Navigating the Book Promotion Jungle – Part 2

I thought I would give an update on my book promotion progress since my last post about book marketing. It's been kind of exciting, although I can't say the book is flying off the shelves exactly. Here is a list of the things I've done since my last post:

GoodReads Ads

I paid $50 to run some ads for the book on Goodreads. The nice thing is that I was able to experiment with the wording of the ads and found that this one brought the most clicks:"This book will make you laugh, cry and most of all, cherish your loved ones- those who are alive and those who have passed."Stats from the ad: I had 155,390 total views and 102 clicks for a CTR (click through rate) of 0.07%. Assessment: Not sure that was worth my $50.

BookRooster Review

Spent: $67Result: 1 reviewAssessment: Total bust.

BookSends

Cost: $125 for a front page ad.Result: I used one of my KDP Select free days for this and the result was kind of awesome. 4300 free downloads in one day!

LibraryThing

Cost: FREEAlthough LibraryThing is a difficult site to navigate, I have had some success with the giveaways (The link to do this is hard to find. Click the "More" link at the top of the page and then the "Get Free Books" link in the middle of the page). I did a second free giveaway and had 108 people signed up. I sent them an email through MailChimp and gave them a link to download the book for free using this amazingly handy new tool, Instafreebie. Highly recommend. It's a great way to get promotion or review copies of your ebook out to people. And it's FREE! Of the 108 who requested the book, through InstaFreebie, I know that only 53 actually downloaded it. I know I got several reviews from this.

StoryCartel

Cost: $30This is not quite what it once was. You now have to pay $30 for a token and people will download your book and hopefully review it. Hard to tell the success of this one as there are no stats.

CONTESTS

It seemed like a good idea to enter some contests, so I entered the following:

IndieReader Discovery Awards

Spent: $150Result: a professional review that I could add to my Amazon page. Frankly the review wasn't wonderful, but they gave me a good line I could use. The cost also included inclusion in a contest. I'm not holding my breath on that one.Assessment: Cheaper than a Kirkus review and includes a contest entry. Fair.2014 USA Best Book Awards Contest – $69, September 30th.Self Unbound Contest – $30, Deadline: October 1stWD Writing contest – $25, Deadline: September 2nd.Time will tell if these were worth it.But as predicted, the overall book promotion bomb was....

BookBub

It took 3 tries to get accepted. I entered my book as a free book and gave flexible dates. I used my remaining 3 KDP Select free days.Cost: $190 for the Women's Fiction list.Result: 44,500 free downloads! Holy cow! This resulted in my highest month of sales (62) and sales are trickling in this month as well (18 so far).Assessment: If you can get into this email, do it!OK, so to continue my accounting:

Blurb	$50.00
b2b marketing	$20.00
K-boards marketing	$15.00
Promotion cards	$200.00
Fivrr twitter promo	$5.00
Blog Tour	$80.00
Moo Cards	$72.00
GoodReads Ads	$50.00
BookRooster Review	$67.00
IndieReader Review	$150.00
BookSends (5/16) Free	$125.00
Proofread	$25.00
2014 USA Best Book Awards Contest Fee	$69.00
Self Unbound Contest Fee	$30.00
WD Writing contest	$25.00
BookBub	$190.00
Total	$3,183.00

And my sales:

	Total Sales	Total Revenue
Feb:	52	138.64
Mar:	21	31.29
April:	14	24.66
May	26	75.58
June	63	171.77
July	18
	194	441.94

Which is to say, I'm still in the red: -$2,741.06The good news is that I am up to 103 Amazon reviews now! Holy cow! That has been the most exciting thing. And people don't hate the book! Amazing!Next up, a print version of Remember The Moon. I decided to use Ingram Spark to produce my paperback version. I will write a further post on my experience there.Happy publishing!