Marketing Resources

I have listed here many of the marketing resources for writers that I found while researching the topic for my novel Sacrificial Lam. Feel free to check them out.sacrificial-lam-cover-rone-190x300-1

A Mixed Bag of Marketing Resources for Writers:

Here’s a new resource list put out by Goodreads that has some very good looking sites on it. It’s called 50 Kickass Resources for Indie Authors.

50 Kickass Resources for Indie Authors

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Site Beginner: How to Make a Website, a complete guide for beginners.

This is a new site that offers thorough and user-friendly instructions to anyone who wants to set up her or his own web page.

https://sitebeginner.com/

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A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Paid Advertising: Part 1 (from Business 2 Community)

http://www.business2community.com/social-media/beginners-guide-social-media-paid-advertising-part-1-01870710#BoAmGl7Pgvmh2uB5.97

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If you run a video contest, you should look to YouTube to be your primary host. Build Book Buzz.

http://www.youtube.com/user/OnlineVideoContests .

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Help the audience see themselves in the description – Build Book Buzz

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Reviewer Grabber Tool: Build Book Buzz

https://buildbookbuzz.com/reviewer-grabber-tool/ There is a cost to join the club

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3 Ways Writing a Press Release Can Help Your Book Get Noticed

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SELF-e Select program. Build Book Buzz  http://self-e.libraryjournal.com/

You must own the rights to your book to participate.

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Keyword Planner:

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

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Developing your SEO http://mfrw.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-to-use-seo.html

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What should be on my website:

Home page:
Latest book – Make your latest book front and center on the site. Show the cover, give a brief description including blurbs and make the links to purchase very prominent. This serves two purposes. First, it makes it easy for your fans to buy your new book. Second, it’s good for branding. If people have read your latest book and land on your website, they’ll immediately know they’re in the right place.

Headshot and short bio – Have your headshot and a short bio that ends with “read more” and links to your About page. Again, this is good for branding. You want visitors to know they’re in the right place. Pro tip: Use the same headshot everywhere – Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon Author Page, website, etc.

Excerpts of other content – Show your latest three blog posts or links to your resources page or short stories you have available online. Make it easy for visitors to find additional content online.

Connect – Highlight where visitors can connect with you online. Social media links, contact page, etc.

About Page
This page serves two purposes. It allows readers to learn a little bit more about who you are and what you do. It also allows media, bloggers, etc to easily get information and images when needed.
•    Headshot – Use the same picture as the homepage. Potentially make it available in hi-res to download if you are planning to do media and interviews.
•    Short bio and Long bio – Give two versions of your bio. A two paragraph version that is very straight forward and then a longer version that goes into your background, where you grew up, what led you to being a writer, etc. Again, this is a place for readers to get to know you so don’t be afraid to share your personal story.
•    Email subscription box

Books – Overview
Make sure it is easy to find all of the books you’ve written in one place. Especially for fiction writers, your backlist is extremely important. On the books overview page you should have all of your past books showing in reverse chronological order. For each book on this page you should have:
•    Book Covers – The most instantly recognizable part of your book. Make it front and center, though if you have a larger backlist, I recommend showing them as thumbnails so people aren’t overwhelmed.
•    Title
•    Short description
•    Links to buy the book
•    “Read More” link – Link to the Single page for the book (covered in the next section)
•    Email subscription box

Books – Single
For each of your books, you should have an entire page of your website dedicated to it. You can link to it directly when promoting the book, but it is also linked to via the “Read More” links on the Books – Overview page.
•    Book Cover
•    Title and Subtitle
•    Full Description
•    Blurbs and Testimonials
•    Links to buy the book
•    Email subscription box

Contact
Make it extremely easy and clear how people can contact and connect with you.
•    Email address – I still see people from time-to-time not want to post their email address online for fear of spam. As long as you are using a reputable service such as GMail, you shouldn’t have to worry about this. I’ve been posting my email address all over the internet for years and have basically no trouble with spam.
•    Mailing address – If you’re uncomfortable sharing your home address, use your office address or a PO Box. It’s important to make it easy for people to mail you things. I recently received my first handwritten thank you note from a reader and it meant a lot to me.
•    Social media links – Share your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc links for everywhere you are active so people can connect with you on these platforms.
•    Contact form – While this will merely sends an email to your inbox, it saves an extra step for the visitor so is nice to have.
•    Email subscription box

