As you may know, book marketing is a regular topic on my blog. I've been guerrilla marketing my books for a year now and have tried many strategies. To learn about other tips you can try part 1,  part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, and part 9 at each respective link. 

A wise man by the name of David Gaughran once said, "The author with the biggest email list wins." As someone who likes winning (probably more than I should), this concept intrigued me. We are told all the time to build our social media presence. "Join Tumblr, it's where the kids are." "Have you made your Vining video today?" "How about tweeting? Have you tweeted your breakfast cereal yet?" 

I do tweet (not my breakfast cereal, but pictures of my kids and pets, equally as bad I know) and I am on Facebook, but joining another social media platform makes me want to put on concrete shoes and take a swim. I don't want to make a Vining video despite my fourteen-year-old niece's very nice tutorial. So a mailing list seems like the lesser of many evils. When I started looking into techniques for building an email list, I realized how simple and non-time consuming this technique can be. And it can have big results. 

I am sure I don't have to be the one to tell you to get a mailing list going, right? You have heard this advice before. But seriously, if you don't have a mailing list set up and a way for people to join it on your website, stop reading this post and get yourself a mailing list. There is nothing more powerful than direct connections to your best fans. Twitter cannot do this. Facebook certainly can't now that they have changed their algorithms and made it much harder to reach your list. I use Aweber, which seems to be working well, but there are many other sites that are user friendly and easy to set up. Many of my friends use MailChimp. Aweber has tutorial videos, on-call customer service and the interface is easy to use. (And no, I am not getting a kick-back for promoting them. I just like the service.) You do have to pay a fee, but I think it is worth it, especially at release time. So go do it. We'll wait. 

Once you have your list set up, you probably feel like the girl at the ball waiting for someone to ask you to dance. Just having a mailing list isn't going to get you anywhere. You have to figure out how to get people to sign up. I've found that offering free material for sign up is big. That way each reader has an incentive for clicking and filling out a little bit of material. I give away a pdf copy of my paranormal romance novel Eyes Ever to the Sky to each subscriber. It costs me nothing, and, frankly, people aren't buying it, so giving it away for free isn't costing me sales either. If you don't have a novel to give away, offer a short story. Offer a limerick, something. Offer to help their first born child move into college, I don't care, but free is powerful. Some big name authors offer one free book of the readers choosing, but most of us don't have that kind of back-list power. Still, you can figure something out. Free is the way to be. 

Also you want to make it easy for people to find your newsletter sign up. I have a big call to action on the main page of my website. I also have a link at the top. I also include a link to sign up at the back of each book. This seems to be working since I will get a few sign ups each day. Three subscriptions a day will give you 1,000 new fans within a year. If half go on to buy your book at launch time, that would be huge. 

Finally, don't spam your followers. Some say emailing every few weeks or once a month is a good idea. But, if you don't have new material, my opinion is this is spam. Your subscribers don't want you to stop by and say hi in a mass email. They don't want to know how your cat is doing. Sure, if you go longer than a few months without contacting them they might not know who you are when you finally do, but all it takes is a few carefully crafted lines and a good headline to draw them back in. My opinion is less is more when it comes to contacting your mailing list. Otherwise you'll probably get a long list of unsubscribers and waste all that potential. 

Here's to hoping you have big success with your mailing list. What about you? Any tips about setting up and growing a great mailing list? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. 

Writing is a lonely profession. I spent my first five years as a fledgling writer in isolation. I was an author island, typing away in my armchair day after day with no colleagues, no compatriots, no co-workers. You see, I'm not one of those fortunate people who's married her first reader. My husband is a lovely man. He'll do dishes and put kids to bed until the cows come home, but ask him to read a teen dystopian manuscript and he slowly dies a little each page. There is no one in my household that yearns to read my fiction. I have teacher-writer friends who started reading my work in the beginning, but I knew after a few pages it became tiresome for them. Later I was lucky enough to stumble on some online writer friends who were kind enough to give me feedback on my writing. Writing conferences garnered new friends here and there. It was amazing how exciting it was to talk to fellow authors, to share trade secrets and miseries, to give virtual pats on the back. Insert semicolon smiley face and hug icon here. 

This past year I started talking with some indie authors whose books sat beside mine on the Amazon shelves. I met some amazing people and quickly formed a bond. It was not much later when nine of us decided to pool our resources and form an author collective. I'd seen the Indelibles do it and thought it was brilliant. "You mean you guys work together, support each other and spread the love around? Sign me up." 

