If you would like to follow from the beginning, start here.
Breaking down book marketing one aspect at a time is a useful strategy when feeling overwhelmed.
What I Did this Week
I reviewed about 20 book promotion sites to figure out what was best for me. So many choices exist. I chose five in the end.
Beta Reader Update
I decided my focus this week would be book promotion sites. As always my first task was to decide how I was going to evaluate them to pick the right ones for me, if any.
Book Promo Site Evaluation Criteria
The first thing I did was review about a dozen book promotion sites to see what they might offer a YA memoir. Doing that helped me come up with my criteria for my book.
Here are the three factors I considered when making my choices:
- List size in my genre (Not just any genre or no genre listed),
- Good value for the list size (I want to lower my risk for launch), and
- Rules must be clear (I want to understand what I need to do in return for what I receive).
Reviewing Sites and the Offerings
I went through so many sites. Many of them have multiple options including daily emails or newsletters, blog posts, and website spots.
A couple of them also offered to rate my book to give it a rating on their site, although those come with caveats. For example, one site will only rate books that they like. Or if I pay for a rating, I should not expect a good one. Some will also review my book. But that is another type of promotion in my mind.
The pricing for the service often correlated with the price of the book and the size of the list. Most sites want me to either deeply discount my book or offer it for free. Now one might ask, how can this help me? Am I giving away my book and paying to do so? That would be correct.
The idea might be to gain reviews or to start buzz about the book. I want to sell it for less at launch, but not for free. So I am going to do a discounted price at launch, I think. Although I may revisit the idea of free to start getting reviews.
My Top Five
Here are the five book promotion sites I chose. Please note that you might be better off with a different selection.
- FreeBooksy – $25 for Young Adult (YA) books under $4.99 and a list of about 101,000
- Fussy Librarian – $22 for a discounted YA book with a list size of about 85,000
- Book Raid $60 – maximum charge as they charge $0.20 per click for a book priced at $0.99 or $0.60 for a book priced $2.99
- Book Cave – $20 for memoirs priced $1.99 with a list size of 69,000
- Book Doggy – $20 for a discounted book which included daily newsletter promo, feature book on the website, author site link, personalize post about your on their Facebook page, and they will show your book trailer on their YouTube channel.
I priced the discounted book options. I may also do a free book promotion but I’m not sure yet. I think I will do promotions at four price points $0.99, then $1.99, then $2.99, then $4.99. The strategy will be to up the price for each promotion. That will give me a sense of that sweet spot for book promotions and if they are worth it for my book.
All the sites I chose, except one, have lists specifically for YA or memoir. They all have lists over 50,000. And all offer promotions for discounted books.
The exception is Book Raid, which does not charge a flat rate. The cost is .15 to .60 per click through based on the price of your book. Free books are 0.15, .99 promos are 0.20 per click and $2.99 promotions are $.60 per click. So I only pay for the people who go to the page that is selling my book. Then it is up to me to have an awesome sales page to convert from there. I am going to try to see what results I achieve.
Book Promotion Launch Budget
The total cost to promote my memoir on all five sites at launch is $160.00.
After that I can decide which ones, if any, work. And I can decide whether ongoing promotion on these sites would be worth it to me.
It seems to me a small financial risk, even though I don’t know the outcome. If you would like a list of book promotion sites to check out, visit Tools We Love on Author Nation. Please do your own research to find the right combination for you and your book. I’d love to hear what you decided though so comment to share your strategy.
What I Am Doing this Week
This coming week I will pick another marketing aspect and make decisions around that.
Breaking down book promotion into aspects of the book launch makes it much easier to do the work and not get overwhelmed.
What promotion ideas did you look into as you prepared to launch your indie book?
– Keep writing
Melody Ann
Author Nation is your go-to resource for becoming a successful nonfiction author, from planning to promotion and everything in between.