# >What I've Discovered About Promos w/o Big 6 - List Of Sites That Did Not Work



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

THIS IS JUST MY EXPERIENCE AND PERSONAL OPINIONS

The big 6 to me are:

Book Bub
ENT
Robin Reads
Booksends (only worth it if category pricing is low)
OHFB
*Bargain/Free Booksy (not as good as the other 5, but decent)

Without at least one of these; sales will be sparse. By sparse I mean, under 10 sales a day.

I've played around with promoting my Historical Thriller, Non-Fiction How-to Book and Erom books. And I can say that there are MANY sites to promote your free or discounted books; but most don't deliver.

I read posts and follow other kboarder promos. From that I decide to add new sites to try and replicate their success. However, very few can actually determine if the sales came from those sites or not. Other factors weigh in heavily that may be out of the writer's control.

Now the sites I'm listing below may actually deliver for FREE books; but not for discounted.

*Hotzippy - paid $15 with zero results
*Pretty-Hot - no sales and lately, they are not featuring free submitted books. You need to pay to see it. I've gotten their newsletter with 1 book listed when I had submitted mine for promotion that day
*Awesome Gang - see Pretty Hot Comments
*Discount Bookman - see Pretty Hot Comments
*eBookLister - never hear back and no listing although their email says I was "pre-approved"
*Book Praiser - As far as I can tell, your listing goes nowhere
*GenrePulse - helped with 600 downloads of FREE book, but zero downloads of 0.99 book
*ChoosyBookworm - I like the idea behind this site, but no results for me
*FireandIceBookTours - saw it listed here and paid $5 for zero results
*BookDealsDaily - hot or miss if they will add your listing - and sparse results if they do
*JustFreeAndBargainBooks - zero results
*Bknights - I hesitate to add them to the list as they are a great resource... for some. But they have become so big that if your listing falls in the middle or end of the website, you get just a couple of sales. But the good thing about these folks is, that they automatically refund you if no one clicked on the link. I don't know of anyone else who has that type of policy. So if you land at the top of the website - you will see results. But with a listing of 100 books a day; if you're past 20, good luck.
*Smartb*tchesTrashyBooks - rarely post submitted books - choose their own
*NaughtyList - Love their website and will still use; but I got less than 5 sales. Better to use for freebies
*BettyBookFreak - I love their site and their newsletter is professional. But again, maybe 1-2 sales from listing
*Shameless - helped with about 30 downloads of free book, but zero downloads for 0.99 promo
*Goodreads Ads - waste of money; spent $30 for a few clicks and zero sales for both a romance book and historical thriller
*Bestebookreaderlovers - promoted my 0.99 erom with only a handful of downloads (may be better for free books)
*AgentsofRomance - submitted and never heard back
*PeopleReads - submitted for free listing several times and never heard back
*Booktastic - used for $3.99 promo for new release and not one download - may be different if book is free or 0.99
*BestEbooksFree - helped with free promo, but not 0.99 book
*FB Ads - I always get excited when I read about someone on kboards doing well after following Marks videos. There is no doubt that this formula works for some; but I am beginning to believe that those are few and far between. I have played around with so many ads; changing image, text, emulating ads that do well, changing audience, tweak, tweak, tweak. But all I have succeeded in doing is is giving Zuckerberg a piece of my hard-earned cash with nothing in return. I follow the videos, do exactly as mapped out with some clicks and no sales. I have 4 ads running now. Will probably pause tomorrow if I don't see one sale. That would be day 3.


Now I've tried all of the above; so this is from personal experience.

So what is my strategy now?

I'm looking to promote THE UNFINISHED for a countdown deal next week. I am first just submitting to most of the top sites. Since it is a novella, it may be hard to get promoted. But I'll simply cancel my promo if I can't lock down one of the top 6. Otherwise it would be a waste of time and precious energy.

*BookBarbarian I may consider for a promo as well. But it looks like their site went up from $8 to $15 for a 0.99 book and only averages 30 purchases. 

*Fussy Librarian. I still believe in them and will use again; but results were sparse the first time around.

I have yet to try ManyBooks,FreeKindleBooksandTips and others. But I've at least honed in on what are time and money wasters and what actually works.

What has been your experience?


----------



## JeanneM (Mar 21, 2011)

Thank you for taking the time to put this list together. I'm very seldom able to do any promotion because of my financial situation, so knowing what doesn't work, is really helpful.

Your book sounds intriguing, so I borrowed it. What a unique storyline. Whatever you decide to do next, I wish you many sales.


----------



## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> *Pretty-Hot - no sales and lately, they are not featuring free submitted books. You need to pay to see it. I've gotten their newsletter with 1 book listed when I had submitted mine for promotion that day
> *Awesome Gang - see Pretty Hot Comments
> *Discount Bookman - see Pretty Hot Comments


I noticed that about Pretty-Hot, too; submitted a book twice for free, got the confirmation email, but no listing either try.

I've also used BookScream (the $3 paid tip) and gotten zero results on 99c erotica. Might work better in other genres.


----------



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

Thanks so much. I learn so much from this group and want to contribute as well.



JeanneM said:


> Thank you for taking the time to put this list together. I'm very seldom able to do any promotion because of my financial situation, so knowing what doesn't work, is really helpful.
> 
> Your book sounds intriguing, so I borrowed it. What a unique storyline. Whatever you decide to do next, I wish you many sales.


----------



## 77071 (May 15, 2014)

Do you think it could be genre dependent on some of the fails?  Ie, they prefer romance?


----------



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

I've tried Bookscream free version and it helped with a few downloads for free books but has not helped for 0.99 promos. I am actually trying one more time for my promo next week; using the $3 version for 0.99 countdown. We'll see what happens.



Dragovian said:


> I noticed that about Pretty-Hot, too; submitted a book twice for free, got the confirmation email, but no listing either try.
> 
> I've also used BookScream (the $3 paid tip) and gotten zero results on 99c erotica. Might work better in other genres.


----------



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

Maybe. But I did target romance sites for the eroms that I wanted to promote. The results are listed above.



HSh said:


> Do you think it could be genre dependent on some of the fails? Ie, they prefer romance?


----------



## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> I've tried Bookscream free version and it helped with a few downloads for free books but has not helped for 0.99 promos. I am actually trying one more time for my promo next week; using the $3 version for 0.99 countdown. We'll see what happens.


Fingers crossed that you at least get your $3 back.


----------



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

If not, that's okay. It's $3. I won't be throwing any more $ away from other sites that don't deliver.



Dragovian said:


> Fingers crossed that you at least get your $3 back.


----------



## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> If not, that's okay. It's $3. I won't be throwing any more $ away from other sites that don't deliver.


Yeah, but expecting to earn back $3 doesn't seem like an outrageous goal, either. That's a measly 9 downloads.


----------



## dianapersaud (Sep 26, 2013)

I've used The Naughty List both for free and $0.99 promos and both were successful.

I also had horrible results with Pretty Hot. 

Did you take into consideration sell through to other books or were you just looking at downloads of freebies?


