Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway

[Marti Talbott]

I asked Written Word Media if they promoted to Kindle Unlimited readers. They sent me this link. https://readingstacks.com/for-authors

If we don't have to drop the regular price to zero, it makes promoting KU books a lot easier. I'm just now checking it out.

[OfficialEthanJ]

Not easier for me. None of my titles have 20+ reviews, despite my efforts.

[Marti Talbott]

Not easier for me. None of my titles have 20+ reviews, despite my efforts.

Understood, some of mine don't have 20 reviews yet. It takes time to build that up.

[123mlh]

Nice. They have better categories for romance than Freebooksy did last time I checked.

[Anarchist]

Not easier for me. None of my titles have 20+ reviews, despite my efforts.

Another argument for building and maintaining an ARC list.

It's the difference between waiting a year (or longer) to accrue 20+ reviews and having them posted at launch (technically, pre-launch).

[Maggie Ann]

The price is right and the book that I'll be putting back in KU in September has 60+ reviews and an audiobook. I'll keep this in mind. Thanks, Marti.

[TimothyEllis]

Doesn't anyone else find their list size of exactly 10,000 suspicious?

Make me thing they email spam.

[Marti Talbott]

Well, I'm on their list for the 25th, so I'll let you know.

[Marti Talbott]

It's the same company as Freebooksy, and I've never had a problem. I think 10,000 is an estimate because it's new? For only $25.00 it's worth taking a chance for me.

[Maggie Ann]

It's the same company as Freebooksy, and I've never had a problem. I think 10,000 is an estimate because it's new? For only $25.00 it's worth taking a chance for me.

Me, too.

I think they just rounded their subscriber figures, probably up but that's okay.

Freebooksy is way too expensive for me with little results. I've tried Bargainbooksy for 99c books and the results were absolutely dismal.

Let us know how it goes.

[OfficialEthanJ]

Not easier for me. None of my titles have 20+ reviews, despite my efforts.

Another argument for building and maintaining an ARC list.

It's the difference between waiting a year (or longer) to accrue 20+ reviews and having them posted at launch (technically, pre-launch).

Maybe in my next life, I guess. Since I don't promote titles beyond the first in the series, and being that I'm in KU, the A in ARC would mean "After the Fact". I'm not super worried about it re: my existing slate of offerings. If people have something to say about it, they will, but overall they seem to read my stuff into the ground and I get paid. Maybe my next series I'll do the ARC thing before I gum it up with KU.

[Simon Haynes]

I booked an audiobook promo for one of mine - I probably only need to sell 2 copies to cover the cost, although since they have such a small mailing list I doubt I'll even do that. I just never find time to promote my audio, so this is like chucking a bone in the general direction ;-)

[KevinH]

The repetitive 10,000 did seem odd, but there are so few viable platforms for promoting audio that I gave them a whirl.  (Plus, they're in the same family as Freebooksy/Bargain Booksy, so they were worth a roll of the dice.) On the day my promo was supposed to run, I got an email in the early afternoon saying my book would start hitting the inboxes of readers between 8pm and 11pm.  Seriously.  That means my promo "day" might be as little as one hour (not to mention possibly arriving late at night).

Needless to say, the promo was an epic fail.  I'm assuming they're still working the bugs out, but hopefully others will have better luck than I did.

[notthatamanda]

Written word media usually sends out a survey asking for feedback for FreeBooksie and Red Feather so you can let them know if you get that.  Sorry you had such bad results, I know how disheartening a busted promo is.

[KevinH]

Yes, I completed the survey and told them of the results, and also - among other things - how I viewed the timing of the email as a strategic/marketing failure.

[TimothyEllis]

my book would start hitting the inboxes of readers between 8pm and 11pm.  Seriously.  That means my promo "day" might be as little as one hour (not to mention possibly arriving late at night).

This sort of thing is why a 1 day promo needs the book on special for 3 days.

If the email comes early, the book is already on special. If the email is late, there is still more than 24 hours for people to act on it.

Its safe to assume that a lot of people wont have a chance to act on a promo email for up to a day after getting it. As such, you need to leave the book on special for at least a day after.

[KevinH]

This is for books in KU and audiobooks, so there's really no "special" from the standpoint of discounting. However, any rank/visibility/momentum you might get from sales or borrows is going to be of little benefit if it's kicking in when most people are snoozing.  There are other factors as well, but I think they need to beta test this a little more before they start offering it as a viable option.

