Writer’s Toolkit #4
by Ruth Harris
The old ways of publicizing books aren’t working so well in the E-Age.
In 2011, editor Alan Rinzler famously said, “That $50K space ad in the New York Times? Forget it. It’s only for the author’s mother. The twenty-city bookstore tour with first class airplanes, limousines, and hotel suites? A waste of money. Not even an appearance on the Today Show can guarantee more than a brief spike in sales….The old ways don’t work.”
Right now, most successful authors will tell you that none of the above methods are working very well either. (Not that we wouldn’t welcome a few Tweets.)
But what really generates buzz for your book these days is e-book bargain newsletters and websites.
Writers’ Toolkit #4:
How to Move the Merch.
by Ruth Harris
A lot.There are many sites—with new ones popping up constantly—that will promote your book. Some of them paid, others are FREE.
Each site has different rules and regs—not all of them accept erotica—and it’s important to read the fine print as you make your promotional plans and decide on a budget. As you will see later, some authors have found success with FREE promo, others with paid. There is, as has been pointed out many times, no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
In alphabetic order:
AwesomeGang offers FREE ebook listings in addition to a $10 paid option for more traction. As an extra service to authors, AwesomeGang provides a list of other sites offering FREE promotion.Bargain Booksy will list your bargain or reduced-price book on their own site and in their daily email to over 50,000 subscribers at a cost of $50. If you are offering a free book, their companion site, free booksy, is the place to go.
BookBub, is picky and pricey but generally considered highly effective although, as with everything, YMMV and there can be variations between genres. As with most sites, BookBub works on an opt-in system and currently does not accept short stories and novellas or books costing more than $2.99.
Before deciding whether or not to try your luck at BookBub, you will want to do your due diligence. You will find the latest, hot-off-the-press info on BookBub promo results at this Writers’ Cafe thread.
BookDaily “invites [authors] to set up a FREE author account on BookDaily to promote your book to our readers. BookDaily introduces authors to new readers by providing a sample chapter from the author’s books.” Recently, BookDaily emailed 43,753 sample chapters to readers.
E-Book Bargains UK (EBUK) is the UK’s version of BookBub and gets your book in front of readers in the UK (duh!) and 13 other English-speaking markets all over the world that are otherwise tricky for American authors to reach. This is the only newsletter that has a truly global audience. They’re planning more countries for the next year, plus an all-erotica newsletter. The site is run by the efficient and very-nice-to-work-with Mick.
Note from Anne: I have used the EBUK guys for several books, and they jump-started stalled UK sales and got me on bestseller lists in Germany and France. Definitely worthwhile for me. I’ve heard from other authors who climbed the Kobo charts after advertising with EBUK. If you want to know more about them and their vision for the global marketplace, check out the guest post they wrote for us, The E-Book Market No Author Should Ignore.
E-Readers News Today aka ENT is a long-running book promo site with an excellent track record. ENT features include listings for a regularly-priced Book Of The Day, Bargain Books for books reduced to $.99 as well as free books. What sets ENT apart is that you pay after your promo runs and ENT bills you for 25% of your sales. Greg and Rachelle are the savvy guiding lights at ENT.
Donna Fasano, bestselling romance author, believes “the combined forces of BookBub and ENT are what propelled Reclaim My Heart onto the USA Today Best Seller List. My book appearing on the list captured the attention of an editor at Montlake who bought the pub rights. The BookBub ad cost $480 and the ENT ad cost approx $50. After the ads ran, Reclaim My Heart hit #9 on the Kindle Top 100, #4 on the Nook List, #20 on the Kobo List, and #9 on the iBooks Romance List.”
Fussy Librarian FREE (at least for now) is a new kid on the block and sends out daily ebook recs. You can choose from 32 genres, and select content preferences such as amount of sex and violence so that readers who want cozy mysteries won’t receive recs for steamy romance. Here’s a WC thread introducing Fussy Librarian.
You will also find an informative interview with Jeffrey Bruner who runs Fussy Librarian at Lindsay Buroker’s blog here.
Kindle Books and Tips is another paid promo site that offers readers a daily list of FREE and discounted books. 600,000+ visit the blog daily and 125,000+ people view the blog, FB page and subscribe to their email list.
Kindle Nation Daily is one of the first book promotional sites and, as the title indicates, specializes in featuring your book to Kindle owners and readers. KND offers a choice of genres including erotic which some sites don’t allow and also hosts a daily email blast called BookGorilla.
