Book promotion services

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D.Varsha

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Hi,

Can anyone recommend a book promotion service (paid and free)? I'm looking to use one for my upcoming ebook.

Any recommendations are truly appreciated. Book-bub and facebook ads seem like good options. Have any of you had experience with either? Thank you for all your help. :)):D
 

WriterBN

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I haven't used BookBub because they're just too expensive for my category/genre, but other authors I know really like them (for genre fiction, specifically thrillers and romance). I did, however, use E-reader News Today (ENT) to promote a Kindle Countdown offer recently, and I was very pleased with the results.

Unlike Bookbub, ENT has no up-front fee. They take a percentage of royalties only from sales through their link. That, for me, is the perfect pricing model--pay for performance.
 

popgun62

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My publisher got my book on BookBub and my sales shot through the roof. They remained steady even after the promotion ended, and my book has been out for over a year. The only stipulation is your book has to pass their "quality assurance" test to be accepted, which means great cover art, layout, editing, etc. BookBub is the only promotional tool I've been involved with so far that has paid for itself.

Facebook ads are a complete waste of time and money, in my opinion. I used it several times and saw no sales increase. Good luck!
 

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I ran a Bookbub ad last October. They fit me in on Halloween, which probably wasn't the best day for sales. I still ended up doubling the money I spent on the ad. After the sale, my book remained in the top 20 of its category for quite a while afterwards. It ended up working well for me. I also like Ereader News Today, especially since you don't pay until after your ad runs, and it's a percentage of the sales. It's not the same volume of sales as Bookbub but worth it if they accept your book. Booksends has also worked for me, and their rates are reasonable.

Good luck!
 

shelleyo

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Bookbub is the one to get it, if you can. Let them schedule, and then try to get the other promos immediately afterward, over a few days if you can, to keep the rankings elevated longer. This gives you more sticking power.
 

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I'm repeatedly hearing positive things about Bookbub, from all kinds of authors and sources.
 

aruna

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My publisher uses Bookbub, though he hasn't promoted my book yet using it. He says when the second book comes out later this year is the right time.
 

D.Varsha

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I haven't used BookBub because they're just too expensive for my category/genre, but other authors I know really like them (for genre fiction, specifically thrillers and romance). I did, however, use E-reader News Today (ENT) to promote a Kindle Countdown offer recently, and I was very pleased with the results.

Unlike Bookbub, ENT has no up-front fee. They take a percentage of royalties only from sales through their link. That, for me, is the perfect pricing model--pay for performance.

Thank you WriterBN. I too have been hearing great things about bookbub. Am tempted to try it. All the best with your writings:)
 

D.Varsha

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My publisher got my book on BookBub and my sales shot through the roof. They remained steady even after the promotion ended, and my book has been out for over a year. The only stipulation is your book has to pass their "quality assurance" test to be accepted, which means great cover art, layout, editing, etc. BookBub is the only promotional tool I've been involved with so far that has paid for itself.

Facebook ads are a complete waste of time and money, in my opinion. I used it several times and saw no sales increase. Good luck!

Thank you for sharing your experience Toby. Going by your advise, I think I will def use book bub and maybe try FB for a week or two. :)) Your advice has been very helpful.
 

D.Varsha

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I ran a Bookbub ad last October. They fit me in on Halloween, which probably wasn't the best day for sales. I still ended up doubling the money I spent on the ad. After the sale, my book remained in the top 20 of its category for quite a while afterwards. It ended up working well for me. I also like Ereader News Today, especially since you don't pay until after your ad runs, and it's a percentage of the sales. It's not the same volume of sales as Bookbub but worth it if they accept your book. Booksends has also worked for me, and their rates are reasonable.

Good luck!

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Will def try book bub and will look into Booksends. Thanks :)
 

D.Varsha

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Bookbub is the one to get it, if you can. Let them schedule, and then try to get the other promos immediately afterward, over a few days if you can, to keep the rankings elevated longer. This gives you more sticking power.

That sounds like good sane advice. Will def look into bookbub :)
 

D.Varsha

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I'm repeatedly hearing positive things about Bookbub, from all kinds of authors and sources.

Yayy! thank you for telling me that. Makes me go all warm and fuzzy thinking there is actually a marketing tool that can help a confused selfpub like me :D Thank you!
 

