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.