Today introduce you to Infinite Ink, my author collective. Please go to the website and poke around. There's a fantastic giveaway, a list of our books, our author bios and free books. These ladies write speculative fiction like me. They are fabulous people. You'll love them and their books. 

Any authors out there who are considering an author collective, I'd recommend it 110% percent. The camaraderie and support has been phenomenal. Not a day goes by that I don't receive valuable information, tips and help. When a bad review gets on of us down, we pump her back up. When a new promotion site pops up, we consult about its worth. We share blog posts, tweets, and jokes. I'm no longer an author island. I'm a guest at the best indie party in town. And the lampshades abound. 

The moral? Find a buddy, a writer friend, someone who's book you've seen on your Amazon shelves and reach out to them. I've found indie authors to be some of the most wonderful people on the internet. Your marketing efforts will be magnified and you'll feel more fulfilled. And if all else fails you'll have lots of couches around the country that you can crash at. 

So what about you? Anyone out there interested in author collectives? Sound off below. 

Ever wonder what it costs to be a freelance writer? Well, I certainly did before this all started. And I know I am always fascinated when people are bold enough to talk hard numbers online. It is one of the things I love about the indie community, always willing to share. 2013 was the first year I kept a detailed list of expenses for my writing business and totaling them all up for the tax man sure was an eye opener. I thought I'd share with you some hard numbers in case you are thinking about foraying into the glamorous world of publishing. Here's the numbers breakdown. 

Editing total for two books = $3140
For Ever to the Sky I used one editor. I used two different editors for The Believers and it wasn't cheap. But, I say that is an area where you don't want to skimp if you want your book to sell enough to recoup this kind of cash. Could you do this for cheaper?  Yes. Should you? Not unless your grandma works as an editor for Harper Collins. 

Blog tours and NetGalley = $750
I used a few different blog tours, one for $329, one for $40 and I am including the infamous NetGalley here (read my rant about them by following the link). Looking back I could have cut all three of these out. I don't think they made me back what I spent on them, even the $40 dollar tour. Lesson learned. 

Ads = $260
This includes Facebook ads and ads I dabbled with on Google AdWords (see my post about my experience here). I think that Facebook ads are worth it to reach all your fans. I used five dollar ads whenever I feel that all my fans need to hear something, probably a couple times a month. Too bad you can't do that for free, Mr. Zuckerberg. 

Cover art = $200
My photographer and graphic artist friend does my covers for me (Hi Andy!!!) and he does an excellent job. This is dirt cheap for two covers (both ebook and paperback). You won't get a deal like this anywhere. Most covers cost $300 or more. I am lucky. And covers, again, are the one area you don't want to skimp. But you know this already, right? 

Promotional materials and giveaways = $300
This includes books I gave away for free, Amazon gift card giveaways and review copies. It actually probably is a lot more than this, but I didn't count the ebooks I gave away for free. Only paper copies. And don't forget shipping on those lovely books. My post office loves me. 

Writing materials (ie glasses, Microsoft word software, etc) = $220 
I had to get blue blocker eye glasses because my computer was giving me a nasty eye twitch. (Imagine how attractive that is!). And I had to buy Microsoft Word this year even though I've been using the free LibreOffice. I just could not format into Kindle without it going all wonky on me in Libre. 

Miscellaneous items = $725
This includes things like books on writing (I buy a lot of those), travel expenses (to my agency conference, yeah!), ISBNs from Bowker (I said it was glamorous), and formatting services. All of these things are important and vital to my business. Still, though, expensive. 

Total = $5595!!!!
Holy frijoles, Batman, that is a lot of dough. Now mind you, I have another job besides writing and so does my husband. We can afford to spend a little more to get my business off and running. And my books are selling and making me back this money and then some. I do think that you have to invest in your books or no one will want to read them. Covers, editing, and formatting are all things that you SHOULD NOT skimp on. Blog tours, NetGalley and ads did not seem to pan out to me and I don't think I would recommend them. The best thing to do financially is produce a book that can stand beside any traditionally published book. Once you do that, you'll be making back what you spent and then some.

What about you? What have you spent on writing this year? Was it worth it? Sound off below.

No matter how you slice it, book launches are hard. There's no easy way to do it, but there are several steps that can make the process bearable and make you, the happy author, contented to just pop the bubbly when the happy day arrives. Below is the list of eleven things I did before my book launch. It is hard to say what any one thing would have done by itself, but as a joint effort, my book, The Believers, was able to make it into the #1000s on Amazon rankings and my first book, The Breeders made it to #500. Pretty successful in my mind. 