Blog
Whether you should blog or not is outside the scope of this article, however there’s a few things you want to have in place if you decide to start blogging.
•    Blog posts
o    Author – List your name as the post author, even if it’s your website. You want to make it very clear to new visitors that you are the one writing.
o    Share links – Make it easy for people to share your blog posts through social media.
o    Comments – I recommend starting out by opening comments. You may have problems with people being trolls, but I find for most authors this isn’t an issue. You can always block people or close comments later if it becomes a problem.
•    Sidebar – Most blogs have a sidebar and it’s a great place to pull new visitors deeper into the site. Don’t overload it though with word clouds and other miscellanea.
o    Email subscription box
o    Headshot and short bio
–   Latest book
–    Popular posts
Resources
Having a resources page is a great way to share your “evergreen” content – the content that doesn’t get old over time. Use this to share your tips on writing, short stories, white papers, videos, interviews, etc. It’s going to be extremely specific to you and your platform so I don’t have any specific things that have to be on the page except, of course, for an email subscription box.

Check out the plug-in Optin Monster to create pop-ups.

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Amazon Sales Rank: What the Heck Does It Mean?
file:///Users/garyguinn/Downloads/Amazon%20sales%20rank_%20What%20the%20heck%20does%20it%20mean%3F%20-%20Build%20Book%20Buzz.html
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Three Keys for Mastering Facebook Ads
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/15d3188ca549eb4c
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Best Practices for Building Followers on Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/672-best-practices-for-building-followers-on-goodreads

An alternative view:

Goodreads Giveaways: Don’t Do What You’re Told

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List of 100+ Book Promotion Sites & Free Submission Tool http://buff.ly/2tuQ6Oi 

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Sample Cover Letter or Email to Bookstore: Build Book Buzz

Regarding: Publisher Wants to Promote (Name of Store) in Book Marketing

Dear (Buyer’s name),

My name is (your name), and I am the author of a (category) book that I hope you will consider stocking in your store as a test. We have sold xxxx copies through the book and online market and are working to move into the (xxxx) market.

We are about to launch a marketing campaign that includes (ONLINE AND PRINT ADVERTISING/RADIO INTERVIEWS, LOCAL PAPER INTERVIEWS WITH AUTHOR), and I am contacting (name of store) to let you know that there will be some demand during and after this campaign.

NAME OF BOOK (ISBN xxxxxxxxxxxxx) is a book that (description).

Once the marketing campaign begins, we will be directing readers to the stores that agreed to stock it, so if you are willing, I’d like to send you a PDF or a print copy for your review.

NAME OF BOOK is available at (list of wholesalers)

I have attached the marketing plan and an informational sheet for you to review.

Please give me a call or just reply with a quick note that it’s okay to send, and I will get you that PDF or book right away.

Best,

Your Name

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Facebook Ads: from Mark Dawson