[Ghost5]

Well, this is depressing to read. I booked a slot with them tomorrow. My book is first in series and priced at $2.99. I'm hoping for a KU boost.

I'll check back in with results.
 

[Marti Talbott]

I have one for the 25th. Hope this gets straightened out by then!

[KevinH]

Well, mine may not be the typical experience, so I'll definitely be interested in how others fare. 

[LilyBLily]

I'm not sure an 8 PM target time is so bad. That's about when most adults with jobs or lives are looking for some entertainment and may not be too picky about what it is.

[Marti Talbott]

 Another problem may have been that it was prime days. My sales were dismal, and it's normal for the dashboard to be behind. At least it used to be. I remember when Gaga (whoever that is) did a free song giveaway and it took three days for book sales to catch up.

Anyway, Kevin, did you ask them directly if it was an error or their standard method?

[Anarchist]

8:00 to 11:00 p.m. is a terrible time to email.




Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/best-time-send-email-report-2015


Written Word should know better.

[KevinH]

I'm not sure an 8 PM target time is so bad. That's about when most adults with jobs or lives are looking for some entertainment and may not be too picky about what it is.

To be clear, it was between 8pm and 11pm.  So it might have gotten there at 8pm, might have gotten there an hour before midnight.  Personally, if I weren't an author, 8pm would be well past the time I would be checking email. I'd be kicking back with a book, watching some tube, or something along those lines.

I didn't ask if the timing was standard, but the email pretty much looked like a form letter so I assumed that to be the case.  That said, I just looked at it again and it does say that I shouldn't expect a one-day sales spike like there would be with a price promotion; instead, I should anticipate a bump in page reads and audiobook downloads in the weeks following the promotion. 

I agree with the statement about the sales spike, and I wasn't really anticipating any.  However - as stated - I was looking for page reads and audio sales.  Long story short, there really haven't been any - at least none that I'd attribute to the promo.  More to the point, they seem to be indicating that the results may not become evident until several weeks down the road. If you've engaged other promotions since then, how do you know what to attribute to Reading Stacks vs your other efforts (e.g., a newsletter swap, a KU promo with another platform, etc.)?

In essence, the way it's currently structured, I think it's going to be very difficult to assign to value to this particular offering.  They need to revamp it in a way that offers a somewhat measurable benefit.

[notthatamanda]

8:00 to 11:00 p.m. is a terrible time to email.




Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/best-time-send-email-report-2015


Written Word should know better.

They do for Freebooksy.  From my feature in June:

Your book will start hitting the inboxes of our readers between 11am and 2pm EST today.
Thanks for your business and good luck with your promotion!
The Written Word Media Team

[Anarchist]

8:00 to 11:00 p.m. is a terrible time to email.




Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/best-time-send-email-report-2015


Written Word should know better.

They do for Freebooksy.  From my feature in June:

Your book will start hitting the inboxes of our readers between 11am and 2pm EST today.
Thanks for your business and good luck with your promotion!
The Written Word Media Team

Before you said that, I was thinking, "8:00 to 11:00 p.m.?! That's ridiculous."

Now I'm thinking, "That's ridonkulous."

It's so bizarre, it's almost funny.

Almost.

[Marti Talbott]

I got an email from this company last night. Yep, last night. It showed up at 8 pm central time promoting four books.

Maybe they do have a problem. Maybe someone is confused between a.m. and p.m.?

[notthatamanda]

I got an email from this company last night. Yep, last night. It showed up at 8 pm central time promoting four books.

Maybe they do have a problem. Maybe someone is confused between a.m. and p.m.?

Which promo site?  Freebooksy, etc?

[Marti Talbott]

I got an email from this company last night. Yep, last night. It showed up at 8 pm central time promoting four books.

Maybe they do have a problem. Maybe someone is confused between a.m. and p.m.?

Which promo site?  Freebooksy, etc?

Reading Stacks - the one that promotes books in KU and audio. It is part of the Written Word Media, and I think it's new. The email I got only had 4 books, 3 Mystery and one Science Fiction. By the way, they rejected my earthquake book. I understand. It is hard to put in a genre. They did accept a mystery, "Missing Heiress."

https://readingstacks.com/for-authors

[Ghost5]

Hey, y'all--

I listed with them yesterday (the 18th) for a first book in series to try to boost KU. First off, I'd say they're still new enough that they only send a newsletter once per week--certainly not every day. Someone correct me if it's more frequent than once every week.

