A Promo Funny

[Demesnedenoir]

I just stumbled on a book promo site and said, hey, I'll take a look. This is KBookspromotions. Their gold package suggests an average of 180 sales at $0.99, so 0.70 per book from Amazon, that's $126. Now, if you do their gold package at $2.99, it is $378 income. What are they charging? $780 for the 0.99 promo and $1300 for the $2.99 promo.

Are you shittin' me? Around $654 or $922 in the hole right off the kick? Slapping my knee, man.

One might say that at least they're honest... but somehow I'm not even confident they could pull that off, heh heh.

Bottom line, sink $780 into a 0.99 promo with my own advertising would yield better results.

But I did get a hearty chuckle and figured I would share the humor.

 

[ThinkerX]

that sounds like some of the promos I used...

 

[Prince of Spires]

Their gold package suggests an average of 180 sales at $0.99, so 0.70 per book from Amazon, that's $126.

It's even worse though. You only get 35% at $0.99, so 0.35 per book. Or $63.

$1.300 for a promo? That's an awful lot of money. Even a Bookbub, which is pretty much the gold-standard for promo-sites, goes for half that I think (depending a bit on genre of course). You'd expect a lot more than just 180 sales for that kind of money. That's $7 plus change per sale.

Interesting thing is actually that the pricing seems to be the other way round compared to most promo sites. Bookbub for instance becomes more expensive the cheaper the book is. Which I think recognizes the fact that cheaper usually does better in terms of sales.

Fun fact is of course that they can easily guarantee that number of sales. For that kind of money they could just buy 180 books and call it a day. It wouldn't even surprise me if that's waht they do.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yeah, they could just buy them... Hell, who here wants to setup a promo site so we can rip off sucker authors? Heh heh.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Actually, I've always thought of setting up an honest promo site, heh heh. Here's what you get, your pay X+ a flat fee for me to manage your account and screenshots of spending.

I've also considered setting up a publishing company—Twelfth Star was intended to be this—that is actually a collective for author advertising. Every author kicks in $X per month, everyone's books are listed on the Publishing Page with links, for a big cross-promotional commons and limit it to maybe 5 authors in the beginning.

 

[pmmg]

Yeah, they could just buy them... Hell, who here wants to setup a promo site so we can rip off sucker authors? Heh heh.

Funny you should mention this, cause I have a site, and I'm looking for authors.

Not quite as reputable as Fulton Books, or Dorrace publishing, but...


(Okay, I dont really )

 

[Jason]

OK, I admit it. I paid their gold moron premium recently.
I timed a $0.99 Kindle countdown deal to coincide with my summer holiday so that at the very least I'd get a sunlounger fool's paradise watching the sales figures.
I was hoping to push up the sales ranks and generate 'natural' sales but nowhere near. So, like the beer, it was good while it lasted.
One unexpected surprise: a string of 5* reviews, which has to be good moving on.
I still have a £0.99 deal to run this summer, if anyone can recommend an affordable Amazon.co.uk promoter?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The fun part is that they could easily have a few people set up for reviews and pay them on the side. It's impossible to say. But I'd wager most every Indie has done something that at the minimum didn't work. I had one backfire big time. Eve of Snows was carrying like 4.6-4.7 stars reviews on Amazon and I bought into a group that targeted Fantasy Readers for reviews... I thought, gee, people who like Epics will read this, right? Tanked my ratings with all kinds of people who obviously aren't into multi-POV books and whatever. In the long run, no biggie, but at the time I was slapping myself around.

Natural sales works with rankings if, and only if, you have the money to keep hammering the promotion. EoS hit #1 in Epics and top 100 overall in the store for a short-time, and maintained top 20 in a smaller category for months on end, but it needs constant shots of adrenaline... or cash, heh heh.

UK, no idea. Many seem to hit it a little bit, most I know of don't target the UK specifically. I'd like to know one, as my books have done well there and in Australia. And Nigeria, apparently, heh heh.

 

[Jason]

Thanks

I meant a pleasant surprise rather than a complete one - 3 to 6 reviews are part of the deal so it's fair to say they are paid separately. I suspect the reviewers are told not to post anything if they can't bring themselves to give 4 or more stars.

BookBub, Hello Books and the small ads on fiverr are the only UK promoters I've come across.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I always consider reviews a surprise, even when they aren't. It's amazing how rare they are in the wild.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I've also considered setting up a publishing company—Twelfth Star was intended to be this—that is actually a collective for author advertising. Every author kicks in $X per month, everyone's books are listed on the Publishing Page with links, for a big cross-promotional commons and limit it to maybe 5 authors in the beginning.

You'd need to be very selective of the authors, but it could definitely work.

I've heard of the reverse of this. Where a group of authors, who wrote similar books, formed a single pen-name. Which then allowed them to publish very frequently (after all, if there are 6 of you, then you can publish each month and you still only have to write 2 books a year...).

If you could get results then I'd definitely pay you to advertise for me. It can't be worse than some of the other options I've thrown money at.

 

[Jason]

Back to promo funnies - UK query.

