Bookfunnel or Prolific Works: which is better for list building in 2019?

[Joe Vasicek]

Bookfunnel and Prolific Works are both services where you can give away free books in order to get newsletter subscribers. Which one is better for that in 2019?

[Jeff Tanyard]

I was wondering this myself earlier today.  In for the results.

(And Happy New Year, everyone.   )

[NathanBurrows]

I’ve run a few promos on BookFunnel with moderate (a couple of hundred new subscribers) success. Nothing to set the world on fire, but every little helps and they seem pretty engaged in the main.

[Bill Hiatt]

Do they both have a GDPR friendly approach?

Actually, I haven't heard much about GDPR lately. Is it proving to be as problematic as many feared?

Overreacting, I basically nuked my old mailing list in an attempt to be GDPR compliant.  Now I'm looking to rebuild, but I'm no longer sure what's allowed and what isn't. I want to make sure I don't do business with a company as out of it as I am. 

[mike herman]

A major difference between Bookfunnel and prolific works is that Book funnel allows mandatory email collection in exchange for a free book. Prolific works do not allow mandatory email collection.
Bookfunnel is promoted by various campaigns started by Bookfunnel users. Prolific works advertises off of their own email list, Bookfunnel promotions are by Bookfunnel users in group promotions. Bookfunnel is said to be easier for users to download books compared to Prolific works.
I use Bookfunnel because I want the mandatory email in exchange for the free book.
A prolific works user said (in the forum) that for every 1000 books she gave away on prolific works, something like 20 to 25% chose the email collection response rather than just getting a book for free with no email given. So she gave 75% of her books away with no immediate return. Sort of like giving it away on Amazon with no return. It just depends on what makes you happy.

[Bill Hiatt]

A major difference between Bookfunnel and prolific works is that Book funnel allows mandatory email collection in exchange for a free book. Prolific works do not allow mandatory email collection.
Bookfunnel is promoted by various campaigns started by Bookfunnel users. Prolific works advertises off of their own email list, Bookfunnel promotions are by Bookfunnel users in group promotions. Bookfunnel is said to be easier for users to download books compared to Prolific works.
I use Bookfunnel because I want the mandatory email in exchange for the free book.
A prolific works user said (in the forum) that for every 1000 books she gave away on prolific works, something like 20 to 25% chose the email collection response rather than just getting a book for free with no email given. So she gave 75% of her books away with no immediate return. Sort of like giving it away on Amazon with no return. It just depends on what makes you happy.

That goes back to my earlier question, though. Is it permissible under GDPR to require a signup to get the free book? There was no clear answer when the question was first raised, and maybe there still isn't--there hasn't been much time to case law to accumulate. There were people who feared the signup could be interpreted as not voluntary under those circumstances.

Another question would be whether or not the extra 75% of signups from Book Funnel end up being good subscribers. How do their open and click rates compare to the 25% group you could get from instafreebie?

[Joe Vasicek]

It is entirely possible that the EU will collapse and the question will be moot before we get a clear answer on the GDPR.

[mike herman]

It is entirely possible that the EU will collapse and the question will be moot before we get a clear answer on the GDPR.

And lets not forget the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse.

[Joe Vasicek]

It is entirely possible that the EU will collapse and the question will be moot before we get a clear answer on the GDPR.

And lets not forget the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse.

Brexit has already passed. Merkel has been forced out of power. The Italians are playing a game of chicken with the ECB, and their leaders are already making a case for Italeave to the Italian people. Meanwhile, the yellow vest protests in France have ongoing for more than a month, with calls for France to leave the union.

We are one sovereign debt and/or global financial crisis from the complete implosion of Europe as we know it. Frankly, I would be shocked if that doesn't happen in 2019.

[mike herman]

Joe, I was just kidding. I wasn't trying to make light of your statement. Sorry if it came off that way. I have a hard time taking politics seriously these days. (probably a reaction to the current US political turmoil that the media and many people view as the equivalent of the US Civil War, North vs South, Us vs them, me vs you, etc.) Please ignore my less than serious attitude. I didn't mean anything by it.

