It seemed so romantic three years ago, the idea of writing a novel, swooning over my characters, and creating plots to test their love and perseverance. I didn't think marketing a book would test mine in every way possible. I'm going to discuss book promos. Follow me into this dark alley, and … I'll leave the rest up to your vivid imaginations.
Book Promos put concentrated marketing activity around a title for a short time, usually while the title is free or priced at a bargain rate, usually at .99. The book promos I'm talking about are when companies send newsletters out to "a dedicated readership eager to buy your book." Hmm, hyperbole, eagerly waiting? No, I don't think so, but people definitely want free books, that I'm sure of.
First off, let me be honest. As each day goes by, I am becoming more hostile to the premise of free books. The reasons:
It costs me money. I’ve spent my time and money writing this book. I need to get some of it back.
Readers download them by the thousands and let them sit there, often never reading them. They are not fully appreciated.
Companies are making money off of authors and seldom does “free” work down to them. If companies are asking authors to list their books for free, then the entire listing should also be free.
If we keep giving away our books, who in their right mind will buy one? Others may not agree with me. I know authors are buying into the idea of book funnels, and if you've been doing this for a while and have a whole bunch of books, then you can afford to throw a few to the wolves and use them as breadcrumbs to bring the rest of the pack to your door. However, I don't have a series like this to promote as yet. If you do, go ahead, and do your thing.
Since I don't, I need to make the books I wrote work for me. Eventually, when I do have a series, I’m more likely to price the first book at .99, not make it free. My attorney doesn't work for free, my accountant nor my editor, nor will they even give me a cup of coffee at my local coffee shop for free, but for some reason, anyone in the creative arts is expected to give their work away for free. I thought I left that behind when I retired from the visual arts. I can't remember how many times I was asked to donate a painting for this organization and this event when I was an art professor and showed my work. This seems no different. Same mindset, just a different set of circumstances.
You can't say you sold 200 books if you give the book away. Forget semantics. You aren't selling. You are giving. You can say you had 200 downloads of your book.
Do people who clamor over a free book, even purchase books? Those supporting free books will say you're adding to your audience. I'm not sure about that. I would say there’s a slew of people out there who never buy books. That's why they subscribe to all these free book promo newsletters. I had an author tell me it generates reviews. I'd argue with that, too, and explain my thoughts in the next paragraph. Lastly, one author said it made her book a best seller and improved her book's sales rank, but I'd rather have money in the bank than move the needle on a graph for an Amazon ranking and boast best-selling author under my name. Every author on IG is a best-selling author, it seems.
The only reason to give out a book is to get something of value in exchange. Receiving an email address in exchange for a book seems fair. If I join a promotion through any company but Bookfunnel, it will cost me money, and I won't have access to the customer's email address. You may have other thoughts on this; if you do, kindly share them. Maybe, I don't understand the full scope of all of this. I'm a negative Nellie or need another meditation retreat to become more connected to my maternal, giving nature. (Nope, I can never share a bathroom with six other women again.)
I've even changed my approach somewhat to giving my book away on Bookfunnel. After giving out my magnet book Hitman's Honey, for four months and bumping my email list to five hundred names, I looked hard at things. Since I could sell the book for $2.99 and discovered that the people who got the book for free never left a review, no matter how I begged, but the people who paid did, I decided to stop giving the book away for free. The expression people don't appreciate what they don't pay for is apt. Now I only give the book's first two chapters away and still collect the email. I have a link at the end of the first two chapters where they can purchase the rest of the book.
Some book promo companies only run free promos, some run free and .99 ones, some run ones that require you to discount your price, and some make no requirements. If my price is already $2.99, my price is already discounted. I'm not discounting it more. You may feel differently about your book, and if you do, you can qualify for quite a few more promos.
One thing to keep in mind is the cost of individual promos. Different promos charge different amounts. How much you pay for a promotion is less critical than you think. What matters is the cost in relation to the price of your book and how many people they get to click and buy your book. You can usually read the author's opinions online about different promos if you search. The results are what matters. I need to look for companies that run promos that require no discounts, will take books priced at $2.99, and produce results enabling me to earn enough sales to earn the cost of the promo back and a profit.
