Do Daily Deal Services Work? One Author’s Experience with 19 Promo Sites
By Guest | September 3, 2017 |
Please welcome Laura Heffernan, the author of America’s Next Reality Star and Sweet Reality, to WU today! A little about her:
Laura is living proof that watching too much TV can pay off. When not watching total strangers get married, drag racing queens, or cooking competitions, Laura enjoys travel, baking, board games, and seeking new experiences. She lives in the Northeast with her amazing husband and two furry little beasts.
When Laura first pitched writing a piece on her experience with a large number of promo sites, we thought it could make for a fresh and interesting case study–and it does. Sales are a funny thing, and linked to variables that are often unknowable to us. Laura’s personal analysis of her sales numbers and their correlation with a roundup of ad runs provides food for thought and may introduce you to services you never knew existed.
Thank you, Laura, for taking the time to compile and share your numbers for us!
You can learn more about Laura and her novels on her website, and by following her on Facebook and Twitter.
Do Daily Deal Services Work? One Author’s Experience with 19 Promo Sites
In the middle of June, I got the news that America’s Next Reality Star was going on sale for about six weeks. Immediately, I started looking for daily deal sites to spread the word. I wanted to know which sites work. There’s unfortunately not a lot of information out there, so I did my own experiment. During this time, I signed up for 19 sites that send out daily deal emails to their readers, ranging from free to…not cheap.
This experiment focuses on Amazon for two reasons:
- Due to their ranking system, it’s the only platform where I can estimate sales with anything resembling accuracy.
- Most of the sites only advertise Amazon links.
The book is a romantic comedy, so I looked for services that listed this as a separate genre. When it didn’t have one but a site was highly recommended, I chose romance instead. Sales are estimated, based on extensive analysis of the rankings.
My book was 99¢ during this experiment. Books listed for free might get more downloads.
The Free Sites
Six different free services (who shall remain nameless) ran ads for me: 2 on weekend days, 3 on a single weekday, and 1 for two consecutive weekdays. I can sum this up pretty handily: I did not show a single estimated sale on Amazon on any of the days I used free services to advertise my book (other than sales from my Amazon affiliate links).
Most people would say, “You get what you pay for,” and to be honest, I didn’t expect to get loads of sales from a site that didn’t cost me anything. However, most of the sites have paid counterparts. I chose the free service to see if it would be worth signing up for paid promo later. As a business, this is their chance to hook me by showing what great service they provide. None of them did that.
The Cheap Sites ($4.50 – $40)
- Crave Reads: $4.50 with a coupon on the site’s popup.
Run on 2 consecutive weekdays.
Amazon Ranking Before: 7,744
Amazon Ranking After: 10,916
Estimated Sales: 5 books on the day I ran this promo. However, I had Romance Reads going at the same time, so it’s possible those sales came from them. For less than $5, it might be worth trying again.
- The Fussy Librarian: $15
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 56,321
Amazon Ranking After: 55,451
Estimated Sales: 4. A huge disappointment, because I’d heard good things about this service.
- Book Reader Magazine: Normally $20/$15 with a coupon.
Run on a Saturday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 99,941
Amazon Ranking After: 190,775
Estimated Sales: 0. The deal promised 7 days exposure on their site, plus a feature in their daily emails and on social media. My book was not listed in their emails or on social media. My email to the company received no response, so after my book’s price reverted, I requested and received a refund through Paypal. Would not use again.
- Hot Zippy: $23.
Run on 2 consecutive weekdays.
Amazon Ranking Before: 56,589
Amazon Ranking After: 59,185 (Day 1)
Estimated Sales: 2 books on Day 1. On Day 2, my ranking did not start to drop until 2 hours after my E-Reader News Today posting went live, and I believe they’re responsible for the sales I got on Day 2. (See below)
- The eReader Cafe: $25 for the deal of the day.
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 36,788
Amazon Ranking After: 38,198
Estimated Sales: 4
- Free Kindle Books and Tips (FKBT): $30.
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 120,301
Amazon Ranking After: 32,629
Estimated Sales: 9. I believe this site is more geared towards Kindle Unlimited users, as they all got priority in the email that went out.
- Just Kindle Books: $31.
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 118,848
Amazon Ranking After: 61,405
Estimated Sales: 7
- EReader News Today: $40
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 59,185
Amazon Ranking After: 11,201
Estimated Sales: 18. This is the only cheap site I’d consider using again.
The More Expensive Sites ($60+)
- Robin Reads: $60 for standard booking/$75 for premium. (I was not approved for premium.)
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 92,039
Amazon Ranking After: 7,602
Estimated Sales: 21. Will try for premium booking next time to see the difference.
