# genreCRAVE Results Thread



## Guest (Apr 26, 2016)

I'm opening this thread so customers of www.genrecrave.com can all have one spot to report their results. Data from our promotions can also be followed via our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/976086735798716/ < This is also where to get discounted spots as they become available, sometimes for as much as half off!

For those who are wondering what genreCRAVE is about: 
We're new, and we aren't promising epic results, but we are promoting to serious genre fans and try to keep our prices fair to our overall results. 
One thing that separates us from some other similar companies is that we obsess over your results as much as you do. (Yes, I spend a good part of my day stalking my clients results and making extra efforts beyond what they paid for when time allows.)
Finally, we never promote more than 2 books per newsletter. This is to give our authors the best shot at getting attention from readers. We also only send newsletters to our readers 3x a week per genre (instead of daily). This means on any given week, our readers only see 6 books for their genre from us.

Going Forward:
We plan to keep prices as affordable as we can for the results. The size of our newsletter and the cost to maintain it will affect pricing, so our pricing is based more on newsletter size rather than us raising prices when demand becomes high for promotion. If demand does become high, we will start vetting titles for quality, rather than raising prices beyond what fits the size of our lists. If demand remains high and there are many high-quality submissions, we'll cross that bridge when we get there, but we are committed to keeping the newsletter down to 2 books per promotion.

Titles that perform best with our subscribers have:
a) an enticing price to try a new author (free or $0.99)
b) a stellar cover to catch their eye
c) and a strong blurb and sample chapter

We look forward to hearing results from those who have tried our service!


----------



## dmburnett (Feb 4, 2011)

Following this. Sounds like a great promotion!


----------



## Maysage (Feb 18, 2016)

Hi, 
My first genre crave promo ran last week, in paranormal romance, for my title Cinderella. 
Before the promo Cinderella was around top 60000, it jumped to #2662 and got top of one of its category for most of the weekend, with 56 downloads on the day. It's on KU and the page read stayed at their usual on day one, but they doubled on day two and three so some people read it on KU. I definitely saw some trail on the rest of the series, mainly with KU.
As it has a Bookbub promo coming up, I haven't promoted it anywhere else before that, so I'm pretty impressed.
In short, for $25 (well, less, I got mine reduced &#128525 I got the results I normally only see from Booksends from bargainbooksy - it's definitely going on the list of places where I _will_ promote my titles every time I'm running something!


----------



## Taitrina (Oct 17, 2014)

This looks good. Bookmarked for later reference 

I do have a couple of questions though if that's alright:
1) Is it the same list/is there crossover with the Hungry Author New Release Blast? I hope that's ok to ask, I'm just wondering if this would be a good promo to book as well or not. I want to hopefully get a strong launch for my new series and I'm making up a list of promo sites to watch for maybe booking around my blast. It's in the hope of spreading the (hopeful) boost and then maybe (with some luck) getting some love from the amazon algorithms.

2) Will you be offering any different genres in the future? Right now my new series wouldn't qualify except under freebie. Also do you recommend to use the freebie option only if the book falls under the listed genres?

Thanks!


----------



## aimeeeasterling (Sep 22, 2014)

You can see my result here: http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=234554.0. Short version --- I made 46 sales at 99 cents on the day my book was listed in the urban fantasy newsletter. I didn't mention in that post, but I also saw a significant spike in page reads the next day (about 5 extra books worth). Definitely well worth the money and highly recommended!


----------



## Guest (Apr 26, 2016)

Taitrina said:


> This looks good. Bookmarked for later reference
> 
> I do have a couple of questions though if that's alright:
> 1) Is it the same list/is there crossover with the Hungry Author New Release Blast? I hope that's ok to ask, I'm just wondering if this would be a good promo to book as well or not. I want to hopefully get a strong launch for my new series and I'm making up a list of promo sites to watch for maybe booking around my blast. It's in the hope of spreading the (hopeful) boost and then maybe (with some luck) getting some love from the amazon algorithms.
> ...