----------



## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Free Kindle Books and Tips works well for me, although the results seem to have dipped slightly in the past year. Could just be oversaturation with my titles. I like what Fussy Librarian is doing; you're not going to sell tons of copies, but I think they could be pretty good in a year, so I'm trying to support them. Prices are reasonable.

I generally agree with your assessment (BookSends not withstanding; see below). I'm going to be honest to everyone (mostly newbies, particularly those who are thinking about outlaying tons of cash on promos): I see massive promo stacks from authors, and lots of cheering about how things are going to take off. Even with a BookBub, you rarely "stick" for all that long.

I support the initiative and the hope, but having been that guy a minimum of 15+ times now, spending hundreds of dollars for a meager bump in sales/rank that dissipates a day later, I can confidently say that most of these sites, other than a couple, are a waste of your time and money to submit to. People have different goals and versions of success, and that's fine. 

But it also clouds the truth about how effective many of these sites actually are. And, from using many of them in isolation on variety of books, I can confidently say: if your goal is ROI, most of them are not a good call. 

There are lots of murmurs about "visibility" and "getting eyeballs on the book" and so forth. While I know it's a massive pain to get any sort of traction when you're new, the best thing I can tell you is: if you CANNOT MEASURE what you received with ACTUAL NUMBERS (note - Amazon peak ranks, while cool, are pretty much meaningless), then it was waste of money.

Honestly, it's more of a time sink - you gotta submit, then you gotta plan all your days, make sure everything is paid etc. To build a 20 site promo stack probably takes around 6 - 8 hours, when it's all said and done. Not all at once; the time just disappears in little 7 minute or 12 minute chunks.

After spending around $6000 on various promo sites across multiple authors and genres, the majority of them DO NOT result in anywhere near a positive ROI. This is not unusual in advertising; in fact, it's par for the course. These sites do as they say, and post the books - and I believe they have the subs/likes etc. that they claim. However, their PRICES make it almost impossible to generate anywhere the ROI required to hit the black. 

Unless you're doing a launch (trying to hit the HNR lists) or trying to generate reviews so you can qualify for BookBub, I wouldn't bother with most of them. Your money is better spent learning how to do FB ads, on covers, editing or pretty much anywhere else. Basically, I would keep it at these for a discount book:

1) BookBub
2) ENT
3) FKBT
4) Bargain Booksy, depending on the price in your genre
5) Robin Reads
6) smaller sites - Fussy Librarian, Fiverr

I like BargainBooksy/FreeBooksy because they're easy to schedule. This cuts down on the time spent organizing. This is worth a few extra bucks, in my opinion.

I cannot directly comment on OHFB, the Midlist, My Romance Reads, I Love Vampire Novels, Book Barbarian or BooksButterfly. Genre authors can chime in about some of them.

BookSends' results would be fine if their prices were lower. I just paid $260 for a free book of the day post + POI + eReaderIQ and got 1300 free downloads. Even if sell through to book 2 is 5% - historically, it's about 1.5% with these promos - I would still lose ~$100. This has been my general experience in terms of results. They are professional, respond quickly and list the books in a well formatted newsletter. But unless you really need the boost in rank, or your genre is cheap, I would probably pass. 

If your book has 50 plus reviews and the cover is decent, Fiverr is honestly THE BEST place to advertise for free books besides BookBub in terms of ROI.  Pay someone to submit the book to all those tiny sites. $5 netted me 600 downloads on a title that has been advertised many times. 

I would throw in the KND Free Highlighter for free books ($30). It nets about 500 - 1000 downloads and requires no reviews. If you stack this with Fiverr and FreeBooksy, you can hit the top 100 and get about 2k - 3k for about $100, which is reasonable. I just did this with a new release that had zero reviews and zero platform. 2100 copies in 2 days. 

One thing about freeloads - they aren't all equal. Sell-through from some ads is much better than on others. I can't point you to which sites are best for this, as my data isn't that granular (sadly). I just know from looking at the tails. Something to keep in mind.

One thing I'll point out about FB ads - three days isn't going to be enough. Keep your ad spend low ($5 or less per day) and keep tweaking until you hit. Split-testing is the name of the game. You might have 45 ads that lose money, four that do okay, and one that's gold. 

Nick


----------



## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Thanks for sharing. Love these types of threads. I have done free ads with ENT and Robin Reads and usually have like 3000 downloads, especially with ENT. If I do an ENT with a Bknights, I usually have 5-6K (over two or three free days). Had 7K when I also added Readcheaply. They are the best. I write women sleuth novels with a touch of romance.


----------



## Jerri Kay Lincoln (Jun 18, 2011)

THANK YOU for this!  In the past couple months I have spent more than $100 on ads that did nothing!  I was lucky to sell two books.  The best was bknights, where I sold six, but they still refunded (I was about halfway down the very long list of books).  But I would also like to do a shout out for BooksButterfly . . . I believe they also do a refund if your books don't perform . . . but they did so well for me that I didn't need a refund.


----------



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

I've never tried BooksButterfly because of the cost. (



Jerri Kay Lincoln said:


> THANK YOU for this! In the past couple months I have spent more than $100 on ads that did nothing! I was lucky to sell two books. The best was bknights, where I sold six, but they still refunded (I was about halfway down the very long list of books). But I would also like to do a shout out for BooksButterfly . . . I believe they also do a refund if your books don't perform . . . but they did so well for me that I didn't need a refund.


----------



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

Yes, I did take into consideration sell-throughs, which weren't worth mentioning as well. But glad to hear about your success with The Naughty List.



dianapersaud said:


> I've used The Naughty List both for free and $0.99 promos and both were successful.
> 
> I also had horrible results with Pretty Hot.
> 
> Did you take into consideration sell through to other books or were you just looking at downloads of freebies?


----------



## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Recently did a promo with ILVN that was a total waste of money. $77 for no sales.


----------



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

You should ask for a refund. (What is ILVN?)



brkingsolver said:


> Recently did a promo with ILVN that was a total waste of money. $77 for no sales.


----------



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

Excellent comments. I agree with everything you mentioned. The most I've paid for a single promo period is $150. I will no longer spend that kind of money.

I like your advice on FB ads. Perhaps I should still keep trying. I've tried about 10 different ads over a 3 month period with no resulting sales. I've followed all the advice. I wish I could find someone to do it for me who was experienced and could show results. Otherwise I'll keep leaking $ until something hits (if it does at all).

Stacking promos with all these small sites are not worth it and I hope this posts saves some kboarders some $ and time.



Nicholas Erik said:


> Free Kindle Books and Tips works well for me, although the results seem to have dipped slightly in the past year. Could just be oversaturation with my titles. I like what Fussy Librarian is doing; you're not going to sell tons of copies, but I think they could be pretty good in a year, so I'm trying to support them. Prices are reasonable.
> 
> I generally agree with your assessment (BookSends not withstanding; see below). I'm going to be honest to everyone (mostly newbies, particularly those who are thinking about outlaying tons of cash on promos): I see massive promo stacks from authors, and lots of cheering about how things are going to take off. Even with a BookBub, you rarely "stick" for all that long.
> 
> ...


