Author Topic: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway  (Read 14121 times)

Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #50 on: January 22, 2020, 09:14:53 AM »
The last time I looked, their dates were way out. I guess they're only promoting once a week. It might be worth waiting for, but I would rather put my money on something that happens a little faster. On the other hand, I don't know of any other place that promotes books in KU.
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notthatamanda

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #51 on: January 22, 2020, 09:29:05 AM »
Back when I was in KU I asked Booknights on Fiverr to consider running a KU promotion. Not sure if they ever did anything with that but you can ask them.
 

KevinH

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #52 on: January 22, 2020, 09:32:03 AM »
The last time I looked, their dates were way out. I guess they're only promoting once a week. It might be worth waiting for, but I would rather put my money on something that happens a little faster. On the other hand, I don't know of any other place that promotes books in KU.

Yes, some of the dates are out there - no availability until March or after.  On the plus side, there also seems to be more transparency with the numbers (i.e., they no longer have 10K subscribers in every category).  I've asked if they have an average of page reads or audio sales one can expect, but I'm not sure that info will be forthcoming.
 

natasha

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #53 on: January 23, 2020, 05:42:58 AM »
Since they don't have average numbers posted for bargain booksy, I doubt they're going to post it for this service either.
 

KevinH

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #54 on: January 23, 2020, 11:28:06 AM »
Since they don't have average numbers posted for bargain booksy, I doubt they're going to post it for this service either.

I thought it was worth asking since BookBub and a couple of others put numbers out there. (I was hoping they'd want to be competitive on all fronts.) Anyway, they wrote back and said that they don't have average data per genre.  However, they can provide data on any book you've run, as long as it's within 30 days of the promotion.

 

natasha

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #55 on: January 23, 2020, 12:42:53 PM »
I just realized that they wouldn't be able to tell if a someone borrowed a book. But I guess they can provide click counts?
 

Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #56 on: January 23, 2020, 12:44:38 PM »
I just realized that they wouldn't be able to tell if a someone borrowed a book. But I guess they can provide click counts?

That's true. Good point.
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

KevinH

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #57 on: January 23, 2020, 03:51:50 PM »
I just realized that they wouldn't be able to tell if a someone borrowed a book. But I guess they can provide click counts?

That's true. Good point.

They can also send a survey, like others do.
 

Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #58 on: April 10, 2020, 11:36:59 AM »
I finally got a promotion for Kindle Unlimited. Their promotion dates are still way out and I had to wait a month after I paid for it (science fiction). It's running today, and it's annoying because according to KU no one is reading Seattle Quake 9.2 or any of my other books. The rank dropped from 111,258 to 23,401. The beta is showing two actual sales, the reports are not. If only two sales can drop the rank that low, then no one is selling books today.

I'm just sitting here screaming at the reports, "Do something already!"

Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

TimothyEllis

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Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #59 on: April 10, 2020, 01:02:37 PM »
The rank dropped from 111,258 to 23,401.

That is KU downloads. The reads will probably turn up tomorrow.
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Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #60 on: April 10, 2020, 01:15:09 PM »
The rank dropped from 111,258 to 23,401.

That is KU downloads. The reads will probably turn up tomorrow.

That's encouraging. Years ago, everything was in real time. Not so anymore and not so for a couple of years.
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

TimothyEllis

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Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #61 on: April 10, 2020, 01:26:06 PM »
The rank dropped from 111,258 to 23,401.

That is KU downloads. The reads will probably turn up tomorrow.

That's encouraging. Years ago, everything was in real time. Not so anymore and not so for a couple of years.

I see this on day releases all the time. You get the rank, but the majority of the reads turn up on day 2. People download, disconnect from the internet, read, then sync up the next day. You get the reads then. The only day 1 reads you get are the fast readers, and those who are always syncing with the net while they read.
Genres: Space Opera/Fantasy/Cyberpunk, with elements of LitRPG and GameLit, with a touch of the Supernatural. Also Spiritual and Games.



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alhawke

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #62 on: April 11, 2020, 04:21:00 AM »
I'm confused here (putting up a book on KU for the first time). How is this promotion site geared more to KU? How does it target reads versus buys?
 

Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #63 on: April 11, 2020, 04:25:21 AM »
I'm confused here (putting up a book on KU for the first time). How is this promotion site geared more to KU? How does it target reads versus buys?

It's part of the Written Word Media group (Freebooksy) and it's a new site that only promotes books that are in Kindle Unlimited and audio for that specific market. https://www.readingstacks.com/
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 
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alhawke

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #64 on: April 11, 2020, 05:06:44 AM »
Doh. Stupid me.

Thanks, Marti. I thought there was some special sales method for KU they were using. I understand now that they just gear their promotions to an audience primarily interested in KU.

Anyone know if they let you promote with Bargain Booksy/or Freebooksy at the same time?
« Last Edit: April 11, 2020, 05:08:58 AM by alhawke »
 

Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #65 on: April 11, 2020, 05:18:24 AM »
Doh. Stupid me.