I have 3 segments for promos, and there is some overlap, but they are all different audiences and built differently.
I'm working on building other genre lists also


----------



## Darius Brasher (Feb 6, 2015)

Does GenreCrave accept superhero novels? I'm working on a couple of new ones and I would like to do a new release push. I see that two of the categories you accept are Crime and Mystery and Urban Fantasy. One of the novels I'm working on is a superhero murder mystery, so I suppose it could fit under Crime and Mystery. Urban Fantasy is probably less of a fit as the book has no magical elements at all.


----------



## 13893 (Apr 29, 2010)

I ran a promo with GenreCrave yesterday and I'm super happy with the results. I featured Give Me, a book that has been out for YEARS and ran it as a freebie. It got as high as 326 on the free charts - though I wasn't watching it constantly and it may have gone higher. It had 507 downloads before I switched it to 99¢ (too early, I kind of messed that up.) it's had 18 priced sales since. 

I've already booked another spot for the next book in the series, and I can't wait to see what happens with a new title. 

I love the ease of booking this promo. You get to see a calendar of days available and choose your date right then. If your book fits (in other words, if you haven't tried to book science fiction under paranormal romance or something like that) you'll probably get the spot.


----------



## Aaronhodges (Dec 19, 2015)

Do you plan on doing a New Adult or Fantasy genre in the future?


----------



## Maysage (Feb 18, 2016)

Aaronhodges said:


> Do you plan on doing a New Adult or Fantasy genre in the future?


They definitely do (urban) fantasy &#128522;


----------



## Guest (Apr 26, 2016)

Darius Brasher said:


> Does GenreCrave accept superhero novels? I'm working on a couple of new ones and I would like to do a new release push. I see that two of the categories you accept are Crime and Mystery and Urban Fantasy. One of the novels I'm working on is a superhero murder mystery, so I suppose it could fit under Crime and Mystery. Urban Fantasy is probably less of a fit as the book has no magical elements at all.


The best fit currently would probably be crime/mystery, but eventually as we add more genres something else might become a better fit.


----------



## Guest (Apr 26, 2016)

Aaronhodges said:


> Do you plan on doing a New Adult or Fantasy genre in the future?


We are working on a fantasy list.


----------



## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> We are working on a fantasy list.


Good to know!


----------



## spellscribe (Nov 5, 2015)

I just ran on the 25th so will update this comment later for sell-through (4 so far).

The Book: Dream Stalker, 60 days old, first free run to coincide with the launch of Barrow Fiend, book 2 in series.

25th April: 813 DL's
26th April (so far): 260 DL's.
It's the morning of the 27th in Australia, so still plenty of time to rack up DLs for the 26th over in the US, however my rank indicates it's starting to slow a little.

My rank has dropped to 190. At its peak, I hit 150 and was in the top 20 Free of the entire SFF category, 13 in Fantasy and <5 in 3 niche subcats. 

I've sold 5-more-than-preorder on my new book, which I think/hope are actually from my newsletter subscribers. I sent them an email blast to promo the freebie but as they all signed up from back-of-book links, I doubt they contributed to my stellar results  

In all I'm 150% happy with the service. The remaining part of my fragile hopes and dreams rests on the book itself, and whether it hooks readers enough to go grab the second one! I will report back


----------



## UnicornEmily (Jul 2, 2011)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> I have 3 segments for promos, and there is some overlap, but they are all different audiences and built differently.
> I'm working on building other genre lists also


Oh, awesome! So those are totally different lists, with mostly totally different people? That's awesome. That means they can both be used for the same book and be effective.

I have a GenreCrave promo scheduled for June, and I'm excited (plus nervous) to test it out.



TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> We are working on a fantasy list.


Boo yah!

I love that you're committed to charging what the list is worth, not boosting the price just to make extra money when it becomes more popular. That's a business philosophy that I appreciate and want to support.


----------



## JamesOsiris (Mar 23, 2014)

I booked this for the 9th May, so I'll be interested to see (and report) my results


----------



## Nathalie Aynie (Nov 24, 2013)

I'd love to see a list of prices because I haven't been able to find one.


----------



## JamesOsiris (Mar 23, 2014)

You can find their prices on each genre category/booking page.


