Foiled again
In the “I did not see this coming” department, I just learned that I won’t be able to promote Town Father on EReader News Today this month, as I had planned. Declined because there’s no room at the inn.
It’s true, I’ve been hustling BookBub lately to see if I can’t wiggle in and reach a larger audience, but BookBub is exclusive, apparently, and keeps rejecting me. They have far too many naked male torso books to promote to consider giving humble Town Father a shot. (Or Yesterday Road or Occasional Soulmates for that matter.)
But EReader News Today? They’ve never let me down, and I always wind up selling quite a few copies when I list with them.
Does this mean that the book promotion side of things is flooded with so many indie books that an author can never count on getting a listing when she wants or needs it? Is a well thought out marketing strategy now impossible because of sheer glut?
Not sure what to do next, because so many of the other outfits I’ve tried (who shall remain nameless) brought in so few sales that it’s not worth the expense.
Baffling. To think my money’s no good at the most reliable book marketing sites out there.
Anybody got any advice?
13 comments on “Foiled again”
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Wish I had some advice to give, but the promo sites I’ve been using are all ‘paid’ and a lot of the free ones faded away. Does seem like there are a lot more indies scrambling for less space these days. Never did BookBub because I never met their ‘standards’. Too few reviews or the book wasn’t 4.0 overall. Guess you need to be lucky to get in there.
Which ones do you prefer, Charles? Or are they specialists in your genre?
I’ve been sticking to Goodkindles and AskDavid with a lot of tweeting on my part. Those are the cheaper ones. Joining the Independent Author Network helps too.
Thanks for the tips! I think I’ve done Goodkindles before, but not AskDavid. I’ll try anything once …
AskDavid is a 1 time payment to post your books and they require a blurb that is only for their site. A little extra work, but worth it. Especially since you can tweet through them either with a $10 for 30 tweet package or retweeting off them to earn points.
It is certainly getting difficult to wiggle into the best rated promo sites. I’m starting to feel like making it into BookBub once was pure fluke – can’t crack that nut a 2nd time. I was refused twice on E-Reader News Today and squeezed in this weekend on what I’m sure is yet another fluke. I’m giving FreeBooksy a go this weekend as well – not sure how that will be. It seems now that the sites that really work are flooded – for good reason, I suppose. The word is out that they work.
I was thinking of BargainBooksy. Cheap enough, but I think I used them once in the past and got no real bump. Maybe they’ve expanded their lists since then …
We’re in the wrong business. We should set up a web site and a FB page and Twitter, an email server to get indies exposure. They’ve got to be raking in a ton of dough. Ebooks4U sounds like like a good SEO’d name. We’ll get all our friends together and give free books away for the first month or two while we build up an audience and lists. Once we get a huge audience, we’ll charge authors $50.00+- $500 to promote their books. Can’t be that hard.
Boy, I think you’re on to something, Susan. It’d be pretty much passive income too, since all you really have to do is maintain a list.
$u$an Nicholls, entrepreneur!
As much time as I am in front of this computer, I could pro’ly run a one (wo) man show.
Great idea! (says I who is certainly no expert). It certainly seems there is a need for more of these services, if BookBub can afford to be snooty and ENT has more business than they can handle. I’m wondering what these two do that the ones who don’t deliver the desired bump in sales.
Those are my thoughts. I guess they had the right exposure at the right time to make their mark. Something we all need.
Go Susan!!!!