  1. Use the Power Editor. You can use Facebook’s basic Ads Manager to create ads, but I don’t recommend it. The Power Editor is a Chrome plug-in for editing ads, and, while it is a little tougher to wrap your head around, it offers more flexibility and is the better bet. Save the Ads Manager for monitoring performance.
  2. Ad Copy and Image. Approach the task of crafting your copy and choosing your image from the point of view of your potential reader. They will be browsing their newsfeed, enjoying updates from their friends and families, watching videos of cats—you need to jolt them out of that experience. Ad copy shouldn’t be afraid to be promotional. If you have plenty of reviews, you should refer to them. If your book has been at the top of a best-seller list, then you should say so. Be proud. Vivid images tend to return the best results. No more than 20 percent of an image should be covered by text (this can be tested with Facebook’s Grid Tool), but book covers themselves are specifically exempted from this requirement, as it’s just the associated text. Remember to provide your image in the correct size. I’ve seen ads in my feed from traditional publishers that have been uploaded in the wrong size and then cropped across the middle, losing both the title and the name of the author.
  3. Targeting. Facebook knows a lot about the people using it. Most relevant to authors, it knows what books readers like. It knows which authors they prefer. It knows whether they have indicated a preference for shopping on mobile or desktop. It knows who is more likely to click on an ad, or watch a video from start to finish. And it has made all of that incredible data available to advertisers to produce the most accurate ad targeting system in the world today. The easiest and quickest targeting option is to serve ads to readers who have indicated a preference for the kinds of book that you are writing. Write romances? Advertise your book to readers who like romances and exclude those who like thrillers. Write romances like Nora Roberts? Serve an ad just to her fans. And so on. But what if the author you are targeting has a small following? Try combining authors and other interests to build the audience. But you should also try the next targeting option: lookalike audiences. In the Audiences section of the Power Editor, you can upload a .csv of your mailing list, and Facebook will match each email address with the accounts of people who are also on the platform. This produces a custom audience of people who you know are fans of your books. You can do the same thing with the fans of your Facebook page, or with people who have visited your website. It can be useful to run a short campaign to these audiences of “warm” leads when you have a new book to promote (combining it with a standard email campaign). It’s when you’ve uploaded your custom audience that the fun begins. Ask Facebook to create a Lookalike audience. It will seek to populate this new “mirror” audience with people it thinks are similar to the ones in your custom audience. It might include people who like the same sort of books, who read on Kindles, or are voracious consumers of digital content—or all of the above. The audiences can be very large; mine tend to max out at around the 2.2-million mark. It will take me months to exhaust them, and they provide a positive return on my investment every day.
  4. Placement. Facebook allows you to specify where your ads will be served. You can pick from mobile or desktop, with an option to place an ad in the right-hand sidebar. I’m experimenting with desktop only ads at the moment, because my data suggest that my readers are at the older end of the spectrum, and I have a hunch that they are more likely to buy on a platform that they’re more used to using for ecommerce. Early results seem to be bearing that out. Of course, if you write YA, you might find that your younger audience is more comfortable on mobile.
  5. Monitoring. Direct the traffic to a landing page on your website and link out again to the relevant stores via affiliate links. Provided you use specific Tracking IDs with each variation of an ad, you can precisely match the cost of that ad on the one hand and the revenue generated on the other, allowing you to calculate the return on each variation. Facebook provides a host of metrics for you to get lost in, but my advice would be to concentrate on the most important one: how much money is the ad making you? My best-performing ad often costs more than 50 cents per click, and under most circumstances I’d consider that prohibitive. But the ad converts clicks to sales at the rate of 30 percent and generates a return of more than 200 percent every day.

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Sample Letter to Recruit Volunteers for a Launch Team (My letter for Sacrificial Lam)

I want to give you a book.

My new book, Sacrificial Lam, published by The Wild Rose Press, is scheduled for release on March 3, 2017. It tells the story of liberal English professor Lam Corso, who works at a small, conservative, religious college, whose life and family are threatened by someone who doesn’t like his liberal theology.

In exchange for a small amount of your time, I’d like to send you a free e-copy of the book as soon as you sign on. All you have to do is help me promote it by doing three quick things.

  1. As soon as I send you some pre-release content, share it on your social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Your Blog, Instagram, SnapChat, etc) or anywhere else for that matter. I’ll send you a photo of the book cover, blurb, and excerpt to share. All you have to do is post it.
  2. Do a quick book search on Amazon (I’ll give you some simple instructions, a couple of minutes) to help kickstart their mysterious algorithm.
  3. After you’ve had a chance to read your free copy, post a short review (just 1-3 sentences if you like) and a rating on at least a couple of channels such as Amazon and BN.com and Goodreads and Twitter and Facebook. You can post the same review on all of them.

That’s it. I’ll send you everything you need (except the short review).

I can send you a free electronic copy of the book as soon as you sign up and do steps 1 and 2. If you are a person who simply doesn’t read e-copies, I’ll send you a free copy of my first novel, A Late Flooding Thaw instead.

And I’ll be having a launch party in early April at Grace Episcopal Church in Siloam Springs, AR, to which you will certainly be invited.

What do you think? Are you in? (If you don’t have time, no worries. I’ll still love you.)

If interested, please fill out This Very Short Form: Contact Form so I can send your material.

I think you’ll enjoy this book, and I’d appreciate your help in getting it out to readers.