Thanks, Marti. I thought there was some special sales method for KU they were using. I understand now that they just gear their promotions to an audience primarily interested in KU.

Anyone know if they let you promote with Bargain Booksy/or Freebooksy at the same time?

Anyone know if they let you promote with Bargain Booksy/or Freebooksy at the same time?
They do.  grint
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 
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Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #66 on: April 15, 2020, 02:24:17 AM »
So my first experience with this company promoting Seattle Quake 9.2 went pretty well. Although the promotion was geared toward Kindle Unlimited readers, I sold 4 regular copies with about 4,000 page reads. Follow-up page reads for McShane's Bride (the Dotsero Train Wreck) increased by 2,000. I think that's because I included the first chapter of McShane's Bride at the end of Seattle Quake 9.2, with a direct link, making it easy for the reader to "one click" to immediately download it, plus I ran an AMS ad. Not bad for only $30.

A little over 16k page reads for this month so far. It doesn't seem like a lot to some people, but only about half my catalog is in KU and they are the mystery books that weren't selling very well wide.

Now, If I can just think of a new book to write. After ten years, this is the first time I've run into this problem.

 
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

Bill Hiatt

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Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #67 on: April 16, 2020, 01:11:51 AM »
So my first experience with this company promoting Seattle Quake 9.2 went pretty well. Although the promotion was geared toward Kindle Unlimited readers, I sold 4 regular copies with about 4,000 page reads. Follow-up page reads for McShane's Bride (the Dotsero Train Wreck) increased by 2,000. I think that's because I included the first chapter of McShane's Bride at the end of Seattle Quake 9.2, with a direct link, making it easy for the reader to "one click" to immediately download it, plus I ran an AMS ad. Not bad for only $30.

A little over 16k page reads for this month so far. It doesn't seem like a lot to some people, but only about half my catalog is in KU and they are the mystery books that weren't selling very well wide.

Now, If I can just think of a new book to write. After ten years, this is the first time I've run into this problem.
It definitely sounds as if it was a worthwhile investment. (And to me 16K sounds like a fair amount. From what I've seen, as the number of books in KU keeps rising, my numbers continue to go down.)


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Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #68 on: April 16, 2020, 01:54:50 AM »
So my first experience with this company promoting Seattle Quake 9.2 went pretty well. Although the promotion was geared toward Kindle Unlimited readers, I sold 4 regular copies with about 4,000 page reads. Follow-up page reads for McShane's Bride (the Dotsero Train Wreck) increased by 2,000. I think that's because I included the first chapter of McShane's Bride at the end of Seattle Quake 9.2, with a direct link, making it easy for the reader to "one click" to immediately download it, plus I ran an AMS ad. Not bad for only $30.

A little over 16k page reads for this month so far. It doesn't seem like a lot to some people, but only about half my catalog is in KU and they are the mystery books that weren't selling very well wide.

Now, If I can just think of a new book to write. After ten years, this is the first time I've run into this problem.
It definitely sounds as if it was a worthwhile investment. (And to me 16K sounds like a fair amount. From what I've seen, as the number of books in KU keeps rising, my numbers continue to go down.)
Thanks Bill.
Our publishing world seems to be changing a lot and perhaps it is the bandwidth problems after all. If it is, hopefully it will catch us up as some point. We can only hope anyway.
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #69 on: May 17, 2020, 03:22:06 AM »
Looks like this site is steadily building readers, so I suggest everyone promote them on Facebook, your site, twitter, etc. The more readers they have the better for us.

https://readingstacks.com/online-reads
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

alhawke

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #70 on: May 17, 2020, 06:36:55 AM »
Here's my take. I'm totally new to KU so I don't even know if this KU read stat is good.

I used Reading Stacks on May 7th, but it was part of a very large launch promo with other sites including Bargain Booksy & ENT the days prior. And on my day with Reading Stacks, I was simultaneously running Red Feather Romance & Fussy Librarian. I got just shy of 1k reads at 998 page reads the day of the promo. My record is 1370 three days later. I averaged about 1k throughout the week.

It's so difficult to ascertain where the page reads are from. And, KU readers have never heard of me until 2 weeks ago as my other three books are published wide. That's got to impact it, right? Interestingly, I sold the highest the day of Reading Stacks at 58 sales, but I really think a lot of the sales was due to Red Feather Romance.

The whole page KU thing is an experiment for me and, so far, I'm not all that impressed. I could have landed the same $ in sales wide with my launch but the hope is for a tail, extra exposure, and possibly more reviews. I also understand that KU elevated my rank. I'm keeping an eye on my reads but if it doesn't add up in 3 months, I'm returning my book to wide. Hope my stats give you some idea.
 

Bill Hiatt

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Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #71 on: May 18, 2020, 12:55:23 AM »
Here's my take. I'm totally new to KU so I don't even know if this KU read stat is good.