Things I did before book launch:

1) Set up a BookBub promo .99 cent for my first book. Book Bub is a very popular subscription service. For a fee they push your book out to tens of thousands of subscribers. Plan at least a month ahead and be prepare for rejection. My other book was denied because it was a relatively new title and I am a relatively unknown author. (I was super lucky and got this approved the day after my release. ) On another note, I used a Kindle Countdown Deal for The Breeders which let me keep 70% of the royalties instead of 35%. Since I sold almost 800 books in four days that is a huge savings. I highly recommend using Kindle Countdown Deal. 

2) Contacted all my blogger friends and awesome book people to ask for blog space. I send out one contact email to all the people who I know might want to help. I keep a running list all year long of who those people are so I don't have to scramble when release time comes. Book bloggers are awesome and so are all my other indie author friends. You have to be willing to reciprocate when they have their launches, but I love helping all my indie friends. 

3) Posted first chapter on my website. I did this two weeks beforehand. I also did a cover reveal about a month or two before. Countdown posts on social media with the release date in them were scheduled about once a week. 

4) Did a pre-email to my newsletter group letting them know when the book would release. I have about 200 on my newsletter list. Not a ton, but a good start and all of them have asked to be notified so they are likely to be some of the first to buy. 

5) Did a follow up email to my newsletter group on the day of the release. Just as a gentle reminder. I kept it light and short. I was releasing on Black Friday and knew some of the turkey hangovers and shopping sleep deprivation could cause them to forget. 

6) Did several posts via Facebook and Twitter announcing the release date. 

7) Set up a paid review tour for January. I am doing this through Kismet Tours who did a great job with The Breeders book tour. I wish they could've fit me in before the release date but alas. Always plan way ahead.

8) Sent out ARCs to reviewers who were asking for them. My book blogger fans are some of the best people in the world and I love them. 

9) Joined an author co-op with some awesome ladies of Indie Speculative YA. More to come on this. 

10) Did a giveaway of signed copies on my website. Hopefully you entered. Hopefully you won. If not, stay tuned for more swag and prizes. 

11) Paid for a Facebook Ad on my release day so that all my Facebook fans and their friends would see the post. Everyone wants to know, right?

There you have it. My framework for a release. I did these things in stages and had everything ready to go so all I had to do on release day was spread the word and check my stats. I've done three book launches so far, but I am sure there are some of you more seasoned than I. I'd love to hear from you. Sound off below. 

It's here! The Believers: Breeders Book 2 is available on Amazon and Kobo. (Coming soon to Barnes and Nobel and Apple.) For today only it will be $2.99 and after midnight the price will go up to $3.99 so get your copy now. And drop me a line after you read it. I'd love to hear what you think. 

To celebrate, The Breeders (Book 1) is currently on sale for $.99 until the 3rd. Tell your friends and neighbors. Also, I'll be giving away signed paperback copies of both books. Enter to win below. 

BUY IT ON AMAZON (PAPERBACK AND EBOOK)
BUY IT ON KOBO
BUY IT ON BARNES AND NOBLE

As you may know, book marketing is a regular topic on my blog. I've been guerrilla marketing my books for a year now and have tried many strategies. To learn about other tips you can try part 1,  part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 and part 8 at each respective link. 

As I am sure you are aware, Google AdWords is quite the behemoth when it comes to advertising these days. Pay-per-click advertising is being used by shoe stores, plumbers  and psychologists all over the world. Business owners sign up, customize an ad, and target it to customers based on very specific criteria. In twenty-five characters or less, you construct a sales pitch and link it to your website or include a phone number. Viola, you'll be racking in the cashola. Or so you hope.

With Google's monster reach and seemingly endless stores of data, you can see how powerful this might be. But, could it work for books? How do you par down a 90k novel into a twenty-five character blurb? Do people who click on Google Ads then go on to buy books? I had thought no, but then I read an article discussing a man who makes a living helping people use Google AdWords to sell novels. (I link to him only to illustrate that he exists. I did not work with him, nor am I endorsing his services in any way.) So, I thought I'd do my own little experiment to see if I was missing the bright glittery Google boat. 