To give you an idea of what’s coming, here’s the book Blurb: When English professor Lam Corso receives a death threat at work, he laughs it off. A liberal activist teaching at a small Southern conservative college, he’s used to stirring up controversy on campus. It’s just part of the give and take of life. Even when violently attacked, Lam is convinced it has to be a mistake. He can’t imagine anyone who would want to kill him for his beliefs.

When his home is broken into and his wife’s business vandalized, Lam is forced to face facts. The police can’t find a single lead. Lam’s wife—a passionate anti-gun crusader—is outraged when Lam brings a gun into the house for protection. Left to their own devices, Lam and Susan must examine their marriage, faith, and values in the face of a carefully targeted attack from an assailant spurred into action by a different set of beliefs.

What will it cost to survive?

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Marketing: WritersTweet Suggestions

  1. Tweet 1-3 times per day. This is the sweet spot for maximum exposure. The way Twitter’s algorithms work, fewer tweets with higher retweet and like numbers are more likely to be seen. Less tweets with higher numbers will put a premium on your messages.
  2. Use popular hashtags such as #amwriting #writerslife #ASMG #IARTG #amreading. Hashtags can drastically improve interest from potential followers. Use no more than 3 hashtags per tweet.
  3. Tweet images beneath your messages. Tweets with images are 30% more likely to be seen and retweeted.
  4. Tweet early in the morning. While 11:00 am to 1:00 pm Eastern Time is the prime viewing time for Twitter, to maximize exposure it’s best to tweet early so your numbers are building before then. Thus making your tweets more likely to be seen.
  5. Keep retweets to a minimum. While this may seem contradictory, statistics prove that influence is gained by keeping the focus on your own messages. It is perfectly fine to retweet other accounts just don’t let it be the bulk of your timeline.
  6. DO NOT TWEET YOUR BOOK REPEATEDLY ALL DAY EVERY DAY – tactics like this are likely to get you muted or even unfollowed.
  7. Do not send out automated DM’s when people follow you. It is widely considered to be the equivalent of SPAM and may cause many to regret following you in the first place.
  8. Be yourself! This is a simple but often overlooked necessity to growing your account.
  9. Automated tweets are not your friend. People want to converse with someone REAL. It becomes all too obvious when someone is tweeting random writing tips every 5 minutes. Keep your tweets original and authentic and you will add value to your account and your brand as an author.

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My Additional list of Book ad sites, both free and paid.
Book of the Day www.bookoftheday.org Free, no sale required (Premium $11.99, much better, 14 days & different outlet each day)**

Book Lover’s Heaven www.bookloversheaven.com Free

Booktastic www.booktastic.com $5

Bookzio www.bookzio.com Free

Ebook Soda www.ebooksoda.com $15 (add $6 for Twitter and $6 for Facebook) **
Ebook Stamp http://www.ebookstamp.com Free
Ebook daily: still in beta, pay what you want (they suggest $20), 300 day waiting period in between promos

Bestebooksfree: Free submission, 30-day waiting period between promos

Indie Book Lounge www.indiebooklounge.com $4 (for independent published books)

Choosy Book Worm www.choosybookworm.com Free (weak free option, various paid ops)

Online Book Club http://onlinebookclub.org/ (packages from $97 to $300)

My Book Place www.mybookplace.com Free

Discount Books Daily http://www.discountbooksdaily.com/adv…$10

Free 99 Books http://www.free99books.com Free (book must be free or $0.99)

Just Free and Bargain Books www.justfreeandbargainbooks.com Free (book must be free up to $2.99, submit a week in advance.)

Price Dropped Books www.pricedroppedbooks.com $10 (from $6 to $23, book must be at least 50% off)

Addicted to ebooks: can only submit the day of your promo, Free

Sweet Free Books: $7 for guaranteed submission, 60 day waiting period between promos

OHFB www.ohfb.com Free (but only guarantee is $75 paid slot)

People Reads www.peoplereads.com Free

Readers in the Know http://www.readersintheknow.com/home (20 GBP?)

