# The Decline of the Promo Sites



## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

I would love to have a discussion about the current state of promo sites. There are a couple of things I've been noticing lately and I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and experience. 

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm leaving out known click farm promo sites. I don't want to clutter the discussion. We all know who they are, if you're new - welcome and do a search on Kboards for scam promos. And ALWAYS do a search on Kboards before you spend money on a promo with a vendor you aren't familiar with. Chances are, someone here has some input.

Of course not all promo sites are created equal. But I think we all understand the categories we can put them in. 
Inexpensive, but can get a nice little bump. In my opinion anything with a CPA of <.07 is a win. There are some good sites out there with $5-$10 promos that will yield 150-300 downloads of a free book. It's not going to do much for ranking, but if you have good sell through on a series, it's nice little bump. 

The low to mid priced promos from $20-$40. Some of them still maintain the <.07 CPA and are good for 300-1,000 downloads. They can give you a rank bump as well as income bump. 

Then you have the big dogs, which are few and far between. Pricing is $50-$150. They were good for over 1000 downloads, you get your rank bump and sell through and it's all good. 

Then you have Bookbub. I have not been able to sacrifice enough virgins to please the Bookbub gods in a couple of years. But I'm hearing stories of higher CPA, lower downloads and the experience overall starting to flatten. On the flip side, I'm still hearing, and believing that Bookbub is a magic bullet. Someone, please send more virgins. 

I've been publishing for five years, prior to that I was in marketing for a publishing company. But I'm noticing something that's new to me. Well known promo sites are marketing to us now. I'm not just talking about the new kids on the block that are trying to bring in more talent. I'm talking about some of the tried and true sites that would yield that <.07 CPA. They're sending us discount codes, flooding our inboxes with "information", and I have to say, I feel a little weird about it. 

I honestly don't believe that authors are spending less on marketing. We're probably spending more. We understand we have to up our game on our covers, promo, all the things that we think will help sell our books. 

Bookbub would never mass mail discount code. Why? Because they don't have to. They provide a service that's effective. Nuff said. (There is a whole other set of discussions on their expansion of services in their quest to take over the world, but not here).

But what about some of the tried and true promo sites that are starting to send out promos to me? I haven't advertised with many of them for a few months. I did a big blast last spring and honestly, exhausted the audience. It will be time again to run with some of them that worked, but I'll probably wait another month. 

This leads me to believe that their income may be faltering. Less authors are advertising with them. And lets be honest, the bulk of us on here are hungry, we need and want more readers and will keep running with promo sites that work until the cows come home. Even then, we'll ask if they can teach the cows to read. 

So what's going on?

Those of us with some experience under our belts will rattle off the names of the good promo sites like a Catholic school girl can rattle off the Lord's prayer. Bring us this day our daily reader oh Choosy book worm, ENT, Fussy Librarian, BKKnights, etc. But are these starting to falter? I've noticed less action when running on some of these. At first I was thinking maybe it was saturation of my title. But now, I'm thinking there could be a decline in our Old Faithfuls. We've seen it happen before, does anyone remember Kindle Fire Department? But this feels more widespread. It's not just one. 

Now that some of them are sending us promos, it's leading me to believe that I'm not the only one finding a higher CPA and the site less worth it. 

A couple of theories I have: 
The sites are having trouble maintaining a book buying readership. The unsub button is becoming second nature to readers because they are getting inundated with newsletters from all the lists they're signing up for via giveaways and "list building events". 

Because these sites were not selective in what books they've run, they've lost the trust of their readers. Of course no one on Kboards would ever write a crappy book, but they're out there. Is it the lack of the selection process for the promo sites that have led to the decline of their effectiveness?

Or are they sending promos to us due to the incredible influx of new promo sites - that suck - and they are trying to be remembered over the noise?

Please oh hive mind - enlighten me.


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## My_Txxxx_a$$_Left_Too (Feb 13, 2014)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

WasAnn said:


> Turns out a new report by LitRing (it's worth a read) shows that to be true in a big way.


Thank you for the heads up on the article. Do you have a link?

And yes, I've done swaps. Some have worked out nicely. I'm also selective with what I'll include. I also limit to two per NL and never when it's a release NL.


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## William Peter Grasso (May 1, 2011)

_Then you have Bookbub. I have not been able to sacrifice enough virgins to please the Bookbub gods in a couple of years. But I'm hearing stories of higher CPA, lower downloads and the experience overall starting to flatten. On the flip side, I'm still hearing, and believing that Bookbub is a magic bullet. Someone, please send more virgins. 
_ Quote the OP...

I mourn the day Bookbub decided it didn't need indies anymore. Like you, I haven't been smiled on by Bookbub in a long while. In my experience, there was nothing--and I mean absolutely nothing--that gave sales a humungous kick in the pants like an ad with them. Sure, it was pricey...but you usually made that fee back in the first couple of hours. I hadn't heard that authors' returns were down with a Bookbub ad--but they don't make their money based on your sales. And I don't see any shortage of publishing houses lining up to be featured on the site.

And like you, I'd perform a few sacrifices to run another ad with them. In the meantime, I'll keep running clickads.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

William Peter Grasso said:


> I'll keep running clickads.


Feel free to tell me to mind my own business...but are you spending as much on click ads as you would a monthly bookbub, and how is the ROI?

I've dabbled, but been too broke or too scared to dive into AMS.

FB ads have been good to me, but only when I'm willing to spend at least $500 a month. The return is there though.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

I think it's the "free" thing. Readers expect to pay nothing a lot more now than they ever did before. Most authors, like me, have a number of free books to offer, but repeatedly promoting them is a waste of money. Even every six months becomes too often.

Like someone said, even Bub doesn't work the way it once did. Their millions of readers download the free books, but don't buy the others in a series. Why would they when they can be entertained for free? They're new book alerts (over 2500 prospected buyers for me) is flat lined, and the ads are useless, in my opinion. 

Of course, word-of-mouth is true gold. It's just a matter of finding a way to get the buzz going. How? I give up. )


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

Martitalbott said:


> Of course, word-of-mouth is true gold. It's just a matter of finding a way to get the buzz going. How? I give up. )


Never give up, never surrender!


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

I'm just a prawn, but each bout of promos I did this year brought in less than the previous one. And the cliff was immediate. I barely got a few days tail out of any of them. Could be all sorts of things, including mistakes on my part. I thought it was series fatigue or that I'd just written to too small a niche. 

I'm preparing to go wide and reassessing my marketing. I'm not sure where to go next if the promo sites aren't working.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I think promo sites still work, but they are being affected by a number of things beyond their control:

1) Gmail and Hotmail (and probably others) are separating "promotional" emails from regular emails. I'm sure a lot of people don't even bother to click to the "promotions" tab feeling that it is basically "junk" mail.
2) Affiliate income being cut by restrictions on free books and the need for an interstitial to collect affiliate revenues at all. Less affiliate income means there is less money to grow their lists. Also, the need for two clicks mean that the sites aren't as effective for authors.

They are also being affected by things within their control and not all have adapted. 

1) A lot of sites seem perfectly content to just take authors money and run, without providing good value to their customers. I know everyone hates being vetted by promo sites, but if I get a number of emails with books with poor covers, and click in and find horrible look insides, I am likely to unsubscribe. It's no longer true that you can just advertise a free book with an ugly cover, you have to provide quality.
2) Ugly ass emails that are hard to navigate, don't show up well on a phone, etc.
3) They aren't actively growing their lists to NON-authors. Growing your list with authors is great because we do tend to read a lot, and buy a lot more than we actually read! But simply having authors sign up for the list and not actively using Google CPC, Facebook, and other sites to get subscribers is a surefire way for a list to grow old.

There is a potential for an advertiser who wants to vet books and only offer free books (or free and 99-cent) books to make some advances. Lately, BookBub has been hawking more $1.99 trad pubbed books. A lot of readers only want free and 99-centers though.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

I think TwistedTales and C. Gockel nailed it.



C. Gockel said:


> 2) Ugly ass emails that are hard to navigate, don't show up well on a phone, etc.


Seriously. And terrible click-paths.

When the recipient opens the email, he should be able to click a link, and arrive immediately at the retailer's sales page. One click to buy.

A click _shouldn't_ take the recipient to the promo site, where another click takes him to a book-specific page, and yet another click is needed to finally visit the retailer's sales page.

That kills conversions because...


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

Anarchist said:


> I think TwistedTales and C. Gockel nailed it.
> 
> Seriously. And terrible click-paths.
> 
> ...


Preach!!!


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

BellaRoccaforte said:


> Never give up, never surrender!


Fear not, I'm too old to give up now!


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## Bob Stewart (Mar 19, 2014)

Here's my experience:

1. BookBub still works great for me. The last one I had, in March of this year, made made a 200% profit over 60 days. This was for a fee book in KU. That cost me $0.0125 per download.

2. I had a non-BookBub promo in July for another book (with better reviews) and managed to line up the four sites I see as the next tier: ENT, RobinReads, FreeBooksy, and FussyLibrarian. (the last three on the same day, ENT the day before, and a $10 Booktastik.com the day before that just to get a start in the free list.) That cost me $0.048 per download, for me as good as it gets non-BookBub.

The problem for these 2nd tier sites is that not only are they priced almost four times what BookBub is, they are actually worth (relatively) less than that because even bunching the best of them together like that (which is both a pain in the a$$ and a game of chance), the total downloads were maybe 12% of the Bookbub ad. And as we all know, visibility-wise, 12% of X downloads is not worth even 12% of the price, let alone 45%.

The other promo sites (granted, there are some genre-specific ones I can't use) have generally done even more poorly. $0.10 per download on a very good day, often twice that.

From my perspective, all the non-Bookbub sites are overpriced based on what they can deliver. They are, of course, fairly priced based on the demand for their services. And I know many people have very profitable promos using them.

That's just my experience.


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## William Peter Grasso (May 1, 2011)

BellaRoccaforte said:


> Feel free to tell me to mind my own business...but are you spending as much on click ads as you would a monthly bookbub, and how is the ROI?
> 
> I've dabbled, but been too broke or too scared to dive into AMS.
> 
> FB ads have been good to me, but only when I'm willing to spend at least $500 a month. The return is there though.


To your question (and it's a good question), the answer is hell no. MY ROI with clickads is quite a bit less than what Bookbub's used to be for me, plus there's the added headache as clickads do require constant management. I thank my lucky stars I have someone far more business-oriented than me to keep watch on that. ROI aside, they're just another tool to maintain visibility--in my little world, sales stay good as long as a book stays in the top 50 of its genre. Whatever intangible forces keep it there is a matter of conjecture; some of those intangibles may involve spending a little money. At the moment, I find there's a correlation of a book's ranking (and the rankings of its series-mates) if a clickad is running in the black, even by just a few points.

I've never been tempted by FB ads. Just don't see the return for my genre and audience.

And I'm sure there are dozens of posters out there with completely opposite and equally valid experiences...


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

OP thank you for starting this discussion. I think some threads in the last few months had been alluding to this issue and I'm glad you are bringing it up direct.

I think everyone had raised some good points and I agree. My experience also is that the returns have dripped. Two years ago whe I first got into this, it was actually FUN! I had so much fun doing my free stack promo, and in fact gained the start of my readership from that. Now, I don't run free stack promos anymore. I feel like there's not return. Even with downloads, I think the book sits in the reader's device and never get read. I believe this because last time I ran a free stack promo, I got no tail to the rest of my series. Zilch.

I run 99c promos now only, but I always expect to lose money on the book offered for sale. I only do it because I expect to gain my investment back through sell-throughs, and I do it at launch of my last standalone because I feel I need to get word of mouth marketing started. That's it.

The issues as I see them:

1. I have a hunch that the promo sites are not actively seeking new readers. So when I ran subsequent promos on the same book, it's a diminishing rate of return, even with a year's gap between pomos.

2. Costs of promos have increased. Seriously, I know they have to make a profit. But if they are charging $50 per promo, then I need to at least break even. At 99c & 30% royalties unless the book is in KU, this is not happening (Bookbub excepted). Even with KU it's not a sure thing. At least not for me because I write historical fiction. I'm finding even sites that charge $25 don't give you a break-even ROI because with them you also get fewer sales.

3. Which brings me to my next point: if your book is not Romance, UF/Paranormal, thriller or Sci-fi, your book will be the poor step-child with most of these sites. Again, I understand that the sites need to cater to demand. That's fine. But that also means those of us who don't write in those genres will have to take our resources elsewhere where it works better for us.

4. I'm tired of some of the promo sites jumping into the list building gravy train. They want us to pay to give a book away, with the promise of a list. First, I don't have a lot of books lying around that I want to give away for free. Maybe it's easier for some of our fellow prolific authors, but for me, writing a full novel is physically tiring and draining. It's a lot of work. Add to that, my genre demands hours upon hours of research. I don't want to pay to give books away for free for list building, with the additional requirement that I must spam my own list to participate. I think readers would be turned off by the constant hustle by promoters to join lists for free books. I'm happy with doing Instafreebie, at least they don't require me to spam my own list unless I voluntarily participate in an IF cross promo (which I haven't in a while). But to PAY, giveaway a free book, AND bombard my list? What's wrong with this picture? -- Here's the thing: this worked...when it was first done. Now, it's might have become a beast of massive spamming of readers and I'm really afraid we're collectively driving readers away.

5. Call me crazy but with my best selling warhorse first in series, I don't even want a Bookbub. I kid you not. Somewhere along the line, with decent sales and later on AMS ads targeting the right keywords, the Amazon algo had embraced it. It became sticky. Nothing earth shattering, and my numbers are not worth writing home about when compared to many more successful writers here and elsewhere, but my book/series is an evergreen and can be sold for years and years to come. My also-boughts are perfectly lined up to keep it going till the cows come home. A Bookbub may get me a chunk of $$ in the pocket. But I've seen books in my genre that don't do as well as mine get a Bookbub, but a couple of months later their ranking is back down in the oblivion, while mine is like a turtle that crawl along but at a steady pace. I don't want a Bookbub to f'k up my also-boughts and blow my away the Algo-God's blessing. Maybe those similar genre books that got a BB and then tanked are wide so the author is doing well, but wide has it own risks, like what if B&N closes shop? Or Apple abandoning iBooks even further from its main business? Why blow the algo blessing if you have a book that can sell for years and years?


As to what I would tell the promo sites? I don't want discount codes. If they can help me sell and get a break-even ROI or more, I'd be happy to pay their fee. What I want is for them to:

1. Be more engaged with us and tell us how they're expanding their readers lists. What activities are they doing to get more readers?

2. What more can they offer to help us sell our promoted books besides their daily emails? What else can they do to help us reach more readers when we promote with them? FB ads? Tweets? Instagram? Pinterest? What

3. This may not be cost efficient for them, but I would love it if they don't treat books in more niche genres like poor step children, but actually grow a segment of readers who want to read in those niche genres.

4. I want to increase visibility for my books at normal retail price. Free is very problematic right now for all sorts of scams and stuff which I won't bring up here again. 99c limited time discount? Ok. But what I'd really like to do is to sell my book at normal retail price, which currently costs less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks. AMS ads are helping us sell at reg retail price, which kind of proves that you don't have to always discount to get your book advertised and sold. If a promoter can too, I'll be the one of the firsts on board. The few times I'd suggested it to book promoters, their responses are always that readers prefer discounted books and free books. I feel like they're just saying they don't want to do the leg work and it's all just too hard for them. They want us to pay their fee and us to take the burden, while they'll take the easy way out and offer discounted books. Ok so back to AMS ads I go then.

So that 's the State of the Union for me right now.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

One thing that I've wondered, especially as I see people complain that BookBub is less effective, are the curators of these lists getting stale? If the same people keep promoting the same authors' books, and their lists aren't growing, do the readers stop clicking? In the case of BB, if people can buy cheap books from famous authors, why spend their money on indies? More and more, the BB emails I get are full to the brim with backlist books from famous authors. As for me, I only have so many entry points to my writing that I can advertise. I don't consider it odd when a site doesn't perform the way it used to when I don't have new books to promote.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

The next thing or evolution of these services is probably the Facebook Messenger version of that - same like BookBot Bob. Same concept just different delivery mechanism and, seemingly, bigger audience. 

If few more good services like that spring up, that can refresh Book Promotion and influx some good change.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

RBC said:


> The next thing or evolution of these services is probably the Facebook Messenger version of that - same like BookBot Bob. Same concept just different delivery mechanism and, seemingly, bigger audience.
> 
> If few more good services like that spring up, that can refresh Book Promotion and influx some good change.


TBH I don't see a huge market for this (although you may quote me as "famous last words" if I'm wrong). People don't want random messages from all and sundry at Facebook. Heaven knows I stopped accepting most friend requests at FB because I'm getting tired of the messaging system.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> TBH I don't see a huge market for this (although you may quote me as "famous last words" if I'm wrong). People don't want random messages from all and sundry at Facebook. Heaven knows I stopped accepting most friend requests at FB because I'm getting tired of the messaging system.


I last paid attention to a FB ad...never. I do look at book covers I see there, but I don't do it from a reader's point of view.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

brkingsolver said:


> I last paid attention to a FB ad...never. I do look at book covers I see there, but I don't do it from a reader's point of view.


This is not a FB ad, it's a messenger bot that messages you directly. Several people are using them, but I bet their huge open rates will drop off VEERRRYYYY quickly once people get more of these obnoxious things.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> TBH I don't see a huge market for this (although you may quote me as "famous last words" if I'm wrong). People don't want random messages from all and sundry at Facebook. Heaven knows I stopped accepting most friend requests at FB because I'm getting tired of the messaging system.


It's over 1.5 Billion people using it... can't say it's not a huge market. It's not a guarantee that they will take off. But a good chance is there. It's not about random messages either, it's subscription service. People need to Opt-in.

Personally, I'm using FB less, but Messenger absolutely almost daily. You might get random people adding you and asking for help. I'd be tired of that too. I don't add people there easily, mostly if I met them IRL first. Average person doesn't have overload of messages. YET. Eventually, probably.

We will see how this pans out, I hope it will work out well. Because this certainly would be helpful. So fingers crossed! 

@Brkingsolver, this isn't about Facebook ads. Different beast.


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## Michele_Mills (Apr 8, 2015)

Mark Dawson is piloting the FB messenger ads. I'm waiting on him to continue trying it out and to continue to report back effectiveness before I dip my toe in.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Bookbot Bob more than gave me my money's worth last time I used them.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

I took the how-to class on the fb messenger bots and didn't see much use in it for me personally. I love the bookbot bob idea that someone here came up with, that was quite clever, I thought. But for me it would be pointless cause I'm not looking to build and monetize like bob, I hate fb and avoid it like the plague, first off. And secondly, I absolutely refuse to download messenger on my phone. 'Then you can't check your messages' it tells me. Unless you get on the computer, old school. Ok. Fine by me. When I want to go check them I'll go check them, thanks. I don't want messenger going off like my friends/family gets to text. We don't need to be that close, lol. 