----------



## Nathalie Aynie (Nov 24, 2013)

JamesOsiris said:


> You can find their prices on each genre category/booking page.


Damn, it was right in front of my face! Thank you!


----------



## Guest (Apr 27, 2016)

Nathalie Aynie said:


> I'd love to see a list of prices because I haven't been able to find one.


Perhaps I should add a pricing page, also? I'm definitely open to feedback on making this site as simple for authors as possible.


----------



## JamesOsiris (Mar 23, 2014)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> Perhaps I should add a pricing page, also? I'm definitely open to feedback on making this site as simple for authors as possible.


Probably not a bad idea. I was able to find them, but I had to search. The strength of the service is its 'click and go' approach... so having a table of prices and basic info on the lists (ala Bookbub or BookBarbarian) would be awesome.


----------



## Nathalie Aynie (Nov 24, 2013)

TheForeverGirlSeries said:


> Perhaps I should add a pricing page, also? I'm definitely open to feedback on making this site as simple for authors as possible.


I think it could at least be more visible or repeated somewhere down the page, my eyes didn't find the price in the title. 
A pricing page would be great. ^^


----------



## UnicornEmily (Jul 2, 2011)

Yeah, I like that idea.  It would be an extra layer of convenience (and transparency).


----------



## Marseille France or Bust (Sep 25, 2012)

Can you promote books that are only free in KU?


----------



## Guest (Apr 28, 2016)

Thank you all for the feedback. I've added a pricing page with quick-data


----------



## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

Hey FGS I love ALL the promo's you are running.  If only I was with unlimited funds......  

Any idea on when SF will go on as an option?  I have time.


----------



## cvwriter (May 16, 2011)

Free books are $50?


----------



## Guest (Apr 29, 2016)

cvwriter said:


> Free books are $50?


Yes - they are featured solo in our newsletters (instead of with 1 other title) and a lot
Of extra work goes into then besides simply sending out a newsletter. When we do a free run I focus my day on personally contacting people beyond who is on the newsletter recommending they download the book if they like the genre. We recommend free runs for titles that are in KU (because it often helps with KU reads) and/or titles that are first in series with a sell-through title available. Those are the best ways to make sell through with a freebie


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Will you be doing Women's Fiction? It's a large, popular genre.


----------



## Guest (Apr 29, 2016)

Marian said:


> Will you be doing Women's Fiction? It's a large, popular genre.


We will be adding more genres as we get the subscribers for those genres


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Please let us know when you add genres.


----------



## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

I'm another who's bookmarking to see how things go before diving in


----------



## calindab (Jul 12, 2012)

I was featured in genrecrave and am pleased to report the results were better than I expected! I sold many books on the day of the newsletter and may have hit a list (I checked the day after and was 110 in ghosts). So pleased with Rebecca's fine work! Well worth the money.


----------



## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

Did anyone receive a confirmation after submitting to GenreCrave? I just now realized that I don't have a confirmation email, which makes me a little nervous!


----------



## Marseille France or Bust (Sep 25, 2012)

I got an email that said it would be going out shortly, but that is it. I have no idea if it went out and there is no way to sign up for the newsletter on the site to check and see without bugging them.



C. Rysalis said:


> Did anyone receive a confirmation after submitting to GenreCrave? I just now realized that I don't have a confirmation email, which makes me a little nervous!


----------



## Raquel Lyon (Mar 3, 2012)

I'm slightly hesitant to post my results, but they were asked for. So... My Genrecrave ran on the 13th of May for my freebie. The book has been free for over a year, has been promoted heavily, and has gone down to a non-promo baseline of 20-30 downloads per day. The day of my promotion, it got 43 downloads.

Make of that what you will.


----------



## C. Rysalis (Feb 26, 2015)

I'd post my results, but I have NO idea what they are. I stacked GenreCrave with about 4 or 5 other promos on the same day.


----------



## ebedford (Jan 24, 2016)

I got an email saying mine was going out on the 30th but have no idea what the results were. Do you usually send us the stats or something?