ENT: 90 day waiting period in between promos, must be on Amazon, at least 125 pages long do not submit promo more than a month in advance, but submit at least a week in advance, $35

Reading Deals: $14.50 for guaranteed submission with promo code

WELOVEAUTHORSGS expires 10/15/16, must have 5+ reviews with 4-star average rating, 60 day waiting period between promos, promo is tweeted to 110K followers and emailed to 35K readers. They also have a free, not guaranteed option.

Read cheaply: $35

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LIST OF 127 TOP FREE BOOK PROMOTION SITES (Kindlepreneur with Dave Chesson)

The below list comprises of the best book promo sites out there.  As you’ll see they are all free, but some have a special upgrade.  Make sure to check the notes to the right and ensure your ebook meets the requirements.

Service Price Erotica Allowed? Requirements and Notes
Inkitt Free Yes Not only will they submit your book to their thousands of readers, they will also offer you a publishing deal worth thousands of dollars if their readers like it. Fiction Only.
Awesome Gang Free – $10 Yes Access to one of the best free book email lists. The paid option offers a guaranteed spot on the home page and also various social media promotional boosts as well.
Indie Author News Free – Paid Not stated Fiction and Nonfiction both welcome, possibility to become the ‘author of the day’ and gain greater levels of exposure
Pretty Hot Books Free – $25 Yes $25 guarantees a featured spot on homepage for 7 days and send out to their social media platforms as well. (for featured listing, front page, $25, 20 listings per page)
Free Discounted Books Free – $8.00 Not stated Submit at least 5 days in advance. Almost every genre imaginable found here. Also the option to list any permafree books you may have. (books must be free to $2.99)
Free Book Dude Free – $150 No One feature per 30 days. Offers the option to schedule a guest post with the site for even greater exposure.
Digital Book Today Free – $40 Not stated 4+average review score required, plus over 40 reviews for nonfiction and 18 for fiction
E Reader Love Free Not stated Many genres and type of book found on this site. Also offers a specific ability to promote box sets.
Discount Book Man ** Free – $15 Yes For front page listing for 5 days, pay $15. Sends out to both email and social media.
Book Bongo Free – $30 Not stated Paid options include the ability to be promoted to various Facebook groups and to be featured as a banner ad on the site.
Kindle Book Promos Free – $25 Not stated Paid options guarantee that your book will be listed for a number of days. Also an option to receive greater prominence for a higher price.
E Reader Girl Free – $20 No The only fiction which is accepted on E Reader Girl is Christian fiction. Otherwise, nonfiction and children’s books only.
Kindle Book Review Free – $20 Not stated Free option requires 14 day advance submission and is not guaranteed, Paid option requires 24 hours notice and is guaranteed
EBooks Habit Free – $15 No A minimum of 5 reviews (guaranteed for $10 and Twitter promo for $15) **
Lovely Book Promotions Free – $50 Not stated Must submit your book at least 5 days in advance. The paid option includes your book being promoted to over 60 Facebook groups.
New Free Kindle Books Free – $10 Not stated Allows for permafree books to be listed. Paid option offers a larger amount of display space on the promo page.
Topless Cowboy Free Yes Specializes in cowboy and western romance, but open to erotica and romance of all kinds.
It’s Write Now Free – $10 Not stated Only paid option offers guaranteed listing.
Content Mo Free – $3 Not stated Free listings limited to 2 per month
Indie Book Of The Day Free No Requires 3.5+ average review score. Includes various social promotions including Pinterest and Twitter. Notes : Submit at least 48 hours in advance
One Hundred Free Books Free Not stated No guaranteed selection
E Reader News Today Free No Full length books only. No minimum requirements but reviews are taken into consideration.
EBook Lister Free No A minimum of 5 reviews with an average score of 3.5+ (books must be $2.99 or less)
Free Me Free Not stated Currently a minimalist operation due to the main service being on hiatus
The Reader Cafe Free No A minimum of 3 reviews with a score of 4+. Notes : Your book must be submitted at least 3 days in advance and be over 100 pages in length
Frugal Freebies Free Yes Not just focused on Ebooks, this site has a lot of different giveaways and freebies.
Armadillo Ebooks Free – $5 Yes N: Option to upgrade to a ‘VIP’ listing for $5. (book must be from free to $2.99)
Book Angel Free No PG 13 content only, so definitely no erotica, but also no severe violence or other violations of their ethics.
Free Books Free No This service has a special section for permafree books. If your book is permafree, it can have its own permanent listing page.