----------



## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I stack ads ... every single month on my permafree and a boxset. It does work for me BUT after my permafree (that is in the box set) I have 5 novels, 1 novella, and 3 shorts. If I get 100 downloads for $10 I figure I'm good--or 1 sale per $1 on the 99-cent box. Some sites do have better sell-thru (I Love Vampire Novels has always been great. Freebooksy's sell-thru seems to work. ENT readers *BUY*. BookBub has the worst sell-thru but the numbers are so great it doesn't matter.)

Some sites really are only worth it if you're wide. ReadingDeals, Riffle (negotiate the price--the $50 they charge is too much, but if you can get a spot for $30 you'll do well, and get a nice bump on iBooks--IF you're wide), BooksButterfly is worth it for 'Zon alone, but their reach is so wonderful on iBooks in particular that if you're not wide you're missing out.

Some sites are probably genre dependent, but for my freebies and my 99 cents I've used ebooklister; it's free and gives me a nice bump. ReadCheaply is great. Midlist is great if you can get a spot--they skew ever more heavily towards romance. ReadingDeals has been a recent find ... they gave me a nice bump on iBooks but they're raising their prices ... after the go above $15 I'm not sure if they'll be a good investment. Rebecca Hamilton's Top Ten Freebies is awesome. 

Some of the sites that you mentioned: JustKindleBooks, PeopleReads, eBooksHabit, OHFB, and Awesomegang for instance, have free options. The free options are worth it. 

I disagree with the 8 hours of submissions thing. I do a rotation, have it planned out for about 3 months in advance, and submit everything at once.


----------



## Guest (Oct 24, 2015)

This was a good post. I thought people might be interested in my results. This last year, I experimented with advertising my perma-free book (1st book in series) at various sites every month.

My genre is mystery and I'm fairly new at self-publishing, not a big seller, and I went wide this year as well. My intent was to get exposure for my series to attract more readers. Advertising definitely helped with that. Here is my rating of the sites I looked at or used.

*The Best ones--Paid for themselves*

Freebooksy
Manybooks--readers download on the Manybooks site, but sell through was good.
Book Bassett
Sweet Free Books--surprisingly good for the cost.

*The OK ones--Downloads which kept me in the top 100 in different catergories, some sales*
BKnights
Free Kindle Books
Readcheaply
Fussy Librarian
Addicted to Books
Choosy Bookworm
Free Kindle Books and Tips

*Won't use again--No or neglible results for me*

Storyfinds
Slashed Reads
StoryTeller Alley
New free Kindle Books
Awesome Gang
OHFB
Digital Book Today
Ebooksoda
Ebooksaurus
Bettybookfreak

*Sites where I was turned down/too expensive/not a good fit*

Bookbub
Book Gorilla
The Midlist
Robinreads
Book Butterfly
Armadillo Ebooks
The Reading Sofa
Kindle Owl
The Midlist

As we all know, often those folks flocking to get free downloads really never read the book, so though the number of downloads appears good how helpful are they? All and all, I spent a little over a quarter of my gross sales on ads (I did mention I'm not a big seller, right?).

Nest year, as these sites get more and more expensive and my permafree reaches its saturation point, I plan to be very picky what site I use and I'll reduce how often I advertise. Even without advertising, I still get a trickle of downloads, but there is still a surprising amount of sell-through. Maybe those people who don't subscribe to these sites are more discerning about what free books they get for their e-readers.

Hope this helps someone out there.


----------



## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Excellent comments. I agree with everything you mentioned. The most I've paid for a single promo period is $150. I will no longer spend that kind of money.
> 
> I like your advice on FB ads. Perhaps I should still keep trying. I've tried about 10 different ads over a 3 month period with no resulting sales. I've followed all the advice. I wish I could find someone to do it for me who was experienced and could show results. Otherwise I'll keep leaking $ until something hits (if it does at all).
> 
> Stacking promos with all these small sites are not worth it and I hope this posts saves some kboarders some $ and time.


Check with Maria E. Schneider here on KB. She'll do your FB ad for $6. I *did *have a link to her requirements, but you can contact PM her here.


----------



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

I'll reach out. Thanks for the info.



Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Check with Maria E. Schneider here on KB. She'll do your FB ad for $6. I *did *have a link to her requirements, but you can contact PM her here.


----------



## Lucian (Jun 8, 2014)

Another recommendation for BooksButterfly. They need 4-6 weeks advance notice last I heard but worth it.


----------



## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Lucian said:


> Another recommendation for BooksButterfly. They need 4-6 weeks advance notice last I heard but worth it.


I just ran an ad with them and didn't have to give them 4-6 weeks notice.


----------



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

But they are so expensive. $75-$200 is too much for my blood. I'd only pay that for a BoobBub ad.



Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I just ran an ad with them and didn't have to give them 4-6 weeks notice.


----------



## Felix R. Savage (Mar 3, 2011)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> But they are so expensive. $75-$200 is too much for my blood. I'd only pay that for a BoobBub ad.


If you don't get the stated number of downloads, they refund your money. So at least it's not a gamble.


----------



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

That's good to know. (New books do not have a guarantee, however).



Felix R. Savage said:


> If you don't get the stated number of downloads, they refund your money. So at least it's not a gamble.


----------



## Lucian (Jun 8, 2014)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I just ran an ad with them and didn't have to give them 4-6 weeks notice.


How much, if any, notice did you give?


----------



## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

re: BooksButterfly - I gave them 18 days notice on an ad I'm currently running. Somewhere between 2 - 3 weeks should suffice.



C. Gockel said:


> I stack ads ... every single month on my permafree and a boxset. It does work for me BUT after my permafree (that is in the box set) I have 5 novels, 1 novella, and 3 shorts. If I get 100 downloads for $10 I figure I'm good--or 1 sale per $1 on the 99-cent box. Some sites do have better sell-thru (I Love Vampire Novels has always been great. Freebooksy's sell-thru seems to work. ENT readers *BUY*. BookBub has the worst sell-thru but the numbers are so great it doesn't matter.)


Definitely some good points.

Should have qualified my post with the fact that if your sell-through is good and you have a decent number of professional looking books behind the advertised one, that can dramatically change the economics. That's tough to nail down, though. I mean, I'm just getting decent sell-through on one series I help promote now, like two years in, after playing with different back matter and stuff and releasing a sixth book.

But you've clearly worked the actual numbers (which is all I'm really advocating for people to do) and that's netting you positive ROI. So a hat tip, because it's tricky to create a good funnel.

I'm not against stacking ads, for the record, I just disagree with spending a bunch of time/money on the dozens of promo sites that give marginal returns. I stack the good ads together and ignore the rest. This is pretty much an 80/20 situation, except it's more like 95/5, where 5 promo sites are going to give you almost all your downloads, and the rest tend to give most people a headache and unrealistic expectations.

Nick


----------



## Lucian (Jun 8, 2014)

Thank you.