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## suliabryon (May 18, 2009)

ebedford said:


> I got an email saying mine was going out on the 30th but have no idea what the results were. Do you usually send us the stats or something?
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


I don't believe Rebecca sends stats for the genre crave promos, but I could be wrong. There are a lot of them, they are often, and they are smaller than the huge newsletter promos and book blasts that she does. 

Sharing some results:

I used genrecrave for the first time yesterday. I signed up for the PNR one, though mine is SFR, there are some definite cross-over genre tropes. I am in KU, so although I know I sold 14 copies, I must have had good downloads as well, because my rank went from around 160k, up to 14k. We'll see what happens today, although I am participating in another small promo, so the "tail" might not be as clear cut.


----------



## ebedford (Jan 24, 2016)

suliabryon said:


> I don't believe Rebecca sends stats for the genre crave promos, but I could be wrong. There are a lot of them, they are often, and they are smaller than the huge newsletter promos and book blasts that she does.
> 
> Sharing some results:
> 
> I used genrecrave for the first time yesterday. I signed up for the PNR one, though mine is SFR, there are some definite cross-over genre tropes. I am in KU, so although I know I sold 14 copies, I must have had good downloads as well, because my rank went from around 160k, up to 14k. We'll see what happens today, although I am participating in another small promo, so the "tail" might not be as clear cut.


Thanks for the information!

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


----------



## LittleFox (Jan 3, 2015)

I used Genrecrave for the first time yesterday. I didn't stack it with any other promotions as I wanted to see how it did. The book was on the UF list and got two sales. 

I won't be using them again.


----------



## tommy gun (May 3, 2015)

Hi Roxy, can you give us some more details?


----------



## LittleFox (Jan 3, 2015)

I won't be linking the book as I prefer to keep things separate. 

The book is first in a series, with a professional (Lou Harper) cover. It's been professionally edited. There have been great responses from readers, no complaints so far. It was priced at 99c.


----------



## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

I had a similar result to Roxy's...mine was a free first-in-series, a book that's been out a while and has almost 200 reviews (and also has a Lou Harper cover). It's the lead-in to my most popular series and always does well when I give it an extra promo push, and I got something like an extra 150 downloads from the GenreCrave ad (actually, probably more like 130, based on how many downloads the book gets on a regular day). Different books may have different results, but I know I'm not going to advertise with them again.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2016)

We will likely be discontinuing allowing promotion of free titles, as we can see that the cost that makes it worth it for us to run does not = measurable results for the author, especially as many people are promoting free books that have been heavily promoted in the past (and permafree).

Results on $0.99 are mixed. I've asked some of the people raving in the FB group to come post here as well. Here is one review:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/976086735798716/permalink/1103366543070734/

We can generate the leads, and our click data shows that's all good there, but we are definitely seeing that only books that have a stellar cover AND a killer sample are getting the majority of the downloads.

Other noteworthy details: I had one author tell me she got no sales from us. If you go into your affiliate account on the DAY OFF you can see what people actually bought (not just the lead link) and they definitely had sales. I also noticed a ranking increase, AND I've had readers message me screen shots showing me they've bought books (if the are particularly excited about a purchase). So I'm wondering about the KDP reporting end of things at this point; either amazon is lying or something else is going on, because I'm getting commissions on those books being bought. We also see books selling as much as 3-4 days later.

I completely understand why people who didn't get results wouldn't use us again. It's the same reason I rarely use ILVN anymore--I don't get results there, even though others do, so clearly my books don't resonate with their audience. Same with BKnights. On the other hand, I do really well with FKBT and Booksends, even though some of my author friends haven't had luck with those two. At any rate, don't be discouraged; if your book doesn't resonate with one reader list, it may with the list from another provider.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2016)

RoxyMoreau said:


> I won't be linking the book as I prefer to keep things separate.
> 
> The book is first in a series, with a professional (Lou Harper) cover. It's been professionally edited. There have been great responses from readers, no complaints so far. It was priced at 99c.


If your book is the one I think it is, you got 74 leads from our newsletter, but only 3 sales on the day of, while the other book paired with you had less clicks and twice as many sales. Day 2 you got no sales while the other book continued to get sales. The cover and blurb definitely got their attention, but I can't speak as to why they were buying the other book but not yours. As I said earlier, it's probably about finding the audience your book will resonate with. My readers, for whatever reason, loved the cover and blurb but didn't buy, so I completely agree that it wouldn't be worth running with us again. 