Yes, they sent me a confirmation email that their NL would go out between 8 - 11 pm.

Yes, I received my newsletter at 7 pm, straight on the dot (I'm central time, US).

No, I didn't see a significant drop in my ranking for that book to indicate any significant downloads. I'll amend this post if today perks up, but at this point, my opinion is that it's too early in this promotion site's existence to throw money at it. Maybe it'll get better with more subscribers and time, but for now, it's disappointing.

Save your money. At least for now.
 

p.s. Marti--you can edit your subscriber details on the NL list so you get the categories of books you prefer. I checked their website and they featured 16 books in total. I'd say you only got four due to your preferred genres. I also subscribed but didn't get quite what I'd asked for and had to edit (so I could see my own book!).

[Marti Talbott]

Good way to test the once a week email. Mine is set up for 7/25 which is next Thursday. I'm so new to KU, I didn't actually know you can tell when the rank changed. Good to know.

[notthatamanda]

I had to contact Written Word Media about something else so I mentioned that people were concerned about the timing of the emails for Reading Stacks.  Incidentally, they are using that same timing for New to Read (I think that is what it is called).  Anyway, they'd like to hear from you guys directly, if you are so inclined.

I hope everyone's okay with that, I didn't give them any names or even tell them what forum it was, though they asked.

Here's the email they sent me:

Hi Amanda,

Thanks again for letting us know about this! We would greatly appreciate it if you would direct the authors in the forum to our customer service team. They can email us at hello@writtenwordmedia.com to share their feedback with us.

All the best,

—
Teisha M
The Written Word Media Team

[Marti Talbott]

I let them know I was concerned because my promotion is coming out on the 25Th. This is the response I got. (By the way, I see no harm in telling them about this forum.)

Hi Marti,

Thanks for reaching out to us! Yes, our Reading Stacks emails are scheduled for Thursday nights at 8pm EST. Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. I'll be sure to pass your concerns along to our leadership team.

All the best,

—
Teisha M
The Written Word Media Team

[Marti Talbott]

 My promotion is today. Apparently, they listened to us about the time of day their emails go out.

"This is to confirm your feature of Missing Heiress: A Jackie Harlan Mystery by Marti Talbott is now live on Reading Stacks.

Your book will start hitting the inboxes of our readers between 10am and 12pm EST today. Please keep in mind that Reading Stacks readers generally download books and audiobooks via their subscription services. As such, you will not see a one-day sales spike in your retail dashboards as you do when running a price promotion. Instead, you can anticipate a bump in KENP reads and/or audiobook downloads in the weeks following your promotion."

I'll keep everyone posted. Mine is just for page reads, not audio.

By the way, it hit my mailbox at 7:20 a.m. central time.

[notthatamanda]

Good luck with your promo.

[Marti Talbott]

The promotion email with my book in it came out just now 8:10 am.

Can someone explain how to tell if someone downloaded a book, but has not started reading it yet? Are those the ones that just have a 1 page read, or is there another way to tell?

[TimothyEllis]

Can someone explain how to tell if someone downloaded a book, but has not started reading it yet? Are those the ones that just have a 1 page read, or is there another way to tell?

1 page is a good indication of a download. But if you get 6, you cant tell if that was 6 downloads or 6 pages read after 1 download.

Amazon don't tell us how many downloads we got. You can try to reverse guestimate it from rank changes, but its not very reliable.

[notthatamanda]

I've found rank changes to be really slow these days which wouldn't help the guestimating.

[Lu Kudzoza]

The promotion email with my book in it came out just now 8:10 am.

Can someone explain how to tell if someone downloaded a book, but has not started reading it yet? Are those the ones that just have a 1 page read, or is there another way to tell?

Compare yesterday's page rank (if you know it) to today's and tomorrow's. Then you can estimate the number of downloads. However, what really matters is how many page reads you get over the next several weeks compared to the last few weeks.

[Marti Talbott]

The promotion email with my book in it came out just now 8:10 am.

Can someone explain how to tell if someone downloaded a book, but has not started reading it yet? Are those the ones that just have a 1 page read, or is there another way to tell?

Compare yesterday's page rank (if you know it) to today's and tomorrow's. Then you can estimate the number of downloads. However, what really matters is how many page reads you get over the next several weeks compared to the last few weeks.