Step One: I read up on Google AdWords. Here are some websites that I found helpful: Newbies Guide, The Savy Book Marketer. I had some prior knowledge from when I'd used this service for another business, but I felt very confused about many aspects of AdWords. Let me be clear, this system is not for the technologically challenged. There are all kinds of tools and buttons that made me feel like I was back in my college level statistics again. Right off the bat I was inundated and overwhelmed. Since I have minimal time for marketing, I did not spend countless hour researching. This may be my biggest downfall when dealing with Google AdWords and may also explain why there are people paying others to help them create ads. 

Step Two: I wrote my ad. I did some research on keywords and use their handy-dandy keyword planner. This is a cool tool that lets you know which keywords are searched most often. So instead of "novel" you might choose "fiction" in your ad. This is helpful and I wish I'd had more time to play around with the keywords. That being said I wrote my ad. Here it is. 

• Fast-paced Dystopia Novel
• amazon.com/Breeders-Series
• 121 five star reviews. Only $2.99
• "Absolutely devoured this book!"

Then I gave it a $25 budget and sent my little ad baby into the world. 

The Results: In seven days my $25 budget had been spent. Each click cost me between $0.39 and $2.89. Now, remember I only make $2 if I sell a book. If an ad costs me more than I get in sales revenue, that is a problem. In hindsight, I think I need to make my budget less than 3 dollars a day. You live and you learn, I guess, but this isn't play money I'm messing with. This is my hard earned cash (and, people, boot season is fast upon us and Mama needs a new pair of shoes). All joking aside, my ad seemed to work and was clicked on. My sales saw no boost that week. I actually sold about six books less that week than any other week that month. My budget limited my exposure, but again, I am not able to spend endless amounts of cash on a strategy that hasn't really proven will pay the bills. If I spent more time and energy learning the ins and outs of Google, I might make more money. Then again I might not make any. If someone clicks, Google takes my cash regardless if I make a sale or not. 

The Conclusion: I am really not convinced Google AdWords can sell books. If you have A LOT of time to research this very complicated tool, it MIGHT be worth something. Then again, you'll never really know how much it sells because all you know is they clicked on the ad. There's nothing to tell you if they bought your book. 

So, what about you? Any luck with Google AdWords? Sound off below.

This weekend I had the privilege of attending MacGregor Literary Marketing Seminar in Chicago, Illinois. Some of you may know that MacGregor Literary is my agency. This was my first time being able to meet with the good people who represent me, including my fabulous agent, Amanda Luedeke. Though I have spoken with Amanda on the phone, I've never been able to meet her in person. I knew a five hour car ride with my husband, listening to his strange musical selections was worth the chance to meet Amanda and all the other authors represent by the agency. So, we packed up the car, left my children in the loving care of their grandmother (and her hyper wiener dog) and headed to the windy city.

First of all, let me say that the first events were nerve wracking to say the least. Since it was my first seminar, I felt like 1) I was the only person there that knew no one (including her agent) and 2) I was the only one who had not yet gotten a publishing contract. I was pretty sure as soon as these seasoned veterans started talking to me they'd politely find an excuse to go clean bathroom grout, or anything else equally more exciting. What I found instead was some amazing authors all of whom were very kind and very welcoming. Amanda was charming, smart and hilarious, all the things I suspected she was. And Chip MacGregor could be a stand-up comedian in his next life. I got to know some amazing authors like Leslie Gould who writes amazing Christian Fiction, and Jill Williamson who write speculative fiction for teens (just like me!). Getting to hear their perspectives and ask them questions was invaluable. And making writer friends is always amazing whenever or wherever it can happen. 

The marketing seminar was very helpful. So many fantastic ideas were thrown out that I don't think I can chronicle them all in one post. I will say that I learned I need to define my ideal reading audience and do more specific targeting. I need to approach bloggers and reviewers with the mindset of how I can help them, not the other way around. And I need to consider titles that make my books more searchable on Amazon. (Don't worry. I plan on another post next week highlighting some of the best advice on marketing I've gleaned to share with anyone interested.)

Overall, it was a great experience. One I hope to duplicate in the future. Thanks again to Amanda and Chip and all the people at MacGregor for putting on such a lovely event. It will be a highlight of my year for sure.  

As you may know, book marketing is a regular topic on my blog. I've been guerrilla marketing my books for a year now and have tried many strategies. To learn about other tips you can try part 1,  part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 and part 7 at each respective link. 


