What do I do Next?

In my last blog post, “How did I get into this”, I told you of some of the lessons I learned so far in my self-publishing adventure. Now as the adventure continues I am finding more and more avenues to promote my books that are close to achieving my miserly efforts to keep my budget very small.

While my efforts are still focused on promoting my books for free. I have decided not to limit my free book offerings through just Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Barnes and Nobles or Apple Books. Much to my surprise, I found that while I run a five day free promotion on KDP I can simultaneously run free promotion with other sites to increase my books visibility. While these sites will promote your free book, they will only feature your book on their social media sites for a fee. I have found a few sites though, that cost the same as a beer at the ball park, which is around $10 bucks. At least that was what my FIRST and LAST beer cost me at the last Rockies game I attended.

I found this site, PAID AUTHOR, that listed book promotion sites on a their site https://www.paidauthor.com/best-ebook-promotion-sites/ . There are probably more sites with the same information but I liked this site for their research that they shared about each site. They had 10 book promotion sites that would promote free books in many if not all genres. The promotion sites prices varied WIDELY so beware. PAID AUTHOR tested each site with one of their authors book and on most sites posted the results of that book during their promotion period. PAID AUTHOR also have coupons for each book promotion site that would take some of the sting out of paying to promote a FREE book. I chose Discount Book Man for my first attempt using a paid book promotion site. With the coupon provided by PAID AUTHOR it cost me $10 so I did not cringe too much when I pressed the BUY button.

From the many articles that I have read it was suggested that you submit your free book offering through more than just one promotion site. The premise was while submitting your free book to one promotion site is good, two or three sites would be better. While that sounds plausible, I don’t want to dive in head first only to bang my head on the bottom of the pool. I am more of a toe dipper. If Discount Book Man can generate enough downloads for me I will add another book promotion site with my next free offering that would cost me under $30.

My reasoning to do this kind of book promotion would have two objectives that I would be looking to accomplish with book promotion sites. Firstly, I am looking for downloads that would increase my ranking in the Amazon free books ranks. Secondly, as I hopefully increase the visibility of my free book, I could generate some sales after the free promotion period allowing me to move up in Amazon’s paid book ranking. I may even get a review or two along the way.

While offering my book on other self-publishing sites like Barnes and Nobles, Apple Books as well as KDP will increase my visibility, but working with book promotion sites can expedite the visibility process. The one thing I would suggest if you do use these book promotion sites is to not go crazy. No diving head first. Stick to toe dipping and set your self a budget. Mine is $30 a month. While that is not zero dollars spent it is something that I can afford to loose. The rest of the month will be spent writing more chapters in my new book and editing my fourth book that I just finished. If you would like to see a preview of my fourth book “One’s Evil Desires” I have an excerpt on my blog site page-A glimpse into the future.

So the take away here is whether you want to suffer the slings and arrows of slowly promoting your book and keeping your beer money safe or to buy a cheaper beer and then taking your savings to spend some money on getting your book in front of more people. Whatever route you take always remember that toe dipping prevents head injuries, whether inflected by the bottom of the pool or your wife pounding you on your head for spending to much money on your book promotions.