I've taken a $40 punt to promote a Kindle UK £0.99 countdown deal with ebookdealstoday.co.uk - starting 07/28.
I found them here - List of Promotional Sites for KDP Deals | Indies Today

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yeah, that's why I'd look at authors here first. I really think that the key might be an interesting group for doing podcasts/booktube/booktok engagement. With a solid group of five tossing ideas around and putting out little interviews/reviews/discussions on a regular basis people can get to know the authors and what they're doing, and drive traffic and engagement. Money helps grease these wheels. In a perfect world, from Mythic Scribes, you could pulll historians, combat experts, writing theorists, story theorists... Hell, we could approach Black Dragon about doing a Mythic Scribes booktube author group. See if Skip, Malik, you, me, Ban, PMMG, Mad Swede, AE Lowan, Insolent Lad, or lots of names my brain is too tired to recall, formed a core for interviews, reviews, etc. This would build in a cross promo with this site, which should benefit both sides of the equation.

Plus, it'd incentivize new members here, as we could d interviews with people with new releases, etc etc, and with enough members folks might only have to work on a single short project in any given month.

As with anything, one of the keys would be that it's most likely a slow burn and people tend to back out of things that don't move fast enough. That's why a simple, cashless experimental group could also be useful.

You'd need to be very selective of the authors, but it could definitely work.

I've heard of the reverse of this. Where a group of authors, who wrote similar books, formed a single pen-name. Which then allowed them to publish very frequently (after all, if there are 6 of you, then you can publish each month and you still only have to write 2 books a year...).

If you could get results then I'd definitely pay you to advertise for me. It can't be worse than some of the other options I've thrown money at.

 

[pmmg]

I am open to it.

But most of my energy is on creation of the current tale, and getting this first one out the door.

Otherwise...I dont mind pretending I am as smart as the rest of you

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Smart? Smarter than the average bear, maybe. Bears don't work as hard and hibernate in winter, so scratch that, I might not be smarter than the average bear.

That's also the issue, most people are busy as hell, and coordinating anything gets tough. But that would also be the reason to share the load. I could handle audio and video editing pretty quickly and our audio would sound cleaner than most videos out there, for things not done live.

Another possible benefit I could offer down the road is throwing together print books, I've got the 6x9 format down pretty pat with InDesign, to the point I'd do the work stupid cheap for a basic novel, LOL.

 

[ThinkerX]

Yeah, that's why I'd look at authors here first. I really think that the key might be an interesting group for doing podcasts/booktube/booktok engagement. With a solid group of five tossing ideas around and putting out little interviews/reviews/discussions on a regular basis people can get to know the authors and what they're doing, and drive traffic and engagement. Money helps grease these wheels. In a perfect world, from Mythic Scribes, you could pulll historians, combat experts, writing theorists, story theorists... Hell, we could approach Black Dragon about doing a Mythic Scribes booktube author group. See if Skip, Malik, you, me, Ban, PMMG, Mad Swede, AE Lowan, Insolent Lad, or lots of names my brain is too tired to recall, formed a core for interviews, reviews, etc. This would build in a cross promo with this site, which should benefit both sides of the equation.

Plus, it'd incentivize new members here, as we could d interviews with people with new releases, etc etc, and with enough members folks might only have to work on a single short project in any given month.

As with anything, one of the keys would be that it's most likely a slow burn and people tend to back out of things that don't move fast enough. That's why a simple, cashless experimental group could also be useful.

Several of the book promoter sites used had similar origins - fans of certain genre's of book lovers in general forming associations that exploded in popularity.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I think sticking to basics and simple is the best way forward. Don't try to do everything at once, but rather, pick a few things and start with those. Either way, it would probably be a relatively slow burn. Most social media channels say they needed to put out content regularly for a year or so before they saw any real traction. Of course, spreading that load over a few people makes that load easier to carry, and having an established audience (or moneys to throw at publicity) can speed things up.

There are two sides to this. One is being a kind of publisher: doing stuff with ISBN's, formatting, direct sales, ads, that sort of thing. The other is more audience building / exposure. It's creating a community, a place for people to find news or information about books, author interviews, videos, what have you.

The first shouldn't be too much work I think. At least for me, I've got a fair few things sorted out already. Like I mentioned, I've got ISBN's, while my formatting might not be the prettiest, it's good enough. Ads and having a shared central landing place is always useful. In the end, sales = number of views on your book X conversion rate. More eyes means more sales. I don't mind experimenting to see if we can make something like that work.

The other side is more work. It can be fun, but it's definitely more work. I think with the people here, and others we might know we've got plenty of people to fill a year's worth of author interviews. Blog writing is mainly work. Both in coming up with ideas and executing on them. But with a few people it could just end up being an hour every other week or so.

A lot of words to ask"what would you start with?"

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I think the first thing would be to establish the core group and the social media presence, ISBNs and formatting could be "perks" for anyone interested, but not major issues. I consider them very minor. The two major halves are "presence" and "advertising". Money and ads only go so far without content presence. As you mentioned, a year or more to build the social presence would be advised, but several of us might have established audiences to help that along. Interviews with bloggers and other folks would also get advertising on the cheap. I had a fairly engaged audience, but lack of regular presence has dwindled this as my life went off the rails, heh heh. I'm hoping to build that back up in the next few months with my own content. If/When the presence builds an organic base is when moneyed advertising would come into play.

I've been tinkering with my first videos, so when I release those, I'll have a better idea of what the hell the playing field looks like and how it behaves.

 

[pmmg]

I feel I should add, that for me personally, while I am great in written interactions, I am not sure I would be as good in video. Verbal communication is not one of my great gifts. But then...I've not tried it, so who knows.

IRL, I am very unsocial, and quiet. And I have never considered myself photogenic.

Which is all to say, video and blogging is a different skill than Forum'ing.