But the biggest thing with the messenger bots is- I tried out the class thinking maybe I'd get ahead of the newest way to market- but that's not what it is. It's another way to communicate with readers that sign up. You can't 'sell' to people, you can't use it like a net or anything. It's a different kind of mailing list, basically. Which isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a new net to catch new readers. I'm looking for the next new fb ads or ams ads, and messenger bots aren't that. Messenger bots are where you put them after you've caught them. I'm looking for a way to catch them, not a new way to hold/feed them, if that makes sense.


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## The Fussy Librarian (May 3, 2011)

I'll answer from the perspective of someone who runs a promotion site: There's a lot more competition out there than five years ago. 

We've also added a second newsletter (38,000 / $10 / $5 for new customers) that is exclusively free ebooks. We rely mainly on a monthly email to our authors, but a few dollars a day in advertising lets us reach people who may have never heard of The Fussy Librarian. 

To me, it's worth it to spend a little to find new authors because I think once they try the free-only newsletter they will make it a regular part of their promotion routine. It's very similar to the concept of free promotions -- hook the reader with a freebie and hopefully they become a fan for life.

As far as pricing, there's a *wide* range out there. I've based this free-only newsletter on the same ratio that Free Booksy uses. Eventually, I'd like to make it closer to the pricing ratio of Bookbub, but the newsletter has to grow a lot before that can happen. 

Jeffrey


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

As someone who runs several lists bigger than those of many promo sites, I think the answer is going to be in more direct targeting, more extreme segregation. I'm heading that way. Yes, it's more work, but the results are better.

Whether or not the promo sites are "selective enough" is moot if they don't deliver books readers like. If they lump several genres in one, if they try to be everything all at once.

I think that list growth will give way to engagement growth and I think sites will have to work on this. I hate how these lists automatically put authors on them, as if you "have to support" the places where you make a business decision to advertise your book. I'm paying money to have you post my book to your site, not to have you clutter my inbox *glares at several list providers mentioned on this thread*. Seriously, I never subscribe to these lists. Stop adding me so that you can artificially inflate your list.

I haven't used any of these sites regularly for years. I toss a few bucks to them on occasion to see if I'm missing out on anything, to find that I'm not. So, I'll only pay regularly for Bookbub, and turn all the advertising money into my own list.

I think several things have already been mentioned, but there are a few that jump out at me:

1. It's actually really hard to get quality submissions. People who sell well don't need these lists.

2. If a list needs to make money, they've been delivered a huge kick in the nuts by Amazon's changes to affiliate payouts. Huge.

3. I won't pay for places that expect me to do any work. Like, none. Pay a cheery $25 bucks to leech off my mailing list. In yer dreams, mate!

4. I think some of these sites (OK, a lot, but not all) are too author-centric. I get that they need the money, but if they don't present attractive offers to readers (and the readers know that the authors paid for the privilege of being featured), reader patience wears thin very quickly.

5. I also think that many of these "rented" lists don't have a business model. I don't think charging authors for features is a terribly viable business model. For one, it leaves a site vulnerable to having to accept anyone who flings money at them. From where I'm sitting, Bookbub's business model appears to be to build a huge audience to which they can then sell advertising. While they're doing this, they're paying the bills with charging authors and affiliate income.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> 4. I think some of these sites (OK, a lot, but not all) are too author-centric. I get that they need the money, but if they don't present attractive offers to readers (and the readers know that the authors paid for the privilege of being featured), reader patience wears thin very quickly.


I agree with this post. If you see any site that has the word "author" in its name, you know it is geared toward authors. Give your advertising $ to sites that promote to readers.

I still do use advertising sites, however, the way I'm using them has changed. For free books I try to go for the biggest darn spike possible. Instead of doing the advertising at a few sites once a month, I think Pauline Ross's "Build Your Own BookBub" is probably the way to go. In between "Build Your Own" Facebook / BookBub CPM, and AMS can get you new readers.

For 99-cent books advertising steadily for a few days, making the rank more "sticky," is probably a better strategy. I'm still experimenting with this though!


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Going Incognito said:


> I took the how-to class on the fb messenger bots and didn't see much use in it for me personally. I love the bookbot bob idea that someone here came up with, that was quite clever, I thought. But for me it would be pointless cause I'm not looking to build and monetize like bob, I hate fb and avoid it like the plague, first off. And secondly, I absolutely refuse to download messenger on my phone. 'Then you can't check your messages' it tells me. Unless you get on the computer, old school. Ok. Fine by me. When I want to go check them I'll go check them, thanks. I don't want messenger going off like my friends/family gets to text. We don't need to be that close, lol.
> 
> But the biggest thing with the messenger bots is- I tried out the class thinking maybe I'd get ahead of the newest way to market- but that's not what it is. It's another way to communicate with readers that sign up. You can't 'sell' to people, you can't use it like a net or anything. It's a different kind of mailing list, basically. Which isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a new net to catch new readers. I'm looking for the next new fb ads or ams ads, and messenger bots aren't that. Messenger bots are where you put them after you've caught them. I'm looking for a way to catch them, not a new way to hold/feed them, if that makes sense.


It definitely is like an email newsletter but how you build it can be the difference. If you run Facebook ads to new people and get subscribers that way, you are not getting old readers, but new ones. That's combining power of Messenger and power of FB ads. Ads catch them, bot feeds them. Ad 'sells' them on idea of new books, bot delivers.

It's harder to pull off for single authors than Promotions services. If few big bot services take off, it's great. You wouldn't need to build bot list yourself. Just use those. Lets hope that happens.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Ultimately, taking a very long-term view, this shows that there are no shortcuts.

Attempting to leverage someone else's audience to increase yours is a shortcut. Not that you should stop trying to do it, not at all, but it is a shortcut nevertheless. If too many people try to do it, it stops working. Same with messenger bots, or too many generic author lists.

If you want to stay ahead of the pack, you have to continue to try to serve *your* audience better.

List growth is difficult. No, engaged list growth is difficult. You can rent, swap or do giveaways to increase the people you have access to, but you have to work hard at making them yours. Like, really hard. And if there are many people doing it, you have to work doubly hard.

But fortunately, working hard means the very thing you came here for: writing books people want to read.

Books people want to read + a bit of patience + dedicated application to a bit of promo every day + give or take a few years = writing career


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## Dom (Mar 15, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> FWIW, I think there are a number of factors in play here.
> 
> 1. We don't like to discount as much anymore and these sites have some strict rules about it.
> 2. Click ads hurt them quite badly. We can market full price books and adapt our investment based on return.


Ding ding ding! This is it for me. My advertising money goes to CPC ads on permanently priced books. i dont have time for lining up promos.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Last year I noticed one of the factors that I believe hurt some of even the most effective promo sites: the length of their emails. Too many books are being advertised in an email. Most people don't want to scroll beyond ten books, if that. The only ones who profit are the promo sites, and I think this is going to hurt them, if it hasn't already. One of the reasons for BookBub's success is that you get only 2 or 3 books in an email, and only in the genres you're interested in.


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## Becca Fanning (May 17, 2014)

When the gold miners are pulling less and less gold out of the river, increasing the price of shovels and pans is a tough sell. Soon they'll just start digging with their hands...


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Marian said:


> One of the reasons for BookBub's success is that you get only 2 or 3 books in an email, and only in the genres you're interested in.


Today my Bookbub email had 23 books. It was truncated after 16 though.


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## The Bass Bagwhan (Mar 9, 2014)

Marian said:


> Last year I noticed one of the factors that I believe hurt some of even the most effective promo sites: the length of their emails. Too many books are being advertised in an email. Most people don't want to scroll beyond ten books, if that. The only ones who profit are the promo sites, and I think this is going to hurt them, if it hasn't already. One of the reasons for BookBub's success is that you get only 2 or 3 books in an email, and only in the genres you're interested in.


I agree with this. Some promoters have made it a chore to scroll through a long email of inappropriate books and with each title being touted as "the best book you'll ever read" readers are fatigued by same message - which has lost its value.

I'm in Patty's camp. I'm lining up my ducks to get serious about FB ads and Twitter (hopefuly done correctly) because I want to control the content, control the targeting, and not be competing on the same page with a zillion other titles. I know it's not as easy as that, it takes planning and discipline, and effective marketing is difficult to create, but it's become an integral part of being an indie author and all-in-all I don't see these promotions sites as a useful marketing component of a proper overall plan anymore. Particularly for non-romance titles, because even though the mailing lists might offer genre segregation, you still get overwhelmed by a long list of bare-chested, shapeshifting plumbers or something.

Plus, for me, I want to get away from free and 0.99 cent offers - and I think I'm not alone. That disqualifies many of the promotion sites straight away because they're so geared towards free and cheap giveaways.

Hey, I might be wrong and fail completely, but I'm looking forward to focusing on a solid strategy and evaluating how it works - or not.


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## RedFoxUF (Nov 14, 2016)

1. I don't need to pay other NLs to hit top 100 free so I don't bother to book those unless there's a really good reason. Bookbub is the only exception. Amazon changed their algo for free last year and it's ridiculously easy to hit top 100 now...if you know the marketing and  how to leverage it. I can perform about as well as a Bookbub and have replicated this about 4 times in the last year and done it for other authors. 

The problem is there's too much free stuff. No one pays attention to ebooks. They download in case they want to read it and move on. I am not looking to use retailers to deliver free content anytime soon. Bookbub excepted.

2. The NLs don't seem to be actively acquiring readers anymore. Some of the NLs are run by marketers who are just milking the money and they don't care that the books aren't selling. I suspect a few are using bots on some books to cover for their junked up lists but that's complete conjecture, I have no proof (although I find it interesting that the name of one NL keeps coming up in the latest round of rank stripping).

3. Readers get too many NLs and don't open them all or even see them or even check to see what's been sent.

There are too many books. Too many NLs. The ROI is going to continue to erode.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

The Fussy Librarian said:


> I'll answer from the perspective of someone who runs a promotion site: There's a lot more competition out there than five years ago.
> 
> We've also added a second newsletter (38,000 / $10 / $5 for new customers) that is exclusively free ebooks. We rely mainly on a monthly email to our authors, but a few dollars a day in advertising lets us reach people who may have never heard of The Fussy Librarian.
> 
> ...


Jeffrey, thanks for the insight! I love you guys! But I've definitely exhausted the romance list with my contemporary romance. I'm going to be submitting my UF next week.


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

RBC said:


> It definitely is like an email newsletter but how you build it can be the difference. If you run Facebook ads to new people and get subscribers that way, you are not getting old readers, but new ones. That's combining power of Messenger and power of FB ads. Ads catch them, bot feeds them. Ad 'sells' them on idea of new books, bot delivers.


That's true. Plus, if they're already on fb and like it and are engaged enough to click on things like ads and 'like buttons' anyway, they're less likely to be annoyed by a thing that's engaging back with them on their already preferred favorite platform. So, like anything else, feeding them where you find them, in their natural habitat, makes for a happier reader animal. They're in their comfort zone.



RBC said:


> It's harder to pull off for single authors than Promotions services. If few big bot services take off, it's great. You wouldn't need to build bot list yourself. Just use those. Lets hope that happens.


Agreed. Makes way more sense as a service.



Domino Finn said:


> Ding ding ding! This is it for me. My advertising money goes to CPC ads on permanently priced books. i dont have time for lining up promos.


I'm the other way. It's easier for me to throw cash once at someone else, like a newsletter service, than to keep a constant finger on the pulse of click ads. To the point that I tried throwing money at a cpc ad service. Someone who already knew them and who was already well versed in the 'that trick doesn't work anymore, people are growing weary of this but I'm seeing people starting to respond to this other style now' in the hopes of being able to pay to harness the experience of someone better at it than me, but that was a disaster.

No one knows, or cares, about your product like you do. They seem to do the bare minimum to get paid. "Hey, your ad is up and running! It's crap, and I did it while cooking dinner to slide in under my promised delivery time so I could get paid, but woohoo there's your ad with an image that doesn't even make any sense for your genre! And your cpc rate is so high! Thanks for your business."

Plus, my thinking then was that clicking an ad required the reader to do something new, not knowing where they'd be taken, but with a newsletter, they already liked it enough to sign up to it asking for it to come into their inbox and show them things. So I was more willing to 'one time fee for results' than to 'throw money at these every day, tweaking til we maybe find a winning combo!'



RedFoxUF said:


> They download in case they want to read it and move on.
> 
> Readers get too many NLs and don't open them all or even see them or even check to see what's been sent.
> 
> There are too many books. Too many NLs. The ROI is going to continue to erode.


So true. I'm very guilty of both myself.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

FWIW, I had a BookBub last month after being shut out for some time. It was by far my worst performing BB ad ever, and I didn't come close to earning back what I paid. I don't know if that's an anomaly, but it was pretty disheartening, since BB used to be a path to some great money for a month or two after.


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## Jackson Lear (Aug 20, 2014)

Having just booked a bunch of promos, two things still irk me about a lot of the sites:

1) They will all happily link to Amazon, but few go wide (and of those few, they don't go wide enough).
2) 'Please describe your book in 150 / 300 / 600 characters, DO NOT copy your description from Amazon.' (I'm curious how many of us just copy as much of the blurb as we can get away with.)


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

SevenDays said:


> Today my Bookbub email had 23 books. It was truncated after 16 though.


The most I get is 3 books. I'm signed up for 2 genres, literary fiction and women's fiction. Trads have a much greater percentage. I'm noticing far fewer free books, and more at $1.99 than 0.99 cents.


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## Atlantisatheart (Oct 8, 2016)

I'm not sure what Bookbub are playing at. I'm subscribed to two genre's and the books they are sending out haven't been what you'd expect to find, and then they send me a terrible choice with a horrible cover on one that made me actually go back and check it was a bub book.

Freebooksey also annoys me with adding a .99c book that's not even in my genre. 

I don't think I have clicked a link in either of them for a while.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

The Fussy Librarian said:


> I'll answer from the perspective of someone who runs a promotion site: There's a lot more competition out there than five years ago.
> 
> We've also added a second newsletter (38,000 / $10 / $5 for new customers) that is exclusively free ebooks. We rely mainly on a monthly email to our authors, but a few dollars a day in advertising lets us reach people who may have never heard of The Fussy Librarian.
> 
> ...


No complaints, here. TFL usually does pretty well for me, and you're one of the few I trust.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Atlantisatheart said:


> I'm not sure what Bookbub are playing at. I'm subscribed to two genre's and the books they are sending out haven't been what you'd expect to find, and then they send me a terrible choice with a horrible cover on one that made me actually go back and check it was a bub book.
> 
> Freebooksey also annoys me with adding a .99c book that's not even in my genre.
> 
> I don't think I have clicked a link in either of them for a while.


I'm running a Freebooksy right now and getting a good result. I won't break even, though, unless the audios start rolling in but I don't hold out much hope for that anymore.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

I don't think it's just a question of competition for them with other promo sites. Promo sites are the victim of their own pricing and entry policies and a changing ad market place.  If other authors are the same as me and used them many times and was disappointed at the meagre to no return on investment, then it's not surprising they are declining. Also, many is the time I've wanted to use sites, nay needed the sites the most to get the damned reviews they required in a chicken and egg situation, but didn't have the review requirements, so lost revenue for them there and complete frustration for me. 

I think the biggest decline is not as much saturation of promo sites, but lower demand from disappointing results in relation to the charge, and such as the introdution of AMS, where the author has control over the cost to return and doesn't have to discount at all.

Besides free promos, the pricing of 99c promos are completely out of kilter to the return on sales. Reducing the mailing list to cut the price for newbies doesn't seem to me the way to go. All sites need to reduce the entry price and review requirement and to go with with full lists to compete with the expansion and use of cost-per-click advertising.

I've gone almost 12 months without using much in the way of freedays since I joined AMS, never mind using promo sites. AMS came as a welcome release from throwing money at promo sites for little in the way of return, if any. I'm sure this is the same for many others, though even AMS is getting difficult to get a return.

I'm not a great fan of joint author promos either, even though they are free as the main benefit it seems to me is to populate your also boughts of the one who organises the promos and further builds their lists.

Saying that and having vented, I'm about to stick my toe back in the water with freebooksy. We'll see what happens.


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## Alvina (Oct 19, 2015)

AlexaKang said:


> OP thank you for starting this discussion. I think some threads in the last few months had been alluding to this issue and I'm glad you are bringing it up direct.
> 
> I think everyone had raised some good points and I agree. My experience also is that the returns have dripped. Two years ago whe I first got into this, it was actually FUN! I had so much fun doing my free stack promo, and in fact gained the start of my readership from that. Now, I don't run free stack promos anymore. I feel like there's not return. Even with downloads, I think the book sits in the reader's device and never get read. I believe this because last time I ran a free stack promo, I got no tail to the rest of my series. Zilch.
> 
> ...


Thanks!

That's what I'm trying to say.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2017)

I also agree with the other posters about not getting the books I expect. I subscribe to Thrillers, Action and Science fiction, What I often get is romance and erotica that have been thrown in as book of the day, deal of the day, underdog or whatever and on top of that the really 'loose' genres applied to some books mean they get into groups that really aren't interested. I've unsubscribed to a few promo sites already because of this.

The promo sites need to be more like Bookbub and vet books more carefully. They [the promo sites] should certainly pay more than lip service to books tossed into genres just to get into a wider readership. If they did that they might get better responses from readers. Which would then reflect in happier authors.


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## Saboth (May 6, 2017)

RedFoxUF said:


> 3. Readers get too many NLs and don't open them all or even see them or even check to see what's been sent.
> 
> There are too many books. Too many NLs. The ROI is going to continue to erode.


I think what needs to happen (although no one will do this) is authors in similar genres band together to create one massive list (I supposed one person would be in charge of maintaining the list and organizing the newsletter. Maybe the others could pay that person to do so). Instead of a reader getting 12 newsletters from 12 authors, they get one newsletter, and the newsletter contains a section for each author. Otherwise, as more and more people sign up for promotional sites and newsletters, they'll get 1 email a day, then 2, then 5, then 20, and they'll just say "too much spam! unsubscribe! unsubscribe! unsubscribe!" Right now, any avid reader that signs up for promotions and mailing lists is probably inundated with 5-6+ emails a day, filled with dozens and dozens of free and discounted books, and as more promotional sites pop up and more authors begin publishing, it will just get worse.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Saboth said:


> I think what needs to happen (although no one will do this) is authors in similar genres band together to create one massive list (I supposed one person would be in charge of maintaining the list and organizing the newsletter. Maybe the others could pay that person to do so). Instead of a reader getting 12 newsletters from 12 authors, they get one newsletter, and the newsletter contains a section for each author. Otherwise, as more and more people sign up for promotional sites and newsletters, they'll get 1 email a day, then 2, then 5, then 20, and they'll just say "too much spam! unsubscribe! unsubscribe! unsubscribe!" Right now, any avid reader that signs up for promotions and mailing lists is probably inundated with 5-6+ emails a day, filled with dozens and dozens of free and discounted books, and as more promotional sites pop up and more authors begin publishing, it will just get worse.


