Authors-Readers Connect discussion

I have tried using book promotion sites like Just Kindle Books, Book Butterfly, Awesome Gang etc.
They all promise to send out a gazillion tweets, and post to Facebook, and they send out newsletters via email etc.
So I dutifully enter the information for my book and pay the fee and wait. I don’t get any sales but I do start to get their emails promoting books. Now before I tried to promote on these sites I had never heard of them or even knew where to look for them, so I started to wonder are the only people seeing these promotions fellow authors? Are authors like ants in an ant farm, running around thinking they are interacting with the world but they are just interacting with each other?
So I have two questions, first one for readers. Do you actually subscribe to these sites and do you utilize them to find books that you buy?
The second for Authors, are there any sites you have used that have truly delivered sales? And please for this one I am not talking about having your book downloaded for free or sold for 99 cents. Please no one take offense, it is not that I don’t think that is a great accomplishment and I understand the satisfaction of getting your work out there I just don’t think it is a good measure of how effective the promotion site itself is. Honestly I am not even concerned about turning a profit, I would like to try to just cover the cost for editing.
So anyway, interested in what people think.
Thanks,
Larry

Lawrence wrote: "I have tried using book promotion sites like Just Kindle Books, Book Butterfly, Awesome Gang etc.
They all promise to send out a gazillion tweets, and post to Facebook, and they send out newsletter..."

I am a big reader, but not ebooks. So, I don't join these groups and have only advertised twice so far. Once, with Faithful Readers (my book is inspirational romance) and had several sales, at .99 and then a handful at reg price and of my other title.

The other time was with Kindle Book Review and didn't get as many sales.

There are a lot of readers out there and they want cheap books. There are also a lot of predators out there ready to take our hard earned dollars without anything in return. I would use those services that have been recommended by others in your genre. Nobody can guarantee any sales.

I hope this helps.

Are we all just talking to each other? I don’t know. I just joined the group and want to say hi. Will anyone talk back?

I've wondered the same thing about some of these sites. I've never been into spending money on promotions to sell books but I'm coming around to it now. I'm more of a guarantee and money back type of person and a lot of these sites don't have either. You're right in the sense that you sign up whether paid or free and they put out your information but then your stuck receiving their info once a day. I get Bookzio and Bookbub emails everyday and sometimes more then one and it gets annoying. So your right, it's more about them showing you other authors books then it us about promoting you or anything else. Also what's the likelihood that people are buying these books because I know we aren't and we're tired of the emails.

AwesomeGang is good for interviews and showcasing a book but that's about it. I don't know how many readers even see these when you do them. Many sites offer this and that but they don't show their stats so how can an author trust them? I don't want to invest or spend money only to get no sales from it or not even make my money back. The sites are supposed to appeal to readers but if so many authors are opting in then that means we are appealing to other authors and not readers. In this case most authors aren't readers on such sites they are just doing the same thing we are, they are on there because they had to click to receive emails. Its a tricky but vicious cycle and sometimes you need to do thorough research on a site before deciding if it's worth using them to sell your books.

Justin, Yes exactly. I’ve done some research online and have found some articles that tested out several sites but unfortunately they all measure them by how many free downloads they trigger so you really don’t know if they will generate paid sales.

Has anyone found a site that has generated paid sales?

And Matthew, I'll say hi. Hows things?

There's a thread in another site I'm a part of where this woman runs these all the time for her books and paid ones at that. She said she has moderately good success with some paid sites and they don't cost much. I'm actually going to do some of them and hope for the best.

That's good to hear. If you don't mind let me know how it goes.

Most ad sites don't deliver like they used to. There are some that still get sales such as eReader News Today, BargainBooksy, Fussy Librarian, Booksends, and, of course, the best site of all is BookBub. And yes, BookBub is worth the price if they accept your book. All these sites require that your book is on sale because they're offering their subscribers "deals." It's hard to build momentum for a new book, but you have to keep at it. I highly recommend David Gaughran's site. It has lots of free information for self-publishers. Good luck!

D. wrote: "Most ad sites don't deliver like they used to. There are some that still get sales such as eReader News Today, BargainBooksy, Fussy Librarian, Booksends, and, of course, the best site of all is Boo..."

Thanks, I'll check out his site.

Bookbub is still worth it's cost, but it's expensive. Really expensive. I've done 8 promotions through them over the years, and they've all broken even, and most did quite a bit better than that. I'm about to have a new release promotion through them -- this is the first time I've been accepted for one of those. We'll see how it goes. The nice thing about the new release promotions is they are full price, which means much more in royalties and visibility than a 99 cent book.