World, Writing, Wealth discussion
All Things Writing & Publishing
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BarginBooksy v. ILikeeBooks v TheKindleReview... ect
I got 26 sales from ERT (http://ereadernewstoday.com/)I did bargain booksy as well, but only got 3 sales, I think, and a couple of KU borrows.
I have a Fussy Librarian promo lined up for the end of February.
Kent - which promo did you do on ERT ?
Hey Michael, well done on the sales! Was your book discounted during the ads or regular price?I just used BargainBooksy for the first time this week during my Kindle Countdown. My book was discounted from 2.99 to 99 cents and it was the sequel to my first book. I think probably 100 sales for the sequel that day could be credited to the Bargain Booksy ad. Today I have a Bargain Booksy ad running on the third book of my series and it's had about 3x as many sales as each my other books that are on countdown right now. I will definitely use them in the future.
I haven't heard of ILikeBooks but I 've run free promotions with Kindle Book Review. I probably see a couple hundred free downloads from that. The most downloads during free promotions for me come from Freebooksy and Robin Reads. This week is the first time I have done paid advertising for a 99 cent book.
I'm running an ad with ENT ($35) and Book Adrenaline ($28 for double feature) tomorrow so looking forward to how that goes. This will be my first time trying Book Adrenaline. I just discovered it yesterday and it is run by the same folks as Book Barbarian, one of the best marketing sites for scifi/fantasy.
Michael wrote: "Kent - which promo did you do on ERT ?"This one: http://ereadernewstoday.com/bargain-a...
The price of my book was $0.99. That definitely helped, I think.
One note regarding my Bargain Booksy campaign is that the price at the time was $2.99. That probably turned a lot of people away.
Great results, Marie!
Thanks Kent :) yeah the email subscribers to the bargain book newsletters are generally looking for the free and 99 cent ones.
Congratulations, everyone, on your sales. I'm going to budget out some money and try these, too. Thanks for the information.
Thanks Marie - I guess Im doing okay. I did my avg today and its 2.3 books per day. My goal for book #1 is 500 sales in the 1st year. I might be able to get there. Kent - they have a $150 option for $2.99 books and above but they are completely sold out until 2nd Quarter 2017... lots of money in advertising others books! lol
Ive kept my price @ $2.99 for all of the promos.
Ive been on Smashwords so I havent bother to lower the price but as I get closer to book #2 I will go exclusively with KDP Select and do a free promo period and discount it to .99 when #2 releases.
I realize that a $2.99 price might have hurt sales as a brand new author but I dont want to lower the price until #2 is released. When #3 is released, #1 will go free on KU and #2 will go down to .99.
Groovy wrote: "Congratulations, everyone, on your sales. I'm going to budget out some money and try these, too. Thanks for the information."added ILikeeBooks to the author resources spreadsheet.
book adrenaline isn't in the spreadsheet. is this their URL?
http://bookadrenaline.com
all of the rest of the aforementioned promo services were already in the spreadsheet, so i just updated the number of members who've tried them.
maybe I should start a thread on the recommended book promo sites.
Michael wrote: "Thanks Marie - I guess Im doing okay. I did my avg today and its 2.3 books per day. My goal for book #1 is 500 sales in the 1st year. I might be able to get there. Kent - they have a $150 option ..."
Ah, yes, that's the Book of the Day promo. It gets you preferential placement in their promos. Could be worth it, but it's probably better to start with the $35 promo to see how their audience responds to your book. One caveat is that ERT has to accept your book. I wonder if the Book of the Day placement has more stringent requirements than the $35 promo.
Alex G wrote: "Groovy wrote: "Congratulations, everyone, on your sales. I'm going to budget out some money and try these, too. Thanks for the information."
added ILikeeBooks to the author resources spreadsheet.
..."
Good idea! Or you could just rename this thread.
Alex G wrote: "Groovy wrote: "Congratulations, everyone, on your sales. I'm going to budget out some money and try these, too. Thanks for the information."added ILikeeBooks to the author resources spreadsheet.
..."
Yes that is the right place, Alex. Apparently, there are 3 divisions to Book Barbarian:
Book Barbarian: scifi/fantasy
Book Adrenaline: mysteries/thrillers
Red Roses Romance: romance/erotica
Book Barbarian has about 2.5X as many subscribers as the other two.
Kent wrote: "One caveat is that ERT has to accept your book. "I actually got a rejection email after my submission to them so I wasn't expecting a feature this month, but then they sent me an email 2 days ago saying they would feature me tomorrow haha.
Marie wrote: I actually got a rejection email after my submission to them so I wasn't expecting a feature this month, but then they sent me an ema..."Haha...nice!
Michael wrote: "Thanks Marie - I guess Im doing okay. I did my avg today and its 2.3 books per day. My goal for book #1 is 500 sales in the 1st year. I might be able to get there. ."Sounds like a great plan! 10 sales is a good result for a 2.99 book.
