Friday, October 18, 2013

A Paid Promotion That Was Worth the Cost

As a self-published author, I'm always looking for ways to market my work.  There are a lot of options and I've tried many: blog hops, giveaways, ads.  You name it, I've given it a go. The success of such promotions can be measured in a number of ways, but if you want to increase sales most don't give much bang for the buck.

Given my prior experience, I was reluctant to shell out more money on the Lendle Today's Featured Book Promotion.  For $35, they promote your Kindle book on their website, Twitter and Facebook and in emails to subscribers for the entire day you book the deal.  I decided to throw caution to the wind and check it out.  In that 24 period, I sold five times as many books that I had the rest of the month.  Now, I don't sell huge amounts, but five times more was a big deal, and I definitely made back the invested money.  

The scientist in me wanted to try to determine if this was a fluke.  So, a few weeks later, I promoted the same book again.  I figured sales might be less than from the first promotion, reasoning that the people who had previously purchased the book obviously wouldn't be buying again and a similar cohort of folks would be seeing the promo.  Surprisingly, the number of books sold was slightly higher the second time around.

From my experiences, I recommend the service.  I'd be interested to hear from others that have bought the other promotions - which are more expensive but are genre-specific and last a week - for their impressions.