----------



## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Out_there said:


> Nest year, as these sites get more and more expensive and my permafree reaches its saturation point, I plan to be very picky what site I use and I'll reduce how often I advertise. Even without advertising, I still get a trickle of downloads, but there is still a surprising amount of sell-through. Maybe those people who don't subscribe to these sites are more discerning about what free books they get for their e-readers.
> 
> Hope this helps someone out there.


Appreciate you sharing your results. Might as well try to Book Basset, since it's cheap.

I say people should limit the promo submissions, then I don't follow my own advice. Damn. :\

There is a considerable difference in sell-through from organic freeloads and those you get from promo sites. Some people report conversion rates of like 5 - 10% on their organic freeloads.

Mine sit around 1.5% for the promo freeloads. I don't separate them out. Too much data parsing.

Nick


----------



## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Lucian said:


> How much, if any, notice did you give?


Maybe a week. Not more than two weeks for sure.


----------



## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> I stack the good ads together and ignore the rest. This is pretty much an 80/20 situation, except it's more like 95/5, where 5 promo sites are going to give you almost all your downloads, and the rest tend to give most people a headache and unrealistic expectations.


I find the "not so good" promo sites to be worth it too, though. If it was free, and it gets me 10 downloads, it's good. I have a list of sites high volume sites (1,000 downloads +) that I combine with medium and low volume sites that are still a good deal. Every month I plan for a high volume site with a few low & mid volumes clustered around it.

I do have a pretty good grasp of my sell-thru though, yes. I actually have never tracked how many books I've sold total, but I look at it month to month and have compared Part I DLs to Part II sales and right on down the line.


----------



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

FYI: I will be running yet another promo, Oct 29-30 for my short story (53 pages) The Unfinished. It has been accepted by ENT, Book Barbarian and Many Books. (Robin Reads turned down).

I'll update the thread to let you guys know if promoting a scifi/noir short story gets results or not.


----------



## eswrite (Sep 12, 2014)

Thanks for putting this together. I can concur with many of your "did not work" sites. They're not worth the time to fill out the form. If I can venture an educated guest, their "large" lists are composed of... *writers*. Therein lies the issue. They've built their lists from writers who promote through them (initially for free) and assume that marketing to them is winning strategy. Well, most writers are readers, but they're not the kind of readers (an in the numbers) we're trying to reach.


----------



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

I didn't think about that. But you're probably right on the money.



eswrite said:


> Thanks for putting this together. I can concur with many of your "did not work" sites. They're not worth the time to fill out the form. If I can venture an educated guest, their "large" lists are composed of... *writers*. Therein lies the issue. They've built their lists from writers who promote through them (initially for free) and assume that marketing to them is winning strategy. Well, most writers are readers, but they're not the kind of readers (an in the numbers) we're trying to reach.


----------



## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

Yes, several sites require you to sign up to do an ad (Bookscream is one).  Not all of them do, but they encourage it.  Many people sign up to multiple lists too--so if you take out 4 ads, you might be hitting the same crowd three times...


----------



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

That's why I decided to skip all those sites that don't perform or give 2-3 downloads. My time is better spent writing.



MariaESchneider said:


> Yes, several sites require you to sign up to do an ad (Bookscream is one). Not all of them do, but they encourage it. Many people sign up to multiple lists too--so if you take out 4 ads, you might be hitting the same crowd three times...


----------



## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

The Best ones--Paid for themselves

Freebooksy
Manybooks--readers download on the Manybooks site, but sell through was good.
Book Bassett
Sweet Free Books--surprisingly good for the cost.

I'm pleased you mentioned *Sweet Free Books*. Ihad never heard of them, but I'm with them today for a free promo for In Search of Jessica, a crime thriller. I was getting worried because although I paid them, I didn't get the confirmation email after had paid the $5

Edit. I found the confirmation of the free day ion my spam from Sweet Free Books.

I had a good experience with bnights for 3 different book, all had a good sell through for a few days and made profit on cost.


----------



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

Thank you for sharing your experiences.



Decon said:


> The Best ones--Paid for themselves
> 
> Freebooksy
> Manybooks--readers download on the Manybooks site, but sell through was good.
> ...


----------



## ShadyWolfBoy (Sep 23, 2015)

Thanks for this thread folks - I just used the advice here to build the promo list for my deal coming up in November!

Just aiming for the big ones so far: Bookbub, ENT, Robin Reads, OHFB, Book Barbarian, Bargain Booksy and Books Butterly.

Robin Reads has rejected, and Bookbub only accepted for the UK (I figure if it does well with them in the UK, they'll probably look more positively on it for the US in future).

OHFB and Bargain Booksy charge right off the bat - I presume that means there is less of an editorial filter than there is on the other sites?  Or do they still vet, and just refund your money if they reject you?


----------



## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Glynn Stewart said:


> Thanks for this thread folks - I just used the advice here to build the promo list for my deal coming up in November!
> 
> Just aiming for the big ones so far: Bookbub, ENT, Robin Reads, OHFB, Book Barbarian, Bargain Booksy and Books Butterly.
> 
> ...


You should be fine with Bargain Booksy.

OHFB will refund your money if you don't qualify. They did this to a book I submitted. I'm not crazy about this particular practice, since it seems like they have a fairly strict editorial filter.

I did well with BookBub in the UK only. If you're running a $0.99 promo, offer it in the US as well, since a handful of the people on the UK list will purchase from the US store. About 10% in my one experience (15 sales out of 150).

Nick


----------



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

Booksends, Book Barbarian have netted 19 sales so far. We'll see if it picks up. Tomorrow is ENT. I just hope I make back my $78 spent at this point. )

Reminder, it is a short story, sci-fi (The Unfinished) so that could account for the lackluster sales.


----------



## ShadyWolfBoy (Sep 23, 2015)

Nicholas Erik said:


> You should be fine with Bargain Booksy.
> 
> OHFB will refund your money if you don't qualify. They did this to a book I submitted. I'm not crazy about this particular practice, since it seems like they have a fairly strict editorial filter.
> 
> ...


Good to know on both. I'm hoping for all of the ones I haven't heard from to accept, but we'll see!

It's running in both the US and UK, with promos for both, so if anyone filters over, they'll still find it.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I almost exclusively submit to Bookbub and ENT these days. While I agree with the opinion that if it's free or really cheap you might win in the long run by getting new readers, I find a lot of those entry forms too finicky.

Best performing:

Bookbub
ENT
My own mailing list

Also decent:
Book Basset
POI when you get in

Re Booksbutterfly, I tried them on a 99c book. While they delivered the number of sales, I have also never had as many returns in my entire publishing life. Maybe those people thought it was free. I don't know. I was unhappy with this and will think twice about using them again. The book rarely gets returns.


----------



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

That is shocking. I wonder if "behind the scenes" they buy books to meet the quota, then return. I wonder if others have had the same experience. (NOT a statement of fact).

How many books were returned?
Too many returns can flag your book with Amazon.

What do you consider "decent" with Book Basset?