Fabulous information above.Has anyone had experience with BookGorilla?
I tried Book Gorilla (same outfit as Kindle Nation Daily) for a free promotion on two occasions. I did not see many downloads as a result of my features with them but I think it could be because of my genre. Many authors have reported better results with them than I was able to get :).
Groovy wrote: "Congratulations, everyone, on your sales. I'm going to budget out some money and try these, too. Thanks for the information."Good luck, Groovy! Hope you get some great results!
Has anyone got experience with booksbutterfly?
how do you track sales that result from a specific promo? booklinker.net? Is that enough? It will only show how many clicks came through that promo's URL, but not if it resulted in a sale. So there's a certain amount of guesswork, right?Or is there a better tracking service now?
Graeme Rodaughan wrote: "Has anyone got experience with booksbutterfly?"No, sorry.
Alex G wrote: "how do you track sales that result from a specific promo? booklinker.net? Is that enough? It will only show how many clicks came through that promo's URL, but not if it resulted in a sale. So there..."
Booklinker helps tracking clicks, but it's a stretch to tie them to sales. I suppose if you're running multiple promos at the same time, booklinker would help understand the approximate % of sales from each promo.
This is one of the many deficiencies in Amazon's reporting. They have so much data with respect to sales but refuse to share it with authors.
So far, I've just run one promo at a time and since my daily average sales is between 0-1, I'm quite certain that the sales I get on a promo day are a result of the promo.
Graeme Rodaughan wrote: "Has anyone got experience with booksbutterfly?"I tried for a promotion with them once but the website and communication seemed disorganized. After a few days of emails with them they finally said they would not feature a book that was only on promotion for one day.
They make some big claims about audience size and guaranteed downloads that I can't help but question. I believe the guarantee used to come in the form of a refund, but last I checked they would only give a credit instead of a refund.
After my experience with them (and other reasons), I prefer to steer clear.
Alex G wrote: "how do you track sales that result from a specific promo? booklinker.net? Is that enough? It will only show how many clicks came through that promo's URL, but not if it resulted in a sale. So there..."Heh good question :D yes it is basically all guesswork. I monitor download activity pretty relentlessly so that I can make a decent guess on where the downloads are coming from. You can also sometimes track the time that the newsletter email hits your inbox or the time of the social media blast and compare it to downloads that follow shortly after.
I strongly recommend subscribing to each and every newsletter that you want to promote with. You will want to know the layout of the email, time of day it is received, and see that your book is advertised correctly. I've had to contact sites a few times about the wrong price or my book not appearing in the newsletter at all.
The only site I know of that tracks and charges based on clicks is Book Raid. Usually the sites do not accept short links, just the direct Amazon link.
Just set up a bargainbooksy promo for Jan 29th under Fantasy. I will report back on results.
Update - I think I got 2 sales from yesterday's The Kindle Book Review promo but its hard to tell.
Hi, this is the question to all participating in this string...I just took a quick break from my day job and estimated amounts of money and effort you put in your book selling. Something is not adding up. Are you running a charity or trying to make sales? Please, enlight me, since I have never done it and very sceptical.
Respectfully, UN
Uri wrote: "Something is not adding up. Are you running a charity or trying to make sales? Please, enlight me, since I have never done it and very sceptical...."Uri, one of the problems is branding and visibility. If the book just sits among 8(?) mil other titles on amazon, it's a little opportunistic to expect it to be found. Some authors believe that a campaign even where you lose money or where you give hundreds of people an opportunity to download the book for free add value through exposure and recognition, give a chance for a word of mouth and resonating with the readers and work towards next books in the series... For some it pays off in the long run, for others maybe -never....
The result (if there will be one) is probably not immediate..
Marie makes decent moolah off her books, don't know about others -:)
Uri - Advertising funds are rarely recouped immediately. It took years to see a return on the money I spent advertising my other business and to turn a profit on the money spent. Books are no different. If you do not approach marketing a book as a business, there is little chance that you will be successful. It could happen but it is not likely. At least by marketing and advertising you give yourself a chance.
Gentlemen, I appreciate your input and it all sounds resonable under one condition - one makes a hobby out of it, not a source of income to exist. Nik, as they say in this country, "Don't quit your day job..." According to the publushing industry's own statistics, 5% of book writers(screen and others are not counted) make their living of it. It is a still a huge numbers, considering amount of titles on Amazon, for instance. I suppose it is easier to hit a jackpot in a lottery.
Uri wrote: ""Don't quit your day job..."..."Don't -:)
I believe it's less than 5% even and a little higher probability than a jackpot.. Somewhere in between
Uri wrote: "one makes a hobby out of it, not a source of income to exist. "Even hobbies cost money. Some hobbies costs lots of money.
