailing list but I didn't feel confident adding them if they didn't review the book. How did you feel the face book add went. Cheers Julie

[Jeff]

Julie wrote: "Hey Jeff great to hear from you. I got about 30 requests and only 2 reviews out of it. They give you the 30 requesters email addresses to add into your mailing list but I didn't feel confident addi..."

I did like the tools Facebook had and the ability to choose who to target (and it allowed me to have several variations of the advert and I could change my targeting whenever I wanted).

I thought it was worth a shot but I'm not sure I would recommend it for selling books - probably better for exercise and weight loss, etc - just like on those infomercial channels. My reasoning was that most buyers of middle grade seem to be parents (especially Mothers), and women use Facebook more than men - and there's a lot of Facebook users. Maybe it would have been worthwhile had it been the next 50 shades and not a kids book... ;) Who knows, as more children get tablets, itunes cards to spend, and become more comfortable reading ebooks - maybe there's hope for us Middle Grade authors yet.

Facebook advertising also relies on having an appealing advert so that will vary from individual to individual. I advertised my Trevor: Diary of an Alien book since it had a lot of illustrations and tried to market it with reference to the Wimpy Kid series in that it has a nicer main character than Wimpy Kid, and it's a diary (I thought parents might appreciate a more positive role model). You don't get many words to get your point across though.

I ended up (over a week) getting 47 clicks through to my Amazon book page (maybe I should have made it go to my webpage - I don't know?). The report also tells me I reached 228,218 individuals (each one seeing the ad on average 8 times) - not that you really know if they actually "saw" it or not. Out of the 47 clicks I probably got 3-6 sales from that source - so didn't break even on the venture.

[Rebecca]

Julie, that seems possibly worthwhile even at that low rate. I need to do something to get some more reviews for m second book.

[Julie]

Give it a try Rebecca , it really was a good experience and as I said I can potentially add 30 people to my mailing list so I will probably do it and see if they unsubscribe

[Rebecca]

Well, that would be a good bonus--at this point my email list is still mostly friends and relations. I've not done too well at collecting any from my blog or anything.