I Love Books Free Not stated Popular genres and high quality book covers are preferred. No minimum review requirements, but reviews are taken into account.
Korner Konnection Free Not stated Primarily promoted through a popular Facebook page.
World Literary Cafe Free Not stated Promoted via a forum only. However, there is a hashtag as well, so your book may get some exposure on social.
Free Stuff Unlimited Free Not stated Not limited to just books, but books are more than welcome here.
Deal Seeking Mom Free Not stated Offering deals on many different products, not just books. Despite the name, this is the type of site which any bargain hunter might come across.
Jungle Deals and Steals Free No Must be submitted at least 48 hours in advance, full length only, no graphic violence
Penny Pinchin Mom Free No General discounts and freebies sites. No upfront info about which books are preferred.
Free Book Club Free No This service is affiliated with the Publishing Profits Podcast.
E Reader IQ Free Not stated Contact to discuss suitability of your book
I Crave Freebies Free Not stated Contact to discuss paid options. No clear information is provided upfront.
Zwoodle Books Free No Must take ‘true review’ pledge, political/religious books discouraged, no suggestive book covers
E Book Skill Free Not stated Very active Twitter account for this service which may give your book greater reach via social.
Book Deal Hunter Free Not stated Must be submitted at least 2 days in advance, no guaranteed listing
Mobile Read Forum Free Not stated Forum only, no form of promotion outside of this.
Books On The Knob Free Not stated Nice looking page for the deals of the day with a large cover image displayed.
Totally Free Stuff Free Not stated Just as its name suggests, Totally Free Stuff offers lots of things for no cost, not just ebooks.
Free Kindle Books 4 U Free Not stated Guaranteed placement with a donation
Book Hippo ** Free Not stated Free account creation required. For sales in the UK http://www.bookhippo.co.uk
Market List Free Not stated Required to sign in before using this service, although you can use your Facebook account to make this part of the process easier.
Bookpraiser Free Not stated Free account creation required. Offers the ability to create an author page on the site in order to feature more of your work on a longer term basis.
Book Daily Free Not stated Sample chapter required, advanced promotional options e.g video available
Story Finds Free Not stated Subscription required in order to promote your book using the service, but this isn’t difficult or lengthy to attain.
Free Today Free Not stated Facebook group only, no website running at the moment for this service.
Book Pinning Free Not stated Describes itself as an ‘online image board’. Somewhat similar to Pinterest but specifically for books!
Free Kindle Deal Free Not stated Book must be free at time of promo
Ebook Stage Free – $50 Not stated Must have a quality book cover and a ‘good’ review score (not specified exactly)
Ask David Free – $15 Yes Sign up for membership to add unlimited books to their website, get 20 tweets from the Ask David Twitter account with about 52K followers, bonus. 5 tweets for each new book added, $15 for 6-month membership, send out tweets on free promo day.
Authors Den Free – $75 No A basic account is free, but to get ‘gold’ membership, which receives a higher level of exposure, costs
Book Circle Free – $75 No Free listings aren’t guaranteed. Paid listings are guaranteed, with more expensive options bringing a higher level of promotion.
Book Raid Free – $10 (cost per click basis, $10 maximum charge) Yes High quality covers only, no minimum reviews, but reviews taken into account, must be discounted by 50% (good results)
Book Sliced Free Not stated Free to create an account and submit books automatically. No specific requirements.
Ebookasaurus Free No No special requirements
Feed Your Reader Free No No books allowed dealing with erotica, homosexuality or gruesome covers
People Reads Free – $20 Yes 10 reviews required with a minimum score of 3.9
Reading Deals Free – $29 No No sexual content, no hate speech. Good quality covers only. 5 reviews with a 4 star rating. (books must be free or discounted)
This Is Writing Free No Gets you an author page and even a guest post allowing you to promote your work.
Books Giveaways Free – $50 Yes With the code BKSGVWS10 you will receive $10 discount for all their services

LIST OF TOP PAID BOOK PROMOTION WEBSITES (Kindlepreneur with Dave Chesson)

Below is a list of the top paid promotion websites.  These services either offer to send your book to other promo sites, saving you time and energy or will offer your book to a premium group of readers.  In most cases, you’ll get a better quality output through these sites…but at a price.  Also, if you want to see which ones are most worth your time and give you the best ROI, check out my list here.