Patty Jansen said:


> I almost exclusively submit to Bookbub and ENT these days. While I agree with the opinion that if it's free or really cheap you might win in the long run by getting new readers, I find a lot of those entry forms too finicky.
> 
> Best performing:
> 
> ...


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I received 11 returns out of 100 sales. That is absolutely effing shocking for me and completely soured me on the idea of using the site again. The book was 99c, has never been free, and usually only gets returns when I run a sale, put it at 99c, then raise the price to $2.99. When the price goes back up, you get a return or two. I've sold over 1200 copies of this book in the past few months, just to put it in perspective.

Re. Book Basset, I haven't used them for a while (actually not since my sales have climbed since January), but I got the best results for buying an author feature (it's $21.99 or some weird price like that), then sticking an entire series in it with the first book 99c. Don't mix free and paid. If people see free they won't bother with paid anymore.


----------



## G. (Aug 21, 2014)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> That is shocking. I wonder if "behind the scenes" they buy books to meet the quota, then return. I wonder if others have had the same experience. (NOT a statement of fact).


I've used Books Butterfly a couple of times. Maybe I was just fortunate, but no returns in either case.


----------



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

That is surprising considering your sales pattern.



Patty Jansen said:


> I received 11 returns out of 100 sales. That is absolutely effing shocking for me and completely soured me on the idea of using the site again. The book was 99c, has never been free, and usually only gets returns when I run a sale, put it at 99c, then raise the price to $2.99. When the price goes back up, you get a return or two. I've sold over 1200 copies of this book in the past few months, just to put it in perspective.
> 
> Re. Book Basset, I haven't used them for a while (actually not since my sales have climbed since January), but I got the best results for buying an author feature (it's $21.99 or some weird price like that), then sticking an entire series in it with the first book 99c. Don't mix free and paid. If people see free they won't bother with paid anymore.





G. said:


> I've used Books Butterfly a couple of times. Maybe I was just fortunate, but no returns in either case.


----------



## KeenToWrite (Oct 30, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> *FB Ads - I always get excited when I read about someone on kboards doing well after following Marks videos. There is no doubt that this formula works for some; but I am beginning to believe that those are few and far between. I have played around with so many ads; changing image, text, emulating ads that do well, changing audience, tweak, tweak, tweak. But all I have succeeded in doing is is giving Zuckerberg a piece of my hard-earned cash with nothing in return. I follow the videos, do exactly as mapped out with some clicks and no sales. I have 4 ads running now. Will probably pause tomorrow if I don't see one sale. That would be day 3.


Just out of curiosity, are you using your Facebook ads to offer one or more books for free in exchange for a mailing list signup? Mark Dawson's videos about FB ads emphasize the fact that we are giving something away rather than using FB as a sales vehicle. You are offering value, providing something for nothing (or very close to it - an email address) in hopes that some of these subscribers will eventually go on to buy your other books. I'd imagine a social media ad asking people to buy a book would perform significantly worse than one promoting a special, limited-time offer that says HEY, FREE STUFF.


----------



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

I have tried both. I created a landing page, similar to my home page (www.patricewilliamsmarks.com) to get emails and give things away. To see, go to my home page, click on the red button. That will take you to a look-alike landing page I created for Facebook ads.

Those campaigns netted zero subscribers. I also did the A/B testing as well.

I then switched gears and just sent them directly to the Amazon page. I have seen several of Mark's ads that do exactly that as well. But mine were for a single book and his are for box sets. This netted clicks, but no sales. I tried 6 different ads for testing.

They are all on pause now as at some point you need just enough money coming in to justify money spent on ads.



KeenToWrite said:


> Just out of curiosity, are you using your Facebook ads to offer one or more books for free in exchange for a mailing list signup? Mark Dawson's videos about FB ads emphasize the fact that we are giving something away rather than using FB as a sales vehicle. You are offering value, providing something for nothing (or very close to it - an email address) in hopes that some of these subscribers will eventually go on to buy your other books. I'd imagine a social media ad asking people to buy a book would perform significantly worse than one promoting a special, limited-time offer that says HEY, FREE STUFF.


----------



## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> I have tried both. I created a landing page, similar to my home page (www.patricewilliamsmarks.com) to get emails and give things away. To see, go to my home page, click on the red button. That will take you to a look-alike landing page I created for Facebook ads.
> 
> Those campaigns netted zero subscribers. I also did the A/B testing as well.
> 
> ...


If it's any consolation, you're not alone.

I did get some signups and some sales, but not enough to justify the time and energy spent on fiddling with these ads and keeping up with all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes with it.

Unless you can get it to work spectacularly, but I never could, I think in the long run you'll benefit more by writing an extra book in a year than finagling Facebook ads. Same with most other ads, to be honest. It's got to be quick and easy to submit, and have obvious benefits when accepted, because when sites make it too hard, I'm like, man, I've sooo got better things to do.


----------



## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Edited quote below to just the sites I have control over



PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> *Pretty-Hot - no sales and lately, they are not featuring free submitted books. You need to pay to see it. I've gotten their newsletter with 1 book listed when I had submitted mine for promotion that day
> *Awesome Gang - see Pretty Hot Comments
> *Discount Bookman - see Pretty Hot Comments


Let me help answer some questions. Traveling today so I may not be back here until tomorrow to answer.

Pretty Hot has had a huge spike in free submissions so we had to cut the free submitted books from the newsletter until I figure out a way to put some back in. We use a random generator to pull free submissions to add to the newsletter but the spike of getting a new FREE submission every 3 minutes kind of made that go haywire. Can't put 400 books in a newsletter. Your free submission still goes on the site and into social media? It is similar situation with DiscountBookMan but to a lesser degree.

As for Awesomegang featured books go into the newsletter and then free submissions go in at random. That has never changed and has always been the case. Just because your free submission didn't make the newsletter doesn't mean we didn't promote it through the site and social.

Our site also lets you put links to your social media accounts and to your website. These post stay about a year so you can pick up traffic to your website, social media and get newsletter subscribers every time someone lands on these pages that are all SEO friendly.


----------



## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

I would do RobinReads again. Like what I'm seeing from them. I'm fairly certain they're affiliated in some way with BKnights on Fiverr, since his Fiverr profile used to say we are DBS Publishing, the Fiverr posts go to a site called DigitalBookSpot and the payments for Robin Reads go to DBS Publishing. 

Just an interesting idea; no way to confirm 100%.

/sherlock hat off

Have my results for BooksButterfly:

Ran Oct 23 - Oct 25. Their gold package or something for a $0.99 box ($200). Basically it's 200 guaranteed sales for 200 bucks.

Oct 23 - 59 sales
Oct 24 - 97 sales (+ Robin Reads, though)
Oct 25 - 42 sales 

So I guess I came in at 150 or so for the ad (assuming Robin Reads/organic traffic from being around top 1000 was responsible for ~50), since it looks like it generated around 50/day. Also netted 3k page reads. Not the worst result I've ever gotten, probably decently above average, honestly, (shows how useless most of these sites are) and I didn't ask for a partial refund or whatever, but I wouldn't do it again. Even if you get 200 sales at $200, you're still losing $60, and that's assuming a Countdown Deal.