I'd unsubscribe from a massive list like that in a hot second. I sign up to lists for particular authors that I like. Other than an occasional comment about what that author happens to be reading now or who their own favorite authors are I don't want to hear about any other writers on those lists. And even for their own books if I start getting one a day from anyone I'll probably unsubscribe even if the author is one of my absolute favorites. For the most part the authors I follow are very circumspect about when they send out newsletters. Most only do it when they have a new release, a sales price, or material available only to their list. For some of them I _wish_ they'd send more, because when they do write it's always fascinating. But most of them have both the common sense and the courtesy not to overdo it- and to err on the side of too few rather than too many.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

MonkeyScribe said:


> FWIW, I had a BookBub last month after being shut out for some time. It was by far my worst performing BB ad ever, and I didn't come close to earning back what I paid. I don't know if that's an anomaly, but it was pretty disheartening, since BB used to be a path to some great money for a month or two after.


Yikes. 

I had a second Bookbub on one of my permafrees (it's been permafree and had a Bookbub back in 2014) in August. It made back more than 10x what I paid for the ad in August alone. The tail is still chugging along, although it's tapering somewhat now.


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## JaclynDolamore (Nov 5, 2015)

Although having watched the trends, I don't dispute that the landscape has gotten harder, my past two promos were still as awesome as ever. I had a free one for The Sorcerer's Concubine, spent about $250 and the tail/follow-through made me at least $1000, and a 99 cent promo for the first book in my pen name series (steamier fantasy/paranormal romance) I spent less than $500 including fees for using Book Rank, and sold over 600 copies at 99 cents...I was making about $100 a day over what I normally do for the next few weeks.

Maybe it only works for really hot genres now, but if anyone browsing this is afraid to a book a promo...if your book already sells pretty well, don't be afraid.

Although I have definitely shifted my strategy MORE toward PPC ads and full price sales. I no longer release with a discount.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> If you don't mind saying, how many free books did you "sell" with your BookBub, and what were the follow through sales like?
> 
> Does anyone else have any numbers they'd be happy to share?


Bear in mind that this is a permafree and has been for about three years. The genre is Women's Fiction. It moved about 35K in the first 24 hours. In that week I gave away well over 50K freebies. Sell-through, on that series alone (6 books) for the month of August: 1200 spread across the series. Pages read (again, just on that series): over 400K. Sales and pages read on the rest of the series are still higher than normal.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

TwistedTales said:


> Thank you.
> 
> Just so I understand this correctly, for month one you did:
> 
> ...


Let's see ... month two approx 700 sales and 350K pages read. This series, by the way, is a series of standalones. They're connected, but each book focuses on a different set of main characters. So I wasn't expecting a super-high conversion anyway, the way you'd get with a regular series with a static cast of characters.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

For me as a subscriber to some of these sites, I basically unsubscribed to most of them at some point. I used to get one from each of the bigger ones. Or at least known ones among readers. Some of these names of ad places I have never heard or seen out there. Some of the things that made me unsubscribed were the same books over and over, often with the freebie ones. Also getting genres I have no interest in and crappy looking covers. 

Bookbub in the beginning for me was great. I could not only pick my genres, but subgenres specifically. As in I love some romance subgenres, but don't like others. I don't read NA or erom anymore as it turned into to sameness to me, so I get to pick historical romance, romantic suspense, contemporary romance, time travel romance, paranormal, american historical etc. I also have some mystery and another I can't recall now. Cozy I think. And historical mysteries. Which I don't think I ever actually got one in. Oddly enough, they have no category for regular mysteries, which I also love. Not cozy, not historical, stuff like Inspector Lynley stuff. I have no clue what to check to get those as offers. 

Lately though I been seeing books in the categories that don't seem to belong. I know those genres well, so I know when I see it. Christian fiction in time travel, non romance titles in romantic suspense, non american historicals in AH. On and on. I been having to spend more time vetting making sure what those books actually are. Some genres I get more trade published which is fine with me. There aren't as many indies writing historical romance for example, at least not the kind that isn't more like erom. So yesterday they had Julie Garwood for $1.99, which of course sells like hotcakes for obvious reasons.  

So far, the miscategorizing hasn't gotten too bad, yet. Bookbub is still the only site I can pick what I want so that is still an advantage. They just need to watch putting books into the right category. We readers know those categories.

And no, we don't all look for only freebies now. If I want freebies, I don't need a bookbub or any other newsletter.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Saboth said:


> I think what needs to happen (although no one will do this) is authors in similar genres band together to create one massive list (I supposed one person would be in charge of maintaining the list and organizing the newsletter. Maybe the others could pay that person to do so). Instead of a reader getting 12 newsletters from 12 authors, they get one newsletter, and the newsletter contains a section for each author. Otherwise, as more and more people sign up for promotional sites and newsletters, they'll get 1 email a day, then 2, then 5, then 20, and they'll just say "too much spam! unsubscribe! unsubscribe! unsubscribe!" Right now, any avid reader that signs up for promotions and mailing lists is probably inundated with 5-6+ emails a day, filled with dozens and dozens of free and discounted books, and as more promotional sites pop up and more authors begin publishing, it will just get worse.


I understand the concern you pointed out but this most definitely is NOT the answer. Putting aside the fact that no author in their right mind would so easily give up their list, when people send you their email address or any other info, you're a business with a basic standard of care to protect their privacy. I think authors generallly don't think about this. You have a duty to protect your list. You can't/shouldn't pass it around. You shouldn't grant access of other people's email address to just any random person.

I've had an author friend asked about getting a Fiverr person to help her sort out her subscribers list on Excel once. I know my friend meant no harm and she was asking about this because she's not technically competent and got really frustrated trying to clean up her list for Mailchimp. I warned her that she should under no circumstance give access of her list to an unknown person to a Fiverr, no matter how frustrated she felt. I also think that many authors don't think of themselves as a business with the same duty of care as Walmart or Amazon once you got a database of customer info. But you do. This is something we all need to be mindful of.


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I see a lot of newsletter swaps right now and I'm hesitant to do any unless I've read an author's books. Or at least, know their reputation from Kboards. Same with joining promos.


I used Choosy Bookworm for a promo and they asked me to pass it on. I clicked on the share button for Facebook and a romance cover popped up. That really didn't fly for my science fiction promo. I made a comment that there were scifi books in there, but I don't like pushing books/authors I don't know, either.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Decon said:


> I don't think it's just a question of competition for them with other promo sites. Promo sites are the victim of their own pricing and entry policies and a changing ad market place. If other authors are the same as me and used them many times and was disappointed at the meagre to no return on investment, then it's not surprising they are declining. Also, many is the time I've wanted to use sites, nay needed the sites the most to get the damned reviews they required in a chicken and egg situation, but didn't have the review requirements, so lost revenue for them there and complete frustration for me.
> 
> I think the biggest decline is not as much saturation of promo sites, but lower demand from disappointing results in relation to the charge, and such as the introdution of AMS, where the author has control over the cost to return and doesn't have to discount at all.
> 
> ...


^^^ Decon I agree with everything you said. The ROI is just not there for many of us based on the fees charged.

One point I want to address: I think some promo sites require reviews as a way of imposing some quality control. But this makes it impossible for books that are New Releases. I think promo sites can offer a separate submission for New Releases so at least there would be some mitigation to this problem.

Also, I really want to see some innovation on advertisting and marketing from the promoters. They have not changed. There's no new angle on how they promote books other than their newsletters. Meanwhile, authors themselves, as well as Amazon, have been coming up with new ways to promote. The promoters just catch on to whatever we come up with (like list building) and then try to sell it to us as if it's a new service, some great new promo op, from them. Uh...no. You're not fooling anyone.

Patty is right. The method has to change. If there are more competitions for them, then they need to adapt and change, instead of sitting on what used to work and try to squeeze the last bucks out of authors like offering promo codes.

Another thing: email servers are getting better and better every day filtering out SPAMs. So what are promoters doing to give their clients' books visibility aside from NLs? Why don't any of them try something else? Instagram and Snapchat have become more dominant than FB and Twitter for a long time now. Why don't I see them gear their efforts and adapt? Why don't any of them start BookTubing and try to gain an audience that way? I don't know if these would work, I'm not a promoter and it's not my job to come up with innovations for them. I'm just throwing ideas out there and pointing out that I haven't seen any real innovations from promoters in the 2 years that I've been self-pubbing.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I've only done a few newsletter promos, where we advertise each other's books on our own newsletter (or blog in my case.) I thought that was a 'newsletter swap' but actually giving out people's emails...not something I would do.


Yes Lorri, NL swap is as you described. What Saboth suggested though was for authors to pool their lists to create one big list, which would be very problematic as I see it.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

SevenDays said:


> Yikes.
> 
> I had a second Bookbub on one of my permafrees (it's been permafree and had a Bookbub back in 2014) in August. It made back more than 10x what I paid for the ad in August alone. The tail is still chugging along, although it's tapering somewhat now.


I had a BookBub on my box set in September. In a Hail Mary move I made it free. It took about two weeks for the sell-thru to really kick in, but it did kick in.

I gave away over 40K across vendors on the day of the 'Bub, and I've left it free because it's still getting decent downloads. I calculated that until it reaches 50 downloads a day, it's just better to leave it free on BookBub's site, because in the meantime I don't have to mess with any other advertising of that series.


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

Atunah said:


> *For me as a subscriber to some of these sites, I basically unsubscribed to most of them at some point. I used to get one from each of the bigger ones. Or at least known ones among readers. Some of these names of ad places I have never heard or seen out there. Some of the things that made me unsubscribed were the same books over and over, often with the freebie ones. Also getting genres I have no interest in and crappy looking covers. *
> 
> And no, we don't all look for only freebies now. If I want freebies, I don't need a bookbub or any other newsletter.


All of this.

I said months ago that I unsubscribed from all those newsletters and I now use recommendations from authors I already read and like. I also check for freebies and I do a search for the types of books I am looking for on Goodreads e.g. Inspirational romance, second chance romance. 
I still check the main Amazon top 100 and sometimes I'll check sub-cats. However, before the recent clean up the romance sub-cats were full of erotica.

I see the same books on a couple sites and the same books showing up again and again sometimes. I think more people are not using these promo sites to find books now. I know one person who reads 2 to 3 books a week, she does not use them anymore.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> This is not a FB ad, it's a messenger bot that messages you directly. Several people are using them, but I bet their huge open rates will drop off VEERRRYYYY quickly once people get more of these obnoxious things.


When I get the first one, the first thing I'll do is figure out how to block it and turn off any new ones. Of course, I have FB messenger turned off for anyone who is not my "friend".


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Lorri Moulton said:


> I've only done a few newsletter promos, where we advertise each other's books on our own newsletter (or blog in my case.) I thought that was a 'newsletter swap' but actually giving out people's emails...not something I would do.


This^^

I usually try to promo one or two authors in my NL every month, but they are authors I've read and know their books will probably match with my readers. Those authors have always been gracious in helping me promote my books as well. I think it's a win-win. But I only do one NL a month, and I'm not spamming my list with promos that my readers didn't sign up for.


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## amiblackwelder (Mar 19, 2010)

Yes, it is very hard to find sites that still work. I remember the day when giving my books for free used to give me a $500 month profit from other books bought in my series'. I had that for a year. That was a nice year. Now, I don't see that. 

I'm trying other strategies though. I'm starting to blog regularly with reviews of books, and do more NL swaps, and I still enjoy a big group giveaway even if the buys aren't high from it, and I enjoy emailing my readers and talking with them, and have built a lot of relationship that way. Even if numbers aren't high that day, hearing a "I loved your book" somehow soothes the burn. I think AMS, Twitter, and FB are helpful, and I'm actually trying out a couple publishers as well to see what they have to offer. So, will see.


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## amiblackwelder (Mar 19, 2010)

Saboth said:


> I think what needs to happen (although no one will do this) is authors in similar genres band together to create one massive list (I supposed one person would be in charge of maintaining the list and organizing the newsletter. Maybe the others could pay that person to do so). Instead of a reader getting 12 newsletters from 12 authors, they get one newsletter, and the newsletter contains a section for each author. Otherwise, as more and more people sign up for promotional sites and newsletters, they'll get 1 email a day, then 2, then 5, then 20, and they'll just say "too much spam! unsubscribe! unsubscribe! unsubscribe!" Right now, any avid reader that signs up for promotions and mailing lists is probably inundated with 5-6+ emails a day, filled with dozens and dozens of free and discounted books, and as more promotional sites pop up and more authors begin publishing, it will just get worse.


Exactly! I joined a giveaway that gave me 6000 new readers, which sounds good. But the unsubscribe rate is so high, like 300 every time it was sent, that is just ruined the experience and got me in trouble, and was not worth it. Most people seem to join those things for the free book and they don't care.

I did manage to keep about 2000 of them...but no one likes to get newsletter after newsletter.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2017)

1) There is no 'Solution' for marketers to find new marketing channels because the problem has nothing to do with 'are the promotion sites less effective' and everything to do with 'who controls the counting' and 'is the counting fair and accurate'?

Basically, you're going to the Doctor and saying -

when I touch my head it hurts
when I touch my leg it hurts
when i touch my back it hurts
when I touch my neck it hurts

And the Doctor goes - your finger is broken

**************************************
There is ONE COMMON ELEMENT behind all the issues and it is that the counting isn't accurate/is being used as a lever

*****************************

2) ALL the issues being faced i.e.

Pages Read
Rank being Yanked
KU earnings going down
All the small sites not being effective
Medium sites not being as effective
For a few authors, even Bookbub not getting as good results

They are all related to COUNTING Errors

3) It's Occam's Razor -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

i.e. His principle states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

***********

3b) So to explain everything that's going on we can go with either 10 different theories i.e.

Pages Read issue was done to tackle scammers and affected authors by mistake
Rank Yanking issue was done to tackle bots and affected authors by mistake
Promotion sites are becoming less effective
CPC Ads (though AMS) for higher priced books seem to be working, whereas promotions of lower priced books through promotion sites aren't working. Because promotion sites are saturated
Some Authors are seeing KU Pages read going down even though they have more readers - it's because perhaps KU isn't growing as fast any more
Wide Books get less favorable treatment in rankings - perhaps that's a fault in the algorithms (a mistake)
etc. etc.etc.

Or we can go with one SIMPLE hypothesis

The people who control the counting are adjusting the count to favor what they want (higher priced books, one particular marketing channel) and weed out what they don't want (free and cheap from indie authors, promotion sites and other channels they consider dangerous)

**************************

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

If you have to construct 10 different narratives to explain what's going on - that's just pure rationalization

It's you telling the doctor - No, nothing wrong with my finger. I think I knocked my head yesterday, and must have slept wrong so my neck hurts, and last week I helped my sister move and some of that furniture was heavy and might have tweaked my back. And my leg definitely because i bumped it against the table last month. Thank you Doctor - my finger is fine

********************************

4) Let's consider this: Yes, it is very hard to find sites that still work. I remember the day when giving my books for free used to give me a $500 month profit from other books bought in my series'. I had that for a year. That was a nice year. Now, I don't see that.

Consider why the people who control the counting would not want this to happen i.e.

Indie author makes one book free
(optional) Promotes it
Gets sales from other books
Makes $500 a month

Has more money to invest

**********************************

5) Now consider the same thing from promotion site perspective

Currently every Daily Active Reader i.e. a reader who uses a promotion site and buys 1 to 10 books a month and downloads 5 to 25 free books a month

Should be earning a site $1 to $3 per month. Based roughly on what rates are

The people who control the counting are messing with that and therefore instead of $1 to $3 per month, many promotion sites are stuck making a tenth of that per reader per month

That means instead of

Having lots of resources to build new things and gain more readers and do 'innovation'

the sites have to focus on

adding more readers using smart viral ways + find alternate non-paying methods

Which slows down their growth (relatively)

*************************

5b) Bookbub is adding 2 million+ readers a year, we're adding 1 million+ readers a year, and many many sites are adding a few hundred thousand to half a million a year

If all the sites had CORRECT COUNTING they would have 3 to 10 times more revenue each and would grow even faster. Instead of a few sites adding million+ readers a year we would have 10 to 20 sites adding million+ a year and perhaps even a few sites adding 5 to 10 million a year

Then - No More Store

So, there is a very very interesting set of benefits you get if the finger is broken (counting is broken) -

A) Free and Cheap Books are not as effective
B) Indie Authors try to make it work with full price books. Which means they give away two of their biggest advantages i.e. free first book as marketing, and $0.99 and $2.99 books as main sales engine
C) Whatever promotion sites you consider a danger, you just adjust their results

**********************

6) There are lots of marketing channels outside of email lists, and all of them are seeing similar issues. We've added 1 million+ App and Twitter users this year, so all the factors affecting email focused promotion sites shouldn't touch us AT ALL. Yet they do

So promotion site X faces a factor and it's 90% email
And we're 10% email and 90% apps and twitter and YET we face THE EXACT SAME ISSUE

That's not a headache or a tummy ache - that's a broken finger. The counting is the COMMON DENOMINATOR

**********************

You are asking the wrong questions. the questions to ask are

What are the most effective marketing strategies for YOU as an author?

If free as marketing AND $0.99 and $2.99 are some of those strategies

And if the supposed 'decline in results of promotion sites' is resulting in a world where those powerful strategies become less effective and you have to resort to bidding 25 cents to $1 per click on a CPC ad engine

Then is that really what you want?