Name Price Erotica Allowed? Requirements and Notes
Awesome Book Promotion $65 Yes 5 different platforms available. You can choose to spread out your promotion on specific dates on each of the 5 sites or stack them all in one day.
Just Kindle Books $15 – $35 Yes Has a highly engaged newsletter readership and Facebook following. Promotes mostly romance, erotic romance, mystery/thriller, urban

fantasy, & women’s fiction. Next-day submissions accepted. Top-notch customer service.
Book Goodies $7.50 – $45 Yes Submit 5 days in advance. One of the few paid services to explicitly allow erotica (no pun intended). Flat rate promotion, no complicated array of options to navigate and decipher.
Free Booksy $40 – $200 Not stated Pricing depends on genre. Horror and travel are at the cheaper end of the spectrum while fantasy and romance are the most expensive. The size of the email list used by the service differs per genre, as each list is targeted to specific genre fans.
Steamy Romance Books $24.99 Yes Specifically for erotica books. On another page, they also offer paid features as well.
Book Bub $25 – $500 Not stated Very strict acceptance criteria, excellent average ROI. Countless authors have reported huge success after being featured on Book Bub. The most popular genre on Book Bub, crime, has almost 4 million subscribers on the list.
Kindle Nation Daily $100 – 180 Not stated Offers myriad packages. You can buy either daily, weekly or monthly packages, and have the option of choosing to promote to specific genre pages or to the whole site in general. Service claims to be able to reach up to 180,000 Kindle owners each day.
Digital Book Today $30 Not stated Submit at least 4 days in advance. Onsite calendar feature allows you to quickly and easily see whether it will be possible to promote your book during your desired time.
Author Ad Network $129 Yes and No Promotes your book to 28 different promotion sites and other social media programs. If erotica, they’ll only promote to certain sites that allow it.
Book Reader Magazine $20 Yes $20 guarantees a featured spot on the homepage for 7 days. Also, allows you to submit an author interview for free.
Good Kindles $25 – $45 Yes The costlier packages come with prominent home page promotion, social media and newsletter features.
Many Books $25 Not stated Many Books claim to get over 400,000 unique views a month. Successful applicants will be featured on both the website and in email promotion
Free Kindle Books and Tips $25 Not stated No specific details offered, authors must contact the site and ask for more info about what the service entails
Kindle Mojo $25 Not stated A wide array of options including Twitter, creating a VIP page on the site, and even having ‘prime time tweets’ sent out for a slightly higher price
Hot Zippy $23 – $330 Not stated One of the biggest ranges of options and prices available. You can promote your book for up to a month using this service. You can also choose shorter promotional periods, such as one day.
Author Marketing Club $20 Not stated Service offers submission to 28 separate platforms. Many other tools found on the site which may help with your promo efforts, such as a ‘bookalyzer’.
Free Books Hub $10 – $20 Not stated Your book will be promoted via email, on the website and through social media. Extra payments can be made in order to be more prominently displayed on both the site and on Facebook.
EBook Deal Of The Day $5 Not stated Costs $5 per marketplace (e.g Kindle, iTunes etc). Also offers a specific Kindle India promotion option.
Snicks List $1 – $5 No One of the two cheapest paid promotion options. You can choose the number of days your promotion will run, with very small price increases for extra days. If you have a permafree book, your promotion will run for a year for only $5.
Ignite Your Book $0.99 Not stated The cheapest paid service available. Ignite Your Book has a clean, easy to navigate website. Popular genres do better with Ignite Your Book’s audience.
Buck Books Fees based on average of books sold Not stated Book must be 0.99 or less during promotion, at least 10 reviews with an average score of 3.8 or higher, well written book description, pro cover design (specifically not Fiverr)
I Like Ebooks $0.99 – $9.99 Not stated No special requirements
Books Butterfly $50 – $500 Not stated Awesome service due to the fact they offer a prorated refund if their stated download target is not met
Planet Ebooks $20 – $60 Not stated Books with reviews preferred, but no minimum quantity/score
Hidden Gems Romance $10-$30 Yes Thousands of quality subscribers and growing daily, newsletter goes out twice a week and price varies on package. All genres of romance. Also has an ARC program for attracting honest reviews
Bargain Booksy $25 – $135 Yes Price paid depends on genre. More popular genres have a bigger list and therefore cost more.
Book Basset $8 per day – $22 per day No No explicit content whatsoever allowed. Choice of either being a ‘featured author’ or being the giveaway of the day.
Book Eel $10 – $200 Yes Book Eel offer a money back guarantee if your book doesn’t get at least 100 downloads for free books, or 30 sales for paid books. $200 buys the VIP promotion option.
Book Gorilla $50 – $100 Yes Erotica is accepted but must have “literary quality”. Books must have 5 reviews with an average of 4 stars and be over 100 pages in length.
Book Lemur $25 – $35 No No minimum review amount stated but “the more quality reviews the better”.
Many Books $29 No, but state they will in the future Your book must have at least 10 reviews with a four star or better rating. Your cover must be professional.
Riffle Books $25 – $100 No Book must be over 150 pages and professionally edited and presented.
WhizzBuzz Books $49 Yes Erotica is accepted but only if the cover and title are suitable for a general audience. The fee buys promotion both on site and on social for one year.
Genre Pulse $16+ Yes No special requirements, Genre Pulse pride themselves on ‘not being fussy’. (book must be free to $0.99)
Robin Reads $50 Yes Books promoted specifically by genre. Erotica is allowed but featured separately. Books must have a good cover and good reviews to be selected. No minimum reviews. [Robin Reads is getting better and better. I am starting to have better results with RR than Ereader News Today (another great one).]
Ebook Hounds $10 – $35 Yes Nonfiction books must be over 100 pages, fiction books must be over 150. At least 10 reviews averaging 3+ stars.
The Fussy Librarian $20 Yes 10 reviews with at least 4 star+ rating. Book must be $5.99 or less on day of promotion.
Book Barbarian $25 – $55 No Books must be sci fi or fantasy to qualify. Must have at least 10 reviews with an average of 3.5 stars +.
Your Book Promoter $49 – $249 No 3 months service. Service includes a guaranteed number of Amazon book page visitors.