This was for a box set of three adventure/spy books in the same series that's normally priced at $6.99. 

If you were trying to hit a list (USA Bestseller for example) or just trying to ramp up momentum before a BookBub, damn the torpedoes and all that, then I could see the expensive packages having some use. In other scenarios, some of their cheaper deals might be worth a shot, but I wouldn't spring for the three figure packages if you're interested in making a positive ROI.  

I haven't personally noticed the rash of returns that Patty mentioned. But I'm definitely not surprised, since some of the blogs etc. that the deal gets posted to don't look too hot.  

Nick


----------



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

Final Tally for experiment:

The Unfinished: Short Story / SciFi/Noir $0.99 sale for 2 days.
Book Barbarian/Booksends: 32
ENT: 29

Got the book to #5,547 overall paid
#2, #23, #78 in 3 Categories.

Not bad for a short story (52 pages).

Though the sales were low, I'm not giving up on these sites as short stories are hard-sells. But I am still changing my strategy and not using the smaller sites again as the time, money, effort leads to minuscule results.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> I've tried Bookscream free version and it helped with a few downloads for free books but has not helped for 0.99 promos. I am actually trying one more time for my promo next week; using the $3 version for 0.99 countdown. We'll see what happens.


I tried BookScream for the $3 tip and got zilch.


----------



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

Ditto.



Marian said:


> I tried BookScream for the $3 tip and got zilch.


----------



## jasonbladd (Dec 22, 2015)

Books Butterfly was worth it for me. $100 and over 3,000 downloads for my FREE ebook. Good enough to get me #1 in several Amazon free categories, including Inspirational, Christian Living, and Apologetics.


----------



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

That's great results, but I personally can't justify paying that kind of money for giving away a book, at this juncture in my writing career.



jasonbladd said:


> Books Butterfly was worth it for me. $100 and over 3,000 downloads for my FREE ebook. Good enough to get me #1 in several Amazon free categories, including Inspirational, Christian Living, and Apologetics.


----------



## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Now if there was a good way to promote novella's


----------



## Guest (Dec 26, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> That's great results, but I personally can't justify paying that kind of money for giving away a book, at this juncture in my writing career.


I had the expected results with them for a 99 cent sale as well - though in my case it was 25 guaranteed sales and I got 28 that day. If they don't feel they can meet the package you select, they will lower it to what they feel they can deliver based on their audience. Though you still won't make back whatever is spent, if they take you on for a 100 sale listing, that's going to be a very nice sales rank and should result in an excellent "tail" for when the price goes back up


----------



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

You should promote the same way you promote a novel. That is what I do. Also, if you only have a novella as a ebook, consider formatting to paperback. When I did that with a romance novella, it ended up being 225 pages (25K) which most people consider novel size. Amazon also changes page count to paperback count.



geronl said:


> Now if there was a good way to promote novella's


----------



## Guest (Dec 26, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> You should promote the same way you promote a novel. That is what I do. Also, if you only have a novella as a ebook, consider formatting to paperback. When I did that with a romance novella, it ended up being 225 pages (25K) which most people consider novel size. Amazon also changes page count to paperback count.


Slightly off topic - but do you mind sharing how you formatted a 25k novella into a 225 page paperback? That's just over 100 words/page or does it have lots of blank space? Curious if you have any readers complaining about that, or did you do it to inflate page count to access other advertisers?


----------



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

Correction: 212 pages.

Hi, I didn't do to inflate page numbers, it just worked out that way. I first created in Vellum as an ebook. Then I copy and pasted each chapter into Scrivener. I believe I have it pre-set to 1.25 spacing; so to answer your question, there is not a lot of whitespace and no complaints.

I did start each chapter in the middle of the page because I had a decorative chapter graphic to mark each chapter. That helped a bit I'm sure. I also added request for reviews, author bio, sneak peek at book one in another romance series and advertised another holiday romance; pretty usual backend material.



Tilly said:


> Slightly off topic - but do you mind sharing how you formatted a 25k novella into a 225 page paperback? That's just over 100 words/page or does it have lots of blank space? Curious if you have any readers complaining about that, or did you do it to inflate page count to access other advertisers?


----------



## Guest (Dec 27, 2015)

Tilly said:


> Slightly off topic - but do you mind sharing how you formatted a 25k novella into a 225 page paperback? That's just over 100 words/page or does it have lots of blank space? Curious if you have any readers complaining about that, or did you do it to inflate page count to access other advertisers?


I was curious about this as well. My 105,000 word novel is 400 pages. 25k being 212 pages seems very odd to me.



PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Correction: 212 pages.
> 
> Hi, I didn't do to inflate page numbers, it just worked out that way. I first created in Vellum as an ebook. Then I copy and pasted each chapter into Scrivener. I believe I have it pre-set to 1.25 spacing; so to answer your question, there is not a lot of whitespace and no complaints.
> 
> I did start each chapter in the middle of the page because I had a decorative chapter graphic to mark each chapter. That helped a bit I'm sure. I also added request for reviews, author bio, sneak peek at book one in another romance series and advertised another holiday romance; pretty usual backend material.


Even with that, I'm still not seeing how that would stretch 25,000 words to 212 pages. I also start in the middle of the page because that's fairly normal, and I use 1.3 spacing myself. I don't have any sneak peaks, but even that would should add maybe 10 pages at most? Plus the 2-3 pages of back matter.

If it's Nelly Don, though, looking at the print preview, there is actually an excessive amount of white space, IMHO. I've rarely, if ever, seen fiction works with a full line of white space between paragraphs as well as indenting. Even in the non-fiction I've seen with that type of set up, it's been with block formatting rather than indenting. It's more common online, but not something I see often in print books. Those alone likely are part of the reason the page count is so much higher than expected. The gutters also seem really deep for the page count. I'd expect a 25k short story or novella to be maybe 100 pages printed.

That said, presuming you've had good paperback sales and no complaints, then it would seem going against the grain hasn't hurt sales which is good.


----------



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

It's not Nelly Don. That book is a full novel. The book I am referring to is a romance novel I write under a pen name. As far as Nelly, she is formatted correctly and I have had zero complaints.



Anma Natsu said:


> I was curious about this as well. My 105,000 word novel is 400 pages. 25k being 212 pages seems very odd to me.
> 
> Even with that, I'm still not seeing how that would stretch 25,000 words to 212 pages. I also start in the middle of the page because that's fairly normal, and I use 1.3 spacing myself. I don't have any sneak peaks, but even that would should add maybe 10 pages at most? Plus the 2-3 pages of back matter.
> 
> ...


----------



## SB James (May 21, 2014)

I use bknights because they have no issues with me submitting a novella-length book. Virtually none of these other sites want novellas, they want full length books. Last year, Books Butterfly yielded a great spike with Nook and iBooks as well as Amazon for the permafree. One of the most appealing things about the experience was the spike at other stores besides Amazon, while bknights only advertises for Kindle books.
FWIW, I'm about ready to begin FB ads myself. I see far too many other authors have less-than-stellar results with these other lists.