I messed up, sort of, and scheduled a free promotion on Amazon select for today and tomorrow, so the rank looks pretty good, (5,713) but I doubt I can contribute that to the paid ad. I'll get this figured out, really I will.

On another note, I only have two books in KU that meet their requirements. Missing Heiress is one with 55 reviews, and the other one, Seattle Quake, has many, but it got rejected because they don't have a category it fits into. So this will be my only true test.

Missing Heiress
Page reads today so far - 272

[KevinH]

I actually purchased 3 promos when I discovered the service (but before the issues with it came to light), so I have one running today as well.  Likewise, I also received the message stating that the email would go out between 10am and noon.  Thus, they get points for being responsive, if nothing else.

As to the effectiveness of the promo, I'm not convinced it did anything.  I ran it on the first book in my Warden series, but that book is part of a Kindle Countdown this week (99 cents), so it was already in the public eye, so to speak.  That said, it did get some page reads, but I'm attributing that to the fact that I plugged it in my newsletter yesterday, and it's probably picking up some love from the release of the audiobook for Book 3, which happened a few days ago.  (As evidence of this, Book 3 is currently ranked about 3700 on Audible, while Book 1 and Book 2 enjoyed a nice rank improvement to about 17,000 and 13,000, respectively.)

My third promo runs next week, but it's on my scifi novel Terminus that was just part of a 99-cent BookBub deal this past Sunday, so - assuming there's a tail - I think it will be difficult to measure the promo's effectiveness.

[Marti Talbott]

The day after - looks like two people read my book yesterday, but can't tell how many downloaded it. I think this is a great idea basically, it will just take time for them to gather enough readers to make it worth the money..

[Maggie Ann]

I scheduled with them for 9/26 and I have no other promos running for this book any time around there. I'm hoping for whispersync sales because that's usually what puts me over the top with my other books that have audio.

I'll report back when I have some figures.

[notthatamanda]

Good luck!

[Maggie Ann]

My promo ran on Thursday, 9/26, so I thought it was time to report results. The book I promoted is the first in series consisting of two novellas and a related cookbook. All three are priced at 99c. This used to be my most popular book and I chose to promote this one because I wanted to see if I could revive it. Apparently not. Reading Stacks isn't the first service I tried for it. I also did a promo before I took it off wide and went back into KU. Also dismal results. It does have 69 reviews (4.4 ****) on Amazon and 3.71 on Goodreads.

905 KENP
12 Paid including two each of the 2nd and 3rd books
1 Audio

Cost of the ad was $25 and I made 9.46. That's approximate since I don't know exactly how much the KENP payout is going to be and I'm not completely sure if the audio sale was a whispersync. It most likely was so that's the figure I used. Even if I was slightly off, the final total is not going to change by more than a few cents.

Would I do it again? Yes, but not with this book.

[Marti Talbott]

My promo ran on Thursday, 9/26, so I thought it was time to report results. The book I promoted is the first in series consisting of two novellas and a related cookbook. All three are priced at 99c. This used to be my most popular book and I chose to promote this one because I wanted to see if I could revive it. Apparently not. Reading Stacks isn't the first service I tried for it. I also did a promo before I took it off wide and went back into KU. Also dismal results. It does have 69 reviews (4.4 ****) on Amazon and 3.71 on Goodreads.

905 KENP
12 Paid including two each of the 2nd and 3rd books
1 Audio

Cost of the ad was $25 and I made 9.46. That's approximate since I don't know exactly how much the KENP payout is going to be and I'm not completely sure if the audio sale was a whispersync. It most likely was so that's the figure I used. Even if I was slightly off, the final total is not going to change by more than a few cents.

Would I do it again? Yes, but not with this book.

For KU books, the Amazon free days are working better for me than my attempt at reading stacks. Maybe they just don't have the readership yet. Most of my KU books don't have enough reviews yet, and my one attempt didn't make my money back either. Have to wait for them to grow a little more, I guess.

[Maggie Ann]

My promo ran on Thursday, 9/26, so I thought it was time to report results. The book I promoted is the first in series consisting of two novellas and a related cookbook. All three are priced at 99c. This used to be my most popular book and I chose to promote this one because I wanted to see if I could revive it. Apparently not. Reading Stacks isn't the first service I tried for it. I also did a promo before I took it off wide and went back into KU. Also dismal results. It does have 69 reviews (4.4 ****) on Amazon and 3.71 on Goodreads.

