What are the best newsletter sites for free book promotions?

[Gregg Bell]

All I really know are FreeBooksy and Fussy Librarian. Any other good ones?

[alhawke]

For free, the tippy top promo sites for my books are BookBub, Freebooksy, Fussylibrarian, and BookDoggy.
 
WrittenWord Media now covers most of the best and you can run joint promos for convenience:
Bargain Booksy/Freebooksy; and is affiliated with ENT, Hello Books and ereaderIQ.

Some other honorable mentions are Robin Reads, BookCave, HiddenGems, Many Books, Justkindlebooks, BKknights, Readfreely.

[Gregg Bell]

For free, the tippy top promo sites for my books are BookBub, Freebooksy, Fussylibrarian, and BookDoggy.
 
WrittenWord Media now covers most of the best and you can run joint promos for convenience:
Bargain Booksy/Freebooksy; and is affiliated with ENT, Hello Books and ereaderIQ.

Some other honorable mentions are Robin Reads, BookCave, HiddenGems, Many Books, Justkindlebooks, BKknights, Readfreely.

 

Thanks a lot, A.L. That's a really comprehensive list. I was looking at the Written Word Media.  I'm not sure I understand how their stacks work. Say you have the three-day thriller 99 cent stack. (attachment) For three consecutive days Ereader News Today, Bargain Booksy, and Books Adrenaline will feature my book? And there are some sites (Books Adrenaline, Hello Books) I've never heard of. Think they're any good? They certainly have a lot of options, though. Thanks again. This was super helpful. 

[alhawke]

The stacks spread out their affiliates in 3 or 5 day increments. In other words, they determine when they advertise your book with the other newsletters. Each newsletter is sent out on ONE of the days. But don't worry, they know what they're doing. They plan the newsletters in exactly the same fashion I would. They know their more powerful newsletters and how to provide the best effect for rank and sales.

When they first sent this out beta, they sent out surveys and I didn't favor it. Now I like it because it simply saves time.

Be warned. It's possible one or two promo sites will reject running your book. They did this to me and swapped it for another one of their affiliates. The only disadvantage of packaging is it for you is there are little perks you can get if you run them yourself. For instance, I just applied to one including EreaderIQ for a series book. If you go through Written Word Media, they don't give you the option of running more than one book of your series (I mean, they might if you ask them. In this case, I didn't bother).

All in all, its easy peasy and a great way to run a BookBub alternative (or to go all out and supplement a BookBub if you want to go crazy).

If you run a lot of promos, it's worth considering becoming a WrittenWord Media member. They discount promos with this deal. But you have to be using them frequently and have a lot of titles for sale for it to be worth it.

[Gregg Bell]

The stacks spread out their affiliates in 3 or 5 day increments. In other words, they determine when they advertise your book with the other newsletters. Each newsletter is sent out on ONE of the days. But don't worry, they know what they're doing. They plan the newsletters in exactly the same fashion I would. They know their more powerful newsletters and how to provide the best effect for rank and sales.

When they first sent this out beta, they sent out surveys and I didn't favor it. Now I like it because it simply saves time.

Be warned. It's possible one or two promo sites will reject running your book. They did this to me and swapped it for another one of their affiliates. The only disadvantage of packaging is it for you is there are little perks you can get if you run them yourself. For instance, I just applied to one including EreaderIQ for a series book. If you go through Written Word Media, they don't give you the option of running more than one book of your series (I mean, they might if you ask them. In this case, I didn't bother).

All in all, its easy peasy and a great way to run a BookBub alternative (or to go all out and supplement a BookBub if you want to go crazy).

If you run a lot of promos, it's worth considering becoming a WrittenWord Media member. They discount promos with this deal. But you have to be using them frequently and have a lot of titles for sale for it to be worth it.

 

Fab! Thanks so much, A.L. You explained that perfectly. And sites like Book Adrenaline, Hello Books, Book Cave. Got any experience with these sites? (I'm so out of touch with advertising.)

[alhawke]

Book adrenaline is associated with the same company that runs Book Barbarian and Red Roses Romance. From my experience with Book Barbarian, it's a legit and effective company. Written Word Media is affiliated with Book Barbarian and includes them in their stacks--I don't think they work with the other two.

Hello Books was created by Mark Dawson. It works very similar to any newsletter. Originally, the idea with Hello Books was to co-promote with authors. In other words, if they ran your book, you would also advertise all the books promoted on the day of your promotion. But now that it's become affiliated with Written Word Media, it's similar to any newsletter. Yet it's still very effective. And the additional benefit with Hello Books is it's promoting is supposed to run for 3 days, not just a one day newsletter.

Book Cave is another outstanding choice. The catch with this one (there's always a catch, right?) is that you have to be willing to rate your book based on content. If you have profanity, violence or sexual content, you have to rate it. Fussy Librarian does this too, but it's much more prominent with Book Cave.

[Jeff Tanyard]

https://nicholaserik.com/promo-sites/

[Gregg Bell]

Book adrenaline is associated with the same company that runs Book Barbarian and Red Roses Romance. From my experience with Book Barbarian, it's a legit and effective company. Written Word Media is affiliated with Book Barbarian and includes them in their stacks--I don't think they work with the other two.

Hello Books was created by Mark Dawson. It works very similar to any newsletter. Originally, the idea with Hello Books was to co-promote with authors. In other words, if they ran your book, you would also advertise all the books promoted on the day of your promotion. But now that it's become affiliated with Written Word Media, it's similar to any newsletter. Yet it's still very effective. And the additional benefit with Hello Books is it's promoting is supposed to run for 3 days, not just a one day newsletter.

Book Cave is another outstanding choice. The catch with this one (there's always a catch, right?) is that you have to be willing to rate your book based on content. If you have profanity, violence or sexual content, you have to rate it. Fussy Librarian does this too, but it's much more prominent with Book Cave.

Thanks so much for bringing me up to speed, A.L. (This would have taken forever on my own and wouldn't be nearly as good as your information and explanations.) I did deal with Book Cave before but I knew it as My Book Cave. I had no real profanity in my book, and I was really surprised when they responded that I had a lot! They took a character saying, "Oh God" as profanity, as in taking God's name in vain, which is fine. It was just a surprise.

[Gregg Bell]

https://nicholaserik.com/promo-sites/

Thanks a lot, Jeff. I remember seeing that years ago, but I lost track of it. I'm glad he's been updating it. It's super helpful.