Scott Norton Taylor: A Review of Indie Author Book Promotion Sites.

Somewhere late in 2016, I decided to be more proactive in selling my online books, as opposed to simply listing them and waiting for readers to come. I looked into paying for promotions of my self-published books that were listed/hosted on Smashwords. I quickly discovered that it was far easier to work with promotion sites if you had an Amazon listing, so I quickly jumped aboard.

Inner City

The Law of Happiness and Divorce

What I found is that self-promotion requires organisation and is expensive. Promotion sites boast hundreds of thousands of eager buyers, but having a database of followers and being able to mobilise those people to download are two very different things.

I started keeping lists and recording how many downloads I received and at what price. I thought it would be of interest to publish these results for the benefit of any other Indie-authors looking to find a way to promote their books.

I decided on book promotions that made my book free across the promotional period. This was usually 3-5 days. Amazon allows 5 days of discount promotions in any 3 month period. The most effective of the promotional sites generated continuing downloads beyond the promotion period, giving me paid downloads for some time. The better promotions also lifted me up to the front pages of Amazon in my book’s categories and this helped create a snowball effect where the promotion gathered momentum.

November 30 2017

Finally and most importantly – these stats and opinions are from my own experiences with these sites. I’m not saying the poorer performing promotional sites are less than others, on another day, with another book, they may be stellar, but for me, on these occasions, these were the results. I will list the ease and experience in contacting those running the promotions and of the results generated by the sites themselves, although with most promotions there was little more contact than booking and confirming dates.

I’m also going to list the sites that said no to me. Often, I have greater respect for sites who don’t blindly accept every promotion. These sites take care to evaluate a book before they put their name to the promotion of that book. In some ways, setting this standard gains them a reputation as a book-promoter that readers can trust. I will certainly be trying to lift my game with these sites with my next books and try again. I’m aware some of the sites that hosted my promotions evaluated my books, but I can’t say with any certainty which ones or how vigorous that vetting process. They helped promote my books and I’m pleased they accepted me.

December 29 2017

Indie publishing for me has revived my self-belief as a writer. My first novel was written in 1999 and sat in a drawer, after many rejections, for almost 10 years. In 2011 I put that first book online under my middle name – Scott Norton – I think on some sites you can still find this listing. I didn’t want anyone I knew to know it was my book. I wanted to avoid the platitudes of friends and family who have to say nice things. I wanted to know if all those rejections were warranted and genuine readers, who knew nothing of my story, would read and enjoy what I’d written, or turn me down. The book downloaded a few thousand times over an eighteen month period and then trailed off. I forgot about it for the next 2 years.

In 2013 I did a Google ego search and was shocked to find entries of reviews of my book.

I knew nothing of the Goodreads site at the time, and to my dismay and delight, I had over 20 ratings and reviews. Most said good things. A few complained about my style, spelling and grammar, (a lifetime battle of mine), but even those griping about presentation said largely nice things about the story. Some readers gushed – enough to help me regain my confidence and re-engage with a career that had always been a dream to pursue, and had, by 2013, run dry.

You will never hear me dissing an Author. I know how tough writing can be – let alone completing a full, coherent and entertaining novel. It’s even harder if you’re out there alone and doing it without any support; the editing, copyediting, cover design and promotion is time consuming, stressful and expensive. Hopefully, these lists and results will help others – and make sure you head to Goodreads and Amazon and at very least click on the star reviews of books you’ve read – you never know when you may be saving a writer from giving up on a dream.

I'm also very pleased to announce I've written two books over the past eighteen months. Both are on the send-out circuit at the moment, and if no one bites, they'll be joining my other books online sometime in 2019. Famously Lost is a Rom-com set in the Australian Outback, and Finding My Voice is a YA coming of age story inspired by a young teenage boy my former partner and I raised some years ago. The boy was my partner's cousin and had some serious education and addiction issues - but in this fictional telling, he overcomes all those issues when he finds love.

I'm very proud of both books and can't wait to release them out into the world. Stay tuned.

The following promotions are for Inner City from 2017 – January 2018.

*Promotional Site*	*Web Address*	*Cost*	*Downloads*
Freebooksy	Free Booksy	$290	1579
Many Books	manybooks.net/author-services	$29	355
Books Butterfly	https://www.booksbutterfly.com/	$80	Was unable to find any downloads for the date of the promotion, but the book listing on Amazon went from 3millionth to 8000^th (approx)
Shout My Book	https://shoutmybook.com/	$44.99	132. Consisted mainly of tweets. Online readers increased, but I found the multiple same tweets that lasted 2 weeks more embarrassing than helpful.
Bookzio	https://www.bookzio.com/	$74	22
Read Cheaply	http://readcheaply.com/partners/	$25	165
Book Doggy	https://bookdoggy.com/	$8	31
Choosey Bookworm	https://www.choosybookworm.com/	$149	491
Just Kindle Books	https://www.justkindlebooks.com/	$38	124
Free Kindle books & Tips	http://fkbt.com/	$33	109
Mega Book Deals	https://megabookdeals.com/	$5	33
Reading Deals		$29	168

Used bookmarketingtools.com - @ $25 – allowed application for 27 sites.

(Many sites were for free listing – usually 5-10 free listings from 300 submissions. But those sites offer upgrades to guaranteed listings at a price – tried two upgrades so far – Mega Book deals and Reading deals.)

Listings contacted through Bookmarketing tools lists free period as 20 Nov until 13 December.

Unable to determine downloads – nothing stood out on the Kindle reports page as significant increase.

Rejected.

Books bub – turned down.

Robin Reads – turned down

Personal Contact.

Jay from Choosey Bookworm took a little while to get back with details after payment, but when he did he explained how busy he is and was very pleasant to deal with.

The same goes with Michael Gallagher from Free Kindle Books and Tips.

List of Promotional sites taken from: https://www.indiesunlimited.com/book-promo-sites/

ReadingDeals.com

The Choosy Bookworm

ENT (E-Reader News Today)

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