Pixel of Ink, another well-established and attractive book promo site, lists FREE and bargain books as well as Hot Deals browsable by category.
Elaine Raco Chase ran a Veterans Day weekend sale for her contemporary romance title, Rules Of The Game, at 99 cents down from $2.99. Elaine comments: “On Friday: Pixelscroll + Awesome Gang free ads equalled 20 total sales. Saturday: the People Read ad appeared at 10 a.m (Van does a lot of tweets on his own). The Read Cheaply ad appeared at 11:45 a.m + tweets from other authors. On Sunday morning ROTG totaled 55 books sold over nite (just 1 at Nook).
“Have NOT paid a single penny and am pretty pleased plus sales on 4 other books at full price.”
Pixelscroll presents daily postings of eBooks, as well as Apps, Movies and Television Seasons, MP3s and CDs, Audio Books, and all sorts of electronics. PixelScroll offers both FREE and paid ebook listings and sponsorships.
ReadCheaply is another FREE book promo service offering targeted lists of free and deeply discounted ebooks. A few hoops to jump but an attractive option.
The Kindle Book Review is a multi-purpose site that offers author services like formatting and cover creation along with—as the name indicates—reviews. KBR also offers advertising services at prices ranging from $25 to $45.
- In addition to these independent sites, the major ebook vendors offer their own promotional opportunities.
- At iBooks, you can set your book to $.00 and get coupons to give to readers, reviewers and anyone else you wish.
- KOBO will also let you set your book’s price to $.00 and has a new feature that allows you to specify a sale price for a specified amount of time. You will find this option when you scroll down to the bottom of the pricing screen.
- Kindle has added a new opportunity, Countdown Deals, allows authors to run limited-time discount promotions while maintaining their usual royalty. Countdown also offers a dedicated website and real-time sales and royalty information.
- NOOK also allows authors to set a book’s price to $.00 but, as of now, only via Smashwords
Hope this rundown is helpful and, if you know of other promo sites and especially if you have experience with them, please let us know! How about you, scriveners? Have you used any of these? What was your experience?
posted by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) November 24, 2013
Awesome list! I've checked out a few of them already, but hopefully will find more that don't require the book to be free or discounted. (Since I can't do that.)
Caught Fussy Librarian when it first opened and two of my books are listed now. Waiting until my genre reopens next weekend to submit the third one.
And congratulations on the boxed set, ladies!
Thank you for this informative post! I'm happy to be included.
Alex—Thank you! So many new listing sites keep appearing, it's a job keeping up with them. Still, we're thrilled to have them!
Donna—Anne and I are honored to see you here. Thank you for stopping by and thanks, too, for sharing your experience with BookBub and ENT—a valuable guide for other writers.
CS—Thank you for your good wishes and, yes, effective marketing is essential for today's writers and seems to keep changing & evolving.
Ruth, this is an amazing list and a terrific resource for us. Thank you so much for sharing such good info on e book publishing. Right now I'm almost done with NaNO, but when I finish later in the week, I'm going to check all of these sources out. My nonfiction gay anthology, The Other Man, got some good traction on EBUK, too. Great post. Congrats on your new combo with Anne. It's on my Kindle.
My best,
Paul
Julie—Thank you for sending along your good vibes! I couldn't have written this post without the promo sites that keep expanding and redefining the ways authors can reach their audiences. And of course, writers who are willing to share their experiences.
Paul—Thanks! Glad to hear your nonfic gay antho got good results with EBUK. Sharing your experience is soooo helpful to other writers! Anne and I appreciate it—and you! 🙂
Thanks Ruth & Anne, & congrats to you for hitting The Big #3. Here's hoping the boxed set moves its way up from there once folks get the chance to read it & tell their friends.
As to marketing these days. It truly is a Brave New World, isn't it?
E-BookBuilders.com has been effective for me. Still free and/or low cost. They helped push up my sales by 5 times, and Deena Rae is very accommodating and interested in the author's success.
Love how generous you are in sharing your experience (what works,what doesn't work). Thank you! And giving you lots of good vibes and thoughts for your books!
Congrats Ruth and Anne on your double set, Chanel & Gatsby! It looks fabulously funny – wishing you huge success with it!
Thanks so much for the incredible run down of e-marketing/selling tools. This is awesomely helpful, and getting bookmarked immediately. I'm so impressed by the range of offers out there. And thanks for the inclusion of prices and appr effectiveness. YOU ROCK!!
