I recently put up a blog post called Operation: Be Read. Following up on that post, I thought it would be interesting to some independent authors out there to share some data.

Driftless Spirits (Book 1 in my Secrets in Casten’s Horn series) is widely distributed (that is, not Amazon exclusive) and the ebook is currently priced at $0.99. Since it’s my only book so far, there’s no chance for backlist orders in any promotional efforts. Expecting to lose money, I still wanted to test some lower-cost $0.99 ebook promotional sites to see the results.

The “right” way to use these sites is a “promo stack.” That means use the sites you select on the same days so that the cumulative sales drive the highest bump in rankings possible. However, my primary goal was to see the results of each site as individually as possible without taking months for the experiment. I expect to run a promo stack once Tangled Roots (Book 2) is either on pre-order or released. I wanted to see if any of the lower cost sites should be included.

The Experiment

I submitted to the following sites. These are listed in rough order of cost, though I did use coupon codes and “special deals” when I found them or they were offered. I’m only including links to sites that actually ran a promotion, but note that does not imply a recommendation (see my observations later in the post):

• BookAngel (free to submit but they may not be active though the site is still up)
• One Hundred Free Books (free to submit but no guarantee of feature)
• Best Book Monkey (“Bronze” option is free; newsletter inclusion was a small bump-up offered after I submitted; June 25 was my promo date)
• BKNights (on Fiverr, promo on June 12)
• FreeDiscountedBooks (June 24)
• Awesome Gang (June 13)
• BookDoggy (July 2)
• The Fussy Librarian (June 20)

In order of date of the promo: BKNights (6/12), Awesome Gang (6/13), Fussy Librarian (6/20), FreeDiscountedBooks (6/24), Best Book Monkey (6/25), Book Doggy (7/2).

I also ran a mailing list experiment. When I did the virtual blog tour back in April, it included a giveaway. To my surprise, after the tour was over I was sent the spreadsheet with submission details for those who entered, including whether they opted in to receiving marketing emails. MailerLite has a free account option and a 14-day trial for advanced features, so I ran a campaign within the free limits there on June 11th, letting 500 subscribers know my ebook was now $0.99.

The Results

First, regarding the MailerLite campaign, it recorded only one clickthrough to my book’s Amazon sale page out of 482 sent emails. Ten people clicked unsubscribe. So, at most, one sale on or around June 11th might be from the email campaign.

Here is my Kindle sales chart encapsulating the promo period:

Additionally, I had 7 ebook sales recorded by Draft2Digital in June:

Note that the two Apple sales aren’t reported by date, but the Barnes&Noble sales were.

Observations

First, I’m drawing conclusions for my own use of these sites. Other books in other categories might do better on sites that didn’t perform so great with mine. Also, free book promos generally do better than $0.99 book promos. I’m happy with the sales I got!

Broadly speaking, you get what you pay for. The Fussy Librarian was the most expensive on my list but also the best performer. There was a nice spike on June 20th and then some follow-on sales for a few days. One nice thing about their service is their newsletter mailing list categories are targeted. Rather than submitting to the general “mystery” category, I submitted to “mystery-cozy” and “mystery-female sleuths.” I will likely use The Fussy Librarian again because they clearly moved the needle. With a second book out, I might break even or better.

Best Book Monkey did better than expected! I credit them for sales on June 25 and June 26. I submitted for their free option, then bit the hook when they offered a discounted one-time offer for newsletter inclusion. There’s a small bump in Kindle sales on June 25-26 but there were also three B&N sales I attribute to them, and they might be responsible for the Apple sales too. If you are widely distributed, they are worth a look for inclusion in a larger promo stack. Remember, their Bronze option is free.

Book Doggy was about 2/3 the price of The Fussy Librarian, so by comparison I’d have to say they underperformed for me. I included them in the test because they are among the promo stack options offered at Written Word Media. I’m eyeing WWM for promos once Tangled Roots is available. The Book Doggy results makes me think selecting my own stack targets is better than bundling, but I will probably test one or two more sites before writing that conclusion in ink.

As an aside, this experiment also resulted in my first rating on Apple (5 stars!) and at least one new Kindle rating. Every little bit helps.

If you are an author who runs $0.99 promos, are there any low-cost sites I missed that you think I should look at? Are there higher priced sites you’d recommend? I’ll be setting up a promo stack once Tangled Roots is up for pre-order or sale. (I’m committed to releasing it in September and hope to finish soon enough for a little pre-order test.)

I hope some people found this post helpful. The Driftless Spirits ebook is still $0.99 and widely available. If you’d like to add Driftless Spirits to your summer reading list, here are some links (use the Universal Link to find it on Apple, Kobo, Nook, etc.):