Welcome back to Bakerview Consulting!
Today we are going to talk about choosing sites to promote your book.
So the tagline of this post should be:
What to look for when choosing a book promotion site?
There is an endless debate amongst authors as to which site will bring the most sales. I actually manage several sites that promote books. I know the traffic that they get and I know that not all books attract the same degree of attention. The audience is different in almost all cases.
I have a Kindle Countdown deal coming in just over a week for The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to test out a selection of services.
This is not only the first book that I wrote, but it is an award winner and available in kindle, paperback as well as audiobook formats. Not only has it sold a lot of copies and is available in all formats, it has a good track record of helping a lot of authors understand the book blogging world. I put it in KDP Select a few weeks ago for a number of reasons – honestly, they first reason was to play with Amazon’s new ad system (we’ll talk about that another day).
In the table below, you’ll see a selection of sites along with some details about each site. I’m totally aware that the number of sites available to promote books seems endless and we can’t possibly talk about them all in one post. The list below is the list of promotional sites I’m approaching for my upcoming sale. The sale that I’m promoting is for a 99 cent book – not a free book. Many sites only accept submissions for free books.
| Name | URL | promo cost | Free books | Cheap books | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ask David | askdavid.com | $15 | X | X | one payment - unlimited books |
| Awesome Gang | AwesomeGang.com | Optional $10 | X | X | promotion of books regardless of sale |
| Bargain Booksy | bargainbooksy.com | price varies by genre | X | X | |
| Booktasktik | booktastik.com | price varies by genre | X | X | |
| Choosy Bookworm | choosybookworm.com | free - $70 | X | X | |
| Ebook Bargains UK | http://www.ebookbargainsuk.com/ | variety of packages | X | X | wide variety of packages targetted at the UK |
| Ebooks Habit | ebookshabit.com | free to $19 | X | X | |
| Ereader IQ | ereaderiq.com | price varies by genre | X | X | several choices of promotional vehicles |
| Ereader News today | ereadernewstoday.com | price varies by genre | X | X | |
| Free Kindle Books | fkbt.com | variety of packages | X | X | |
| Free Books Hub | freebookshub.com | $10-20 | X | X | |
| The Fussy Librarian | thefussylibrarian.com | price varies by genre | X | X | books quite a bit in the future |
| Indies Unlimited | indiesunlimited.com | free | X | X | Listing the day of |
| Just Kindle Books | justkindlebooks.com | $15 - $35 | X | X | |
| Kindle Books & Tips | http://fkbt.com/ | varity of packages | X | X | |
| the Kindle Book Review | https://www.thekindlebookreview.net/ | variety of packages | X | X | |
| Kindle Nation Daily | kindlenationdaily.com | variety of packages | X | X | |
| My Book Cave | mybookcave.com | free | X | X | |
| People Reads | peoplereads.com | variety of packages | X | X | |
| Planet Ebooks | planetebooks.net | $19.95-$59.99 | X | X | |
| Read Freely | readfree.ly | free | X | X | |
| Reading Deals | readingdeals.com | free - $15 | X | X | |
As you can see in the table, the prices range from free to several hundred dollars per promotion. Almost every site offers a range of packages – or should I say a dizzying array of prackages.
All book promotion sites will generally promote a book via:
- social media promotion
- newsletter distribution
- posting on a site
Social Media Promotion
Quite a few sites that I looked at offered a certain number of tweets per day, or per week. Several offered posts on a Facebook page. Regardless of how many likes a Facebook page has or how many followers a Twitter stream has, we know from the literature that only a small portion of those likes/followers will even see a post. It is also accepted in the literature that although the social media is a great place to chat and make friends, it isn’t really the place for the hard sell. Frequently the ‘Buy my Book” messages are tuned out – and in the case of Facebook, the algorithm will prevent these promo posts from appearing in most people’s timelines.
Because of the above, I question the usefulness of this sort of promotion.
Newsletter Distribution
It is fairly well accepted in the literature that the response from an email vastly out reaches any other form of delivery of information. People are more likely to open an email that lands in their inbox than visit a website. From this, one can assume that a promotion via newsletter would be very effective if the audience is interested in your genre of book.
When looking at the numbers provided by the promotion site, you aren’t interested in over all subscribers – as this number is useless – lacking in details. You are interested in what numbers of subscribers are interested in the genre of book you are interested in promoting.
What’s that saying? Don’t be dazzled by bullshit….
Posting on a site – either a blog or a website
Most websites that do book promotion get decent traffic numbers, but in my experience readers don’t search out a book promotion site to find their next read. If they have subscribed to this site, they have reason to pay attention to the latest posts; if they follow the site on BlogLovin’ or other similar aggregator, they likely will pay attention to what is shared. People just happening by, are not really likely to buy a copy of a book. In my experience, people who find a book promotion site via a Google search are authors looking for a place to promote their book – not readers to buy one.
In next week’s post, I’ll compare and contrast some of the services that I end up being accepted to for the upcoming kindle countdown promotion.
In the meantime, see below for the latest news on the book front…
*****
If you haven’t already noticed I’m giving away a couple of free books and some videos aimed at helping with some common tech issues. If you are interested in getting some free books, click HERE.
My re-write of the Goodreads book is now in the hands of my editor. I’m impatiently waiting for her thoughts and hope to have it on Amazon by mid October.
Barb, Thank you! Very useful info intelligently presented. Tweeted…:-)
Thanks so much Ruth!
Enjoyed this post immensely. Crystal clear and concise. I look forward to your findings.
Hi Barb,
What a great post, thank you for presenting the information so nicely, much easier to use than some similar and less attractive posts on this topic I’ve seen.
I came across a post about book promotion sites here – https://kindlepreneur.com/list-sites-promote-free-amazon-books/ – are there any of these you know and would suggest to an author looking to spend the minimal amount possible on promoting their book?
Your content is so helpful so if you could let me know whether any of these sites meet your approval, or whether you think the ones on your own list are a better bet, I’d super appreciate it.
Thanks so much!
Hi James,
In my experience the various promotion sites have different audiences. I’ve found that some trial and error is required. I also find that sites who send out a newsletter type of announcement seem to produce more replicated results than one that just rely on organic traffic.
Hope this helps,
Barb