[Denise]

GDPR in no way states that you can't give books to your newsletter subscribers. It states that you can't get unnecessary personal information in exchange for a product or service, and that's what might have tripped people up. Regardless, the legislation is meant to prevent companies from collecting and making use of people's information without their consent. It's not focused on email or mailing lists, like some anti-spam legislations. Bookfunnel has tons of GDPR tools; from stating clearly that people are signing up to your mailing list to defaulting to optional sign-in for Europe. No issues there.

I'll say that nowadays I prefer Bookfunnel. StoryOrigin has some cool group promos as well (and it's free, so why the heck not), and there's always Book Cave Direct (again free, and again why not).

I found out that Instafreebie was really poor at delivering books to subscribers. I built my list mainly with IF, using a novella as magnet. What happened is that every time I sent a newsletter (with a small reminder in case they'd forgotten to download the free novella), the novella got anything from 20 to 60 downloads. 60 downloads! And that's weird, right? Didn't they join my list because of the novella? Or were they just pretending to want the novella to join my list?

Anyways, recently I got my answer. For some 6 months now, I've only participated in giveaways at BookFunnel, StoryOrigin and Book Cave Direct. I rarely get downloads from the novella when I send a newsletter. What does it mean?
BookFunnel readers don't want to read my work.   
Instafreebie's download process was so complicated that readers weren't actually bothering to get the book they signed up for. Now, this is huge. Remember that now, with the new rules, many of the readers might not even be in your list. You lost them forever... I know people often download books and don't read them, but I'm pretty certain that they'll never read it if they don't download them. So this issue alone makes me favor Bookfunnel.

I'm writing Instafreebie because I don't know if Prolific Works changed anything.

Yes, before, Instafreebie's mailing list was a powerhouse and brought some 1000 downloads to a group promo. I think this is no more, and it's because it has less group promos. I assume readers aren't as interested in the Prolific Works emails.

Another issue I found was that the Bookfunnel group promos in my genres (YA and Fantasy) have better books. By better I mean books from more experienced or bestselling authors, with professional covers. I see less of those in Prolific Works now. And I found that the Bookfunnel promos are getting a lot of downloads, pretty close to what I used to get from Instafreebie in its good days. What I think might be happening is that readers who enjoy freebies are paying more attention to authors' newsletters than to Prolific Works Newsletters, since authors' newsletters have better giveaways.

So I'd say BookFunnel without a question.

[Joe Vasicek]

Joe, I was just kidding. I wasn't trying to make light of your statement. Sorry if it came off that way. I have a hard time taking politics seriously these days. (probably a reaction to the current US political turmoil that the media and many people view as the equivalent of the US Civil War, North vs South, Us vs them, me vs you, etc.) Please ignore my less than serious attitude. I didn't mean anything by it.

You're fine. I'm not upset, I just like talking about this stuff. Probably a little too much. Makes for interesting story material, though.

[mike herman]

Joe, I was just kidding. I wasn't trying to make light of your statement. Sorry if it came off that way. I have a hard time taking politics seriously these days. (probably a reaction to the current US political turmoil that the media and many people view as the equivalent of the US Civil War, North vs South, Us vs them, me vs you, etc.) Please ignore my less than serious attitude. I didn't mean anything by it.

You're fine. I'm not upset, I just like talking about this stuff. Probably a little too much. Makes for interesting story material, though.

Heh. Speaking of interesting story material. On the local news, a woman received a hand made teddy bear as a gift. The Teddy bear had a tag that read "Neptune Society" on it. Bottom line the teddy bear has human ashes in it. It was bought at an estate sale where no one was aware of its contents. The reason it made news is that the current owners were trying to get it back to the correct people. Now that is a novel in the making!

[RappaDizzy]

I've made some observations on Bookfunnel & Prolific Works in another thread I linked below & based on the thriller/mystery promotions I've run over the last few years.

https://writersanctum.com/index.php?topic=48.msg29177#msg29177

In my opinion, a lot of the GDPR fiasco is based on comments from lawyers playing CYA.

[lyndabelle]

It is entirely possible that the EU will collapse and the question will be moot before we get a clear answer on the GDPR.