I know guys that fly planes as a hobby, sail boats, go fishing on their powerboats. Even stamp collecting and coin collecting cost money. Even if you go mountain climbing as a hobby you still have to buy the gear and travel to the mountain.
Hi Uri, Nik, Michael,My position is that I'm aiming for $30K a year revenue (pre-tax) from writing books that I love (obsessed) to write.
Book selling is a business, and based on recent stats from Amazon (Thanks Alex G) that means getting into the top 1.5% of authors on revenue.
Given that I'm writing a series and can produce one new book every 9 months, all I have to do is find 6500 committed readers who love my books and are willing to pay about $5 ($4.99) for them on kindle.
Being in the top 1.5% of authors on Amazon sounds hard.
Finding 6500 committed readers is very doable.
To find those readers, I'm turning to paid advertising like Michael.
The investment is necessary to establish visibility and brand recognition for myself as an author, and for my books.
My time frame to achieve my goal is four years from now. I.e. 2021.
I have no expectation of giving up my day job.
Unfortunately, the question about whether book promo sites are worth it has degenerated into the usual trite invocation of the low probability of making a living at writing and Implying that it is similar to a gamble. I'd argue that it's more like an entrepreneurial business. I must admit that I'm kind of tired of it all, which over the course of almost a year that I've been seriously involved here in the writing groups on GR has caused much gnashing of teeth--and it seems to always resurrect itself like a Phoenix--or perhaps more like some dormant Lestat-like undead creature. I suppose I shall write a post soon titled, "Story publishing: The true nature of reality"and lock it to the top of this folder.
Alex G wrote: "Unfortunately, the question about whether book promo sites are worth it has degenerated into a trite invocation of the low probability of making a living at writing and Implying that it is similar ..."It's like a mythological salamander surviving the fire -:)
Inevitable to have recurrent questions as new members join discussions...
I'm very excited by the opportunity to be a writer.I love writing and connecting with readers. If I couldn't earn a cent I would still do it.
But given that I can earn money from it, I'll pursue that option to the best of my ability.
On this topic, I'm not worried by what other people think, or how they might define success. Everyone is welcome to their own goals - I've chosen mine and that's enough for me.
Graeme - I think finding 6500 readers is very doable. Will they read everything you write, I dont know. I hope so. I think finding 10,000 of which 6500 will buy each book is probably a better goal. Thats kinda of where I am at at as well. But Im giving myself 10 yrs to get there. And I plan to sell them a lot more than just books.
Cross promotion isnt something that most writers know or understand.
Hi Michael. An interesting goal.Because I'm writing a 15 book series I'm betting on selling all the books to each reader.
Cheers Graeme
Thanks, Alex G.Thank-you, Marie. Here goes!
This by far has been my best performing banner/ad. It always produces sales... lol Moose says "I give it 2 paws up! It was great to chew on! I loved it so much I buried it in the backyard!" Click-> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M3XFQ0L?...
Michael wrote: "This by far has been my best performing banner/ad. It always produces sales... lol Moose says "I give it 2 paws up! It was great to chew on! I loved it so much I buried it in the backyard!" Click..."
Cool stuff -:)
My BargainBooksy promo email ran today. 16 sales so far.
cool. hope you get some reviews from them as well. ^_^
Really cute, Michael:)I hope you get reviews, too, Graeme. It seems no matter how much you sell, reviews can still be very low. But, word-of-mouth is just as good, so I hope you get a lot of those. That's good news. This reinforces my decision to try the promos.
Graeme Rodaughan wrote: "Now at 22 sales."i hope you're not sitting at the computer and refreshing the browser every minute. (i used to that on wattpad to see if i got more readers. <:) ) i'm waiting to hear you break Marie's record of 100. ^_-
Alex G wrote: "i hope you're not sitting at the computer and refreshing the browser every minute"
Aw but it's fun! Everybody is doing it, Alex :D
I think I've got RSI in my finger from punching the F5 button....
Congrats ! Excellent ! Im going to run another one with them. Its been over a month now. Hopefully the additional reviews might boost it up from 10 sales last time.
Alex G wrote: " i'm waiting to hear you break Marie's record of 100. ^_- ..."Marie's record is safe - for now.
So far I have paid for ads/emails/social media post on
BargainBooksy -- https://www.bargainbooksy.com/sell-mo...
$50 for the thriller email blast and listing on their website.
Results - 10 definite sales (within minutes of the listing)
ILikeeBooks -- http://ilikeebooks.com/submit/
$10 for the Sponsored Banner
Results - 1 sale
TheKindleBookReview - https://www.thekindlebookreview.net/a...
$40 for Hot New Release Option
0 Sales (just went up this morning though)
On February 1st I am a doing a FussyLibrarian ad so I want to see how that does...
Anyone else have any interesting results from paid ads ?