…I promised yeez a wee while ago to revert with the success or otherwise of dabbling in the ‘give-us-yer-money-and-we’ll-get-yeez-gazillions-of-sales-for-yer-masterpieces’ websites… I’m never averse to trying new (for me) channels and avenues for prospective book sales, and am currently giving this field a whirl… early returns are disappointing so far… let me recap :
All the sites require titles ALREADY to have been reasonably successful, with a certain number of reviews rating at least 4-star or above…
All the sites require a significant discount to normal pricing.
Website 1…
Paid US$ 15 for a one day exposure for one title in a list of prob’ly around 40 or 50 others, with the title remaining on their ’trailing list’ for a further unspecified period…
Email list (they claim) is 35,000
Result: Sales for the period through this channel — 2 copies only…
Conclusion– A waste of this author’s time and money on that website…
Website 2…
Paid US$ 16 for a one day exposure for one title in a list of prob’ly around 50 others, with the title remaining on a ‘trailing list’ for a further unspecified period.
Email list (they claim) is 121,000
Result: Sales for period through this channel —2 copies only.
I ran a simultaneous promo for another of my titles at the same discounted pricing, same genre, but exclusively through my own normal promotional activity (with which as some of yeez will know, I am constantly active)
the result of THAT personal effort, sales : 6 copies… with no cost to me…
Conclusion… a waste of this author’s time and money on that website…
Website 3…
Pending toward the end of this month:
Allegedly one of the more effective websites (let’s see) with supposedly 100,000 email subscriber list…
Paid US$ 50 for a one day exposure for one title in a list of prob’ly around 50 others, with the title remaining on a ‘trailing list’ for a further unspecified period.
Fingers crossed, and I’ll keep yeez updated …
…here are some of my titles, and quite simply, one of the ways I market them is on here :
THE VIOLIN MANS LEGACY
myBook.to/theviolinmanslegacy
VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK
myBook.to/vengeancewearsblack
SAVAGE PAYBACK
myBook.to/savagepayback
KILLER CITY
myBook.to/calderkillercity
ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!
Keep us posted, Seumas. I felt more inclined to try services that market specifically at readers rather than standard ads but now I’m not so convinced (I have tried a few but only for free books so far).
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be interesting to see if the more expensive site has better responses… remembering, with no false modesty, my books are by any measure already highly successful titles…
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If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Thank you for sharing your experiment!
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…all part of the merry-go-round, m’Lady … :):)
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Reblogged this on Glen R Stansfield.
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..cheeers, that man, Glen 😉
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The third one’s the charm. 🙂
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..it starts at the end of the month… I’ll let yeez know. m’Lady:)
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All very interesting. Will wait to hear about your results. But really ALL promotion should be a long-term proposition, not just a one day or one off kind of deal. Authors should look for promotional services that care about them and their books and want to work towards the eventual success of what we write. Sometimes that success is a long time in coming, but if you’ve written a great book it will happen. There really is no such thing as an overnight sensation. More like “ten years in the making” from my experience in publishing.
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..agree on all points , m’Lady, Susan… and I had in mind when I complete the review of these web selling efforts by early next month to remind myself and others that becoming an overnight success usually comes after thirty to forty years hard slog :):) LUVZYA! 🙂
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Love it that a Scot is spending all his money experimenting while we can just sit back and await the results. Mwah. Thank you Seumas. x
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..I call it investing, m’Lady… there’s a purpose to every spend… ferreting out the stuff that doesn’t WURK 🙂
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I would guess the way you’re proceeding is the only way to do it, Seumas. Interesting. 🙂 — Suzanne
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,,cheeers , m’Lady, Suzanne 🙂
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Reblogged this on Writer's Treasure Chest and commented:
Seumas Gallacher shares his valuable opinion about book promo sites. I would say this is a huge MUST-READ for newbies like me!! Thanks so much for this, Seumas! You rock!!
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