And lets not forget the possibility of a Zombie Apocalypse.

Brexit has already passed. Merkel has been forced out of power. The Italians are playing a game of chicken with the ECB, and their leaders are already making a case for Italeave to the Italian people. Meanwhile, the yellow vest protests in France have ongoing for more than a month, with calls for France to leave the union.

We are one sovereign debt and/or global financial crisis from the complete implosion of Europe as we know it. Frankly, I would be shocked if that doesn't happen in 2019.

And this is the type of thing that tends to start World Wars. But on a lighter note...

I've been using Instafreebie and now Prolific Works for a year now. I went through the GDPR with Mailchimp, and have been recovering numbers I've lost now from Prolific Works Group Giveaways. So, I'm sticking with Prolific Works since it is working out with me. And yeah, it is recommended to leave your mail sign-up "Not Mandatory" to comply with GDPR when doing a giveaway. I've found I'm still getting a lot of sign ups.

The last giveaway I've been doing for New Year's has about 450 copies given away to 125 sign-ups to my mailing list. So, I've got about 1/3 of the people downloading a free copy opting for my mailing list. But when I do my free promos, I'm finding I'm having less unsubscribes. So, having mandatory might be overrated. If you have people opting to sign up who really want to, you'll have less drop off/unsubscribes in the future.

[Crystal]

Neither are great for list building. You might get people on your list, but they're not good subscribers IME. They don't open or click and they're often confused as to why they're on the list.

I would go with Book Funnel for delivering free books to subscribers. I'd go with BF overall, but I wouldn't make it a main source of subscribers.

[Writer]

I used to prefer Prolific Works, back when they were called InstaFreebie, because I got thousands of subs from the mandatory sign-ups and mine tended to be engaged.

But I've switched my allegiance to BookFunnel since the changes at Prolific Works. Briefly, I tried to keep using PW after they minimized mandatory opt-ins, but it wasn't worth it. If I have to choose between getting smaller numbers of signups or having to drive all the traffic myself anyway, I prefer BookFunnel, where I'm not paying to drive traffic to the service provider's own email list. I didn't mind doing that with InstaFreebie, as long as they contributed a big pool of potential subs. But when signups shrank drastically after the changes to discourage mandatory opt-ins, it stopped being worth the trade-off, for me.

I don't say I'll never do PW again but, for the time being, I've canceled my paid account and am focusing elsewhere.

[L_Loryn]

I used Prolific Works a lot when they were InstaFreebie (and for awhile paid for it). I never did mandatory opt-ins, though, so I didn't grow as fast and yes, sometimes people were confused as to why they were on my list. I figure the confusion could've been eliminated if I had some sort of welcome-funnel thing, but I'm way lazy.

I will say that I like the subscribers I've gotten from InstaFreebie. I have an okay open rate and have managed to build an okay ARC team from them. So it has paid for itself.

I peeked at Bookfunnel but haven't had the opportunity to use it.

[Rosie Scott]

Instafreebie's download process was so complicated that readers weren't actually bothering to get the book they signed up for. Now, this is huge. Remember that now, with the new rules, many of the readers might not even be in your list. You lost them forever... I know people often download books and don't read them, but I'm pretty certain that they'll never read it if they don't download them. So this issue alone makes me favor Bookfunnel.

I came on here just to say this if no one else did. As an author, I haven't used either BookFunnel or Prolific Works. However, I love following giveaways and signing up to mailing lists to both support other authors and see what works/doesn't work for mailing lists so I can fine-tune my own. From this "reader" standpoint, I no longer even click on Prolific Works giveaways because the download process is so irritating and convoluted.

For BookFunnel: I find a cover that looks interesting. I click once, read the blurb, decide to download (or not). I click on the download link, agree to sign up for the newsletter, and click on the link to download now. The BookFunnel app opens and downloads my book in seconds. It appears on my Kindle Fire in my library with its cover art staring me in the face when I go back to my home screen.