With 1st book free, 2nd book $.99, 3rd book $2.99, remaining books $4.99 youcan take over the entire store

Do you really think you can take over the store selling $5 books using a CPC model that costs you 25 cents to $1 per click?
And the elephant in the room is that many authors can't even get CPC working. That it works best for people who are generating lots of sales. Who is going to generate more sales for $5 to $10 books? Established authors or indie authors? There's never been any bidding model, especially CPC, where prices don't get driven up until it's impossible for most players to compete

*******************************************

7) It's actually quite incredible. You have 10 to 15 big broad measures being taken to create a dream site for the people who control the counting i.e.

ebooks between $5 and $15
no room for free as marketing
no room for $0.99 as marketing
most of advertising money going right back to them
indie authors being held at bay and not taking over

And you are coming up with 5 to 10 separate theories to explain these measures

There is ONE SINGLE COMMON ELEMENT that is broken, the Counting. Nothing else is broken

The finger is broken. You can keep blaming your leg and head and neck and stomach and back and that's not going to do any good. At some point you had to admit reality and then fix the finger

There is no MAGIC NEW MARKETING METHOD that will fix things
By giving away two of your biggest marketing advantages (free as marketing, cheap books) you're doing EXACTLY what the broken finger people want you to do
As long as the counting is controlled and adjusted, it doesn't matter what innovation anyone comes up with - Pages Read issue and Rank Yanking has already hinted at the truth - the lists and the figures are ALL MADE UP

If the issue was email saturation and/or email newsletter people not adding enough new people

Why would Bookbub face it when they are adding 2 million new email subscribers a year?
Why would we face it if we're adding 1 million+ on Apps and Twitter every year?

Results should be GOING UP and not staying static if the biggest players are growing so fast. Is there any other market where you have companies growing 15% to 25% a year and results are static?

*************************

 And this EXACT SAME THING applies to indie authors too. By now, it should be like every other market where

a small percentage of indie authors have become very big brands, free of interference
another slightly larger percentage of indie authors have become decent sized brands, free of outside interference

Instead it's becoming tougher for indie authors, regardless of size or following, to make money

The pattern gets repeated every 2 to 3 years - all the ones becoming strong magically get pulled back and miss reaching self-reliance.

Isn't that remarkable. That for the first time we have an industry where instead of the early risers becoming big big brands and instead of brands and authors/creators becoming more and more self reliant, we are seeing, for vast majority of authors, the exact opposite

You can see it yourself - your sales add up, your lists are becoming bigger, you have more books in the market
and yet it's becoming tougher and tougher to make money

*************************

9) You can keep making rationalizations and coming up with 10 different theories to explain it (a separate theory for every measure being done to REMOVE VISIBILITY for your books)

Visibility that used to be 'make your book free and often just from curation you get 40,000 downloads i.e. 40,000 readers downloading your book'
to 'pay $500 to get 40,000 downloads'
to (the end goal) '25 cents to $1 per click' to try and get sales for your book at $4 or $5 AND ABSOLUTELY NO WAY LEFT to reach 40,000 readers in one go

It's simplest to go with Occam's Razor and accept the one simplest theory - The Finger is Broken
The Counting is broken and magically, revolutionarily it seems to be affecting certain people the most

indie authors who are the biggest threat with their free as marketing and $0.99 and $2.99 books
promotion sites that are the biggest threat as they are adding millions of readers a year (and combined perhaps 10 to 20 million readers a year)

********
There's never going to be any new MAGICAL MARKETING METHOD

Either the finger needs to be fixed OR you build your own store and that's the only way to ensure the counting is accurate and fair


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

brkingsolver said:


> When I get the first one, the first thing I'll do is figure out how to block it and turn off any new ones. Of course, I have FB messenger turned off for anyone who is not my "friend".


You wouldn't get a message out of nowhere... it's just like email list. You need to subscribe first. Otherwise FB does not allow to message people out of the blue. It might become possible in future. But now if you don't subscribe anywhere (or answer some ad) then you wont get those.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

In respond to ireadreview -- your post is very long so I won't quote it. I can't agree with you because what you say focused mainly on problems with KU. What we're talking about here is not related to KU, but sales. At least I was talking mainly about sales. KU's only relevance is that I can use the free days or KU countdown without having to resort to 35% royalties. When I book promos, KU page reads are icing on the cake, but I'm looking for the cake, and that means units sold.

So page count to me is not the relevant issue here. Unit sales have declined with promos, and that IMO can't be blamed entirely on Amazon and KU.

You said promoters are adding readers. We have no way to know that and we don't know what they do to bring in new readers. What we do see are lower or low units being sold when we run promos. If promoters are adding readers, then why aren't these new readers buying? 

Of course there's no magic bullet, but I don't know how it will convince us to continue paying for promos if promoters are telling us there's nothing more they can do. I do appreciate you guys chiming in, but so far what I'm hearing is:

1. We're promoting more free books and this will help authors.
2. Market is too competitive for promoters
3. There's nothing we can do and there's no other ways we can help you.

My responses:

1. We just told you guys that many of us don't want to do more free. There are numerous threads discussing at length all the problems with free on Amazon lately and the associated risks.

2. It's competitive for us too. While we can sympathize with the tough market you (generic you) face, we can't keep paying for promos that yield poor results.

3. Telling us there's nothing you (generic you) can do is not helping to convince us to buy your services. It actually convinces us that we should do something else.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I don't want a promo site to tell me what they can do for me as author.

I want to go to a promo site and I want to have to look really hard for the "submit listing" button. I want there to be a decent chance that my books are rejected, because it shows that they have material to select from and that an actual human decides what goes and what doesn't.

I want to go to a promo site and get hit in the face with what the site will do for me as a reader. I want the site to make me feel like they care about my time as a reader. I want the site to tell me, the reader, how they're going to help me, and I want them to do more than pay lip service to this. I want them to be firm on not accepting books that don't meet their standard, even if the authors pay.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2017)

If you want to succeed in selling your books, don't follow the crowd. If everyone says 'this is a successful method of promoting your book', then it's already too late and you missed the boat because the more people that jump onto a successful method, the more diluted its effect. If something works for you - keep your gob shut and take the money. At the end of the day 'we are NOT all in this together' we're separate, individual and independent businesses. Laying it all out in the open so that everyone can see how successful we are only ensures our success is short-lived and the market loses another successful author to mass-market dilution. Be an author, be a business, be competitive and keep your successes (methods) to yourself. THEN we will see more successful brands maintaining their appeal over a longer time.

Trust me, if I knew the way to gain an advantage over every other SF author and put my books to the top of the reader's list - I wouldn't talk about it.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> I knew the way to gain an advantage over every other SF author and put my books to the top of the reader's list - I wouldn't talk about it.


But many, many top-selling authors do talk about it, precisely because there isn't any one thing, and also because it ain't what you do, it's how you do it.

So yeah, I don't like the every rat for himself sentiment expressed here. We're not "all in this together", but we're all walking the same road. I think you personally have benefited quite a bit from people talking about it especially when you were doing your rebrand and going wide and all that, so yano, paying it forward and all that.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

TobiasRoote said:


> Laying it all out in the open so that everyone can see how successful we are only ensures our success is short-lived and the market loses another successful author to mass-market dilution. Be an author, be a business, be competitive and keep your successes (methods) to yourself. THEN we will see more successful brands maintaining their appeal over a longer time.


Yeah. No. That works if you're selling a commodity. If you want to treat your books as widgets coming off a production line and other authors as competitor widget factories, be my guest. I'll stick to the model of service and community, thanks.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2017)

Yeah! and that's why so many of you are on here complaining about 'nothing's working any more' - Yes! we all benefit from scrubbing each other's back's a little, but so long as you believe you're 'all in this together' then you're going to keep losing market share and wonder why you're not gaining traction. Because everyone is doing the same thing and the readers get fed up with it.  I said a year ago that the author newsletters were going to be a problem - and here we are people on here saying just that. It's a spent force. Messenger bot is going to get annoying for people PDQ because (and I suffered it for a fortnight before sending the 'stop' command) they were turning up two to three times a night at odd times, often when I was in bed. When I also found out my metered connection was downloading large-sized images from Messenger BOT I realised that there were going to be a lot of unhappy users out there. It took me an hour to delete all the frickin images off my phone. Anything that annoys the reader is going to have a short lifespan. Like it or not, and I know Patty that you do extremely well out of it, there's going to come a day when it's no longer cost-effective (ergo this thread). My point is made.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TobiasRoote said:


> Yeah! and that's why so many of you are on here complaining about 'nothing's working any more' - Yes! we all benefit from scrubbing each other's back's a little, but so long as you believe you're 'all in this together' then you're going to keep losing market share and wonder why you're not gaining traction. Because everyone is doing the same thing and the readers get fed up with it. I said a year ago that the author newsletters were going to be a problem - and here we are people on here saying just that. It's a spent force. Messenger bot is going to get annoying for people PDQ because (and I suffered it for a fortnight before sending the 'stop' command) they were turning up two to three times a night at odd times, often when I was in bed. When I also found out my metered connection was downloading large-sized images from Messenger BOT I realised that there were going to be a lot of unhappy users out there. It took me an hour to delete all the frickin images off my phone. Anything that annoys the reader is going to have a short lifespan. Like it or not, and I know Patty that you do extremely well out of it, there's going to come a day when it's no longer cost-effective (ergo this thread). My point is made.


Yeah!

And this whole post makes me extremely angry, because here you've been using all of our advice that we have all given freely, here and in the FB group and if you have no intention of ever sharing any of it then...

I'm done.

I'm feeling being made use of.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2017)

Patty Jansen said:


> Yeah!
> 
> And this whole post makes me extremely angry, because here you've been using all of our advice that we have all given freely, here and in the FB group and if you have no intention of ever sharing any of it then...
> 
> ...


Sorry if you feel abused, but being 'transparent' about everything isn't the way to be. Yes! we can all communicate, be 'friends' on Facebook, share stuff, but at the end of the day if you tell EVERYONE what a great marketing ploy you have come across, then you immediately lose any advantage you had and what's more you completely dilute that strategy forever. It's 'the law of diminishing returns' and if you cannot see that we could all be authors together and talk about 'author things', but still at the end we are business people trying to make a living, then giving your 'trade secrets' away in the name of 'community spirit' is going to make you look good in front of your peers, but in the end you will lose your 'edge' AND isn't this thread all about that?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Tobias, if you don't want to be helpful to the community, I think this thread isn't the place for you.  The Writers' Cafe is intended to be a place for authors to discuss all aspects of writing,from the creative side to the business side.  The willingness to help each other is the core of the community. You've made your point, please move on. 

Let's not derail what has been a very interesting discussion.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2017)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Tobias, if you don't want to be helpful to the community, I think this thread isn't the place for you. The Writers' Cafe is intended to be a place for authors to discuss all aspects of writing,from the creative side to the business side. The willingness to help each other is the core of the community. You've made your point, please move on.
> 
> Let's not derail what has been a very interesting discussion.
> 
> ...


I appreciate the 'heads up' warning on what has, I agree, been an illuminating thread. The main thing as I see it is the 'community' are going around in circles with this thread and others like it. I'm not trying to be the pot stirrer, but if this IS a community, then all points of view should be welcome. I'm not attacking anyone, nor am I belittling anyone else's experiences. I'm stating an opinion which I believe is fair and accurate and whilst I appreciate the community at large, I believe we do more damage by flogging these things to death than we do by keeping them quieter and low profile. If I can sit and read all the TLR posts about their opinions on what is wrong with the system, then it behooves others to read an alternative viewpoint i.e. it's not the system, it's the fact it's flogged to death.

I'm not saying I'm right, but it's fair that an opposing viewpoint is considered. There are thousands of lurkers on here who don't speak, but they have the right to know there are other ideas and opinions about the problems that we ALL experience (me included). As unpopular as it may be, it's still a valid point.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> I'm not saying I'm right, but it's fair that an opposing viewpoint is considered. There are thousands of lurkers on here who don't speak, but they have the right to know there are other ideas and opinions about the problems that we ALL experience (me included). As unpopular as it may be, it's still a valid point.


It's not your opposing viewpoint that's the problem, it's the fact that upthread you're outright telling people not to share their strategies and results that's ruffling feathers, because that's the antithesis of what this board is all about.

Ultimately, all marketing strategies lose their initial glow. That's the nature of any business, especially one like this which is reaching maturity. There are now a large number of experienced, professional indie authors who can spin on a dime to take advantage of any new idea. But marketing is only part of the equation. Ultimately, the only route to long-term success is:

1) Produce well-written books that readers enjoy.
2) Package them appropriately and professionally.
3) Make sure your market knows about them (which is what we're talking about here).
4) Repeat at regular intervals.

There's no secret sauce beyond that.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

TobiasRoote said:


> but it's fair that an opposing viewpoint is considered.


And, your point has been made; your posts are still there. Let's move on so as to not derail this thread. If you want to discuss it further for the benefit of the community, you are welcome to PM me.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> It's not your opposing viewpoint that's the problem, it's the fact that upthread you're outright telling people not to share their strategies and results that's ruffling feathers, because that's the antithesis of what this board is all about.
> 
> Ultimately, all marketing strategies lose their initial glow. That's the nature of any business, especially one like this which is reaching maturity. There are now a large number of experienced, professional indie authors who can spin on a dime to take advantage of any new idea. But marketing is only part of the equation. Ultimately, the only route to long-term success is:
> 
> ...


Well said.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Can we go back to talking about decline of book promo sites? Because that topic is of great interest to me and I assume others. No this thread is not about people losing edge by sharing what works. If I'd been reading correctly, this thread is about promo sites. Promo sites for marketing is not some secret sauce. We all know what/who they are so I don't know what keeping secret or not secret has to do with anything. There's no way to hide which one works. If they work, like Bookbub, their success will be readily apparent regardless if not a single author talks about them. 

Back on topic though, even with the decline we've all been observing, it seems to me promo sites are still widely used because we indie authors have so few outlets for advertising. A few promo sites are booked months in advanced. This is the case even though the returns are negative. So in some ways we authors are still clinging onto them hoping for miracles. Or it's a way to get books in the hands of some readers, and that's better than no one knowing about or reading the book at all?


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## AliceS (Dec 28, 2014)

Maybe some of it is us prawns throwing money at poor performing sites and just assuming we've done it wrong. We run a promo at the highly recommended sites that flounders and assume it's the blurb or the timing or the genre... So we get a couple more reviews, clean up the  blurb and try the next round. Which flounders. Again - was it a step we missed? So then we go up a notch and spend more money. Maybe it was the wrong site for our book. We should try the $30 one instead of the $10 one. Maybe it should be free or 99c or a new cover or...

I thought I had a magic combination for one release. I made my first $1,000 month, which didn't last. Tried it with the next release (different series) and it failed. So did the market change? Or was it something I didn't do right? It's hard to be learning in a field that is never stable.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

AlexaKang said:


> A few promo sites are booked months in advanced. This is the case even though the returns are negative. So in some ways we authors are still clinging onto them hoping for miracles. Or it's a way to get books in the hands of some readers, and that's better than no one knowing about or reading the book at all?


I'm booking sites now for a new release in January, and finding a lot of them are already full. Maybe thats a good thing, because I'm trying to book hundreds of dollars worth of ads even though I do not intend to make my money back. Not by a long shot (99c release). But _trying_ to get readers feels better than releasing into obscurity.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I don't want a promo site to tell me what they can do for me as author.
> 
> I want to go to a promo site and I want to have to look really hard for the "submit listing" button. I want there to be a decent chance that my books are rejected, because it shows that they have material to select from and that an actual human decides what goes and what doesn't.
> 
> I want to go to a promo site and get hit in the face with what the site will do for me as a reader. I want the site to make me feel like they care about my time as a reader. I want the site to tell me, the reader, how they're going to help me, and I want them to do more than pay lip service to this. I want them to be firm on not accepting books that don't meet their standard, even if the authors pay.


That screws up AMS cpc ads then which has no criteria other than the cover for sensibility, which works as it should. The reader looks at the cover, checks out the blurb, looks at a sample, considers reviews if they have them. Looks at the price point . Makes a decision. No gatekeeper required.

I thought pioneering indie publishing was all about doing away with gatekeepers and letting readers decide.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2017)

My opinion on the decline of promo sites is that there are too many chasing too few readers. I get the same book presented to me by half a dozen different promo sites within days of each other. I get the same books repeatedly sent to me when I 'paid or free' downloaded them a year or two years ago. Your readers have already 'read' your books. You're trying to reach new readers, but you need to move the goalposts. The promo companies need to move the goalposts. The fact remains that readers are slowly unsubscribing from promo newsletters because it's often the same old, same old coming through their inbox - that and the irrelevant titles and genres that are now tacked on to try and make the promo companies more money. (my personal opinion only)

And just so we're clear I believe we should share resources and definitely share experiences, just being circumspect when something is working for you should be the 'business decision' you all make. 

I also believe that it's getting closer to the time where the ebook market matures into vertical markets within the industry. By that I mean that, in my case I foresee a website run by Science Fiction authors who will jointly promote the site as a consortium-based business model to give the readers a central resource for reading material. A mailing list that gives a reader all the latest releases in their sub-genre with a website access point that offers them links to ALL the platforms and versions (audio, print, ebook) as well as sold on site through a payment platform such as PayPal, but others also. I know there are many criticisms of such site ideas, but the way forward needs to be to innovate a marketing strategy, not react to the market offerings.

Now, it is possible that the promo companies can do this by diversifying their websites and so keep the market share they have gained, but as I said earlier this requires both them and the authors to move the goalposts considerably.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

I was thinking about this for trad pub last night, when I dropped by the website of a mystery bookshop near Pittsburgh that regularly hosts author signings for NYT bestsellers and big up-and-coming trad pubbed. It's one of a dwindling few. 

When my first trad pubbed books came out in the early 90s, there were still many distributors where you could push your books to the guys stocking the shelves in the local grocery stores, and lots of bookstores (new and new/used) where you could sign. Nora Roberts regularly stopped at a local new/used where she sold a TON of books (new) and people drove 50-100 miles for the signing. A member of our writing organization was traveling the country on her own dime, hitting the indies and mystery shops as she built to regular NYT bestsellerdom. And every paper around had a Sunday book section. Every single one. 

Now the distributors have been cut from 400+ to, what? 4? Their consolidation was the beginning of the end for the midlist. Many of the important indies and successful new/used bookstores are closed. Even the venerable Tattered Cover has downsized, driven out of its fancy digs by rising rents. Virtually all of the Sunday book supplements are gone, and some of the newspapers themselves are gone with them. The NYT Book Review has reduced its size.  All these were outlets that trad publishers and ambitious writers used to build awareness and sales. So what have they done to replace these channels? They've moved into the ones pioneered by and for indies. BookBub these days seems half trad pubbed or more. They're more often on FB and similar media. And as they move downslope, they push out the indies who were there.

That's only one factor, of course, but it's an important one. Indie authors didn't use to have to compete with them for our advertising bandwidth. Now, we do. And while we've come a long way from those early days when self-pubbed was always derided, we're seeing more direct competition for readers' dollars from trad pubbed. A few years ago, you'd never have seen some of those titles offered for $1.99 on a special sale. Now, you do.

I don't have an answer. It's just that this is one more factor in the whole equation.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

"The sky is falling" used to be laughable. Now we have space junk re-entering the atmosphere and it ain't funny.

