Monday, June 22, 2015

Bang for Your Buck...Which Promo Sites Have the Driest Powder

There are a lot of sites out there for book promotion. Some are good, some...not so much.  Below is one author's (me) experiences with a number of popular promo sites, number crunched and graphically displayed for your perusal.


METHODOLOGY

All promos were for a perma-free, fantasy/paranormal romance novel with a professionally designed cover and over 125 reviews (now up to 190) with a 4.3 star rating on Amazon.

All promotions were scheduled with at least three days between the next promo to assure a truer evaluation of the benefit of each site. Bang for your buck (BFYB) was calculated by dividing the number of downloads on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Nook and Smashwords from the beginning of the promo out 72 hours by the cost of the promotion .  The larger the BFYB, the more cost effective the promotion.

Promos were conducted between December 23, 2014 and June 17, 2015.

RESULTS

Table 1.  Promo Site Results, Ranked by BFYB, Highest to Lowest

Site
Cost (US$)
Downloads
Cost/Download
BFYB
BookBub
195.00
25423
0.007670
130.37
eReader News Today
30.00
993
0.030211
33.10
Lendle Book of the Day
35.00
1026
0.034113
29.31
Books Butterfly
28.00
755
0.037086
26.96
Free Booksy
100.00
2032
0.049213
20.32
Free Kindle Books
25.00
458
0.054585
18.32
eBooksoda
10.00
141
0.070922
14.10
BKnight (Fiverr)
15.75
205
0.076829
13.02
Kindle Book Review
20.00
258
0.077519
12.90
Digital Books Today
20.00
186
0.107527
9.30
Best Graphic (Fiverr)
5.50
47
0.117021
8.55
Book Sends
50.00
380
0.131579
7.60
eBookImpresario
5.00
38
0.131579
7.60
Book Kitty (Fiverr)
5.50
28
0.196429
5.09
New Free Kindle Books
5.00
20
0.250000
4.00
eBookasaurus
10.00
35
0.285714
3.50
Bindingsauthor (Fiverr)
5.50
12
0.458333
2.18
Indie Book of the Day
30.00
31
0.967742
1.03
Bookbear
20.00
12
1.666667
0.60




Figure 1.  BFYB, by Site (alphabetized)






So, what can one conclude from all this?  The statistically sound way to get a good idea of a site's worth would be to gather this information from lots of authors to establish a mean BFYB with standard deviations.  My data does not have that, but I think it gives a good picture of what one might expect. Not surprisingly, the Bub was da bomb.  Beyond that, there are a number of sites that had good numbers, and some were definite duds. Remember, the results are likely genre-specific, and subject to the vagaries of the cosmic karma that influences indie book sales (e.g., phases of the moon, placement on the site's page or day of the promotion).  

I find Tuesdays, and a waxing gibbous are best.