I May Have Exhausted My Promotional Opportunities

A weird phenomenon occurs when an author gets sucked into the promotion vortex; they want to keep doing more. I began by researching the best promotional sites, with the intent of picking a couple to test the waters. Let me tell you, there's almost no consensus of what constitutes the "best", other than BookBub and one or two others. Some authors claim to have been very successful with one site, whereas another writer says, "don't waste your time".

A lot of that relies on genre, of course. The fact that there are sites specifically devoted to certain genres, like mystery and romance (naturally) points to their demand. (I've never found one devoted to women's fiction.) 

I could say that I relied on past results to choose my current sites, but unfortunately, I don't remember getting many sales at all from any of them, and I think it would stick in my mind if I had. There's a reason why only one service I found provides a tally of a book's sales; most of them don't want you to know how poorly they perform.

The first couple of times I tried promotion, I paid no attention to a site's subscriber base, but I've become more savvy since then. Any site that only promises to feature my book on its homepage is out, as well as those that send out one-to-three social media posts. That tells me those sites have no success to tout. It does me no good to park my book on an unknown website where no one will see it ~ and having to pay for that privilege.

Another red flag is when all of a site's headers are directed at authors. Where's the section on the benefits to a reader? Those places are simply a money grab.   

Too, if I have to categorize my book as literary fiction because there is no women's fiction genre to choose, that's pretty much a lost cause. Those two genres are not the same!

So, where did that leave me? I paid nine sites for promotion, plus three that either offered only a "listing" or a review, which may be a long time coming, if ever, but were free. No, I'm not using BookBub, at least not until I'm desperate enough to reduce my price to either ninety-nine cents or zero. Nothing else in its newsletter has any chance of success. Nor have I explored Facebook ads (which David Gaughran touts), because they're frankly too confusing and I suspect I'd end up spending way more money than I intended. I know I need to at least learn about them before I dismiss the notion out of hand, but my brain is balking.

I keep getting emails from a place called Booksride, that tell me they saw my book Inn Dreams somewhere and they want me to buy an ad with them. I did try to research the site, but weirdly, there are no reviews to be found, and their website really skirts around the issue of subscribers. Plus, any site that fishes for ad buys is suspect.

I've ruled out a bunch of sites, at least for now. A tip for authors: subscribe to a site's newsletter before buying an ad. The newsletter will tell you a lot about whether the site is right for you. Many I've rejected only tout ninety-nine-cent books, and if I was going to do that, I'd go with the biggie, BookBub. Some places are too expensive for what you get. I subscribed to BargainBooksy's newsletter, specifically the women's fiction one, and each day's mailing only has one-to-three books, which shows that women's fiction is not popular with its subscribers. Plus, it wants $30.00 for a one-day placement. 

I'll need to wait until Saturday to find out if any of my ads perform. I have scattered them around a bit, for different days, so the first week will be key. After that? I got nothin'. 

At least I've given it my best shot.