This thread is useful because it assures us that, in general, we are not the fault for failed promotions. The times are changing and we have to change with it. Many new ideas didn't work out, but I admire those who keep trying. 

The world of internet advertising on mega popular sites has always been too expensive for most of us, but those same sites are still running ads. Has anyone thought of pooling money and running a multiple author ad on news or entertainment sites? Anyone checked into that?

Marti


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

TobiasRoote said:


> I also believe that it's getting closer to the time where the ebook market matures into vertical markets within the industry. By that I mean that, in my case I foresee a website run by Science Fiction authors who will jointly promote the site as a consortium-based business model to give the readers a central resource for reading material. A mailing list that gives a reader all the latest releases in their sub-genre with a website access point that offers them links to ALL the platforms and versions (audio, print, ebook) as well as sold on site through a payment platform such as PayPal, but others also. I know there are many criticisms of such site ideas, but the way forward needs to be to innovate a marketing strategy, not react to the market offerings.


This has already happened, I think sci-fi discovery works on this model.

Pro tip: want to be invited to such parties? Don't be an ass. Being nice actually does work in this industry because you get invited to a lot of parties.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

I'll be honest, in my modest three years in self-pub, I have never found any promo site that came close to a return on investment aside from BookBub.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

GeneDoucette said:


> I'll be honest, in my modest three years in self-pub, I have never found any promo site that came close to a return on investment aside from BookBub.


For your standalone Space Ship next door, I doubt that you'd make your money back with any of the others. That said, your first Immortal might do well with a build your own BookBub ala Pauline Ross even at 99-cents.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2017)

C. Gockel said:


> This has already happened, I think sci-fi discovery works on this model.
> 
> Pro tip: want to be invited to such parties? Don't be an ass. Being nice actually does work in this industry because you get invited to a lot of parties.


Thank you for your personal attack on my personality and character. Enough said.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

William Peter Grasso said:


> _Then you have Bookbub. I have not been able to sacrifice enough virgins to please the Bookbub gods in a couple of years. But I'm hearing stories of higher CPA, lower downloads and the experience overall starting to flatten. On the flip side, I'm still hearing, and believing that Bookbub is a magic bullet. Someone, please send more virgins.
> _ Quote the OP...
> 
> I mourn the day Bookbub decided it didn't need indies anymore. Like you, I haven't been smiled on by Bookbub in a long while. In my experience, there was nothing--and I mean absolutely nothing--that gave sales a humungous kick in the pants like an ad with them. Sure, it was pricey...but you usually made that fee back in the first couple of hours. I hadn't heard that authors' returns were down with a Bookbub ad--but they don't make their money based on your sales. And I don't see any shortage of publishing houses lining up to be featured on the site.
> And like you, I'd perform a few sacrifices to run another ad with them. In the meantime, I'll keep running clickads.


Keep trying. I had been lucky with Bookbub up until 18 months ago. I was getting them almost every time I applied. Then it all came to a screeching halt. *sigh* I worried I had done something to offend them or something. I could understand one of my books being rejected as it had already had several promos at free, but not a newer book that has never had a promo. Last Friday I submitted the old tried and true book (which had been rejected for the last year so about 10 times?) and it was accepted!

Like you, I thought they had turned on us, but I kept seeing books by other indies I know in the email I get every day. I almost didn't apply again figuring I'd get another rejection, so I was shocked to see the good news email.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I don't want a promo site to tell me what they can do for me as author.
> 
> I want to go to a promo site and I want to have to look really hard for the "submit listing" button. I want there to be a decent chance that my books are rejected, because it shows that they have material to select from and that an actual human decides what goes and what doesn't.
> 
> I want to go to a promo site and get hit in the face with what the site will do for me as a reader. I want the site to make me feel like they care about my time as a reader. I want the site to tell me, the reader, how they're going to help me, and I want them to do more than pay lip service to this. I want them to be firm on not accepting books that don't meet their standard, even if the authors pay.


I don't know if I'd worry too much about the promo site. Late last year, I did a post on my blog comparing book promotion sites in a spreadsheet. Focusing on criteria such as Alexa ranking, newsletter subscribers, monthly visitors, etc., there were only a handful that got high marks across the board. However, in my communications with them, the general consensus seemed to be that the websites aren't driving sales and downloads; the item reported as having the greatest effect in this arena was the newsletter/mail list.

In short, although I don't mean to diminish the importance of the promo site, my research indicated that the promo site's mail list deserves more of our attention. (On a side note, the number of monthly visitors was actually the most difficult piece of info to get from promo sites. Personally, I'm not sure how valuable or meaningful the number is, because a certain number of visitors will always be authors looking to promote their work.)


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## danpadavona (Sep 25, 2014)

C. Gockel said:


> For your standalone Space Ship next door, I doubt that you'd make your money back with any of the others. That said, your first Immortal might do well with a build your own BookBub ala Pauline Ross even at 99-cents.


I recall reading the Build Your Own BookBub plan a year or two ago and bookmarking it. For the life of me, I can't find it now. 
Can you post a link? I pinky-promise not to lose it this time.


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## FelissaEly (Jan 15, 2017)

danpadavona said:


> I recall reading the Build Your Own BookBub plan a year or two ago and bookmarking it. For the life of me, I can't find it now.
> Can you post a link? I pinky-promise not to lose it this time.


I bookmarked it too, I love reading them! https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,246726.0.html


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## danpadavona (Sep 25, 2014)

FelissaEly said:


> I bookmarked it too, I love reading them! https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,246726.0.html


Gracias!


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Something that I think is worth noting is that despite the wild differences in effectiveness, there isn't a lot fundamentally different between what Bookbub does, what a promo site does, and what an author's own newsletter does.

They're all basically just putting good content in front of people who want to see it. 

That one method can be so much more effective while still being so fundamentally similar really underlines the "garbage in garbage out" principal. Bookbub shows what a really effective email marketing service can be. Other promo sites obviously don't do it as well. Most authors have their own range of experiences. As Patty has said numerous times, it's hard work getting a decent and responsive list.


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## A J Sika (Apr 22, 2016)

Moderators: A question.

Why is it okay to prod a guy just because he states an opinion that many don't like or agree with (me among them), but nothing is said when others attack his character? The double standards are eye-opening.


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## Guest (Nov 6, 2017)

A J Sika said:


> Moderators: A question.
> 
> Why is it okay to prod a guy just because he states an opinion that many don't like or agree with (me among them), but nothing is said when others attack his character? The double standards are eye-opening.


Indeed!

This was the Moderator's PM response to my posts on this thread.

_edited -- the content of private messages may not be posted on the forum. _

As you say, 'double-standards' apply.


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## Yayoi (Apr 26, 2016)

I wish someone from BookBub happens to read this discussion so they know what to improve their service - they are serving the indie community.


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## BellaJames (Sep 8, 2016)

I agree with a lot of what *TobiasRoote* has said on here.

I feel that there are a few things that bestselling authors are doing that they are not sharing with others and I don't see anything wrong with that. Everyone has to take care of their own business first and foremost.

I believe that more and more readers are stepping away from these promo sites because they are showing the same books over and over again and some are recommending the wrong types of books.

Many authors do not know how to use social media and think that spamming 'buy my book' is the best way to get followers and readers. The ones being more entertaining, experimenting and selling more books are not telling everyone what they are doing.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Since people are discussing the roll-your-own-Bookbub promo I ran back in January (which was very successful), I feel I should point out that I ran another one of these last month which was far less successful. I used more sites, paid more and got fewer downloads and lost money overall because there was no tail at all. Just none. Other people have noticed that free days work less well than they used to, as well, so it's not just me.

Here's the link to the later promo: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,256374.0.html

Which is all of a piece with the topic of this thread.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Yayoi said:


> I wish someone from BookBub happens to read this discussion so they know what to improve their service - they are serving the indie community.


The Bookbub people are serving their investors first and foremost, and their subscribers second. They were very happy to take advantage of indies in the early days, but they don't need them so much these days.

I think one of the reasons the promo sites are losing their effectiveness is that there's no curation on the basis of quality. Some of them have no curation at all (if you can pay, you're in), and some curate according to some proxy of quality, such as number and rating of reviews, but we all know how reliable a guide that is.

I subscribe to Bookbub purely to get the free Regency romances, as genre research. The vast majority of the offerings I don't bother with. Why? Either because they were on Bookbub previously and I've already read them, or the reviews are full of complaints about editing issues and historical inaccuracies. Now, a lot of readers don't care about such things, but for those of us who do, it's disheartening to realise that the premier promotion site is endorsing books that fail even the most basic quality test. There must be plenty of people giving up on Bookbub and the like because they can't guarantee finding anything they want to read.


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## Guest (Nov 6, 2017)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Since people are discussing the roll-your-own-Bookbub promo I ran back in January (which was very successful), I feel I should point out that I ran another one of these last month which was far less successful. I used more sites, paid more and got fewer downloads and lost money overall because there was no tail at all. Just none.


I had a BB promo two months ago and the tail lasted two months, almost to the day. It was spread across B&N, Apple and Kobo as well as Amazon. Now, I have another BB for this month and I hope you're wrong about the lack of tail.


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## My_Txxxx_a$$_Left_Too (Feb 13, 2014)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

A J Sika said:


> Moderators: A question.
> 
> Why is it okay to prod a guy just because he states an opinion that many don't like or agree with (me among them), but nothing is said when others attack his character? The double standards are eye-opening.


Did you report it? If you feel you or someone else's character has been attacked or that a response was inappropriate and you don't report you really have no grounds for complaint. I think the moderators are great here, but you can hardly expect them to be awake in all time zones and read every single response on every thread real time.


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## Guest (Nov 6, 2017)

Sarah Shaw said:


> Did you report it? If you feel you or someone else's character has been attacked or that a response was inappropriate and you don't report you really have no grounds for complaint. I think the moderators are great here, but you can hardly expect them to be awake in all time zones and read every single response on every thread real time.


Frankly, everyone should have reported it. Attacking individuals is just not acceptable behaviour in any forum. As it was, the Moderator was very much awake and talking to me via PM when it occurred. They were paying attention to the thread then, they've had nearly 24 hours to deal with it and haven't. Yet, when I posted dissenting views (views that a number of people here agree with privately and publicly) I was censured within a VERY short time.

Instead of attacking this poster you should be equally concerned. The fact that you're not speaks volumes.


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## Guest (Nov 6, 2017)

> Because these sites were not selective in what books they've run...


Because these sites used the wrong criteria for what books they run, and they are primarily culpable for the current debacle that is paid reviews. These sites built on a false narrative: that a book worth reading would have X number of reviews with an average star rating of Y. They created an arms race where they valued an arbitrary star rating from ONE RETAILER over the content of the product. Then they compounded that problem by insisting on cut-rate pricing despite the fact that there was no easy way for an author to control how a book would appear on sale. And to top it all off, their primary "selling" feature to potential customers wasn't so much quality or uniqueness, but price. As the saying goes, "If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner."

The truth is that the majority of promotion sites used by indies went for the low-hanging fruit. They never differentiated themselves in the marketplace to offer anything of significant value other than a place to find cheap or free books.

And the reality is, anything that solely exists to promote is eventually going to fail. All media needs to provide its own benefit. Newspapers require advertising, but they are sold on the news they provide. TV shows depend on commercials, but the show is what people tune in to watch. Even things like Facebook and Twitter have a value outside of their promotional capabilities. And we all know this, because what do we tell other authors about social media? Nobody is going to follow you if all of your posts are only "buy my book." So why would we actually think newsletters and promo sites that solely exist to say "buy these books?" would be different?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

WasAnn said:


> Here's where I lose the ability to analyze because I don't know what deals are made behind the scenes, but there's only one logical conclusion to be made: TP does not have to apply really, but rather simply orders their slots. Also, based on pub dates and other clues, it appears they get LONGER than 30 days out to make their orders. And the only way any of this makes sense is that they pay a premium for this privilege. Otherwise, why would BB alienate readers in the same genre over and over by offering books so bad they get pulled by Zon? It has to be money...i.e. investors first, readers second.


Actually, it's been 'known' for some time that trad pubs get a 60-day window (I use quotes there, because I've seen it stated as fact, but I can't for the life of me remember the source). There is a kind of logic in giving the trad pubs preferential treatment, in that it's reasonable to presume that there's some curation already taken place, and the editing should be up to scratch.

My gripe is about the indies Bookbub endorses without making the slightest effort to impose a minimum quality standard. And the same authors, and even the same books, crop up time after time. Show me something new, Bookbub! If there are fewer slots available now to indies, shouldn't those slots be filled by the best of their genre? Or at least by authors who are prepared to present their books professionally.

Footnote: Anyone reading my signature will probably set all this down to sour grapes, but honestly, I'm writing here as a reader not an author. I want to find books that at least demonstrate some respect for the reader and authorial pride in the work, and Bookbub is failing me in that regard.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Because these sites used the wrong criteria for what books they run, and they are primarily culpable for the current debacle that is paid reviews. These sites built on a false narrative: that a book worth reading would have X number of reviews with an average star rating of Y. They created an arms race where they valued an arbitrary star rating from ONE RETAILER over the content of the product. Then they compounded that problem by insisting on cut-rate pricing despite the fact that there was no easy way for an author to control how a book would appear on sale. And to top it all off, their primary "selling" feature to potential customers wasn't so much quality or uniqueness, but price. As the saying goes, "If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner."


You're my hero.


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## Guest (Nov 6, 2017)

LilyBLily said:


> We don't want gatekeepers yet we need curation.


And this is part of the problem. Advertising sites should be neither gatekeepers or curators. NBC doesn't restrict car commercials to only those that get the top rating on Consumer Reports. The NYT doesn't restrict advertising to only those department stores with AAA ratings. Radio programming doesn't require local businesses to submit their Yelp reviews before placing ads.

As I noted, the fundamental problem with the promo sites used by indies is that they only exist to promote. They have NO CONTENT OF VALUE. The solely exist to plug books. And they pulled a fast one on indies by celebrating their ROI, but that ROI is based on an artificial and, ultimately, unsustainable system. They lied to their subscribers by promising curated content, but by curated they meant "already best selling and with lots of Amazon reviews." And even if they wanted to, they could never have effectively curated anyway because they weren't targeting reading demographics by anything other than price. And indies perpetuated the myth by "promoting" the fact that they were promoting with certain sites!


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

First, thanks to the OP for starting this thread and thank you all for sharing your opinions and experiences about the effectiveness of promo sites. It's reassuring to know that others notice the same things that you do. 

Like many here, I had great results with BookBub ads (I think I had three with them), but that was a few years ago when BookBub was new. They don't seem to like me any more. ENT was my go-to second choice, but lately the quality of the books in their email has declined. Robin Reads has also brought good results, so those are my top three. 

I played around with some other promo sites like Bargain Booksy for 99 cent promos of book one in my three-book romantic suspense series and found that instead of big sales numbers, my KU page reads for all three books improved. So I suspect that KU subscribers may use these sites to find books to read for free. I really don't care if my earnings and rank come from KU or sales, as long as my books are being read. 

My biggest mistake and major regret was not building a mailing list when my first book came out and was "hot" for a while. That left me without a way to let those who liked that one know when books two and three came out. So now, when sales and page reads become flat, the only way I know to rev things up is to lower my price and selectively book ads even if they're not as effective as they once were.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> I feel I should point out that I ran another one of these last month which was far less successful. I used more sites, paid more and got fewer downloads and lost money overall because there was no tail at all. Just none. Other people have noticed that free days work less well than they used to, as well, so it's not just me.
> 
> Here's the link to the later promo: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,256374.0.html


Every time a promo site is used for the same book you will get poorer results. That is even true for BookBub. Also, January is a great month in general, while September, while usually better than August, is still sort of the suck.

Given all that, I thought your promo last month was a great success! There were a few sites that I wouldn't use (I will PM you), and a few advertisers not on it: BookDoggy, ebookdiscovery, BookBot Bob, eReaderObsession (if it is "clean" fantasy), and MyBookCave. Also, I don't know if you've played around with FB, but I've found a few audiences that I turn to when I promote. And of course, lately newsletter swaps have been awesome.

I'm planning on using your model for advertising going forward, and I'm considering using all the ad sites every six months instead of spreading them out over a few months.


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

Well said. I agree as well that most promo sites take the lazy way out and only promote free and .99 cent books. I only run .99 "sales" 1 or 2 times a year as I don't want to be known as a "discount" indie author, or cheapen my product. Last promo was with ENT which netted about 45 downloads on my historical fiction title. Genre Cave was even worse with less than 10 downloads. Will not throw away my hard-earned money for a few downloads anymore.



AlexaKang said:


> OP thank you for starting this discussion. I think some threads in the last few months had been alluding to this issue and I'm glad you are bringing it up direct.
> 
> I think everyone had raised some good points and I agree. My experience also is that the returns have dripped. Two years ago whe I first got into this, it was actually FUN! I had so much fun doing my free stack promo, and in fact gained the start of my readership from that. Now, I don't run free stack promos anymore. I feel like there's not return. Even with downloads, I think the book sits in the reader's device and never get read. I believe this because last time I ran a free stack promo, I got no tail to the rest of my series. Zilch.
> 
> ...


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

GeneDoucette said:


> I'll be honest, in my modest three years in self-pub, I have never found any promo site that came close to a return on investment aside from BookBub.


I spent $320 on 4 freebooksy ads last November and they returned me $650. Just booked another one to see if it still works.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Decon said:


> I spent $320 on 4 freebooksy ads last November and they returned me $650. Just booked another one to see if it still works.


I just finished a Freebooksy yesterday and just broke even. That included audio sales. However, I do expect lots more page reads since it's a four book series. Surprisingly, I had more follow-thru sales than I did page reads.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Marseille said:


> Well said. I agree as well that most promo sites take the lazy way out and only promote free and .99 cent books.


I don't think this is "lazy," I think it is giving customers what they want. My readers have told me they only start series that are $2.99+ if they get a *trusted* recommendation.

I've noticed when I write in-depth book reviews I can sell books, even ones that are $9.99+. I do it out of love for the books I'm promoting though, not to earn money.

Most promo sites can't read your book and write a review for $100--they wouldn't crack minimum wage at that rate. And when you pay them to review they're in the awkward position of having to recommend books that maybe they don't like.

I have cheap series starters--99-cents and free--so my experience selling full-priced books is limited. However, I was able to sell a Archangel Down at $2.99 in the beginning with Facebook ads. AMS seems to work too. However, nothing beats a trusted review. If there is an active book review blog in your genre it might help. I know places like Nerd Girl have readers who pick whether or not they want to read your book, and read and review for free. Because there is no pay incentive, I think their reviews are more trusted.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

[amazonsearch][/amazonsearch]


C. Gockel said:


> I don't think this is "lazy," I think it is giving customers what they want. My readers have told me they only start series that are $2.99+ if they get a *trusted* recommendation.
> 
> I've noticed when I write in-depth book reviews I can sell books, even ones that are $9.99+. I do it out of love for the books I'm promoting though, not to earn money.
> 
> ...