905 KENP
12 Paid including two each of the 2nd and 3rd books
1 Audio

Cost of the ad was $25 and I made 9.46. That's approximate since I don't know exactly how much the KENP payout is going to be and I'm not completely sure if the audio sale was a whispersync. It most likely was so that's the figure I used. Even if I was slightly off, the final total is not going to change by more than a few cents.

Would I do it again? Yes, but not with this book.

For KU books, the Amazon free days are working better for me than my attempt at reading stacks. Maybe they just don't have the readership yet. Most of my KU books don't have enough reviews yet, and my one attempt didn't make my money back either. Have to wait for them to grow a little more, I guess.

What promo do you do with the Amazon free days? It's been a long time since I've been in KU.

[Marti Talbott]

My promo ran on Thursday, 9/26, so I thought it was time to report results. The book I promoted is the first in series consisting of two novellas and a related cookbook. All three are priced at 99c. This used to be my most popular book and I chose to promote this one because I wanted to see if I could revive it. Apparently not. Reading Stacks isn't the first service I tried for it. I also did a promo before I took it off wide and went back into KU. Also dismal results. It does have 69 reviews (4.4 ****) on Amazon and 3.71 on Goodreads.

905 KENP
12 Paid including two each of the 2nd and 3rd books
1 Audio

Cost of the ad was $25 and I made 9.46. That's approximate since I don't know exactly how much the KENP payout is going to be and I'm not completely sure if the audio sale was a whispersync. It most likely was so that's the figure I used. Even if I was slightly off, the final total is not going to change by more than a few cents.

Would I do it again? Yes, but not with this book.

For KU books, the Amazon free days are working better for me than my attempt at reading stacks. Maybe they just don't have the readership yet. Most of my KU books don't have enough reviews yet, and my one attempt didn't make my money back either. Have to wait for them to grow a little more, I guess.

What promo do you do with the Amazon free days? It's been a long time since I've been in KU.

Go to your dashboard, then bookshelf, and find the book you have in KU. It will say "Promote and advertise" under Kindle Ebook Actions. Scroll down and you'll find a place to set up a giveaway. You only get five free days per three months, so I usually just do one day at a time. Last month I ran one on Seattle Quake 9.2 and got over 800 downloads. It's exposure, and netted over 27,000 page reads. Don't know how many page reads were the result of the downloads. Hope this helps.

[Maggie Ann]

My promo ran on Thursday, 9/26, so I thought it was time to report results. The book I promoted is the first in series consisting of two novellas and a related cookbook. All three are priced at 99c. This used to be my most popular book and I chose to promote this one because I wanted to see if I could revive it. Apparently not. Reading Stacks isn't the first service I tried for it. I also did a promo before I took it off wide and went back into KU. Also dismal results. It does have 69 reviews (4.4 ****) on Amazon and 3.71 on Goodreads.

905 KENP
12 Paid including two each of the 2nd and 3rd books
1 Audio

Cost of the ad was $25 and I made 9.46. That's approximate since I don't know exactly how much the KENP payout is going to be and I'm not completely sure if the audio sale was a whispersync. It most likely was so that's the figure I used. Even if I was slightly off, the final total is not going to change by more than a few cents.

Would I do it again? Yes, but not with this book.

For KU books, the Amazon free days are working better for me than my attempt at reading stacks. Maybe they just don't have the readership yet. Most of my KU books don't have enough reviews yet, and my one attempt didn't make my money back either. Have to wait for them to grow a little more, I guess.

What promo do you do with the Amazon free days? It's been a long time since I've been in KU.

Go to your dashboard, then bookshelf, and find the book you have in KU. It will say "Promote and advertise" under Kindle Ebook Actions. Scroll down and you'll find a place to set up a giveaway. You only get five free days per three months, so I usually just do one day at a time. Last month I ran one on Seattle Quake 9.2 and got over 800 downloads. It's exposure, and netted over 27,000 page reads. Don't know how many page reads were the result of the downloads. Hope this helps.

Thanks. I seem to remember I used to do three days and two days, but that's a really good result for only one day at a time.

[KevinH]

Anyone used them lately?  I was contemplating trying them again but wanted to see if anyone was able to comment on recent experiences with them.