For Prolific Works: I find a cover that looks interesting. I click once, read the blurb, then have to add it to my account (and sometimes have to sign in if my internet cache has recently been cleared). I am redirected to a new page where I have to agree to sign up to a newsletter, sometimes multiple (the author and the organizer). Then I can download the book and choose the type of file. The book downloads, but not in the right place. Instead of being in my library, it downloads to the documents folder. I then have to connect my Fire to my computer and load up Calibre. Next, I have to convert these files over to my Calibre library, convert the mobi file so it can appear in my Kindle library, and send all the files back over to my Kindle. (I have a bad short-term memory as well, so I know I've lost dozens of books doing this because I can't remember which ones I had to convert in the first place and just end up deleting them.) The books show up in my library, but some of them aren't formatted correctly. If a book loses its cover during the process, I simply delete it because I have OCD and it looks out of place in my library so I can't have it there. 

Sorry for the long explanation, but I figured it might be helpful. I've been a subscriber of some BookFunnel author newsletters for months. I read every email these authors send, and even though I may not buy their books, I'm more likely to pick one of theirs when I do since it's fresh in my mind. But as for Prolific Works, I no longer bother. It's too much work.

[issy]

I've used both as an author but caveat - it was Instafreebie so it was before the change to PW.

IF/PW got me tons of subscribers. I participated in some genre-based newsletter stuff/giveaways and expected to get focused subscribers but I got hundreds of subs who didn't open, reported me as spam, or unsubscribed. Put me into the pay-for category in Mailerlite and they really weren't worth paying for. I've had to brutally prune my list down to get rid of those subscribers.

BF is a great, seamless delivery system for free books. I'm about to start using it this year for the delivery of a freebie to newsletter sign-ups. 

[Denise]

I think the subscribers I got from those promos are pretty good.

- I get sales (about 5% of the list).
- I can give some bump to authors I promote on my list and group promos (and I can participate in promos in which there's a minimum list requirement)
- I got some ARC readers. I'll be honest, though, review rate was low, but I did get some reviews, including in blogs and Instagram.
- I can poll them and ask questions. That's how I found out that most of them buy on Amazon r Amazon and other retailers and a bunch of them were on KU (don't ask me why they were getting books on IF if they could get books on KU ), I asked about a title, etc.
- I can get newsletter swaps and get some small bumps when other authors promote me. 

So I think it's pretty good. I had 5 organic subs before doing giveaways. I think I'd have some 20 subs by now if I used this method. I know that authors who sell more might be able to get a good organic list going, but this is not my case yet.

And it's not like I'm forcing them to remain subscribers. I send a welcome email with a big UNSUBSCRIBE button. They're free to leave at any minute, and some of them in fact do.

[OfficialEthanJ]

It's official: In a 1-0 rout, BookFunnel beat IF/PW, in that I finally got 1 hit at BookFunnel.

[Cathleen]

Instafreebie's download process was so complicated that readers weren't actually bothering to get the book they signed up for. Now, this is huge. Remember that now, with the new rules, many of the readers might not even be in your list. You lost them forever... I know people often download books and don't read them, but I'm pretty certain that they'll never read it if they don't download them. So this issue alone makes me favor Bookfunnel.

I came on here just to say this if no one else did. As an author, I haven't used either BookFunnel or Prolific Works. However, I love following giveaways and signing up to mailing lists to both support other authors and see what works/doesn't work for mailing lists so I can fine-tune my own. From this "reader" standpoint, I no longer even click on Prolific Works giveaways because the download process is so irritating and convoluted.

For BookFunnel: I find a cover that looks interesting. I click once, read the blurb, decide to download (or not). I click on the download link, agree to sign up for the newsletter, and click on the link to download now. The BookFunnel app opens and downloads my book in seconds. It appears on my Kindle Fire in my library with its cover art staring me in the face when I go back to my home screen.