Very useful list. And congrats on the books doing so well.
regards,
mood
Moody Writing
Awesome list girls! Thanks for great shares as always and can't wait to read the dynamic duo set! 🙂
Lexa—Thanks for the kind & flattering words! The range of promo offers is indeed impressive & a credit to the inventiveness & creativity of those in the ebook world. They have earned our thanks!
CM—Thanks for the mention of e-book builders. Your results are impressive indeed!
Debbie—Enjoy the two-fer! 🙂
Mooderino—Thank you for your supportive words. Anne and I appreciate them!
Florence—Anne and I couldn't even begin to do what we do without inspiration and feedback from our readers who are The Best. Gems, like you!! 🙂
Laura—Thank you! $5 for 10 years. Wow! What a great find!
Awesome promo list! Bookmarked for later use. Congratulations on the success of your books!
Jacqueline—Thanks! 🙂
Nina—Thank you. 🙂 Hope your friends find some useful ideas here and best of luck to them on their antho.
Anne, you and Ruth have been writing a great "how to" do everything … from keeping the flame bright to selling the matches to ignite for our readers to giving us the knowledge and inspiration we all need to keep striving. Thanks to both of you 🙂
Thanks so much for this. The post has come at a great time for me.
You may also like to look at this website. For just $5 you can advertise your book for 10 years. http://creativedesignerswriters.com/
I hope people find this useful.
Laura
Thanks for the great list and good luck with your sale on Friday,
Just sent this to my two friends putting out an anthology soon. Thanks for the awesome resources. (As always!)
Thank you for this. I'm still new to this world and will check some of these sites out.
Wow, this post is a keeper. Thanks so much for all the resources. And congratulations on your releases!
Leonie—Welcome. "New" means lots to learn, lots of fun, lots of opportunity!
Susan—Thank you! We appreciate your good wishes!
Julie—Hope this post helps. So many new promo sites are popping up to help writers get the word out!
AD—Thanks!
Fantastic list, thank you! 😀
Thank you for this list-it is so nice to have it all in one place!
Thanks for all the great links!
I bought your book – look forward to reading it!
Elle—Thank you. Hope you enjoy Anne and me in fun mode! 🙂
Christy—Thanks Glad you found the post useful!
Greg—Thanks and I agree. "Everyone" will swarm to the new kids (sites) in town; they'll be hot for a while, then cool off and everyone will move on to the next newest & hottest! Way of the world. 😉
This is a very helpful list. I'm worried many of these sites won't be as effective as they once were.
I'm also worried readers will become conditioned to bargain-basement prices for eBooks all the time, just as many are now conditioned to free and nothing else.
So does that mean readers won't go on to buy your other titles if they like you? No, but I do think it means fewer readers will buy discounted books as time goes on and their collection of those titles begins to outpace their collection of free books.
Kayla—Thank you! So glad Anne and I have been able to help clarify strategies and ID land mines. It's a jungle out there and Anne & I get as lost as anyone else. We do our best to use our experience to help make a difference for other writers.
We wish you the best of luck with your book!
Mrs. Harris:
I have never been disappointed by an update of your blog. Both you and Mrs. Allen have a way of taking the most complex things—marketing, tactics, and strategies for writers—and boiling them down to accomplishable tasks. This post itself helped me realize I could become my own marketer, or at the very least have a greater influence over the success of my book, so thank you for the excellent recommendations and website listings.
I went to check out The Fuzzy Librarian, by the way, and I believe by January the price will be up. They have been vague on the amount but did say they would try to keep it “affordable,” and have pledged “one price for paid titles… whether your list your book at 99 cents, $2.99 or $4.99, you’ll pay the same price. Fair and reasonable prices… [and] one price… whether you’re an independent author or the director of marketing at Random House….” This sounds promising to me, and taking into consideration the “moral rating” the site has set up, this “new kid on the block,” as you’ve said, has an interesting moral code, so I personally believe their promises. Hopefully the Fuzzy Librarian is here to stay. Thanks for getting their name out there and, once again, providing hope for writers everywhere!
–KaylatheRivera
kaylatherivera.blogspot.com
I think to get advertiser is not easy because we have to have brand and hig trafic in our blogs 🙂
By the way thanks for your tips. This is useful for me 🙂
This list is awesome!! Thanks for all the great recommendations!
Wahyu—Glad the tips were useful!
Sherrie—Thank you for the kind words. I'm delighted to hear the list will be of help. 🙂
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