- Bargain Booksy: $70
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 55,451
Amazon Ranking After: 16,716
Estimated Sales: 17. Might use again
- Romance Reads: $85
Run on 2 consecutive weekdays.
Amazon Ranking Before: 7,602
Amazon Ranking After: 10,916
Estimated Sales: 10-15 (Crave Reads was going on the second day, so hard to know.) Their site estimated 60-80 sales for RomCom, which would have been worth it, but I wasn’t even close.
- One Hundred Free Books (OHFB): $100 for featured placement
Run on a weekday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 12,900
Amazon Ranking After: 9,868
Estimated Sales: 13. This is a generous estimate, as some of these sales were early enough in the day that they may have come from EReaders News Today. But when I emailed them about it, they offered me another ad at no additional charge. Will try again the next time I have a sale.
- Books Butterfly: $170 for 100 guaranteed sales.
Run Monday through Saturday.
Amazon Ranking Before: 60,295
Amazon Ranking After: 118,848
Sales: For this one, I called my publisher. They said I got 40 sales for the week. I’m going to be honest – I doubt all of these were due to Books Butterfly, as my publisher had their own promo going this week. But their terms of service say they get credit for all sales, so I gave them credit. I then emailed under their guarantee and got a second free promotion, this one guaranteeing 60 sales.
I didn’t really expect it to work, but my initial promo ran over a holiday week, and I thought that might have impacted sales. At the end of the day, I wanted the sales. Every single sale helps, especially for a new book. People can’t buy America’s Next Reality Star if they’ve never heard of it. So I took the credit and applied it toward another promotion.
- Books Butterfly, Take 2: $0, because I’d already paid. 60 guaranteed sales
Run on 3 consecutive weekdays.
Amazon Ranking Before: 49,157
Amazon Ranking After: 99,941
Sales: Approximately 4. I obtained a partial refund in accordance with their terms and conditions.
“If you like sweet contemporary romances with a reality show theme, then you are going to enjoy Heffernan’s Reality Star series.” – RT Book Reviews
Note that the more expensive sites didn’t necessarily achieve better results. I did well on some sites with romantic comedy lists, but not well on others. There are only a few of these sites I’d consider using again, but I’m open to other, similar services when my next sale rolls around.
Three things I take away from this experiment:
- I highly recommend finding an author in your genre who had success with any site you’re considering before booking. BookBub is of course the gold standard, but they’re hard to get (and they’re expensive). Same with Kindle Daily Deals. These will likely result in sales, but unless you’re self-published, you would ordinarily have your publisher schedule and pay for them. If sales across multiple platforms are important, look for sites that include links to retailers other than Amazon.
- Six weeks as a sale period is probably too long. I’m happy to get 20 sales here, 15 sales there, but my hope was to lower my Amazon ranking enough to get noticed. To do that, it would’ve helped to have run multiple deals at a time, thereby expanding my daily reach. (Then I’d have no idea which sites worked, which is one reason I didn’t do that.) Also note that some of these sites require sign-ups at least a few weeks in advance, so start looking as soon as you know a sale is coming up.
- Read all the terms and conditions carefully before signing up. For example, Books Butterfly doesn’t guarantee 100 sales if your book has ever been featured on BookBub (which makes sense – there’s probably a lot of overlap in their lists). You’ll need proof of sales to request a refund, so if you’re not self-published, make sure you can get sales numbers from your publisher.
Have you gotten sales from any of these sites or similar? (other than BookBub?). Let me know in the comments!
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Thanks, Laura, for this post. It’s so important to hear what results authors are getting from these sites. Your results are very helpful. Fussy Librarian has twice failed me. I’ve heard good things about EreaderNews from other authors. I’ve done 4 BookBub promotions (99cents) and all produced high sales (around 1000+ for each title), but sales dived after three days and dropped to zero once the promotion was over. I’ve been testing out Amazon Advertising with two of my titles and getting mixed results. Amazon is where all the best readers and buyers are, and you can do your campaign at full price. Results were more in the range of 20 to 50 book sales per title but I spent a lot less money and earned better royalties per sale than on Bookbub promos. Also, building readership with Amazon shoppers has a residual advantage because your title can get wide exposure for several weeks without spending too much money. I’ve learned that consistent sales throughout the year, even if only one a day or two a week is best because Amazon’s algorithms respond positively to regular sales rather than a burst of discounted high sales that dive after a few days.
thanks for your great insight, can you let us know the specifics of setting up a sale with Amazon?
Great information, Laura, and you’ve included promotional opportunities that I hadn’t known about Many thanks.
Thanks for the article. Useful.
Hi Laura. I read this with great interest and appreciate your insight.
Myself? I’ve had great luck with free books on free sites but my experience offering paid books on free sites mirrors yours. You do get what you pay for. I have, by the way, used 100 Free books free to market a free book. There is no sell through of additional books from these free giveaways though, at least not in the dates immediately after the giveaway.
