Author's Resources - recommendations ?

[Michael]

So I went through the Author Resource Spreadsheet and starting choosing which I wanted to try.

The first two I decided on were AskDavid.com and BarginBooksy.com ... I will report later on the results. But before I spend more $$$, I was wondering if anyone here had any experiences, positive or negative with the following sites/services ?

https://choosybookworm.com/book-buzz-...

http://www.bookgorilla.com/advertise

http://readingdeals.com/submit-ebook

http://booktastik.com/advertise-on-bo...

Thank you in advance.

[Michael]

Michael wrote: "So I went through the Author Resource Spreadsheet and starting choosing which I wanted to try.

The first two I decided on were AskDavid.com and BarginBooksy.com ... I will report later on the res..."

I used Booktastik, sold a couple of copies. I did better with The Fussy Librarian.

[Bernard]

What worries me the most about these promotional services is that they don't seem to show how succesful 'their' authors have been after having used them.

I didn't find any kind of meaningful feedbacks from authors on their web sites!!!

[Michael]

Bernard wrote: "What worries me the most about these promotional services is that they don't seem to show how succesful 'their' authors have been after having used them."

Hopefully with an open and honest dialogue here, we can at least get an idea which are better for branding and which are better for sales.

Michael wrote: "I used Booktastik, sold a couple of copies. I did better with The Fussy Librarian.
"

I added The Fussy Librarian. Thank you.

[Marie Silk]

Book Gorilla seems to pull through for a lot of authors but I did not get great results, which I assume to be a genre issue for me.

Choosy Bookworm was okay but I think the paid feature in Reading Deals was probably my best out of those.

Bargain Booksy probably yields more results than the others combined so that should be a good one if your book is discounted for a good deal :).

ENT would probably be your next best bet but it can be difficult to get a feature with them.

[Michael]

So far most of my sales have come from my own Twitter and FB.

Now that Ive beaten that horse to death, I'd figured I'd try AskDavid.com and BargainBooksy.com

I really didnt do much other than those two promos yesterday and I have to say Im quite happy. Well, happy with BargainBooksy.com.

Overall I had 13 sales yesterday (10 ebooks 3 paperbacks) which I am attributing to BargainBooksy.com. I sent an email blast to 133,000 thriller subscribers with them yesterday and immediately picked up 7 sales on Amazon within an hour of the email being sent. I am attributing the sales to BargainBooksy. com since I have been on AskDavid.com for several days and really didnt see any sales prior to the email blast on BargainBooksy.com

The AskDavid.com twitter promos (54,400 followers) are getting okay clicks. Each tweet I send through their interface usually gets 30-60 clicks. But relatively no sales.

I am also doing a GR giveaway but I dont think any sales came from that, perhaps 1.

As for ROI for BargainBooksy.com and ASkDavid.com, its horrible. Spend $3 to get $1 back but right now its not about making money, its about promoting my book so I expect to lose money on these types of deals.

I have another 46 Tweets with AskDavid.com so I will use them but I would be surprised if I get more 2 or 3 sales out of all 60 Tweets sent. I'll do 2 tweets a day over the next 26 days to use them up.

I doubt I will do AskDavid.com again unless sales start coming in. But I will definitely do BargainBooksy.com again, once I am allowed to (you can only do an email blast every 30 days).

[Joanna]

Michael wrote: "So far most of my sales have come from my own Twitter and FB.

Now that Ive beaten that horse to death, I'd figured I'd try AskDavid.com and BargainBooksy.com

I really didnt do much other than th..."

Is it rude to ask how many sales from your own Twitter and F/B?

[Michael]

Joanna wrote: "Is it rude to ask how many sales from your own Twitter and F/B? "

Not at all... Its not like Im making any Best Sellers lists... lol

90 or so.

My revised goal was 100 within the first 30 days. Im past that now. I'd like to hit my first goal of 150 sales. But with 8 days to go, thats not likely.

AskDavid.com finally produced some sales... 3 from this one tweet...

I have no shame...

[Nik]

All in all, you seem to be doing quite well, Michael. Thanks for sharing!
I'm doing askDavid tweets too. See clicks but don't see sales nor reads on unlimited.

[Joanna]

Congrats on exceeding your goal, Michael. However, I am puzzled as to how you set that goal? Is it a percentage of the number of your combined followers on F/B and Twitter? Or a percentage of your website views? Or was it based on "likes"?
It seems the goal was kind of low considering your social media exposure. On the other hand, I know absolutely nothing about the effects of social media on sales. Obviouly not all your followers and friends are going to buy your book, but how do you estimate how many might? Also, do you anticipate daily sales increasing from among your Twitter and F/B followings based on reviews?

[Michael]

Thanks Nik. I dont think AskDavid is about sales. Its more about branding and testing. Its a great way to tweet different things and see if people bite on them. The Moose example above is going to be my best AskDavid tweet resulting in the greatest number of clicks and so far sales...

Thank you Joanna. I used my website/blog to get an idea of how many of my social media followers were interested in what I was writing and in the topic. Before using social media to drive book sales I was driving website traffic. So I had a good idea of how many people were clicking over to my website.

I cant remember the actual computation but I had come to the conclusion that I could sell 150-175 books just from my social media presence. But that also included asking a few of my clients to retweet and share my book posts, which I havent done, yet.

Its very hard to sell using social media. People arent on social media to buy, they are on to be social. So the sell through rate is very small.

I might eventually get 150 sales out of my social media accounts. It just wont happen in the first 30 days.

I dont think reviews will impact the sales from my social media at all. The people that know me from social media wont buy based on a review, they will buy based on knowing me.

I dont put much weight into reviews at this point. Most of my sales have been to people who know me or have interacted with me on some level. So they are buying me, not the book at this point.

Reviews will be important when it comes to people I dont know at all buying the book. Im not quite there yet. I might not get there until book #2 or #3...