I think 99c has its place and certainly can be used for a number of sales and launch strategies. But I still think it's laziness on the promoters' part because it's ALL the do. All of them. You'd think at least some of them would try something new to break out from the crowd already, given that they are saying the market is competitive for them. But the newcomers that came to Kboard this past year to sell their services are still doing nothing but going down the same route of offering to promote free of 99c discounted books. I don't know how or why they think they can break into the promoters' market doing exactly the same thing that the established ones are already doing. The few times I'd try to give them suggestions that we would like a platform to sell books a retail price, they don't listen. They don't even bother to try to come up with any innovative ways to promote. Needless to say, I don't see much noise from them soon after they launched. So yeah, it's laziness.

Also, many promoted books are not first in series. And I don't even have issues with discounting books for a limited time sale. I think they should keep doing that. What I think is that the promoters need to do more and offer more than just that. They are not. They're just taking advantage of the fact that indie writers have very limited platforms to promote, and therefore many of us still pay them even at loss. This business model cannot be sustained, and that's why they're declining.

They can probably hang on as long as authors are still in need to show their books somehow, but AMS ads, NL swaps are cutting into their business. And some of us are pulling back on using them due to their lack of results. We can't keep paying forever for people to buy our books and always end up with a loss. That's getting to be no different from vanity publishing.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2017)

C. Gockel said:


> I don't think this is "lazy," I think it is giving customers what they want. My readers have told me they only start series that are $2.99+ if they get a *trusted* recommendation.


And yet, before the rise of Amazon Kindle, readers happily paid $5 or more for ebooks. I know. I was self-publishing before Kindle launched. Again, INDIES are the ones that conditioned readers to expect bargain basement prices. Price was the only thing indies felt they could compete on. Readers rushed to indie books not because of the quality (they didn't even realize the books were "self-published" until someone told them!) but because the price was so much lower than they were accustomed to.

Seriously, let's look at indie films. If ten years ago, indie filmmakers were able to sell tickets to their movies for 99 cents, would people have flocked to those movies? Of course! Because people are used to paying $10-$15 for movie tickets. But if, year after year, those indie film tickets remained 99 cents, how many people would then willingly start paying more if the price of indie tickets went up while the price of the studio films has remained the same? No, people would still pay the same as they always did for the studio films, but complain that the indie films were raising their prices. Because indies conditioned those customers to devalue them.

The problem is that indies never learned to sell at regular market prices and trained their readers to expect all books to be cheap, even as the quality of indie books improved. The same people who swear they won't start a new series if the book is over $2.99 are also the same people who will plop down almost $10 on a trade published book if they want it. And all of these promo sites compounded that problem by essentially telling people they could get an endless supply of cheap books because, seriously, they are all just interchangeable commodities anyway and the only thing that matters is the almighty Amazon sales rank or star rating.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2017)

> INDIES are the ones that conditioned readers to expect bargain basement prices...The problem is that indies never learned to sell at regular market prices and trained their readers to expect all books to be cheap, even as the quality of indie books improved.


I agree. There's such a glut of dirt cheap or free books available on the market now that it's what people expect. But how do indies and self-publishers back away from this strategy now that people have been conditioned to _not _shell out a decent amount of $ for quality indie books?


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Kat M said:


> I agree. There's such a glut of dirt cheap or free books available on the market now that it's what people expect. But how do indies and self-publishers back away from this strategy now that people have been conditioned to _not _shell out a decent amount of $ for quality indie books?


The issue is likely related to genre. There may be some genres like Romance for which it'd be difficult to raise prices.

The way I see it, if the book's normal retail price is 99c, then fine. That IS the normal retail price for those books, or they are permafrees. But we need alternative platforms where books with higher normal retail price can be shown. The readers would be given the option of buying 99c books or free books, and the option of checking out a catalogue of books at higher price point that they cannot get at 99c or free. Those who don't want to pay will stay with the free/99c. But readers do explore. I've got Instafreebie subscribers who buy my books at $3.99. I know because they emailed me and talked about my books not offered for free nor ever sold on sale. Readers are not always in a box. But if they're willing to buy books at higher price, currently there are very very limited platforms that would show them those books.

And such a platform likely cannot be mixed with the free/99c sale newsletters, because they'll be disregarded. This is where work for the promoter comes in. What would a promoter do to show a different slate of books and show added value of these books for readers to take a look at them. Amazon came up with an answer that benefits Amazon. No one else has really tried.

Or promoters can stick with the free/99c model, if they can do something differently or better and give us a positive ROI, we can continue riding that train till the sun goes down. That's all fine by me and probably everyone else too as long as our earnings exceed the costs. But what we're witnessing is a decline of that model with no innovation.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2017)

Kat M said:


> I agree. There's such a glut of dirt cheap or free books available on the market now that it's what people expect. But how do indies and self-publishers back away from this strategy now that people have been conditioned to _not _shell out a decent amount of $ for quality indie books?


Again, a caveat, I have a day job and writing is not my full-time gig. That said, I have been running a micro-press for over a decade that has always made a profit. Each issue of the Quarterly costs me about $400 to produce, and I make that back within 90 days. In fact, I generally recover my investment in every book on a 90 days schedule...by design. You'll never see one of my books at the top of the Amazon charts (unless there is some fluke), but my business is profitable enough that I can afford to pay a proofreader and three editorial assistants every month and have money left over for a car payment and to sustain my gaming addiction. 

That said, indies need to stop selling on price and start selling on quality and branding. They need to differentiate themselves and target those demographics that will appreciate them, instead of fighting over a small piece of the same large, but incredibly crowded, pie.

Step One: Stop thinking in terms of rank/Amazon algorithms and start thinking in terms of profits. Too many people I know who are "bestsellers" are struggling financially. Everyone is fighting to get into the bestseller ranks, but logic dictates that if there are 100 spots in the bestseller ranks and there are 1,000,000 people trying to get in those spots, your chance of achieving long-term standing in the bestseller ranks is slim to none. Most indies are stuck on the same rollercoaster. Discount book, shoot up ranks, rank falls, discount book, shoot up ranks. And when their sales drop off, they lament that the Amazon algorithms aren't working for them. But guess what? If your business model depends on AMAZON'S algorithms and not finding your own readers, you are a slave to Amazon.

I have to make roughly 200 sales (depending on the mix of print and digital) over a three month period to pay for each issue. That is less than 70 sales a month. Everything after those first 200 sales is pure profit. At 70 sales a month, I'm not going to be at the top of Amazon's charts, but I'm able to pay my bills. More importantly, I know that 70 sales a month is achievable based on past sales data. 70 sales a month is achieveable without worrying about whatever monkey wrench was thrown into Amazon's algorithms. Because...

Step Two: Go wide...and promote wide. Those sales are spread out over 20+ different retailers. And each of those retailers has its own loyal user base with its own unique demographics. Book A may completely bomb on BN and Amazon, but sell amazingly well at Kobo and GooglePlay. Book B may not do well on GooglePlay or Kobo, but is really popular on Scribd. Book C may fail domestically, but sell in extraordinary numbers in international markets. And in all cases, if the book was ONLY available on Amazon, they all would have failed to meet my sales goals. But my sales risk is spread out across 20+ different markets. When your book is available in two dozen markets, you only need to sell 3-4 copies A MONTH at each one to make a profit!

I use Select strategically for a few projects. And there is nothing wrong with using exclusivity for a specific project's marketing plan. But when the only marketing plan you have is "sell on Amazon" you set yourself up for failure in the long run.

Step Three: Stop promoting by store and start promoting by genre. My job as a publisher is to make sure that my books are available in as many places as possible so that, when someone is ready to buy, they can find my book in the store they want. Because if Jane Doe is ready to buy Book A and goes to her favorite site ABCebooks and can't find it, she's not going to go hunting for me. She's going to end up buying something else. It is not my job to tell people where to buy my books. It is my job to be where people want to buy.

So, instead, I promote at genre-specific conventions (I'm actually going to be a guest at PhilCon this weekend). I promote on genre-specific websites. I go where my target readers are and make sure they know who I am.

Step Four: Stop selling on "take a chance on me!!!!!!" and start selling on "this book is awesome." Let's be honest; the 99 cent price was built on the myth that indies were inferior to trade books and the only way people would "give them a chance" is if they were dirt cheap. Believe that your work is worth more than dirt, and carry yourself that way in the marketplace. Promote who you are, what your books are about, and why they need to be read.

It is all simple, but it isn't easy and it isn't quick. And that is ultimately the biggest problem. Everyone worries about immediate ROI. ROI is important, but in the real world it is only one piece of the puzzle. Marketing is a long game that doesn't always have a clear ROI. And the best marketing, ironically, _will never reflect a clear ROI._ Because the best marketing is the word of mouth you get when you attend a convention and connect with Jane Doe, who buys one book. Then Jane goes home and tells her friends how cool you are, and then one of them buys a book and signs up for your newsletter. Then one day Jane's friend sees something cool in your newsletter and forwards that newsletter to 20 people, and some of them buy books. One of them happens to be a librarian, who decides she loves your book and now wants to stock the entire series in her library. That is the kind of ROI you don't generally see in long-term marketing, and yet it is the most valuable because it is the less sensitive to price and those people are your most loyal fans.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> 1. It's actually really hard to get quality submissions. People who sell well don't need these lists.


This.

We run a "Freebie Friday" every couple of weeks and we have trouble finding good free books that fit our audience. By "good" I mean good covers, relatively error-free (especially in the first chapters), and hooky, even if they're not specifically to my taste.

And while we're on the topic of covers--I won't mention specific authors because my intention is not to embarrass anyone, but I do have a strong impression from reading thousands of posts here on KBoards that those of us whose covers aren't up to the top standards tend to be the ones reporting "can't get a Bub" (anymore), and reporting "sites losing effectiveness." Again, just my impression, but it's a strong impression, and I think it contains more truth than not.

Some of the decline in ROI is due to saturation, but some of it is because the whole Indie movement has upped its game with covers over the past few years. Generic covers used to be good enough, but with the glut of niche material, covers need to be much better. They need to compare favorably to top tradpubbed covers. I myself have updated every book cover at least once, and twice for my mainstay series. The first time I used a single artist's premades, to at least provide a theme and brand. The second time I paid Jun Ares (aresjun (at) gmail.com for anyone interested) for custom covers and have stuck with him ever since. But some authors have all their covers from years ago.

Changing covers also provides an odd benefit that some haven't recognized. Not only does doing so make it more likely to get a Bub (after all, if you can't get one with what you have, upgrading it must, by definition, provide a chance to get one), a new cover can attract different fish in the same pond. People who passed over your book because the cover wasn't interesting to them particularly might now be attracted to your book--and you've already sold to those who might like your old cover better. Will the ROI be sufficient for a new cover to pay off? I believe it usually is, especially if your new cover is markedly more attractive to the majority of readers.

The cover is the #1 factor in an impulse buy off a promo site. It's a way for you to give yourself a better chance, apart from the basic effectiveness of any particular site. For example, I changed one of my permafree covers and saw a 250% uptake in the free book overnight, without any promos.

***

Re: giving away our marketing "secrets"--I wouldn't worry about it. I've always been willing to explain to other authors exactly how I went from 0 to $300,000 gross in four years, and I've given marketing workshops to hundreds of authors. If I did it more often and charged more, like some guys do, that number would be thousands or tens of thousands. You know how many people actually put a substantial portion of my methods into practice (that I know of)? One, and one more I'm doing some mentoring for has potential. Most people will never do what it takes to be commercially successful, for a wide variety of self-sabotaging reasons. One of those reasons is, people want a silver bullet. That's why so many writers simply want to sell to a tradpublisher. Fire once, hope that bullet is silver. The Indie version of this is BookBub+backlist (or, for some, cheating and botting), but to really make it all work consistently over time, most of us here (self-selected as serious indies) also have to do about 15 other things so it all keeps working--not to mention writing more books.

***



A J Sika said:


> Moderators: A question.
> 
> Why is it okay to prod a guy just because he states an opinion that many don't like or agree with (me among them), but nothing is said when others attack his character? The double standards are eye-opening.


Quite so. The first attack often goes unaddressed, but self-defense in kind seems to be forbidden. Granted, we should all be big enough not to respond in kind, but even simple calling-out is often suppressed.

My theory is that whomever cries the loudest directly to the mods gets listened to. The problem with this is, those whose ethos includes dealing with one's own problems without running to authority end up with a disadvantage.

Also, it's those who disagree with the opinion that are most likely to report. Those who agree with an opinion, even if stated in a way that violates community standards, tend to give a pass and not report.

Also, there's inevitable bias from the mods themselves. That's normal. Everyone has biases, and it takes a lot of effort to mitigate one's own biases and be a fair judge. Sometimes I see that here, sometimes I don't. It's the times I don't that stick in my memory. I wouldn't stay here if I thought the modding was completely unacceptable, but there's certainly room for improvement in fairness.


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## DmGuay (Aug 17, 2016)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Again, a caveat, I have a day job and writing is not my full-time gig. That said, I have been running a micro-press for over a decade that has always made a profit. Each issue of the Quarterly costs me about $400 to produce, and I make that back within 90 days. In fact, I generally recover my investment in every book on a 90 days schedule...by design. You'll never see one of my books at the top of the Amazon charts (unless there is some fluke), but my business is profitable enough that I can afford to pay a proofreader and three editorial assistants every month and have money left over for a car payment and to sustain my gaming addiction.
> 
> That said, indies need to stop selling on price and start selling on quality and branding. They need to differentiate themselves and target those demographics that will appreciate them, instead of fighting over a small piece of the same large, but incredibly crowded, pie.
> 
> ...


ALL of this! ^^^


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

David VanDyke said:


> Quite so. The first attack often goes unaddressed, but self-defense in kind seems to be forbidden. Granted, we should all be big enough not to respond in kind, but even simple calling-out is often suppressed.
> 
> My theory is that whomever cries the loudest directly to the mods gets listened to.


It wasn't all that long ago a popular member of the board told some people "@#% you." Nobody batted an eye. (I personally didn't care one way or another, it may have been justified, but I couldn't help but notice it since this board is often heavy-handed with moderation.) If it had been almost anybody else, it would have been removed. I checked a couple months after the fact out of curiosity, and the post had not been altered. (In fact I just checked a moment ago and fixed the phrase, which I thought was ___off to ___you.) So I'm _pretty_ sure it's down to who you are.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> That said, indies need to stop selling on price and start selling on quality and branding. They need to differentiate themselves and target those demographics that will appreciate them, instead of fighting over a small piece of the same large, but incredibly crowded, pie.





Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Step Four: Stop selling on "take a chance on me!!!!!!" and start selling on "this book is awesome." Let's be honest; the 99 cent price was built on the myth that indies were inferior to trade books and the only way people would "give them a chance" is if they were dirt cheap. Believe that your work is worth more than dirt, and carry yourself that way in the marketplace. Promote who you are, what your books are about, and why they need to be read.
> 
> It is all simple, but it isn't easy and it isn't quick. And that is ultimately the biggest problem. Everyone worries about immediate ROI. ROI is important, but in the real world it is only one piece of the puzzle. Marketing is a long game that doesn't always have a clear ROI. And the best marketing, ironically, _will never reflect a clear ROI._ Because the best marketing is the word of mouth you get when you attend a convention and connect with Jane Doe, who buys one book. Then Jane goes home and tells her friends how cool you are, and then one of them buys a book and signs up for your newsletter. Then one day Jane's friend sees something cool in your newsletter and forwards that newsletter to 20 people, and some of them buy books. One of them happens to be a librarian, who decides she loves your book and now wants to stock the entire series in her library. That is the kind of ROI you don't generally see in long-term marketing, and yet it is the most valuable because it is the less sensitive to price and those people are your most loyal fans.


I really appreciate hearing you state this. I recently made some changes because what I was doing was stagnant; I needed to find a new way to reach new readers, and I needed to figure out a different way to keep sales consistent. This is my full-time gig, so consistency is the #1 factor for me. Things that worked to keep sales consistent a few months or a year ago suddenly didn't work anymore.
I examined what was going on in my genre, watched the charts, watched the consistent sellers. The consistent authors who stayed in the top 25-50 genre charts are the ones I was most interested in, and I noticed what they were doing. They weren't pricing books at $0.99 or even $2.99. I've made some changes to my own pricing and I'm glad to see it's going well. It's still a work in progress, but I can't see going back to a catalog full of $0.99 books, even if the sacrifice is staying in the middle of the ranks.


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## CABarrett (Feb 23, 2017)

David VanDyke said:


> Changing covers also provides an odd benefit that some haven't recognized. Not only does doing so make it more likely to get a Bub (after all, if you can't get one with what you have, upgrading it must, by definition, provide a chance to get one), a new cover can attract different fish in the same pond. People who passed over your book because the cover wasn't interesting to them particularly might now be attracted to your book--and you've already sold to those who might like your old cover better. Will the ROI be sufficient for a new cover to pay off? I believe it usually is, especially if your new cover is markedly more attractive to the majority of readers.


This insight really agrees with my experience as a reader. Trad publishers often change up their covers between editions, and I can think of books where one edition really caught my eye and the other did not.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2017)

TobiasRoote said:


> Indeed!
> 
> This was the Moderator's PM response to my posts on this thread.
> 
> ...


Again, moderation is biased. The content of the moderator's private censure is apparently not quotable even though they do it in public without regard to the censured's feelings, yet certain members of this board have greater rights than others. I'm thick skinned and old enough to accept that to be here and post I have [apparently] lesser rights than others who are firm favourites of the board and indeed, the moderators. However, it doesn't look good to the thousands of people who read these boards every day who see one set of views being given precedence over another's. If fair debate and discussion isn't allowed, then the integrity of everyone's views gets called into question.

I appreciate the comments of support, on and off the board, from those who took the trouble.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Lorri Moulton said:


> EB, Beautiful cover!


Thank you!


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Lorri Moulton said:


> EB, Beautiful cover!


I totally second this! It's GORGEOUS!


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Again, a caveat, I have a day job and writing is not my full-time gig. That said, I have been running a micro-press for over a decade that has always made a profit. Each issue of the Quarterly costs me about $400 to produce, and I make that back within 90 days. In fact, I generally recover my investment in every book on a 90 days schedule...by design. You'll never see one of my books at the top of the Amazon charts (unless there is some fluke), but my business is profitable enough that I can afford to pay a proofreader and three editorial assistants every month and have money left over for a car payment and to sustain my gaming addiction.
> 
> That said, indies need to stop selling on price and start selling on quality and branding. They need to differentiate themselves and target those demographics that will appreciate them, instead of fighting over a small piece of the same large, but incredibly crowded, pie.
> 
> ...