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Social Media Marketing: by Jeff Bullas

Integration is key. Social media marketing should be part of your blogging, SEO and email marketing plans. It needs to include unique content that people love to share.

What if Google thinks social networks are important?

Consider the following.

  • Google has just spent $560 million designing, developing and launching Google+ (Over 400 million people are now users)
  • Facebook has over 1.1 billion users, which translates into nearly one in two global internet users.
  • Search engines are using social signals such as re-tweets, Facebook shares  and comments as indicators of what people think is important content. And that is being woven into their algorithms that decide what appears on the first page of search engine results.

Setting up your social media brand online

There are many choices when is comes to setting up your social media brand online.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

When it comes down to it, the two you cannot and shouldn’t ignore are Facebook and Twitter.2The reason to choose these is that they are the biggest, most active, have high engagement and will drive the most traffic to your website or blog.

How to start with Facebook

1. Brand your Facebook page

Create a Facebook page banner that is recognizable as your brand when visitors land

2. Customise your Facebook page with an app

One of the most popular apps to do this with is “ShortStack” and this allows you to capture more likes or grow your email database list by offering access to premium content by liking or providing their email to access it.

3. Grow your Facebook community

There are two ways to do this

  1. Free (organic)
  • Add a social plugin to your website or blog where people can “like” your page without leaving
  • Include a link to your Facebook page in your emails
  • Create or source great content and share it on Facebook
  • Share your Facebook links on Twitter
  • 2. Paid advertising

Facebook advertising is easy to do and can be limited and capped by time and daily spend. The easiest way to start is with

  • Standard Facebook
  • “Like” ads”
  • Run a competition
4. Engage with your fans

Here are some tactics to get your started

  • Ask Questions
  • Write compelling headlines for your Facebook updates and posts
  • Reply to comments
  • Run polls and surveys

 Note: Facebook is important but if you think that this constitutes a proper integrated social media marketing approach then you are mistaken. Facebook is only part of the equation.

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Other Good Articles on Marketing Resources for Writers: