New(er) Marketing Opportunities
When marketing your book, it’s always a good idea to try new things. The same old promos get tired after a while, and you really need to expose your book to fresh readers as much as possible. Here are some new opportunities that I have recently come upon.
Written Word Media, of Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy fame, now offers Promo Stacks. These "stacks" make it simple to sign up for multiple promotional sites in one quick shot.
According to Written Word, “Promo stacking is a marketing strategy used by authors. To run a promo stack, authors concentrate multiple promos over a short period of time to attract new readers and leverage retailer algorithms to their advantage.”
There are many genres to choose from, including young adult, science fiction, sweet romance, and thriller. The following are some examples of the costs and what you get for them:
+ A Young Adult triple-threat one-day stack for your FREE book promo reaches 564,565 newsletter subscribers via Freebooksy and Hello Books, and it costs $145.
+ A five-day Thriller stack that advertises a 99-cent promotion reaches 322,000 subscribers via Bargain Booksy, Reader Reach Facebook Ads, e-ReaderIQ, and Hello Books. This one costs $285.
+ A three-day Sweet Romance stack advertising a 99-cent sale reaches 453,000 using the e-ReaderIQ, Bargain Booksy, and Red Feather Romance promotions. The price is $215.
Within each genre there are several stack options, whether you want a one-day promo or longer.
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Bookbub, which is well-known for its Featured Deals, thanks to their millions-strong subscribers lists, also offers the weekly New Releases for Less. As it says on their website, this promo “highlights a curated collection of low-priced new releases hand-selected by our editors from hundreds of partner submissions. Reaching millions of readers, these promotions let partners with competitively priced releases achieve significant scale for their launch campaigns.”
I purchased one for Bright Blue Planet (99 cents, sci-fi category) when it launched earlier this year, and I’ve set one up for Staked: A Vampire’s Tale (99 cents, supernatural suspense category) for its October launch. This is not a Free Book promotion. It’s for discounts only. Most of the books are priced between 99 cents and $4.99, but I did see a few for $7.99.
If you’ve done promotions for free books and for 99-cent books, you know that the response to free books is enormous compared to anything the reader has to pay for (even when the book is only 99 cents). So you will not likely see the boatload of sales a Featured Deal brings, but you could still do very well on or around your launch day. Bright Blue Planet, which is Book 3 in a series, sold about 140 copies. I felt like that was meh, and I’d hoped for a lot more, but it was not a first in series, and I would have sold a lot less without the promotion. For this reason, I was glad I did it.
When you submit a book to New Releases for Less, it goes through editorial review. If selected, Bookbub will inform you of the price, depending on the genre. With the large number of books that launch every week, New Releases for Less is a good way to stand out.
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BookFunnel, best known for their safe distribution of your Advance Reader Copies, also offers Group Promos. These are used to grow your personal email list.
When you join BookFunnel at any level, you get full access to group promotions. I have not yet participated in one of these, but it’s on my list of promos to try.
Here’s what the website has to say: “When you cross-promote with other indie authors in your genre, your book is exposed to new readers who are searching for books just like yours. Get the most out of promotions by sharing them with your mailing list and on social media.”
How do group promos work?
Every author that joins the group promotion sends a promo link to their existing subscribers (and can also post on social media). Assuming the participating authors have mailing lists filled with readers of your genre, your book will be exposed to your primary target of readers.
How do you find the right group promo for your book? Click Here to read the BookFunnel blog post.
So, there you have it. Three new(er) marketing opportunities to try. Take a look at them and decide whether they might be a good fit for your needs. Let me know how it goes.
Kim Catanzarite is the author of the award-winning Jovian Universe sci-fi series, and her new Angel of Death series begins with Staked: A Vampire’s Tale, publishing in Oct. 2023. She is a freelance writer and editor for publishers and independent authors, and she teaches copyediting for Writer’s Digest University. Her Self-Publishing 101 blog discusses the ins and outs of indie life as well as all things writing craft. Kim lives on the east coast USA with her husband and daughter.