I love this answer so, so much. Coincidentally, I've been reading Patty Jensen's book on going wide. I went wide in October and have started selling a bit in other stores despite my Amazon visibility and sales plummeting into oblivion (after I pulled out of KU). I just got sick and tired of depending on Amazon. I want the freedom to do as I wish with my books, place them in whatever stores I want and market them however I want. Exclusivity just didn't pay off for me either. Long gone are the days I used to think publishing on Amazon would make me even just a little money.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

evdarcy said:


> I totally second this! It's GORGEOUS!


Aw thanks. I've been fiddling with a new look for upcoming books in my series "world". Thanks for making me feel like it's going in a good direction. &#128522;&#128522;

Ps- I think David was spot on about covers; it's good to change it up, you might just attract readers who've passed it over with the old cover. &#128077;

Oh, and on the topic of promo sites, I agree things are rough. Personally, I stopped running most promos all summer & plan to only offer group promos 3 or 4 times a year moving forward. I've been working on ways to grow & attract new readers to our lists as well. This thread is great, it's given me some ideas of how to improve, & I like the idea of offering readers unique content and something other than just deals. The promo biz is not an income necessary thing for me, so I'm probably in a good position to try things that authors talked about in this thread. &#129304;&#127995;


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## Bookmonkey (Mar 12, 2014)

With non-KU books on a recent Bookbub promo I'm only seeing a tail of 1-2 days - this was shocking. It used to be longer but my total sales dropped off super fast to their original level within two days. I did get new readers into the series but really only broke even on a really expensive ad.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2017)

> ... indies need to stop selling on price and start selling on quality and branding. They need to differentiate themselves and target those demographics that will appreciate them, instead of fighting over a small piece of the same large, but incredibly crowded, pie.


I like this answer too, and coming from the trad publishing world I haven't been inclined to charge bottom of the barrel prices for my books. It doesn't sit right, for one thing.



> Let's be honest; the 99 cent price was built on the myth that indies were inferior to trade books and the only way people would "give them a chance" is if they were dirt cheap.


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

Patty Jansen said:


> TBH I don't see a huge market for this (although you may quote me as "famous last words" if I'm wrong). People don't want random messages from all and sundry at Facebook. Heaven knows I stopped accepting most friend requests at FB because I'm getting tired of the messaging system.


I get FB Messenger messages from lots of retailers, including Zulilly. They tell me when my items have shipped as well as when they have new deals for me. I personally really like it. But then again, I also like all of Old Navy's many newsletters informing me of deals, and I'm the type to purposefully sign up to receive online notifications from my favorite newspapers as well as from Freebooksy. Some people like this kind of stuff, others don't.

My goal is to be in all the areas that the readers who do want to be there are in. To me promoting books is no different than marketing anything else people might want if only they had heard of its existence. I personally get a lot more value out of newsletter swaps and paid spots in other author's newsletters than I do the promo sites so I haven't used them in ages. If The Fussy Librarian tells someone to read my book, I might get like 200 clicks but if Their Favorite Author X tells them to read my book in that author's own newsletter then I get over 1,000 clicks. Therefore I've signed up to bookclicker.com and I swap with other authors and I rarely use other promo sites because the return on investment just isn't as good.


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

On the subject of why Bookbub ads in particular don't seem to do as well as they used to, I think it's because BookBub doesn't like KU books and lots of books are in KU. So the competition is just a lot greater in KU now and then also with the non-KUers vying for the same BookBub spots.


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2017)

Actually, this is not at all what I'm saying



> Of course there's no magic bullet, but I don't know how it will convince us to continue paying for promos if promoters are telling us there's nothing more they can do. I do appreciate you guys chiming in, but so far what I'm hearing is:
> 
> 1. We're promoting more free books and this will help authors.
> 2. Market is too competitive for promoters
> ...


****

A) ALL the problems are due to problems in COUNTING

B) Lots of promo sites are growing and growing FAST. However, results are not growing because the counting is flawed

C) All the issues you are seeing are ALL related to counting

D) Market is not competitive. Many promo sites are dying out. That is why remaining ones are sold out. The ONLY problem is COUNTING is broken (advertently or inadvertently)

******************

I'm basically saying two things

A) There is NEVER going to be any marketing solution for indie authors until and unless authors control the store and make sure the counting is right. You either build your own store or you locate the right issue (broken counting) and have it fixed

B) There is nothing wrong with number of readers sent and number of readers buying etc. Problem is entirely with COUNTING

We have no problem with results. 8% used to miss last year. 8% miss this year. that means 92% hit the target. However, given how much we have grown the results have not grown accordingly. And same thing is happening everywhere in the ecosystem - if every single promotion site is seeing the same issue, then it's a COUNTING ISSUE
*************************

I see authors clutching at straws and coming up with so many different possibilities. It's surreal. The answer is right in front of your noses - counting is broken (inadvertently or on purpose). Ask to have it fixed

You are supplying rationalizations and all that does is make people who control the counting think - let's adjust it even more. They will keep coming up with rationalizations and never figure out we are making adjustments

*************************************************************

B) There is NEVER any going back from $0 and $0.99 and $2.99

The store is trying DESPERATELY and it's failing

Demand for Free is 10 to 50 times more than for $0.99
Demand for $0.99 is 10 times more than for $2.99 and higher

That's just market reality

There's no going back from it. Actually, EVERYTHING you see (all the issues) are an attempt by the store to undo it. However, you cannot convince people to go back to buying $10 ebooks when you used $0 ebooks and $0.99 ebooks to win market share and when there are so many marketing avenues that can supply free and cheap ebooks

****************************************

You just build a strategy around

1st book free
2nd book $0.99
rest any price you want

and make it good writing so that the free and $0.99 books convince readers to buy the higher priced books

That's the only future if you're an indie author

WHY?

A) Readers are not going to go back to $5 to $15 ebooks
B) That's where you have an inherent advantage

**************************************************
If you fall into the trap the store has fallen into i.e we can just reverse things and go back to $5 ebooks, then you will, sooner or later, be in trouble. You'll have to go back to what readers are asking


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Testing something.


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2017)

ireaderreview said:


> Actually, this is not at all what I'm saying
> 
> ****
> 
> ...


Absolutely 100% correct. I've said this right from the start. For many writers it's not going to be profitable long term, or possibly even short term. Too many writers out there mass-producing cheap books to feed the demand that has grown out of the $0-$0.99 marketing strategy. Even GOOD books that should never need to discount are now being offered permafree. The market expects, and the market will receive.

Now, everyone is going to go out there and do Free, 99cents and normal price as a condition of the market force, not as a strategy. The market is in charge.

In addition, the TradPubs are in there now playing the' cheap' ebook game, but they're in it for the long run and have a much stronger hand. Expect them to suck up market share beating us at our own game.


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## Caimh (May 8, 2016)

Sorry, I'm confused with the 'counting' thing - are you suggesting that Amazon are not crediting someone with all their sales or are you just referring to page reads?


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2017)

Caimh said:


> Sorry, I'm confused with the 'counting' thing - are you suggesting that Amazon are not crediting someone with all their sales or are you just referring to page reads?


I think you should substitute 'counting' with 'reporting'

I had a BB a few months a go and a certain platform that was responsible for a section of my market actually failed to collect and record over 2 weeks worth of data. Nobody accepts blame, no means of verifying who is responsible and the simple explanation (but impossible) is that I didn't sell anything for those 17 days. Whilst possible, it is highly unlikely in that specific instance. The COUNTING was incorrect and nobody is/can be held to account.


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2017)

ireaderreview said:


> That's the only future if you're an indie author


Lazy, self-serving thinking.

On a $4.99 book, I make $3.49 per sale. I make 34 cents on a 99 cent sale. So even if your ratio of 10 to 1 is true, I only need to sell ONE BOOK at $4.99 to make the same money as TEN SALES at 99 cents. As I already expressed in an earlier post, I don't need a fake volume of fluff sales at no money to generate income. I just need to find MY READERS who will appreciate MY WORK. And while it takes longer and more effort, it works.

In fact, there is an entire demographic out there that won't even TOUCH a 99 cent or free book because they don't shop on price, but their time. This demographic tends to read fewer books a month (one or two a month, compared to the one to three a week of some demographics). They tend to read slower and deeper, which means they shop for books based on the value of their time. If they plan on spending a week with a book, they aren't "taking a chance" just because it is cheap. We're talking about a week of their life and their limited recreational reading time. They are willing to spend more on a book because they aren't just consuming it like popcorn. They plan on savoring it.

Indies have branded themselves as the "cheap fast food" of the book industry. And so long as they stay in that mentality, they won't be able to sell at a real profit. McDonald's will never be able to sell a cheeseburger for $10, but plenty of mid-to-upscale restaurants sell burgers for $10 (or more). Nobody walks into Applebee's or TGI Friday's and says "Hmmm, I'm not gonna pay over $4 for this cheeseburger when I can get one at McDonald's." Nobody does that.

So Indies need to rebrand. And that means maybe abandoning the book promo sites that won't adapt and finding other ways to reach their readers.


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## Sarah Shaw (Feb 14, 2015)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> In fact, there is an entire demographic out there that won't even TOUCH a 99 cent or free book because they don't shop on price, but their time. This demographic tends to read fewer books a month (one or two a month, compared to the one to three a week of some demographics). They tend to read slower and deeper, which means they shop for books based on the value of their time. If they plan on spending a week with a book, they aren't "taking a chance" just because it is cheap. We're talking about a week of their life and their limited recreational reading time. They are willing to spend more on a book because they aren't just consuming it like popcorn. They plan on savoring it.
> 
> Indies have branded themselves as the "cheap fast food" of the book industry. And so long as they stay in that mentality, they won't be able to sell at a real profit. McDonald's will never be able to sell a cheeseburger for $10, but plenty of mid-to-upscale restaurants sell burgers for $10 (or more). Nobody walks into Applebee's or TGI Friday's and says "Hmmm, I'm not gonna pay over $4 for this cheeseburger when I can get one at McDonald's." Nobody does that.
> 
> So Indies need to rebrand. And that means maybe abandoning the book promo sites that won't adapt and finding other ways to reach their readers.


Very much this. Remember when (in America at least) coffee was about the cheapest thing you could buy and came with unlimited free refills? Then Starbucks started up and older people sneered, "Who's going to pay $4 for a coffee? They're nuts!"

I'm an example of the 'slower, more expensive read' demographic. Even for Regency Romance (which I _will_ actually read at the rate of two or three a week at times) I've gotten so I won't look at free unless it's an author I already know and I'm getting more and more reluctant to buy at 99 cents. I still balk at paying as much or more for an ebook as I would for a paperback, but $4.99- $6.99 for my favorite authors? Automatic buy. I'll probably hold off at the $9 or $10 range unless it's something I'm desperate to read but if I'm really starting to feel the budget pinch I'll go back to library e-reads rather than turn to the glut of free books by indies. I've just been burned too many times.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I don't know. I still find my new authors for free or in KU. I won't pay more than $4.99 for an ebook except for three authors (all trade pubbed) who Ive been reading a very long time and I only buy physical books when they're used (for around the pool) or one author I still collect. I've dropped all other authors who charge more and now only try new ones if they're in KU or have a free first in series ... and I basically have unlimited reading money. I have no problem paying for books (but I honestly won't go higher than $4.99) as long as I read and like the first. I'm not someone who ever looks at the "Look Inside" so I start at least twenty books in KU a week and only finish 3-5 of them. It's not that they're bad as much as they're not for me. I like snark.
As for promotion sites, I don't mess around with them for the most part. I still submit to BookBub every week (they hate me because I'm in KU and never take me but I still do it on the off chance I might one day get lucky) but rest all my marketing efforts on a handful of AMS ads and new releases. It's a bummer about the other sites, but it is what it is.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Caimh said:


> Sorry, I'm confused with the 'counting' thing - are you suggesting that Amazon are not crediting someone with all their sales or are you just referring to page reads?


That's my question too. Sounds to me that OP meant Amazon is not counting saled and so we're not getting paid for books sold That makes no sense. Scammers can munipulate page reads, but Amazon has internal audits and has to account for every transaction.

I don't think free and 99c is the "only" way to go for indies. I've tested pricing and making my price 99c vs. 2.99 or 3.99 had no impact whatsoever. And not being wide, I am not doing free anymore for reasons I already said above and all the problems with free that had been discussed here lately. Most importantly I'm not going to do free to f'k up the Also-Bots and Zon algo because that makes things easier for the promoter. Tell me how all these problems suppor the argument that free is the way to go? Let alone the "only" way.


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## Scrapper78 (Jun 11, 2017)

I, too, am playing a very long game.

I write longer works, and I can't stomach letting a 102k word book go for .99. It's worth more, so I charge more. This means I suffer in the low-content/low-bidder contest of Amazon algorithm games, but for now I'm OK with that. This does mean that promotional sites and exposure outside of the Amazon ecosystem is a constant and frustrating struggle, though.

My philosophy is "Ignore rank, get customers." I don't need to be on Amazon's front page. If I get 10,000 dedicated fans, and I release a book every 4 months at 4.99, then I am looking at almost 100k in annual royalties.

[3.50/book X 10000 sales x 3/yr = 105k]

That's my five year plan. To add 2k fans per year to my fold. I need a promo site that gets my work into the hands of people who want to be my fans, not people who just want to stuff their library with cheap books. So many of the promo sites are of the former stripe, and I need the latter.


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## 91831 (Jul 18, 2016)

Scrapper78 said:


> That's my five year plan. To add 2k fans per year to my fold. I need a promo site that gets my work into the hands of people who want to be my fans, not people who just want to stuff their library with cheap books. So many of the promo sites are of the former stripe, and I need the latter.


Mine too - although I'm trying to get the first 2k!
I'd like promoters to find a way to offer them ME and my stories, not my price point.
Personally, I think we need to start promoting each other to our readers. Reading books, finding ones we love and saying, hey go and read this, I'm going to try and grab the author for an interview.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

The thing with free is that you can build an audience with free and then charge more later. It's not like once you price free or 99-cents you will never get customers willing to pay full-price.

ETA: BookBub and Amazon do advertise full-price books when they are new releases to your specific fanbase.


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## Nathan Elliott (May 29, 2012)

AlexaKang said:


> That's my question too. Sounds to me that OP meant Amazon is not counting saled and so we're not getting paid for books sold That makes no sense. Scammers can munipulate page reads, but Amazon has internal audits and has to account for every transaction.
> 
> I don't think free and 99c is the "only" way to go for indies. I've tested pricing and making my price 99c vs. 2.99 or 3.99 had no impact whatsoever. And not being wide, I am not doing free anymore for reasons I already said above and all the problems with free that had been discussed here lately. Most importantly I'm not going to do free to f'k up the Also-Bots and Zon algo because that makes things easier for the promoter. Tell me how all these problems suppor the argument that free is the way to go? Let alone the "only" way.


I may be misunderstanding, but I think "counting" may refer to whether Amazon's various algorithms count a sale/dowbnload as a full sale/download or somehow weight it as less than a full one. There is some algorithmic bias against books featured on big promo sites, apparently in an effort to stop BookBub et al from totally dominating the discovery pathways on Amazon. I believe ireaderreview is talking about a change in the way promo numbers have stopped "counting" fully now that their list has hit a certain size. Maybe someone who pays closer attention can correct me, but as an example, I believe that although major promo sites' results count toward sales rank, they don't count for popularity lists.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Scrapper78 said:


> That's my five year plan. To add 2k fans per year to my fold. I need a promo site that gets my work into the hands of people who want to be my fans, not people who just want to stuff their library with cheap books. So many of the promo sites are of the former stripe, and I need the latter.


That sounds good, but accumulating rabid fans is extremely challenging. I've sold over a million books, have been collecting names on a mailing list since 2011, and still can't manage a strong launch from my list alone. My readers seem to like me well enough, but they're just not that hardcore. Some people can manage, but I never have.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Nathan Elliott said:


> I may be misunderstanding, but I think "counting" may refer to whether Amazon's various algorithms count a sale/dowbnload as a full sale/download or somehow weight it as less than a full one. There is some algorithmic bias against books featured on big promo sites, apparently in an effort to stop BookBub et al from totally dominating the discovery pathways on Amazon. I believe ireaderreview is talking about a change in the way promo numbers have stopped "counting" fully now that their list has hit a certain size. Maybe someone who pays closer attention can correct me, but as an example, I believe that although major promo sites' results count toward sales rank, they don't count for popularity lists.


If that's what ireadreview means, then for me it's just muddying the issue. Let's talking strictly about direct sales results from the promo sites. For a 99c sale, I get 35% royalities unless I run a KU countdown. I'm willing to give the promo site a shot if the fee is negligible. But when they charge $50 and upward (and I'm not talking about ireadreview here, there are a number of promoters out there who charge that and more), I need to see direct sales that would at least break even, REGARDLESS of Amazon counting or whatever. If they charge $50 and they move fewer than say, 50 books from that promo itself, it's a huge loss for the author.

Amazon has its issues. But blaming Amazon is not changing the problem of promo sites not doing more to adapt to the market place or listening to us authors when we are practically telling them what we want. Promo sites need to be accountable for their own results aside from whatever Amazon problems.

I want to clarify also that I do use a few promo sites that are still bringing good results for me and my genre for 99c sales. My criticisms are generally speaking as to the market. I see newcomers introducing themselves with much fanfare only to disappear within months. I see promoters coming in late trying to catch the tail of "give free book for list building". I see the continual push for us to do free when free comes with a landmine of unwanted side effects. I see no innovation of new ways to sell to readers.

Several others mentioned above that they want promo sites to sell the book, not the book's price point. Why can't something be done to support that? There's nothing to stop a promoter from doing that on top of its usual free & 99c newsletter. They can try to offer something beyond, not instead of. But who's trying?

How about instead of featured book of the day based solely on charging the author more, offer an alternative way to feature with specific themes, or something that would get readers' attention during a particular week or month? Give readers something they really want for features, rather than shoving something in their faces that they might not want. Do something more than a bigger thumbnail. Combine the feature with an author interview or a book trailer. Make some news or do something interesting. Then charge the appropriate fee for the service but also test and see what works to make sure they get results.

Do the work, or we'll do it ourselves and keep our $$ in our pockets.