----------



## RD (Dec 19, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> You should promote the same way you promote a novel. That is what I do. Also, if you only have a novella as a ebook, consider formatting to paperback. When I did that with a romance novella, it ended up being 225 pages (25K) which most people consider novel size. Amazon also changes page count to paperback count.


What do these ebook promo sites consider the word count novel vs novella? Seems mine are all hitting at around the high 30s to low 40s, i wonder what they would consider that. Seems there are conflicting opinions.


----------



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

Good question. I wonder if anyone has created a thread on what each site considers a novel as far as word count. Perhaps they don't go by word count, but by number of pages only.



RD said:


> What do these ebook promo sites consider the word count novel vs novella? Seems mine are all hitting at around the high 30s to low 40s, i wonder what they would consider that. Seems there are conflicting opinions.


----------



## RD (Dec 19, 2015)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Good question. I wonder if anyone has created a thread on what each site considers a novel as far as word count. Perhaps they don't go by word count, but by number of pages only.


Yeah I did a search and its pretty confusing. I feel confident in my books that are high 30k words, but if i need to extend them 5k or so to be safe I guess I could.


----------



## kindler2 (Apr 21, 2014)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Final Tally for experiment:
> 
> The Unfinished: Short Story / SciFi/Noir $0.99 sale for 2 days.
> Book Barbarian/Booksends: 32
> ...


Is there a special form to apply for an ENT spot for a short story? The only page I can find says 
'Your book will need to be a full length book - no short stories or novelettes.'

Thanks.
And congrats on sales, short stories are tough to shift.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Both ENT and BookSends say that they will only promote full-length novels. I tried to submit a novella to BookSends last year and it was rejected because of its length. How did you get a short story accepted?


----------



## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

None of the sites I run have a page limit. I got a few emails about this from authors who are writing prequels that they are making permafree and not very long. Nice little strategy if I do say so myself.


----------



## KelleeLGreene (Dec 17, 2015)

Gah!  I have so much to learn.  This thread is awesome as I was just considering what to do for advertising if anything.


----------



## RD (Dec 19, 2015)

Marian said:


> Both ENT and BookSends say that they will only promote full-length novels. I tried to submit a novella to BookSends last year and it was rejected because of its length. How did you get a short story accepted?


Yes, but full length novel meaning what exactly? There seems to be a standard, then a promo site standard that varies within that. lol


----------



## Bbates024 (Nov 3, 2014)

It's true some places say that and just mean 80 pages others it's a 150. It seems to vary by site, and also, shorter works seem to get accepted outside of that criteria if they have great reviews (lots of them) and really good covers.


----------



## Alvina (Oct 19, 2015)

After I read through so many promotion thread, I was feeling so sleepy! I think I should share my result early of the month. 

*Sweet Free Books ($5) + BookSream ($3) = 8 Sales with no tail*

* ReadCheaply (Free) = 15 Sales with tail*

What do you think about the result above?

Finally, any others excellent Free or Cheap promotion sites that you can recommended?

Thanks


----------



## ggwynter (Nov 15, 2015)

Thanks so much for posting this! I'm new to kboards, and there's just SO much information here, I feel a little overwhelmed. I've yet to publish my first book, but I'm bookmarking this for future reference.


----------



## Thetis (Dec 23, 2015)

I also used Fire and Ice Book Tours after reading about them on here and had absolutely no results on a FREE download. I was using up the last of my free days on a Select book and didn't have any other promos running that day, and I think I had like… 20 downloads? And that was with me posting to social media about it. Not worth the $5.

I've used BooksButterfly on a permafree and not gotten the guaranteed 1,000 downloads and they did honor the refund. He was quick and polite about refunding that portion as well.

I also agree with Patty about FB ads. Maybe they're working for some authors, but I've noticed so many indie book ads on my newsfeed that I ignore them completely. I don't even slow down to read about them. I can only imagine readers/consumers are feeling the same sense of burnout.


----------



## jasonbladd (Dec 22, 2015)

Thetis, thanks for sharing these results!


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

RD said:


> Yes, but full length novel meaning what exactly? There seems to be a standard, then a promo site standard that varies within that. lol


Most promo sites consider a full length novel to be over 40,000 words, a novella between 17,500 words to 40,000 words. The novella that I submitted was over 26,000 words and 75 pages.


----------



## RD (Dec 19, 2015)

Marian said:


> Most promo sites consider a full length novel to be over 40,000 words, a novella between 17,500 words to 40,000 words. The novella that I submitted was over 26,000 words and 75 pages.


That's good to hear for me personally, but I wouldn't be surprised if my 45k book comes up short on some sites. lol


----------



## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

Upthread people were talking about BooksButterfly. I used to use them until they lowered the guaranteed number of sales. Or rather, I tried them once after they lowered it. But 27 sales is not enough for $50 spent, to my way of thinking, especially since I didn't get much in the way of borrows during the countdown deal. I won't be using them anymore. 

Book Barbarian is one of my most effective ad sites at the moment, but they only take SFF.


----------



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

I like Book Barbarian too.

I just tried Fussy Librarian again as I love their set up and the people are cool. But it netted me maybe 1 sale for my $2.99 new release. So I won't be using again. (Historical Fiction). Perhaps other genres work better?

I wanted to try Choosy Bookworm for the promo, but at $25 I wanted feedback before using. No one commented, so I passed. I am very stingy on my promo dollars now.



RuthNestvold said:


> Upthread people were talking about BooksButterfly. I used to use them until they lowered the guaranteed number of sales. Or rather, I tried them once after they lowered it. But 27 sales is not enough for $50 spent, to my way of thinking, especially since I didn't get much in the way of borrows during the countdown deal. I won't be using them anymore.
> 
> Book Barbarian is one of my most effective ad sites at the moment, but they only take SFF.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

This is a great thread, thanks for the bump.

I still find myself testing various promo sites just for the hell of it - it's a habit at this point. But always stick with the few sites that actually deliver consistent results in your genre (ie ENT & Robin Reads.) I consider everything else just goofing around.

A recent finding:
Genre Pulse _might_ be worthwhile in some cases (meaning like $1 per sale.) And they have very few requirements for listing.

I also will probably test manybooks.net soon, I've been looking on their site and it seems worth testing.


----------



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

I'll be trying manybooks as well; as soon as my new release gets 10 reviews (only 4 now). Genre Pulse only worked for me when the book was free. Also, it is hit or miss whether the guy running it will respond to inquiries or not. So I won't be using that one again.



mmandolin said:


> This is a great thread, thanks for the bump.
> 
> I still find myself testing various promo sites just for the hell of it - it's a habit at this point. But always stick with the few sites that actually deliver consistent results in your genre (ie ENT & Robin Reads.) I consider everything else just goofing around.
> 
> ...