I’ve had decent results with Fussy Librarian but I’ve never broken even with paid books. The $5.00 daily free promo for a free book is worth it. Ditto Bargain Booksy. I didn’t break even but there were discernible sales numbers.
Bookbub wins hands down and they win big with free books. I offered a free book across a wide spectrum of sites on the first of the month and 45 days later, I was still seeing high follow on sales of multiple paid books. The tail was quite long because I opened with free and stepped up with a second in series at $.99 across all sites.
My experiences with Amazon ads mirror Paula’s. There’s a bit of a knack to getting them right but some good (and free) advice out there. Now if someone would just tell us how to really do better targeting with iBooks, Kobo and GooglePlay!
Anne, Smashwords has a good worldwide distribution which has brought me sales for ibook, Kobo, and Barnes&Noble. GooglePlay insisted on selling my books at a discounted price and then Amazon had to price match it–so, I dropped GooglePlay, especially since sales were low there anyway.
You can price your ebook higher on Google Play and then it will still match your book on Amazon as described here:
https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,167655.0.html
Hi, Laura. Congrats on the new book! Great article.
You mention that you heard your book was going on sale. What do you mean by that? Do you mean that your publisher was putting it on sale? Or Amazon?
Thanks in advance for the explanation.
Hi Leslie,
My publisher told me they’d be lowering the price temporarily. But I also have friends with other publishers who didn’t know their book was on sale until someone else mentioned it.
Thank you so much for the valuable info. Marketing is a daunting task-no matter what.
Best of luck to you.
I have had mixed results with the free and low-cost promo sites, as well. And with advertising on several of those sites, it is hard to tell which one drives sales. Like Anne, I have had good luck with free books on free sites, and often there will be an increase in sales for a while of my other books.
This is a very helpful article. I have noted a couple of the sites you cited and will try them next time I run a special.
I don’t use these sites as a writer, all my books are from publishers so I have no control over price, but I use them extensively as a reader. What I’ve noticed is that a book has to have the right branding for the genre. That means a cover that says what genre it is by the picture, and the cover copy or Amazon/bookseller description must also reflect the genre as well as give it a sense of individuality.
Frankly, Laura’s does not. Romcoms almost always have cartoony covers. Hers with the three people on the cover which is never used except for three-way erotica does not say romcom. The book description which I found on Amazon doesn’t even mention the hero’s name, and it’s more about the rivalry between the two women so it fails to define itself as a romance.
Before she tries this experiment again, she needs to rebrand her product to fit the genre it’s being marketed as.
I’ve not examined Laura’s titles, but I’ve heard similar comments made in several of the indie-publishing Facebook groups I’m a part of. Cover and description are key when potential readers are presented with dozens of cover images and use only seconds to make their decision.
Thanks for the detailed analysis of the sites’ performances. There are so many to choose from these days, and many authors report winners and failures. I’m gearing up for launch and compiling a list of these sites. This will be very useful. Thanks!
I write literary /contemporary fiction, but would agree that my best results have come from EReader News Today. Fussy Librarian and Bargain Booksy less consistent, but depends on the day of the week the ad goes out on.
I had much better luck with E-reader News today and Robin Reads. I sold 80+ books the day I advertised with ENT and 60 the day I was on Robin Reads (not premium.)
I put my indie books up for 99c and ran them through Kindle Countdown and a few of the paid services. eReader News Today and Fussy Librarian are a couple of my standards. Since the novels I run through these email sites are indie, I can watch sales directly instead of watching my rating, unlike with my trad-pubbed books. ENT and Fussy Librarian always bring good results. I do my best to time those ads for a Friday to pick up residual sales over the weekend. I’ve discovered the ads don’t do as well on week days.
Great article. Thanks.
Great article!! So good to know this stuff and which work best and dont. I will start to explore. Thanks again!
A couple of questions just came to mind after sending my reply. Can Laura or anyone else help with these questions: when is the best time to do an ad? my book is non-fiction (self help) and the price point is $9.99 for ebook. do I need to drop the price at all or is the current price point good? how long should is a good promo? I have not tried doing ads before other than FB, so am complete newbie to this process. is there anything else that I need to know? Thanks so much in advance. Jane
Very interesting and helpful information. I used Butterfly for my historical fiction and was disappointed. Went in on the cheap end with a guarantee of 20 sales; they ran it twice and only generated 13 (and I doubt they generated all of them) over two runs.
I am using Books Go Social and find it inexpensive and they do all they say they will. Great service, lots of exposure . . . but no sales.
Hi, very good post. Interesting ! I wanted just to ask, by curiosity, what was the price of your book for all these promotions ?