Anthologies. Are they worth it? Do they help sell books? Can they cross-mingle readers in the same or similar genres? Well, that is what I set out to find out. Regular readers and followers of this blog likely have already heard about my joint venture with some of indie's best dystopian YA authors, but I'd like to spend a little time discussing the sales outcomes of doing an anthology and then some of the extra benefits that may stem way beyond just sales. 


The seed for my anthology idea came from a group called the Indelibles. If you haven't heard about these ladies, check out the link (after you read my fantastic post of course). They're a group of a dozen women writing and publishing independent novels of high quality. They band together to promote, support and otherwise throw an arm around each other on this crazy quest called authorship. They put out an anthology called In His Eyes, a collection of short stories told through the male perspectives in their novels. This seems like a really easy way of letting your fans know about other quality indie authors and vice-versa. After I saw what they had done, my brainpan started pinging and I set to work emailing some indie authors I knew. 


I was able to get five top-notch authors in my genre and age group to agree to take this project on. We each contributed a short story set in the world we had created in our novels. One of our group was a whiz at formatting and cover art. Another was a marketing pro. Together we created a really great anthology (insert shameless plug here "Go buy the book. It helps promote inner city girls' literacy . You want to help inner city girls' literacy, right??") and I'm really proud of it. We set it up, launched it and held our breath.


The result? Well, not much actually. It seems people aren't that pumped about anthologies (or helping inner city girls (I'm kidding. I'm sure everyone who's reading this cares about inner city girls)). I guess I understand. Short stories collections don't sell as well as novels. People want full length tales they can dive into and swim around in for a while. Still, I was hoping for more in the way of sales of the anthology. Between the five of us we have pretty good selling records. That, however, did not seem to translate over to our anthology. 


So if it didn't help me sell more books, would I recommend doing it to indie authors? Yes, absolutely. Here's why. The extra benefits I got far exceeded my work and monetary output. I have five amazing new writer friends who are in the same boat I am. Their friendship, guidance and support was worth any effort it took to create an anthology. Also, the ROI for this was very high. It cost me nearly nothing and, since I used a story I'd already written, I didn't have to expend much energy or time either. I would say it was way worth it for those reason, however if you aren't interested in making awesome friends and only hard sales, I'm not sure this is the right route for you.


What about you? Any luck in doing an anthology? Sound off below. 

As you may know, book marketing is a regular topic on my blog. I've been guerrilla marketing my books for almost a year now and have tried many strategies. To learn about other tips you can try part 1,  part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6 at each respective link. 

I've waited a while to write this post mainly because I wanted to give myself some emotional distance from my experience at NetGalley. For the most part, I want these blog posts to be informative and help authors like myself to better market their books. I do not want this to be a rant post that is neither helpful nor informative. That is why I've waited a month to describe my experience with NetGalley. I will do my best not to rant. 

Before we begin, let me give you some information on NetGalley. Here is a blurb straight from their own website. 

"NetGalley is a service to promote and publicize forthcoming titles to readers of influence. If you are a reviewer, blogger, journalist, librarian, bookseller, educator, or in the media, you can use NetGalley for FREE to request and read titles before they are published. Publishers can upload their galleys, plus any marketing and promotional information, and interact with members in two ways: * By approving member requests from our catalog of titles * By inviting members to view titles using our email invitation widget. "

NetGalley for the last many years was limited to traditionally published authors, so when I learned they were opening their doors to indies I was very excited. Another door opened to my Indie brethren. (No longer would we be kicked out of country clubs or hissed at on the street. We were being promoted from the kiddie table to the grown-up buffet.) Not only do I like doors opening for indies, but I also like the prospect of real, vetted reviewers checking out my title and posting reviews. I know well the mantra "The more reviews you have, the more sales you have." I figured my new release would be perfect for this. I'd get lots of professional reviews posted to Amazon and it would help my sales. Voila. What could go wrong?

I signed up in a co-op with several of my writer soul-mates. We each paid $350: three hundred for the NetGalley yearly subscription and fifty for the moderator who would set it all up and manage our request for us. That is a steep price point and it was a hard choice, but I figured it was worth it. I'd have reviews pouring in and I'd see the money back in sales. So I paid my money, uploaded Eyes Ever to the Sky and waited. 

Reviewers quickly requested copies of my book. Over a hundred people were approved. But as the days ticked by and the reviews trickled in, I started to worry. Why weren't more of the people who requested the book posting reviews? Why weren't many of them posting to Amazon, the site where I make my money? Why were so many of the reviews short or grammatically challenged? 