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## GoneToWriterSanctum (Sep 13, 2014)

I don't consent


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I think everyone who thinks it's somehow easy to create a promotional service that caters to full-priced books should totally do it. If it's so easy, you guys should have an easy time of it and be raking in the dough in six weeks flat.
Here's the thing, though: It's not easy. It's exceedingly difficult.
Readers sign up for email services because they want deals. That's why they do it. Period. If they want to spend full price, then they follow individual authors. Your mailing list is essentially your full-priced promotional service, but to use it you need to draw in fans and most of the time, the easiest way to do that is to run deals on your book. If you do your job as an author correctly, you should be able to turn those free giveaway fans into paying fans.
Now, there are certainly some readers out there who only care about freebies. They're never going to buy books, though, so why worry about them? You want the readers who are enticed by freebies but willing to pay for a full-priced book after getting a sample for free. There's a reason why that model works year in and year out.


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## Scrapper78 (Jun 11, 2017)

MonkeyScribe said:


> That sounds good, but accumulating rabid fans is extremely challenging. I've sold over a million books, have been collecting names on a mailing list since 2011, and still can't manage a strong launch from my list alone. My readers seem to like me well enough, but they're just not that hardcore. Some people can manage, but I never have.


All plans _sound_ good. That's what makes them 'plans.' 

My point was that I am trying to figure out how to be successful outside of (or in spite of) the 'Zon's monopolistic designs. If we concede that my product is of adequate quality (By the icy countenance of Ymir, let us please concede that!) doing this means achieving visibility in other ways. Hence the discussion of promotional opportunities. The current crop of promotional sites seam to be skewing heavily into "cheap/free stuff" and away from anything mid-price-range.

This is as much a factor of what the reading public wants (product for low price) but I ain't griping about that. I'm just trying to work around it is all.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think everyone who thinks it's somehow easy to create a promotional service that caters to full-priced books should totally do. If it's so easy, you guys should have an easy time of it and be raking in the dough in six weeks flat.
> Here's the thing, though: It's not easy. It's exceedingly difficult.
> Readers sign up for email services because they want deals. That's why they do it. Period. If they want to spend full price, then they follow individual authors. Your mailing list is essentially your full-priced promotional service, but to use it you need to draw in fans and most of the time, the easiest way to do that is to run deals on your book. If you do your job as an author correctly, you should be able to turn those free giveaway fans into paying fans.
> Now, there are certainly some readers out there who only care about freebies. They're never going to buy books, though, so why worry about them? You want the readers who are enticed by freebies but willing to pay for a full-priced book after getting a sample for free. There's a reason why that model works year in and year out.


Preach it.


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## GeneDoucette (Oct 14, 2014)

there seem to be two things going on in this thread at the same time. I absolutely agree with earlier opinions that it's worth exploring raising your everyday prices. I've been priced at $5.99 for over a year, and before that it was $4.99. I've never been at $0.99 with any of my novels except on promo days.

Which is the other thing going on in this thread. I wouldn't hold a price at $0.99 for any of my (admittedly small) list of titles, but it has value as a sale price. One of the reasons it has value at that price is _because_ it's abnormal.

Promo sites aren't losing their effectiveness because we should all stop pricing our books at $0.99 anyways. Daily price points and sale prices are different beasts.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

GeneDoucette said:


> I absolutely agree with earlier opinions that it's worth exploring raising your everyday prices. I've been priced at $5.99 for over a year, and before that it was $4.99. I've never been at $0.99 with any of my novels except on promo days.


This is not addressed to you personally, just a cautionary note for people reading this.

I see people throw out statements all the time like, "I raised my prices from 2.99 to 4.99 and have seen no drop in sales," without giving actual sales numbers. In some cases, when pressed, the book in question is selling 1-3 books a month. At that rate, there's nothing useful to take from the experiment. If someone had 1,200 sales per month before the change and ended up with 1,170 after, then yes, that's meaningful data to report.

It goes the other way, too. "I dropped my price to 99 cents and really increased my sales of book #1," is not particularly helpful when trying to make decisions for yourself.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think everyone who thinks it's somehow easy to create a promotional service that caters to full-priced books should totally do. If it's so easy, you guys should have an easy time of it and be raking in the dough in six weeks flat.
> Here's the thing, though: It's not easy. It's exceedingly difficult.
> Readers sign up for email services because they want deals. That's why they do it. Period. If they want to spend full price, then they follow individual authors. Your mailing list is essentially your full-priced promotional service, but to use it you need to draw in fans and most of the time, the easiest way to do that is to run deals on your book. If you do your job as an author correctly, you should be able to turn those free giveaway fans into paying fans.
> Now, there are certainly some readers out there who only care about freebies. They're never going to buy books, though, so why worry about them? You want the readers who are enticed by freebies but willing to pay for a full-priced book after getting a sample for free. There's a reason why that model works year in and year out.


Yes.
Very much yes.

It's a tough balance. I'm definitely seeing that there is a need to find ways to branch out and attract new readers, and that things that worked six months ago have been beaten like a dead horse. I'm one of the ones that stopped promoting full price books that are not in KU; readers simply were not buying them. Readers joined the list to get free, free w/ KU, or discounted books. Those readers are a particular buying demographic, and they want what they want.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> In fact, there is an entire demographic out there that won't even TOUCH a 99 cent or free book because they don't shop on price, but their time. This demographic tends to read fewer books a month (one or two a month, compared to the one to three a week of some demographics). They tend to read slower and deeper, which means they shop for books based on the value of their time. If they plan on spending a week with a book, they aren't "taking a chance" just because it is cheap. We're talking about a week of their life and their limited recreational reading time. They are willing to spend more on a book because they aren't just consuming it like popcorn. They plan on savoring it.





Amanda M. Lee said:


> I don't know. I still find my new authors for free or in KU. I won't pay more than $4.99 for an ebook except for three authors (all trade pubbed) who Ive been reading a very long time and I only buy physical books when they're used (for around the pool) or one author I still collect. I've dropped all other authors who charge more and now only try new ones if they're in KU or have a free first in series ... and I basically have unlimited reading money. I have no problem paying for books (but I honestly won't go higher than $4.99) as long as I read and like the first. I'm not someone who ever looks at the "Look Inside" so I start at least twenty books in KU a week and only finish 3-5 of them. It's not that they're bad as much as they're not for me. I like snark.
> As for promotion sites, I don't mess around with them for the most part. I still submit to BookBub every week (they hate me because I'm in KU and never take me but I still do it on the off chance I might one day get lucky) but rest all my marketing efforts on a handful of AMS ads and new releases. It's a bummer about the other sites, but it is what it is.


I think both (and more) types of readers are out there: those who want books under $4.99 and those who won't look at lower priced books. I think there are also plenty who only download free books, and others who will not go over $0.99. I'm seeing readers who will buy a $5.99 book that is in KU, who won't touch a $0.99 book in KU. Readers _loved_ it & responded when I sent them an email & told them they can subscribe to KU & read my next TWO new releases ($5.99 each) for the $9.99 KU monthly subscription, plus they can read tons more books by signing up for KU. Some readers refuse to touch KU or Amazon. For whatever reason, there are a lot of different buying habit styles out there. I'm one of the one who built my fanbase with a permafree 1st in series, promoted that free book and just kept adding to the series. Things are always evolving and changing, though, and I try to keep ahead of the game. I've recently bumped up prices and am selling new books at higher price points than I ever imagined, and I'm very happy with how it's going. With the Pronoun crazy town thing going on, my flagship permafree is suddenly back to paid, and I think I'm gonna try KU with it.

<shrug> I think we just need to re-evaluate, adjust our sails, and keep on going.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

EB said:


> <shrug> I think we just need to re-evaluate, adjust our sails, and keep on going.


Yes.


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## ET (Oct 23, 2014)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think everyone who thinks it's somehow easy to create a promotional service that caters to full-priced books should totally do. If it's so easy, you guys should have an easy time of it and be raking in the dough in six weeks flat.
> Here's the thing, though: It's not easy. It's exceedingly difficult.
> Readers sign up for email services because they want deals. That's why they do it. Period. If they want to spend full price, then they follow individual authors. Your mailing list is essentially your full-priced promotional service, but to use it you need to draw in fans and most of the time, the easiest way to do that is to run deals on your book. If you do your job as an author correctly, you should be able to turn those free giveaway fans into paying fans.
> Now, there are certainly some readers out there who only care about freebies. They're never going to buy books, though, so why worry about them? You want the readers who are enticed by freebies but willing to pay for a full-priced book after getting a sample for free. There's a reason why that model works year in and year out.


Exactly. This is the only reason people sign up for email services. Otherwise, why not simply browse on Amazon or Goodreads.

As to the decline of the current promo site model: In the past there was a widespread belief that giving lots of books away was a certain way to paying readers. While this is still a strategy, authors seem to be doing so more reluctantly. A number of authors in this thread have expressed an unwillingness to engage in deep discounting or giveaways. This is a big change since say, 2011.

Why?

1.) KU allows readers to "sample" your work, under a model that is free for a certain subset of readers, but still provides payment to authors.

2.) The market saturation has (arguably) transformed the free list into a slush pile. Many of the free list subscribers seem to hoard free books, while reading only a small number of them.

3.) The permafree strategy works best with series. Not everyone writes in series.

4.) There is a growing perception that many of the free list subscribers are difficult to convert to book buyers. These are readers who won't even pay $9.99/month for Kindle Unlimited, after all. Their only real advantage, then, is in acquiring reviews for a brand-new work. And you can get that from KU readers.

5.) Many writers have expressed concerned about setting the long-term expectation of free/$0.99 ebooks.

6.) To succeed in the current market, you have to buy advertising. This makes the prospect of giving books away even less appealing.


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think everyone who thinks it's somehow easy to create a promotional service that caters to full-priced books should totally do. If it's so easy, you guys should have an easy time of it and be raking in the dough in six weeks flat.
> Here's the thing, though: It's not easy. It's exceedingly difficult.
> Readers sign up for email services because they want deals. That's why they do it. Period. If they want to spend full price, then they follow individual authors. Your mailing list is essentially your full-priced promotional service, but to use it you need to draw in fans and most of the time, the easiest way to do that is to run deals on your book. If you do your job as an author correctly, you should be able to turn those free giveaway fans into paying fans.
> Now, there are certainly some readers out there who only care about freebies. They're never going to buy books, though, so why worry about them? You want the readers who are enticed by freebies but willing to pay for a full-priced book after getting a sample for free. There's a reason why that model works year in and year out.


Anybody who doubts this should compare running different priced promos for the same book on the same promo service. Even with new releases, it's an uphill battle to get any kind of ROI on books priced over $0.99. I'm not saying there aren't people who will buy full-price books. If there weren't, none of us would price over $0.99 ever. But the reason I open a "deal" newsletter is to browse "deals." It takes a killer cover and hook to get me to look at anything priced higher than $0.99 in one of those letters from an author I don't know. If I'm not interested in the bargain, I go browse genres and also-bots at my favorite retailer.


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## Rose Andrews (Jun 1, 2017)

T. M. Bilderback said:


> I quietly raised my prices just over a month ago. I've never been caught up in Amazon's algos or placement or ranking. Not an issue with me. My issue is profit for the hard work I do in writing stories. Sure, I've taken a hit on Amazon, but..._I don't care_. Other ebook retailers more than make up for Amazon.
> 
> I won't "race to the basement" any more.


Can I say something about this? After pulling out of KU, I've stopped selling on Amazon entirely except for a free run. But I'm selling a handful of books wide daily now, which is more than I ever sold in KU. I should probably market but I just want to write more books. Im below prawn status and that's just the way it is right now.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

A couple of years ago, I was screaming, RAISE YOUR PRICES, RAISE YOUR PRICES. 

Here we are still saying and listening to the same set of pros and cons. I said then that readers were starting to view $.99 books as poor quality and I still think that's true. I play with prices from time to time just to see. At the beginning of November, I sold 2 copies of Seattle Quake 9.2 at $2.99, raised it to $9.98 and sold 5 more at the higher price - so far this month. Of course, it has close to 500 reviews, so that makes it more tempting, probably. But does the higher price say "worth the money?" I wonder. 
Marti


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## Ana Spoke (May 10, 2016)

My theory is that promo sites were a fad, just like everything else in pop culture. When they were new, people were excited, signed up, opened emails and grabbed every book on offer. They eventually got tired of getting emails. I am myself in the process of unsubscribing from literally every email list in an attempt to declog my inbox.

I was mad about promo sites about a year ago and have tried almost every single one on offer, good ones multiple times. Inevitably, RoI has fallen off the cliff lately on all of them. I've only had one Bookbub, so can't comment on that.

The only marketing I am doing now is "always on" amazon pay per click. Partially also because I can't deal with multiple submissions, paying via paypal, and keeping records of who got paid for what and what results they have delivered.


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## Guest (Nov 8, 2017)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> I think everyone who thinks it's somehow easy to create a promotional service that caters to full-priced books should totally do it.


But that goes back to my original point about promotion. ANY SITE that exists only to promote is going to fail eventually. An outlet needs its own content to attract visitors, and the advertising pays for the site. The NYT isn't 100% ads. The ads pay for the reporting. Nobody would tune in to NBC if it was just ads 24/7. Nobody listens to the radio to hear nothing but commercials. Heck, even the HSN, which IS about selling 24/7, actually presents its sales items as interesting content.

The entire idea of a promo site that only exists to advertise books to general consumers is, frankly, absurd on its face. It's unnatural to the ecosystem. The only reason they originally worked was the novelty of 99 cents and free books. Well, that novelty has worn off.

I've never said any of this was easy. I'm pretty sure I have been saying from the beginning it is time-consuming and hard. But the point is, IF someone is going to collect money for offering a service, the ultimate responsiblity is on the service provider to design their service in a way that is sustainable. It isn't my responsibility as a consumer to support someone who is looking for the easy way to make money off of me when that process is not in my best interest.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Ana Spoke said:


> My theory is that promo sites were a fad, just like everything else in pop culture. When they were new, people were excited, signed up, opened emails and grabbed every book on offer. They eventually got tired of getting emails. I am myself in the process of unsubscribing from literally every email list in an attempt to declog my inbox.
> 
> I was mad about promo sites about a year ago and have tried almost every single one on offer, good ones multiple times. Inevitably, RoI has fallen off the cliff lately on all of them. I've only had one Bookbub, so can't comment on that.


I buy that.



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> But that goes back to my original point about promotion. ANY SITE that exists only to promote is going to fail eventually. An outlet needs its own content to attract visitors, and the advertising pays for the site. The NYT isn't 100% ads. The ads pay for the reporting. Nobody would tune in to NBC if it was just ads 24/7. Nobody listens to the radio to hear nothing but commercials. Heck, even the HSN, which IS about selling 24/7, actually presents its sales items as interesting content.
> 
> The entire idea of a promo site that only exists to advertise books to general consumers is, frankly, absurd on its face. It's unnatural to the ecosystem. The only reason they originally worked was the novelty of 99 cents and free books. Well, that novelty has worn off.
> 
> I've never said any of this was easy. I'm pretty sure I have been saying from the beginning it is time-consuming and hard. But the point is, IF someone is going to collect money for offering a service, the ultimate responsiblity is on the service provider to design their service in a way that is sustainable. It isn't my responsibility as a consumer to support someone who is looking for the easy way to make money off of me when that process is not in my best interest.


Have to agree with Julie here. I don't think any one had said at all this is easy. But some of us did say lazy. If promoters want our business, especially the ones charging $50-$200, why shouldn't they work harder and do more hard work to get us the ROI for the high fee they ask for? For sites that charge lower fees, I'm more likely to use them for exposure and absorb the losses, but I don't know why it would hurt them to try to innovate and expand beyond a business model that appears to be getting stale. If they break out, they'll be the one to win.

Of course, it's their choice to keep doing business as usual. Then I guess that's where they and I part way, because ultimately, I as an author shouldn't be expected to keep losing $$ and subsidizing them because it is "hard" for them. Hey, it's hard for authors too. Who's throwing charity at us?

Another thing, the free and 99c model is perfectly fine if they can raise the ROI instead of we heading in now expecting loss. That model can be improved. Rather than weekly newsletter of random free and 99c, I guarantee that if the promoters can pay attention to recent pop culture trends and events, and run special promos for books that can ride the wave of those trends, they can bump up the sales. For example, if there's a major sport event, why not run a special free Sports Romance NL edition? Star Wars movie coming out? Run a special 99c Sci-fi edition. Build up some hype and tweet/FB/Instagram the hell out of it. It's not that hard. And it works. I know because I actually did one this summer. If I want to start a business as a promoter I'd do it myself. It's not even hard. It was just time consuming and my interest is in writing, not running a promo business.

But while I'm at it, I do want to credit some promoters for what they do do right:
(Caveat these are just ones I have personally used. I'm not expressing opinions in any way on others that I had or had not used.)

ENT - you guys continue to deliver. I don't know how you do it, but keep up the good work.

Booksends - your fees are on the higher end but for my genre (historical fiction) you guys deliver. Thanks for not treating us like poor step children.

EB - LOVE it that you're an author supporting other authors. Maybe it's because you're an author yourself but I always felt that you "get it".

FussyLibrarian - your segment targeting must be working. Your fees are reasonable and your returns are steady.

MyBookCave - I see that you guys are the only newcomer that survived to the next round. I do like that you guys keep us informed and updated on what you guys are up to. I think promoters don't communicate with us often enough.

EbookHounds - offers thoughtful author interviews. It's a very nice gesture to give authors some spotlight and not solely for money either.



JRTomlin said:


> Where I have a problem with this is that I doubt most people think of indie as a brand. At least I don't brand myself as an 'indie' but as a historical fiction author. Now that may offend some of my fellow indies, but it's just how I think of it. I'm not saying I hide it, just that I don't consider it a selling point or a brand.


I don't think we're talking about branding as indies, but branding of the author. I've seen some indie authors who are fantastic in how they branded themselves.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2017)

AlexaKang said:


> I don't think we're talking about branding as indies, but branding of the author. I've seen some indie authors who are fantastic in how they branded themselves.


Yes, I didn't mean indies as an umbrella brand. I meant indies as individuals who are self publishing.


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## Carolee101 (Aug 17, 2016)

Wow. This advice is incredible. I have been reinventing myself and the way I publish. I agree with this wholeheartedly.


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## Melody Simmons (Jul 8, 2012)

Personally I no longer have time to check all the emails that flooded my inbox and I have unsubscribed from all three the promo sites I used to be subscribed to.

At one time I was excited about all the free books being offered and used to download lots - but my Kindle is full, I hardly ever read most of them, lots of them were pure rubbish anyway and now I am far more selective about the books I download. My reading time is limited and valuable, too valuable to fill with stuff that I don't 100% love. I look for specific types of books and have specific authors I follow on Amazon.  I also look at the Also-Boughts on Amazon a lot to gain leads to new books.

I suspect many others have become more selective about their reading choices as their ereaders have filled up over the years.


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