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> I'll be trying manybooks as well; as soon as my new release gets 10 reviews (only 4 now). Genre Pulse only worked for me when the book was free. Also, it is hit or miss whether the guy running it will respond to inquiries or not. So I won't be using that one again.


I will report my Many Books results when I run it in a few weeks. Genre Pulse _might_ be better than in the past, at least for some genres: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,233045.0.html

Also - I don't think they're mentioned in this thread - *Buck Books* is an awesome promo service, if they'll run you. It's case by case in terms of requirements for them.


----------



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

Buck Books. Never heard of them. Why do you consider it awesome? Can you share your experience with type of book and results?



mmandolin said:


> I will report my Many Books results when I run it in a few weeks. Genre Pulse _might_ be better than in the past, at least for some genres: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,233045.0.html
> 
> Also - I don't think they're mentioned in this thread - *Buck Books* is an awesome promo service, if they'll run you. It's case by case in terms of requirements for them.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Buck Books. Never heard of them. Why do you consider it awesome? Can you share your experience with type of book and results?


Buck Books is probably the best promo site for non-fiction books besides BookBub. They also promote some fiction: http://buckbooks.net/

It's a semi-exclusive site. You're more likely to get a slot if you've used Archangel Ink's publishing services because Buck Books is affiliated with them. Contact them directly to try to secure a spot. Good people.


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

I used Buck Books almost a year ago and had great results. I'm using them again next month and will report.


----------



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

Can you share the specifics of your results?



Marian said:


> I used Buck Books almost a year ago and had great results. I'm using them again next month and will report.


----------



## George Saoulidis (Feb 2, 2016)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> I've tried Bookscream free version and it helped with a few downloads for free books but has not helped for 0.99 promos. I am actually trying one more time for my promo next week; using the $3 version for 0.99 countdown. We'll see what happens.


Bookscream does work for 0.99, very few sales but consistent.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Can you share the specifics of your results?


With Buck Books expect 40 - 200 downloads for a 99 cent book. At least for non-fiction. For fiction, I'd imagine about the same. It's my favorite promo site besides BookBub (I publish non-fiction.)


----------



## Alvina (Oct 19, 2015)

mmandolin said:


> With Buck Books expect 40 - 200 downloads for a 99 cent book. At least for non-fiction. For fiction, I'd imagine about the same. It's my favorite promo site besides BookBub (I publish non-fiction.)


How nice to sell 200 books for free! 

I am an affiliates of Buck Books as well, but it seems they never open their door for my books promotion. How did you get them to promote your books?

Thanks.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

Alvina said:


> How nice to sell 200 books for free!
> 
> I am an affiliates of Buck Books as well, but it seems they never open their door for my books promotion. How did you get them to promote your books?
> 
> Thanks.


They're not free. If you want to list with them I suggest you use Archangel Ink's services. For instance, if you have a cover made through Archangel Ink, you get a Buck Books promo included: http://archangelink.com/book-covers/


----------



## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> Can you share the specifics of your results?


I confess: I don't keep records as well as I should, but I'll try to do better. As I recall, I sold well over 50 books at .99 cents, which is excellent for literary fiction.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

*Tossing in a few current threads on expensive promo sites to probably NOT USE:*
_
BOOK CALIBER http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,233864.0.html

BOOK PROMOTER http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,233782.0.html_

*Authors, kindly attempt to list INEFFECTIVE, OVERLY PRICED PROMO SITES here on this thread. *

It'd be nice to have 'em kinda consolidated on just one thread.

Again, these are just opinions. Things change. Simply hoping to save authors time & a few bucks


----------



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

Good idea.



mmandolin said:


> *Tossing in a few current threads on expensive promo sites to probably NOT USE:*
> _
> BOOK CALIBER http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,233864.0.html
> 
> ...


----------



## dorihoxa (Feb 12, 2016)

Wow. This thread was pretty overwhelming for a newbie like me. 

I've gathered a list of ALL these sits you've mentioned, and looks like I'm going to update it soon. 

I experimented with a free promo about a week ago, and got only 220 free downloads. I didn't spend a single penny, since I wanted to test the waters, see what worked. The best results I got were from Facebook. I contacted about 150 bloggers and posted on about 50 book promotion accounts. Same with Twitter. My results aren't stellar, but at least I got 220 without spending a single buck. I'm thinking of using BookBub next, but I still have a lot of reviews to gather before I can submit. 
Any other reference for a contemporary romantic comedy? Something that actually worked for you guys?


----------



## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

PatriceWilliamsMarks said:


> I wanted to try Choosy Bookworm for the promo, but at $25 I wanted feedback before using. No one commented, so I passed. I am very stingy on my promo dollars now.


I have definitely taken Choosy Bookworm off my list for paid promos -- it ended up being one of the most expensive per book sold that I've tried yet. Last October, I paid $18 for 6 sales.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

dorihoxa said:


> Wow. This thread was pretty overwhelming for a newbie like me.
> Any other reference for a contemporary romantic comedy? Something that actually worked for you guys?


We're attempting to do a slightly better job at consolidating promo info. Here's a thread that has links to helpful sites: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,233650.0.html

What makes KBoards great is all the info, but it also inherently can be overwhelming. But that thread above should be helpful. Cheers.


----------



## mmandolin (Oct 16, 2014)

Doing a KCD for "Manifestation Through Relaxation" and had Genre Pulse ($32 with coupon) & Many Books ($25) promos yesterday. It was a Saturday, so probably not the best day for promos. Nonetheless, the results were underwhelming: 42 sales and a few hundred KENP. 

Those aren't good numbers for the amount of money spent - and I'm sure not all those sales are attributable to the promos (Some were definitely organic. I also used the free Book Raid promo for the first time - I dig the pirate.)

I'll probably only use Genre Pulse when launching books in the future - not for KCDs - and won't use Many Books again unless I hear some better things about them. Hope that input helps. Cheers


----------



## Alvina (Oct 19, 2015)

Except *Read Cheaply* and *Reading Deals* (getting more difficult to get featured for free) , most of the Free (Costs) Promotion Sites are just a waste of time. You would consider yourself lucky if you can get a few 99c download. 

That is my two cents !!


----------



## Dhewco (Apr 10, 2016)

I'm going to try one of the Fiverr guys for a promotion of sorts. I will try to post about the experience once it happens. I want to try to sell it at the full 2.99 price right now. A lot of the sites here require .99 cents and I'm not there yet.


----------



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

Yes, this list can be overwhelming. But it will sure help you avoid losing your shirt with promo sites that don't work.
As far as romantic comedy... hummm. There was one site called Zippy something specifically for romance, but their results SUCKED and they offer zero responses to emails (at least in my case).

But, I also write erom and sweet romance under a pen name, and by far, the best place to get sales without doing much is Google Play. I have steady, daily sales there. I did use the kboard advice and list keywords at the bottom of the description. Everywhere else, the sales are nonexistent for these romance books.


dorihoxa said:


> Wow. This thread was pretty overwhelming for a newbie like me.
> 
> I've gathered a list of ALL these sits you've mentioned, and looks like I'm going to update it soon.
> 
> ...


----------