For Prolific Works: I find a cover that looks interesting. I click once, read the blurb, then have to add it to my account (and sometimes have to sign in if my internet cache has recently been cleared). I am redirected to a new page where I have to agree to sign up to a newsletter, sometimes multiple (the author and the organizer). Then I can download the book and choose the type of file. The book downloads, but not in the right place. Instead of being in my library, it downloads to the documents folder. I then have to connect my Fire to my computer and load up Calibre. Next, I have to convert these files over to my Calibre library, convert the mobi file so it can appear in my Kindle library, and send all the files back over to my Kindle. (I have a bad short-term memory as well, so I know I've lost dozens of books doing this because I can't remember which ones I had to convert in the first place and just end up deleting them.) The books show up in my library, but some of them aren't formatted correctly. If a book loses its cover during the process, I simply delete it because I have OCD and it looks out of place in my library so I can't have it there. 

Sorry for the long explanation, but I figured it might be helpful. I've been a subscriber of some BookFunnel author newsletters for months. I read every email these authors send, and even though I may not buy their books, I'm more likely to pick one of theirs when I do since it's fresh in my mind. But as for Prolific Works, I no longer bother. It's too much work.

So is there any way to get around PW's clunky subscription process, or does everyone have to go through all that bother? To me it seems like a deal-breaker. I wouldn't use that service.

[Denise]

So is there any way to get around PW's clunky subscription process, or does everyone have to go through all that bother? To me it seems like a deal-breaker. I wouldn't use that service.

There isn't because they don't have a streamlined process like Bookfunnel. I guess if you have their app and read in your tablet it could be easier, though.

Once my son wanted a book he saw in a group promo I participated. I think I had to email it to my kindle. Before that, I had to figure out how to set-up my kindle email, etc. It was such a hassle. If it hadn't been for my son I'd never bothered. I didn't use Calibre like Rosie, but the process was still clunky.

It's official: In a 1-0 rout, BookFunnel beat IF/PW, in that I finally got 1 hit at BookFunnel.

You need to participate in group promos. One site that might be good for you is Book Cave Direct. They have a front page with recent books and you'll get a few downloads from them without a group promo, so it's worth it. They also sometimes have nice group promos or you can organize one yourself.

[OfficialEthanJ]

I've been invited to join a group promo, but I wanted to see some movement at BF before signing up as a site user. Thanks for the Book Cave tip!

[Post-Crisis D]

For BookFunnel: I find a cover that looks interesting. I click once, read the blurb, decide to download (or not). I click on the download link, agree to sign up for the newsletter, and click on the link to download now. The BookFunnel app opens and downloads my book in seconds. It appears on my Kindle Fire in my library with its cover art staring me in the face when I go back to my home screen.

Does that work for books that aren't available in the Kindle store?

As I recall--and it may have changed since I last checked into it--in order for a cover to show on a BF download, the book had to be published on Amazon.  So, if you wanted to give away an exclusive book that's only available to your list, the only way for the cover to show would be to upload that book to Amazon, publish it, then unpublish it.  That way, the cover was in Amazon's system and would then show on a Kindle when that book was downloaded through BF.

Which always seemed like a convoluted process to me, but that was a Kindle issue not a BF issue.

Does anyone know if that has changed?  It'd be nice to be able to offer exclusive content with a nice cover but without having to go through publishing and unpublishing it on Amazon to accomplish that.

[Denise]

Does that work for books that aren't available in the Kindle store?

The book doesn't need to be in any store. You upload the ebook and cover directly to BF, and in fact most people have books that are exclusive to BF.

[C. Gockel]

I was a long time supporter of Instafreebie, but I gave up and downgraded my account to free recently.

The non-mandatory opt-in was never a problem. I never required that. For $20 I got a few hundred downloads a month, and that paid for the account with sell-thru alone. But then they changed to Prolific Works ...

Before they became Prolific Works when they featured one of my books I got 1,000+ emails and sometimes twice the number of downloads. The last time? Out of 500 downloads I got 75 emails once I scrubbed for people who were already on my list. I think that when they changed their name they lost a lot of reading subscribers.

On months that I'm not in a feature I get hardly any emails or downloads.

On my website and in my emails I switched all my Instafreebie links to StoryOrigins. Haven't tried their group promos, but I am going to give it a go next month. Also trying MyBookCave group promos.

However, If BookFunnel works as well as people here are claiming, and if the books there are so much more pro, I may try it though.

