Here’s my annual analysis of my marketing efforts. This is pretty much all that I do in the way of marketing: I run a promo every month in a different email/newsletter.
In 2023, I branched out a little from my regulars (Book Barbarian, Fussy Librarian, Written Word Media). I added Hello Books to the rotation, and will continue to use them. EReader News Today was also new on my list in 2023, and it did well. GoodKindles, however, was a complete bust. They’re off my list forever. With BookRaid, I have seen diminishing returns over the two or three years that I’ve been advertising there. Not sure they’re worth the money any more.
A full-series promo at Written Word Media continues to deliver the best results. It’s pricey at $170, but cost-effective for promoting the five books in the Waterspell series all at one time. Written Word Media offers several promo options. I tried their “Readers’ List” promo for the first time in August 2023, with disappointing results. Even combined with a concurrent Book Barbarian promo, the $125 “Readers’ List” email blast failed to produce the number of book orders that the $170 full-series promo brought me.
To summarize, this is how I’ll rank the effectiveness of these sites, in terms of the book orders they brought me at Amazon and how much I paid for each promo:
- Written Word Media full-series (Fantasy/Paranormal Series Promotion)
- EReader News Today
- Hello Books
- Book Barbarian
- Fussy Librarian
- Written Word Media “Readers’ List”
- BookRaid
- GoodKindles (a failure, so I’m not linking to it)
To see how my choices and experiences have evolved over time, you can look at my earlier posts on this subject — 2022’s Book Promotion Sites: Ranked, and back to 2021 when I was Focusing the Plan.
Since I hate marketing and I’m really bad at it, running promos this way is the easiest and the most effective approach I have found. Most of these promos cost $45 to $65. I budget to run one promo a month (rotating among these sites, and sometimes doubling up with less-expensive ads at BookDoggy and ManyBooks). Occasionally I splurge on a $170 Written Word Media full-series promo. I was an election clerk in November 2023 and got paid $188 for the day’s work. That will buy a promo. 😁
What promo sites do you recommend? What have your experiences been with pay-per-click ads at Amazon, BookBub, and Facebook? I tried those, but I found them to be way overpriced and ineffective for my books.
For those who would like to compare my 2023 results, as analyzed here, with my more recent 2024 promotional efforts, there is an update to this post at https://www.waterspell.net/books-and-readers/book-promo-sites-my-2024-results/
Hello!
I’m fascinated to hear from someone going through the same promotional struggles as me … though in your case doing it more methodically! I just wanted to add two other promotional names that have done reasonably well for me in the past – Robin Reads, which tends to get the same sort of download numbers from free book promotions as ENT; and AXP, which tends to get similar results to ManyBooks.
Like you, I find Written Word (i.e. Freebooksy) to be much the best promotional option (other than BookBub, which I’ve been able to use once, with astonishing results.)
I’d love to know how effective you find promotions on books that are NOT free (maybe they’re discounted or promoted at full price). I’ve never had much success except with free promotions.
Hi! Thanks for your comment. I’ve also had reasonably good luck with Robin Reads. But only for free promotions, at any of the sites. The few times I’ve tried Bargain Booksy for my books that are priced at $2.99, I have seen no uptick in sales. Readers want free books! Like they think writers can live on air, alas. But having a six-book series, I DO find that readers will return and buy subsequent books in the series, which makes it worthwhile, giving away the first title for free. I’m trying to work up the courage (and the determination to spend the money) for a BookBub promo. I fear rejection and/or wasted money. 🙂
I completely agree that only free promotions ever seem to produce substantial results. But like you, I also find that a free promotion on a book in a series usually produces sales of other books in the series (though it’s getting harder). I’ve done one BookBub, which was two years ago. It cost nearly £600, but produces astonishing results. I set the book to free for the maximum five days allowed under Kindle Select, and had about 25,000 downloads; and amazingly, contrary to my expectations, I eventually earned back the entire cost through sales and KU reads of other books in the series. But I’ve never dared attempt it again!
Thanks for sharing! I have similar results with Written Word Media – very good. However, in my case Ereader News Today and Book Barbarian were quite disappointing. But I guess in each book case the results might be different. Fussy Librarian was ok, and Goodkindles brought me at least satisfactory results for the price (I took the mid option). Good luck with your marketing efforts!