Promo for KU books YA Fantasy and Sci-fi - starts on May 20th

[Denise]

I decided to try the KU promo on Story Origin.

If you don't know Story Origin, you should. It's a little similar to BookFunnel, but I find the retailer promos easier. They also have newsletter magnet group giveaways. It's free for now, and another alternative.

Anyway, I have a promo for YA fantasy and sci-fi on KU, from May 22nd to June 20th.

https://storyoriginapp.com/bundles/91fb641e-6d38-11e9-95ba-434f6c405abe/info

Ideally YA titles, sci-fi and fantasy, on Kindle Unlimited, any price. If your book is not YA but you think it's YA appropriate and won't stick out in a YA promo, that's fine too.

[Bill Hiatt]

Since your recommendation of BookFunnel worked out so well for me, I had to try this.

(Just in case you haven't checked your messages yet, I made a mistake when signing up for your promo. The message explains in greater detail.)

It looks well worth trying. For the sake of others, I will mention that one part of the signup process is confusing. The form wants an applicant to fill in details about his or her mailing list and when he or she will send a newsletter including the giveaway. There's nothing wrong with that, but the question asked is, "Integrate with a newsletter swap campaign?" Saying no brings up the request for mailing list information. I was doing the process early in the morning, but I have to say it took me a minute to figure out what was happening.

[Denise]

Yeah, they have a newsletter swap feature that I don't use either and I agree it's confusing.

I think their newsletter magnets promos are better than the retailer promos, though, I'd say almost as effective as the ones on BookFunne. If you're not there you should try because there are quite a few fantasy and YA promos.

I'm trying this KU for the first time but I'm not sure if it's effective. It's at least extra exposure, I guess.

Also, I must say that I don't love their creation tools. Now that you're saying that I considered removing the question about mailing list, but there's no place to edit it. There's also no way to edit the start and end date. So BookFunnel is still better.

That said, it's good to use different services, because then you cross promote with a greater variety of authors.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yeah, they have a newsletter swap feature that I don't use either and I agree it's confusing.

I think their newsletter magnets promos are better than the retailer promos, though, I'd say almost as effective as the ones on BookFunne. If you're not there you should try because there are quite a few fantasy and YA promos.

I'm trying this KU for the first time but I'm not sure if it's effective. It's at least extra exposure, I guess.

Also, I must say that I don't love their creation tools. Now that you're saying that I considered removing the question about mailing list, but there's no place to edit it. There's also no way to edit the start and end date. So BookFunnel is still better.

That said, it's good to use different services, because then you cross promote with a greater variety of authors.

The point about interacting with a different group of authors is a good one, as I imagine everyone isn't on BookFunnel.

There's nothing wrong with asking about mailing list size and when the promo will be shared. BookFunnel now asks for the latter information, and giveaways there sometimes require a specific mailing list size, so it's really not a problem. Story Origin just needs to set that up as a separate question rather than having it branch off the newsletter swap one. It took me a little while to realize I wasn't inadvertently creating a newsletter swap.

Story Origin is a new service (and free at the moment), so it's not surprising there are some confusing things. I was looking around for a mailing list builder, and apparently there is no separate label for that. I guess the giveaways are for that, but I checked a couple of the applications, and it isn't clear. There's no question about whether I want to collect email addresses or not, though one of the authors did say that was an option in the directions.

If the mailing list builders are almost as good as BookFunnel's, people should definitely try them. In January, after I'd nuked my mailing list over GDPR, it was at 15 subscribers. Now I'm at 1,603, 46% of which have come from BookFunnel. My open and click rates are good. I suspect Story Origin may have at least some readers who aren't on BookFunnel, so it's definitely worth trying it out.

I previewed your giveaway page, and it looks good, maybe even a little better than BookFunnel's.

[Denise]

Their navigation really isn't great. They've been adding tons of new cool features and recently simplified the menu but maybe simplified it too much.

For newsletter builders, you go to bundles and choose giveaways. As far as I know, newsletter sign up is always mandatory for readers downloading your book. I know you don't like it, but personally I find that this way readers know what the deal is.

Also, congrats on growing your mailing list! That's fabulous!

[Bill Hiatt]

Their navigation really isn't great. They've been adding tons of new cool features and recently simplified the menu but maybe simplified it too much.

For newsletter builders, you go to bundles and choose giveaways. As far as I know, newsletter sign up is always mandatory for readers downloading your book. I know you don't like it, but personally I find that this way readers know what the deal is.

Also, congrats on growing your mailing list! That's fabulous!

My only concern about mandatory signups has been GDPR. As I recall, there was some dispute over whether the signup is voluntary if you have to do it to take advantage of a particular offer. (Silly, I thought even at the time, but the argument was made.) I don't know how it is in Europe, but in the US, I've barely heard anything more about GDPR after the-world-is-coming-to-an-end panic about what it meant. Perhaps some of the concerns were misplaced.

That said, I do think people who subscribe because they want to are likely to stick than people who subscribe because they have to. Aside from the BookFunnel folks who subscribed by accident because they thought they had to, I've had very few unsubscribes, and my open and click rates have stayed pretty constant even as the list grew. That wasn't as much the case with my old list.