[Denise]

I wouldn't say BF is that amazing, though, I just find that it's a better alternative to PW nowadays. I organized a promo recently (YA), and the average downloads for BF was 150. It's not great. That said, authors could mandatory newsletter opt-in, and might have gotten 150 emails in average, which is not bad. But it's not insanely amazing or anything, and doesn't compare to IF's good old days.

If you already have a BF account, it costs just a little more and it's worth it.

I find that StoryOrigin has good Sci-fi and Fantasy promos, and looks like a viable alternative too.

[Denise]

Just an update: Today I tested StoryOrigin as a reader and downloaded an ebook.

It's as easy as Bookfunnel, except that they don't have precise instructions like BF, so if someone has never downloaded books from promos or from BF before, they could struggle. If they have downloaded from BF, it should be super easy.

So one more point to StoryOrigin.

[Denise]

I have a group promo starting soon.

It's mostly YA, but I'll anything that's cleanish/coming-of-age and has young characters (up to early 20s). It's for sci-fi and fantasy.

Here's a preview:
https://books.bookfunnel.com/free-ya-books

If anyone wants to participate, I know that I can give 2 bookfunnel codes, so even if you don't have a Bookfunnel account,  you could try it out.

I thought I should offer it here. If you have a BF account and a book that fits, I'd be happy if you could enter.

[Bill Hiatt]

I have a group promo starting soon.

It's mostly YA, but I'll anything that's cleanish/coming-of-age and has young characters (up to early 20s). It's for sci-fi and fantasy.

Here's a preview:
https://books.bookfunnel.com/free-ya-books

If anyone wants to participate, I know that I can give 2 bookfunnel codes, so even if you don't have a Bookfunnel account,  you could try it out.

I thought I should offer it here. If you have a BF account and a book that fits, I'd be happy if you could enter.

I love your banner.

I don't have any exclusive content for Book Funnel at the moment. I do have a wide novel that fits your specifications. Is it a good idea to use that? (It's a first-in-series book, but the rest of the series doesn't exist yet, though there are a lot of other books in my catalog that would appeal to the same audience.)

[Bill Hiatt]

With BookFunnel, I'm assuming you need the mid-list plan if you want to grow your email list, correct?

BookFunnel has a lot of interesting features, but the ease of use for readers is a real plus. Based on what I've read here and elsewhere, I'm leaning that way.

[Bill Hiatt]

Another BookFunnel question: if I want to write some exclusive content for use with BookFunnel, what's a good length? (In other words, what would readers expect? Short story? Novella?)

[Denise]

I love your banner.

I don't have any exclusive content for Book Funnel at the moment. I do have a wide novel that fits your specifications. Is it a good idea to use that? (It's a first-in-series book, but the rest of the series doesn't exist yet, though there are a lot of other books in my catalog that would appeal to the same audience.)

If you can offer the novel for free, or at least a sample, I don't see why not. If you get them on your mailing list, you can promote your other books, and if they like the novel, some of them will be ready to buy the rest of the series once it's out.

With BookFunnel, I'm assuming you need the mid-list plan if you want to grow your email list, correct?

BookFunnel has a lot of interesting features, but the ease of use for readers is a real plus. Based on what I've read here and elsewhere, I'm leaning that way.

Yes, you need the mid-list plan. I don't think it's super user friendly for us, authors, but we get used to it. For readers it's the best.

Another BookFunnel question: if I want to write some exclusive content for use with BookFunnel, what's a good length? (In other words, what would readers expect? Short story? Novella?)

I think if it's exclusive as a reader magnet you shouldn't write a full novel. I think a novella is good, but I've seen people with shorter works, like shorter than 10k words. I'll have to confess I don't know the answer for that. I personally used a novella.

[Bill Hiatt]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll use the novel for now and work on a novella that could be exclusive for later. I'm going to get myself signed up and apply for your promo as soon as that's done.

EDIT: What do you know? I have a couple of short stories that aren't in Select, though they are currently only up on Amazon. I'd need to spend a little time getting the other formats made, but it would probably be good to have different potential books to give away for different occasions.