I used Reading Stacks on May 7th, but it was part of a very large launch promo with other sites including Bargain Booksy & ENT the days prior. And on my day with Reading Stacks, I was simultaneously running Red Feather Romance & Fussy Librarian. I got just shy of 1k reads at 998 page reads the day of the promo. My record is 1370 three days later. I averaged about 1k throughout the week.

It's so difficult to ascertain where the page reads are from. And, KU readers have never heard of me until 2 weeks ago as my other three books are published wide. That's got to impact it, right? Interestingly, I sold the highest the day of Reading Stacks at 58 sales, but I really think a lot of the sales was due to Red Feather Romance.

The whole page KU thing is an experiment for me and, so far, I'm not all that impressed. I could have landed the same $ in sales wide with my launch but the hope is for a tail, extra exposure, and possibly more reviews. I also understand that KU elevated my rank. I'm keeping an eye on my reads but if it doesn't add up in 3 months, I'm returning my book to wide. Hope my stats give you some idea.
My experience is that it takes KU readers longer to find things than buying readers. I don't know why, but I see a consistent pattern with new releases: sales first, then reads. Older books fluctuate considerably over time, but they nearly always bring in more pages than new releases until the release is at least two weeks old. What happens after that depends on how much exposure in general the new release has had and how well it's doing. If it's picked up a good number of sales, the number of pages read is far higher than if it hasn't, though there is a definite uptick either way.


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Marti Talbott

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #72 on: May 18, 2020, 01:26:05 AM »
Here's my take. I'm totally new to KU so I don't even know if this KU read stat is good.

I used Reading Stacks on May 7th, but it was part of a very large launch promo with other sites including Bargain Booksy & ENT the days prior. And on my day with Reading Stacks, I was simultaneously running Red Feather Romance & Fussy Librarian. I got just shy of 1k reads at 998 page reads the day of the promo. My record is 1370 three days later. I averaged about 1k throughout the week.

It's so difficult to ascertain where the page reads are from. And, KU readers have never heard of me until 2 weeks ago as my other three books are published wide. That's got to impact it, right? Interestingly, I sold the highest the day of Reading Stacks at 58 sales, but I really think a lot of the sales was due to Red Feather Romance.

The whole page KU thing is an experiment for me and, so far, I'm not all that impressed. I could have landed the same $ in sales wide with my launch but the hope is for a tail, extra exposure, and possibly more reviews. I also understand that KU elevated my rank. I'm keeping an eye on my reads but if it doesn't add up in 3 months, I'm returning my book to wide. Hope my stats give you some idea.

I'm so bad at keeping track of everything, I don't believe I've ever tried using more than one promotion at a time. When I do, I usually only keep track for the first three days and then assume the following downloads of a free books are word of mouth, or for some other reason.
Read The Swindler, a historical romance available at:
Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo & Nook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QG5K23
 

Bill Hiatt

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Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #73 on: May 18, 2020, 01:43:05 AM »
Here's my take. I'm totally new to KU so I don't even know if this KU read stat is good.

I used Reading Stacks on May 7th, but it was part of a very large launch promo with other sites including Bargain Booksy & ENT the days prior. And on my day with Reading Stacks, I was simultaneously running Red Feather Romance & Fussy Librarian. I got just shy of 1k reads at 998 page reads the day of the promo. My record is 1370 three days later. I averaged about 1k throughout the week.

It's so difficult to ascertain where the page reads are from. And, KU readers have never heard of me until 2 weeks ago as my other three books are published wide. That's got to impact it, right? Interestingly, I sold the highest the day of Reading Stacks at 58 sales, but I really think a lot of the sales was due to Red Feather Romance.

The whole page KU thing is an experiment for me and, so far, I'm not all that impressed. I could have landed the same $ in sales wide with my launch but the hope is for a tail, extra exposure, and possibly more reviews. I also understand that KU elevated my rank. I'm keeping an eye on my reads but if it doesn't add up in 3 months, I'm returning my book to wide. Hope my stats give you some idea.

I'm so bad at keeping track of everything, I don't believe I've ever tried using more than one promotion at a time. When I do, I usually only keep track for the first three days and then assume the following downloads of a free books are word of mouth, or for some other reason.
There are good reasons for doing one promotion at a time. It's really the only way to tell how well a promotion is working.

That said, I tend to run mine, not all at once, but spread out over several consecutive days. I can't tell as much about the effectiveness of each individual promo, but the book develops more momentum that way.


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alhawke

Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #74 on: May 18, 2020, 01:48:54 AM »
Bill - Thanks. I hope so. It was a good launch as far as sale #s. I'm hoping for a little stickiness.
Marti - I've got a pretty good handle, I think, on what promos do well. Some of them are tried and true, like ENT, but Reading Stacks with KU reads is something else. I have a hunch it helped, but I'm not sure. (BTW, you threw me with your new cover. I didn't know it was you. Looks great!)
 
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Bill Hiatt

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Re: Reading Stacks - New place to promote - new to me anyway
« Reply #75 on: May 18, 2020, 02:36:54 AM »
Yes, it is a good cover. I think I've liked all of Marti's covers that I've seen.


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