Why do readers use these sites? Can't readers find books by themselves, you might ask? Readers are looking for deals and inexpensive books to read in the genres they love. I don't know all the answers yet, but I suspect readers prefer free and are used to free. I have, at this point, participated in two promos and saw an increase in sales in both. I made a slight profit in one and didn't earn my money back in the other. After further research, I found other authors who said that specific promo sites only did well with free books. I noticed that the increase in sales lasted several days beyond the promo day. Live and learn. I definitely would try the one promo site again and want to try some others before I make any decision. Here are some book promos companies below:
Best Book Monkey. Books must be priced under $4.99 but they do not need to be discounted for the promo, although most are. They have three plans available. One free, this means they do not charge the author to be included in the mailer. The other two you pay to have your book advertised. They have different genres besides romance.
Be forewarned you are going to fill out forms, so keep it all in a handy document that you can cut and paste again and again into different promo applications. You’ll need your book title, a very short book description (forget anything long,) they won’t let you copy it from Amazon, all your social media and book selling URL’s. Again, if you are hoping for a certain date, get onto the promo site a couple of weeks early and see what’s available. Dates fill up quickly on some sites.
Brazen Book Tours. They concentrate on the romance genre and can give you a promo exclusive on your book alone or put you with several authors that share the same genre of romance. The price of a group page was $50.00. This seems reasonable and the amount of books one would need to sell in order to break even or make money is attainable.
The Fussy Librarian. They used to require a certain number of reviews before accepting your book, but no longer require that. While they do recommend having a few reviews under your book, they accept new releases. They take books $5.99 or less, so this is a plus for those locked in with a publisher who does not encourage discounting your books. They still prefer selling your book between .99 cents and $2.99.
They also promote Kindle Vella books under their free ebook newsletter. The cost for this is approximately $79.00, but if you are attempting to kick off a new Vella story, this is a way to get some eyes on it, very quickly. Since the first three episodes of every Vella story is free, this qualifies as a free read.
Bargain Booksy. This caters to all genres and will feature books .99 up $5.00 and will not require you to further discount. The Romantic Suspense promo charge - $80.00.
Red Feather Romance. This one is on the pricier side but it is nothing but romance books of every genre and the price of your book is not limited. $115.00 for the romance suspense genre category for books .99 +. Each romance genre has a different pricing model due to the amount of subscribers.
Robin Reads. They do not promote books over .99 and out of the hundred requests they receive they accept less than ten percent. It could be the date you selected, the cover, the book description, or the lack of reviews causes your rejection.
Book Sends. Only has a general romance list. There are expanded guidelines with this one. A planned sales price of less than $3.00 and it must by 50% off the full price. Go to the link and read the other guidelines. My book’s full price is $2.99 so I’d have to price it down to $1.49. A book priced this low and I believe I’d only get 35% of the sale. When I said, I’d be working for peanuts, I said it as a joke; Turns out it’s true.
BookFunnel. Also runs sales promos based on genres and all kinds of other things. They also promote Vella books and have exclusive promos just for them. You can also come up with your own sales promo and invite other authors to participate. These promos are free as part of your monthly membership.
Some promos might not fit well because of their pricing model or other requirements. There were many more I didn't list. This is David Gaughran's Book Promo list. He has some big ones like BookBub (selective and price prohibitive) and others that give out free books or specialize in another genre besides romance. He has personally vetted these sites. What this means exactly, I don't know. I suggest you do your own research with anything you find online or anything I list. If you haven't heard of David, he gives out many free materials having to do with publishing, even if you don't sign up for his classes, he is worth checking out.
There were other book promotion sites I didn't mention, as they went well beyond advertising your book in a mailer. They were too intense for me. After a Zoom interview, they offered gold, bronze, and silver packages (not the Olympics) and three and six-month commitments to see if I was "serious enough." (I'm not dating you and if I did, you’d be paying me, and it would be a platinum membership, Ha!) I felt like I'd need to give them a child if I had one to give. I have many grandchildren, but I don't think the mother would go for it.
One made me feel like I was in Vegas, inside a casino. If I'm going to throw caution to the wind and take a chance with my money, I don't want to remember all my foolishness and bad decisions. Do you know what they say about Vegas? Whatever happens in Vegas… the same thing could happen with this newsletter and bad marketing decisions. Forget about it, baby! The packages started at $250.00 and up. Maybe, they're as good as they say they are, but if you have to put a big ole' timer on your webpage to force authors to quickly make a decision, how legit can you be? That's it. My time for today is up.
Please comment if you've used any of the above book promo companies or any other ones we should know about.
Have a great week. Kay here in Book Marketing 101. Ha!
Wow, quite a dark side to trying to get your book published! So many facets to deal with, so many ways to lose money!