Tried and True Book Promo Services

[guest215]

A request was made to sticky a post about book promo services that have proved reputable and are currently performing well.

A good starting point is here: http://nicholaserik.com/promo-sites/. However, promo is highly category specific, and this data is time sensitive. A site that is a good performer at the beginning of the year might have already begun to lag later in the year. We can keep this thread updated with current results of campaigns per genre.

This is a crowd-sourced information thread on current performance. What has given you results lately ? Please state the particular genre if  the promo service caters to specific genres. (Genres to be added as this post fleshes out.)

General Use:

Bookbub -- Considered by many to be the holy grail of promotions. Expensive, hard to get, and their vetting process has a reputation for being nonsensical. But widely touted as impossible to beat for exposure and results.

EReader News Today (ENT)

Fussy Librarian

Bargain Booksy and Freebooksy

Free Kindle Books and Tips (FKBT)






Science Fiction/Fantasy

Book Barbarian Second only to Bookbub for this genre, and very reasonably priced.




Romance




Steamy Romance

Robin's Reads (free promotion)





Thrillers/Mysteries

Books Adrenaline

[Lysmata Debelius]

What about Robin Reads? Recommended?

[guest215]

What about Robin Reads? Recommended?

Last time I used that service in my genres, it definitely was not worth the money. If others have found otherwise, I'm very happy to add those details to the list. It's all about what's working now, and in what areas.

[Lysmata Debelius]

What about Robin Reads? Recommended?

Last time I used that service in my genres, it definitely was not worth the money. If others have found otherwise, I'm very happy to add those details to the list. It's all about what's working now, and in what areas.

Fair enough!
By the way, thanks for recommending Book Barbarian. They just accepted my submission and I'm curious to see how it does

[Jeff Tanyard]

What about Robin Reads? Recommended?

Something to keep in mind about Robin Reads is the backlog.  Plan your promotion with them at least a month in advance, and preferably closer to two months.  It may even be longer now; I don't know.

Tokki says he hasn't had much luck with them, and that surprises me, because I'd previously only heard good things.  (I haven't run any RR promotions, so I have no first-hand experience.)  But like he says, these things change quickly, and what works for one genre may fall flat in another, and so on. 

[Ghost5]

What about Robin Reads? Recommended?

I have good luck with Robin Reads in Steamy Romance with free promos. As for results, I tested them once using no other promo ads and received over 2000 downloads, which was a good result for me. Of course, as usual, YMMV.

[guest215]

What about Robin Reads? Recommended?

I have good luck with Robin Reads in Steamy Romance with free promos. As for results, I tested them once using no other promo ads and received over 2000 downloads, which was a good result for me. Of course, as usual, YMMV.

Thanks, KFaitour, that's useful info for steamy romance writers. It helps to know when it was a free promo, too. I'll add that to the list.

[JB Rowley]

Robin Reads has served me well this year with free promos for my murder mystery books - 1500+ downloads each time. (The majority of their subscribers are mystery and thriller readers.)

[Maggie Ann]

I've always had good luck with Freebooksy as far as freeloads go. The promo I ran last month resulted in over 3K freeloads plus 55 sales of book 2 an 52 sales of book 3. That was just on Amazon.

D2D registered 85 freeloads with three sales each of the second and third books.

I'm currently running a promo with them. It's at 2,386 freeloads and only one sale each of the 2nd and 3rd books. The promo started 11/29 so there is not a lot of time for sell-thru. D2D has 293 freeloads with one sale of the second book.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This thread doesn't seem to have been updated recently. I have tried eBookDaily and I got more clicks than a BookBub ad, but I'm not sure if I'm doing the BookBub ad correctly. The auction thingy is a bit confusing