My Initial StoryOrigin Impressions

StoryOrigin is an app that tries to do it all. Is that good? Common advice would be to focus on your strengths, but maybe StoryOrigin is strong across the board. Who knows?

I originally signed up to try to get reviews, but it's not so simple. Parking one's book on the app isn't going to draw a reader's attention; it seems that the thing to do is to join a group promo, or a bunch of group promos...or start your own promo.

But first things first. How much does StoryOrigin cost?

The Basic Plan is free. This plan offers unlimited file delivery, universal retail links, Amazon Affiliate tags, a word count tracker, and integrated email marketing, among a couple of other things. 

The Standard Plan costs $10.00 per month or $100 per year. This is the plan I joined, solely for the promos. The Standard Plan offers 17 services, which I won't detail, but here is the pricing page. 

A bit more informative was the email I received:

"Consolidate: Do it all in 1 place

StoryOrigin can work alongside any of your existing services.

But if you're looking to consolidate...

Do you really need a LinkTree account? Maybe replace it a StoryOrigin Link Collection instead

Building a simple author website? Build a simple & elegant author website with StoryOrigin's Website Builder

Tracking your daily word count? Set your goals and visualize your progress with StoryOrigin's Goal Trackers

Creating short links / redirect links like Bitly? Create professional, short redirect links on your own domain that track clicks with StoryOrigin's Custom Links

Collecting beta reader feedback? Readers have to leave feedback on each chapter to unlock the next chapter with StoryOrigin Beta Copies

Growing your mailing list? Create a landing page for your freebie with with the StoryOrigin Reader Magnets feature

Managing a review team? Collect interest and vet potential reviewers with StoryOrigin Review Copies

Direct selling ebooks? Combine StoryOrigin and Lemon Squeezy to sell direct the easy way with StoryOrigin Direct Sale Ebooks"

(No, I didn't leave off the periods. The sender did.)

I did verify before I joined that I would be able to cancel at any time and wouldn't be locked into a yearly membership. And most of these features are not ones that I would use or have a need for. Or I've already got my procedures in place.

I really need to emphasize the setup process. It was the absolute worst I've ever encountered. If you want StoryOrigin to host your book, which you likely do, you will need to upload it in three different formats---epub, PDF, and Mobi. (Does anyone read in Mobi anymore? I wasn't even sure calibre had that conversion, but thankfully it does, because unless you upload all three formats, you're screwed and can't continue.) Just uploading my book and filling in all the required fields took me about an hour. I am not exaggerating.

In lieu of someone accidentally stumbling upon my book, which isn't going to happen, my next best bet was to look for group promos to join. I'm not a big joiner, but I'd even be willing to send out a newsletter if that was a condition of participating. (I'm not a moocher.) As a side note, an author gets to vet anyone who applies to read his/her book, which is fine, but again, no one is going to ask to do so, unless perhaps an author joins a group promo that is tagged as "Reviews". I'm not 100% certain that this is true, since I'm not part of any group promos yet. (I get so little interest, I probably wouldn't reject anyone anyway.)

So, the group promos....There are a lot of them. That's the good part. In fact, there are promos already scheduled for 2027. However, the vast majority of them are for romance and, surprisingly (?) there is a lot of erotica. I mean, a lot. I guess maybe StoryOrigin is the erotica author's go-to site. 

The categories of promos are:

 

 

 

I was getting dizzy reading all the promo details to try to find a fit for my book, so instead I just focused on the color-coded tags. I'm only interested in reviews, but unfortunately that category has the lowest number of promos. Of the scores of group promos listed, I could only find one that fit my genre. I would have also accepted Kindle Unlimited, but those people never leave reviews, which is what I need. But even the Kindle Unlimited promos excluded women's fiction and even "contemporary".

P.S. You can also filter by promo type. 

The one promo I applied to join has ghosted me so far. I naively assumed the organizers would be Johnny-on-the-spot about these things, but apparently not. 

I could create my own group promo, but I don't think I'm ready to take that step. And by the looks of things, I might not even get any author participants.  

As for other features, I did upload my reader magnet, but again, I'm suspicious that I'll get any newsletter signups. If that should happen, yikes---I'd be forced to send out a newsletter.

These are my initial impressions. If the group promo I applied to happens to pan out, I'll be back with more details. Or if I'm really desperate and decide to create my own promo, I'll detail that, too. With the app's painful setup process, I'm not really looking forward to doing one. 

I'm not prepared to pass judgement on the app...not yet. I'll see how things go.