Does This "No Guarantee" Promo Sound Reasonable?

You would think that a book promotion site with as much attitude as Ereader News Today displays, it would be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Except that's not what I'm reading from authors who've used it. 

Maybe you received their email yesterday as well. I'm not sure how I ended up on their list; when I was researching promo sites, I marked it as "way too expensive"--and that's for a book that needs to be either 99 cents or free. Promo price: $60.00.

Plus, "We will let you know within 2 weeks from today if your book is chosen for a BotD promo and we will also give you the date of the promo.  If you don’t hear from us within 2 weeks, your book was not selected..." 

LOL. I need to apply in order to pay them $60.00. What a deal! "Please take my money!"

But wait--there are more rules. Maybe not "rules", per se, but strong recommendations.

"The form to submit your book is at the bottom of that page.  On the form there is a box for Additional Information.  Please use that space to let us know any information that would help us in deciding to select your book, i.e., bestselling author (please be specific), award-winning author, box set, etc." 

Being the nosy type, I checked out their current books of the day. Almost every one shows either "New York Times Bestselling Author", "Award Winning Author", "Amazon Bestselling Author" or some variation. (One wonders why these people even need to buy promos.) How rigorous is ENT's vetting process? I could invent some award that I won, call it something like "Women's Fiction 2025 Champion"--hey, I'm a champion in my mind!

It almost makes me want to apply, just to be a jerk.  

According to the website FAQ's: It is also a good idea to make sure your book has at least a few good reviews. The more good reviews (not fake) that a book has, the better it usually does as the Book Of The Day. We realize that it’s not always possible to have a lot of reviews, especially if your book is relatively new, but the books that sell the most, everything else being equal, are the books with a lot of very good reviews. 

Do 18 reviews count? For a book that's over a year old? I'm thinking that's not "a lot". 

When your book has been posted as Book Of The Day, let all of your social networks know about it. Send them the link to ENT’s Facebook page and ask them to “Like” the post and leave a comment. This helps to get more clicks on the post which gets more traffic to your book and more sales. This is very important and helps you get many more sales during your promo. 

Well, couldn't I let all "my" social networks know about my book without paying someone sixty dollars? Oh, wait; I tried that.

Actual author report:

"the results were middling." 

And yes, that was the only one I found within the last year. For the uninitiated, never research results older than a year, because most of these sites' effectiveness have dwindled...drastically.

To be fair, ENT has one or two things in its favor:

The demographics of ENT show that the highest percentage of readers are women between 35 and 55...  

It's true that my ideal reader skews older than 55, which flummoxes me, since my MC is only in her mid-thirties, but maybe I just haven't marketed my novel to the right people. 😏

Also, books that have a quality cover sell a lot more copies. The quality of the cover is a factor in determining whether or not your book will be selected for the Book of the Day. 

I have a good cover.

ENT also allows an author to purchase just a regular promo, but get this: that's even more expensive than book of the day! What? And the book still needs to be 99 cents or free. Same basic requirements, too, only this time the book has to have been professionally edited. (How do they know?) 

The email rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not expecting sites to beg, but geez. Was it written by the cruel nun I had in third grade CCD? I half expected the screen to reach out and smack me with a ruler.

Thinking back as best I can, I may have applied once before with a different book. And got rejected, of course. Maybe that's how I ended up on ENT's mailing list. This is the first time I've heard from then, though, ever since that rejection. Which leads me to wonder if they're not doing so well anymore. Why would they suddenly care about an author they once deemed unworthy?

Once again, I'm asking for your input, fellow authors. Have you used the site? If so, how did your promotion go? Let me know in the comments.