by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I’m always on the lookout for ways to connect to readers and find new readers without being obnoxious. I’m not one to really promote on Facebook and never promote on Twitter.
One way of finding and connecting with new readers seems pretty obvious to me: ebook promotion services. The best-known of these is BookBub. These aren’t retailers, these are services that let subscribed readers know about free or discounted books.
Although I haven’t yet run an ad with BookBub, I’ve heard from writers who’ve had tremendous success with them. It can be an effective way to find new readers and get the word out about a special promotion you’re running. More about the most effective ways of using BookBub here. Author Lindsay Buroker wrote a nice piece on how not to be rejected for an ad.
There are other book promotion services out there, of course. In September, I received an email from a service called “ebook Discovery:”
We had an unexpected opening in our Daily eZine, and selected your book to run in the vacated spot.
It is our sincere hope that your book enjoyed better than average downloads on Sept 21. :-)
I thanked them and, because it was a very busy week, didn’t spend much time thinking about it. But when I had a chance to take a look at A Body in the Backyard’s performance, there was, indeed, a decided uptick in my KDP report, and not just on the 21st:
This experience has encouraged me to consider other ebook promo services. The only question was which ones to take a look at. Naturally, I wanted a service that had a good number of subscribers, and I didn’t want anything in the same price range as a BookBub ad.
Fortunately, the team at
Reedsy has recently published a helpful guide to book promotion services. You can select a tier that indicates the reputation and audience for the sites (tier I gives you more value for the money) , genre, or ask for them to search for only free sites.
I opened each of my contenders in a separate tab. The book covers were the first things I looked at on each site. Could I imagine my readers using this service? If I couldn’t, I skipped it.
So far, my experiment has worked out nicely. I’ve had an increased number of downloads for the free book, which is hopefully helping me reach a new audience.
Have you tried any book promotion services? Which ones have you used? What was your experience like?
I saw Reedsy’s list of book promotion services.
How awesome to be selected and get some free promotion!
And very random! But I did see good results…good enough for me to pay for it the next time, ha!
I know I’ve bought quite a few books because of Book Bub ads – I think they definitely work well :)
I think those who can get them definitely find a real bump in sales.
This sounds like a good avenue that’s been successful in marketing your book. I haven’t finished a book to try anything like that with.
It’s the kind of thing that’s not too time-consuming or expensive (well, unless you’re trying for a BookBub). Best wishes for writing your book!
What luck they randomly selected your book to feature.
We’ve run one BookBub ad and had another rejected. I’ve read lists on how to avoid being rejected and we’ve done everything we could control but to no avail. I get BookBub emails and it sounds like there are more ways to advertise than just buying from their main ads, but I can’t find any. I just wish they weren’t so expensive. $500 for an ad is outside of our budget.
I’m reluctant to never say never, but after a BookBub rejection over a year ago, I lost interest. Looking through the lists of what *not* to do, I realized that they like to have the first book in a series to run ads on (or box sets). I don’t have the rights to the first book in any series. Plus, auditioning for ads (especially expensive ads) seems crazy. But I do read about the results. Right now, I’m sticking with smaller ad outfits.
OMG, thank you so much for the link! I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet and a blog post (hasn’t been updated in a while) and doing the work myself.
Over the years, I’ve used eReader News Today (nice numbers, but hard to get accepted for an ad), Robin Reads (same as ENT), Bargain Booksy (good numbers and easier to get an ad), and Fussy Librarian (low numbers for me), off their list. I’ve also used several others with varying results – Kboards, Omnimystery News, Every Writer Resource, Goodkindles. Author Billboard, Paranormal & Urban Fantasy Bargains, and ebookdealsdaily gave me some nice numbers in September. (For varying definitions of nice, of course. I have low expectations and a minimal budget.)
I also belong to several Facebook groups geared toward providing readers with links to discount books, and those seem to help get the word out when I have sales going on. And I do use Twitter, which is hit or miss. I do try not to be annoying about it, though. It’s walking the knife’s edge sometimes – market and perhaps annoy or don’t market, don’t annoy, and don’t see sales. :shrug:
Hope the link helps! I like it that they did the legwork for me. :)
I’ve looked at Fussy Librarian myself, but it seemed as if I was hearing mixed results so I didn’t try it.
I tried Fussy twice, and while it’s economical, I didn’t see big results. Even when I had a big sale and combined it with Robin Reads and Bargain Booksy.
Still on the lookout for what’s going to work to get the word out…thanks, Elizabeth, for sharing your info! Will definitely check out the Reedsy link.
Hope it helps! Good luck with the link. :)