D.Varsha

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My publisher uses Bookbub, though he hasn't promoted my book yet using it. He says when the second book comes out later this year is the right time.

Thank you Aruna for giving me that info. Wish you all the very best :)
 

thenewbie

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I've heard a lot of good things about Bookbub, but honestly it's just out of my budget. I've tried a lot of things, and I've come to realize that I prefer the more long term book promotions.

With that being said, I've taken my books on a lot of online book tours... And I've been disappointed by several by the performance of several of them, with the exception of one.

Fire and Ice Book Tours is a good company to work with. On my tour, I had zero missed stops, compared to the daily missed tour stops I've experienced with other book touring companies. They also do a lot of social media promotion on your book, so you can expect to see it tweeted a lot at all different hours. They got me in within three weeks, compared to two months.

As for sales. I've been touring one of my older titles, and like I mentioned before, I've tried out several touring companies. I marked the book down to $.99 during all of the tours, and I didn't tour two companies at one time... I wanted to see what kind of results I'd have.

On my two week tour with Fire and Ice, I had close to a hundred sales... Without touring I only get a handful of sales on this particular book. On tour with other companies, I'd get an increase of ten to fifteen sales, give or take. A lot of take on the touring companies where the bloggers only posted the tour post half of the time.

So if you go the book touring route, try to find a company that will replace any missed stops. I would email in when a stop was missed and 90% of the time, I would never get a response back... And the tour post never went up. With this touring company, they actually update your schedule daily with a direct link to the post, which made it really easy to check it out, and I knew someone was actually monitoring whether or not the bloggers were posting.

Sorry for the long post... It's just been disheartening to work with so many online blog touring companies (and expensive) to have such disappointing customer service and results. For the future book tours I will take, I plan on sticking with the company above... Unless I just really hear great things about another company, and I decide to try them out, too.
 

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If any of you want to do a giveaway of your novel on my Hunger Games site, please let me know. We're always looking for things to give our readers and to help out authors!
 

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If any of you want to do a giveaway of your novel on my Hunger Games site, please let me know. We're always looking for things to give our readers and to help out authors!

Pikko, we take a dim view of people who try to use AW to promote their sites like this. Please don't do it.
 

Jazen

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I've heard a lot of good things about Bookbub, but honestly it's just out of my budget. I've tried a lot of things, and I've come to realize that I prefer the more long term book promotions.

With that being said, I've taken my books on a lot of online book tours... And I've been disappointed by several by the performance of several of them, with the exception of one.

Fire and Ice Book Tours is a good company to work with. On my tour, I had zero missed stops, compared to the daily missed tour stops I've experienced with other book touring companies. They also do a lot of social media promotion on your book, so you can expect to see it tweeted a lot at all different hours. They got me in within three weeks, compared to two months.

As for sales. I've been touring one of my older titles, and like I mentioned before, I've tried out several touring companies. I marked the book down to $.99 during all of the tours, and I didn't tour two companies at one time... I wanted to see what kind of results I'd have.

On my two week tour with Fire and Ice, I had close to a hundred sales... Without touring I only get a handful of sales on this particular book. On tour with other companies, I'd get an increase of ten to fifteen sales, give or take. A lot of take on the touring companies where the bloggers only posted the tour post half of the time.

So if you go the book touring route, try to find a company that will replace any missed stops. I would email in when a stop was missed and 90% of the time, I would never get a response back... And the tour post never went up. With this touring company, they actually update your schedule daily with a direct link to the post, which made it really easy to check it out, and I knew someone was actually monitoring whether or not the bloggers were posting.

Sorry for the long post... It's just been disheartening to work with so many online blog touring companies (and expensive) to have such disappointing customer service and results. For the future book tours I will take, I plan on sticking with the company above... Unless I just really hear great things about another company, and I decide to try them out, too.

Thanks for the good advice and letting us know your experience. I clicked the link and like the pricing. Some sites I've looked at have been super expensive.

I've been trying to find other avenues on how to promote my book, so this is extremely helpful.
 

euclid

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Books Go Social

This is a friendly up-and-coming promotion site. I've been using them since November 2013 and my sales have been consistent. It's difficult to be sure what difference they have made to my sales, of course, but they provide helpful advice as well as promotion on twitter and Facebook.

JJ
 
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