I'm guessing it's your book - Lou Harper cover, first in series, no reviews? I read a sample and thought it was great, though I did think there were things you could have done to improving pacing. I also noticed a couple formatting issues in the first chapter, though your editor did a great job re: grammar and punctuation. I very nearly bought the book myself because the story-telling was good  So IDK why my readers passed, unless it was because they didn't want to dive into a book with no reviews?


----------



## shunterni (May 2, 2016)

Hey, could you by any chance let me know what my results were? PM or here. I had a few promos stacked around, and it's hard to tell what was bleedthrough and what was from a certain promo. I'd love to have some concrete numbers. It's for the first book listed in my signature (which I'm pretty sure I signed up to run in the wrong category, oops).


----------



## suliabryon (May 18, 2009)

Just wanted to report my results from my second Genrecrave: the firs time I ran one, I didn't notice they had a category for SFR, so I ran PNR. The SFR list is smaller (but building, I believe) and thus a cheaper cost. $5 is a pretty inexpensive promo. My book has just hit the 90 day cliff, so for the first time since release it has dipped down to the 200k rank level. It's a novella, the only book I currently have out (a second is on pre-order), and when the SFR GC ran, it had enough sales/borrows to get back up in the 20k range for rank. Sales and borrows continued the next day as well, so it is hovering around 35k right now.  That's pretty good for $5, I think.


----------



## Guest (Jul 3, 2016)

shunterni said:


> Hey, could you by any chance let me know what my results were? PM or here. I had a few promos stacked around, and it's hard to tell what was bleedthrough and what was from a certain promo. I'd love to have some concrete numbers. It's for the first book listed in my signature (which I'm pretty sure I signed up to run in the wrong category, oops).


Message me on FB with the date your ad ran - then I can go to that newsletter mailing and see the data. I'm always willing to take screen shots to show as well, which are easier to send on FB messenger <3


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Obligatory welcome. 

You're welcome to promote your business and website here in the Writers' Cafe!

Now that you have an official thread, you'll want to add your listing to our Yellow Pages Listing, found here:http://www.kboards.com/yp/. The listing is free to KB members and is completely self-service; you can add and edit your listing from the page. More information on our Yellow Pages listing can be found here.

In your thread here, we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have this one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service will be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days. If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks!

Note that members are allowed to provide civil and honest feedback about your service to this thread, and you may respond in a civil manner. Disputes between you and clients should be handled off site.

Ann
KBoards Moderator

_(Note that this welcome does *not* constitute an endorsement or vetting of a service by KBoards. Members should do due diligence when considering using a service.)

Also, a reminder to folks reporting results: Please do NOT link to your book as that would be promotion of YOUR book in another's thread._


----------



## DexyDoo (Jul 12, 2016)

Does anyone have recent experience using this service? I'm super interested in results. Especially for PNR. Thank.


----------



## Guest (Aug 12, 2016)

DexyDoo said:


> Does anyone have recent experience using this service? I'm super interested in results. Especially for PNR. Thank.


Most of my REAL clients are here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/976086735798716/

There's a post there with results on all my services, or you can just post a thread asking for people to post their results with the PNR newsletter. In terms of data, we've noticed higher results with well-edited books with gorgeous book covers and great reviews. I suppose the same is said with any marketing effort - the more work the author puts in the product, the better results they get when marketing it.

For the most accurate and most recent results, I recommend going to that link and asking. Those are all my "verified clients" so you will get the most accurate and honest picture there. Thanks, and good luck promoting your book!


----------



## Rollie38 (Jan 19, 2016)

duplicate, sorry


----------



## whatdanwrote (Oct 18, 2012)

I don't see anything for free books. Is that gone?


----------



## A. N. Other Author (Oct 11, 2014)

whatdanwrote said:


> I don't see anything for free books. Is that gone?


Last time I was on GenreCrave they specified no free books. I've been looking at them for a few months so I think it must have been a while ago.


----------