Here's the main problem I have with NetGalley. They claim on their website that the readers you are giving free books to are all "reviewers". They are all supposed to have a platform with which to share reviews. They are all supposed to know how to write a book review. As a reviewer myself, I know that learning to review takes time. Anyone can blab a few minutes about their feelings on a book, but it takes a certain learned skill to convey what you felt and why you felt it in a way that helps identify if this book would be a suitable purchase. Sadly, with some of the reviews I was receiving, they were not deft in this skill. I'll admit some reviews were down right mean and hurt my feelings. Others gave away spoilers RIGHT IN THE TITLE of the review with no spoiler warning. The worst part is, out of the nearly two hundred books I gave away, only a handful of reviews have made it to Amazon. So in essence, I paid 350 dollars to give my book away for nearly nothing in return. Well, I did get some bad feelings and some mediocre three star reviews. Honestly the whole thing felt like a gut punch. From Mike Tyson. Into a tiger's den. 

To be fair, NetGalley does allow you to pick and chose who you allow to upload your titles. I should've been more selective, but it is very hard, given the limited amount of information you get on these reviewers, to know if they'll a) even write a review or b) write one that won't give away your whole book. There will never be a next time with me and NetGalley, but if the universe somehow worm-holes into a Bizarro World and I forget my rotten experience, the one thing I would do differently is be WAY more selective on who I give books to. If you're considering the service, please take that one piece of advice. 

A few weeks ago I asked our NetGalley moderator to take my title down. It had been up for about two months and I couldn't take the abuse anymore. Sadly, I've already paid my yearly fee and have to eat the 350 dollars. A monthly fee would be much more helpful to Indies. You live and learn, but one thing is for sure, I'll know better next time. 

So what about you? What have been your NetGalley experiences? 

Book Marketing Part 8 - The Anthology

As you may know, book marketing is a regular topic on my blog. I've been guerrilla marketing my books for almost a year now and have tried many strategies. To learn about other tips you can try part 1,  part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 at each respective link. 


As an indie author I try to stay up on each and every fad in marketing and advertising books. When I first started to hear about Book Bub from J.A. Konrath I was skeptical. Was he getting a cut from mentioning this site? Was it really worth it? Did people really pay $1000 dollars on a site to list a book for free?!! It sound crazy. But, then I heard it from a few more sources (like this one from Joanna Penn) and I decided it was a legitimate strategy, one I knew I had to try. 

The premise of Book Bub is simple and not that different than many of the other free book subscription websites out there. Readers sign up to Book Bub and get notified of free and discounted ebooks. The nice thing about Book Bub is it's organized by category. Their mailing lists are huge (540,000 for Mysteries and 400,000 for Romance) and you can reach a ton of new readers in a very short amount of time. But, the price is a little steep. If your book is free, the price is more reasonable. I paid $40 dollars for a listing on the Teen and Young Adult list. However, if your book is 2.99 and you want to hit the mystery readers, get ready to shell out $1,200. That is a big chunk o' change no matter where you're sitting on a best sellers list. 

For me $40 buckaroos was a safe gable. The Breeders had taken a bit of a slump and I needed a boost since my amazing agent was going to be taking it around to editors at BEA. So, I set up a free promo with Book Bub at the end of May and waited to see. 

On the day of the promotion, the downloads started to roll in. At the last minute I decided to get on Author Marketing Club and try to list my book on several of those sites for free. I do not recommend waiting until the day of the promo to do this. Many sites will be booked up and will not list your book. Luckily, many made room for me on their free lists. I guess having some good reviews already listed under your book can help you get priority placement. 

The results were amazing. As I watched my book climb the free list, my jaw dropped. Soon I was in the top 100 free. Thousands of readers were downloading. By the end of day one I hit number 15 on the free list. The first page! How amazing. By the end of the four day promo I had given away approximately 16,000 books. Um, yeah. 

After the promo I waited to see the residual effects. So far, a week and a half out sales are good. My popularity rating on Amazon is higher. Sales are slightly better. And, now when you type "the breeders" into the general search engine on Amazon my book finally comes up first instead of the very awesome 1990s pop group with the same name. (Go ahead, try it. You'll see.) Overall, I think the $40 was totally worth it. Now, had I paid $1,000 I might have a different opinion. That return on investment would have to be much bigger to justify spending that kind of dough. 

So, what about you? Have you tried Book Bub? How well did it work?

Book Marketing Part Seven - NetGalley