Edita A. Petrick
Edita A. Petrick
Edita A. Petrick

PAID PROMO – Beware -Try it Once – GoTo – Bingo

http://www.ebooklister.net/submit.php    eBookLister

http://www.ebooklister.net/promote.php

otherwise known as your book is in the ‘ball-crawl’ pit – ineffective promo

They have a ‘free’ feature where you submit your book but they would like to see a donation. I made one – $10US and it was a total waste of money. They do not have any means of checking whether your book was featured on a particular date back a month or even back a few days. Their site is skimpy. There is no historical database feature. There is no “search” feature on their site for author’s name or your book’s title. They might run your book on the day you selected for your promo, but if you blink you’ll miss it and then there’s no way to find out if there even was a promo. Daily listing of promo books is in rows with rather small book covers, three per row, and it’s very doubtful that if yours even makes it there, the maniacally scrolling reader will magically see it and select it. Row #3 for some reason is called “Bargain ebooks – get these free” which to me is kind of contradictory. Bargain means one thing, free is entirely something else. Oh, you figure. I couldn’t.

Daily Focus, your cover on their sidebar, is not cheap – $25.00 – which in most cases is a good chunk of promo money and if you’re running a “Free Kindle in KDP” then you’re still paying $15.00 which to me is a total waste of money and resources.

Current Daily Rates:
Bargain Listing: $25.00
Free Listing: $15.00
Daily Focus: $25.00 – See more at: http://www.ebooklister.net/promote.php#sthash.wyG2v4Mt.dpuf

TRY IT ONCE I’m saying that only because they’re not outright cheats. But if you are tight with promo money, and I don’t know an indie author who isn’t (even the bestselling ones are) then skip this promo site. Nothing about it will make you feel good.

PERSONAL RESULTS: on the day of the promo (February/Saturday) there were 0 downloads (paid) of the promoted novel in two days and 14 downloads of my ‘free’ book

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http://ebookdealofday.com/ (UK promo site)

otherwise known as a nice site but you get hi-jacked to somewhere else – a mysterious blog you’ve never heard of

The site has a ‘search’ feature and you can search for your book or author’s name back for one month only – except in my case I couldn’t find one or the other. What I found, when I went to check on PayPal as to where did my payment go, is this site Lizzy Ford Books LLC and this one http://www.guerrillawordfare.com I have no idea what either site is about and if anything, neither seems as an appropriate book promo site because they’re someone’s personal blog. I’ve raised the payment issue with PayPal. Obviously my book never ran on the ebookdealoftheday.com and the payment should never have gone to Lizzy Ford Books LLC Payment But those were the only options. Stay tuned for resolution of this mystery.

BEWARE. If you are going to promote in the UK, do it from someone’s recommendation – another author’s recommendation, not from a list of UK promo sites. http://ebookdealofday.com/author-submit/ They have author submissions, and the promo is inexpensive, $5 and $10 for premium feature, but it’s doubtful it will bring any results. And now that I have a February report from Amazon, that 1 sales was in US, not UK.

PERSONAL RESULTS: on the day of the promo (February/Wednesday) there was 1 paid download of the promoted book, and 18 downloads of my free book.

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http://ebookasaurus.com/premium-book-listing/

otherwise known as don’t get your hopes up just because it’s a nice, clean, simple site

It’s cheap promo, $10 for Premium Feature, and it’s flat. This is their pitch “Premium book listings include author bios, social links, additional store links and are featured on the sidebars through out the site.” It’s not clear what other promo they offer than just posting on their site. They do have a newsletter, once again its circulation or membership is not given – and certainly not confirmed by the downloads on the day of running this promo. They have a “search” feature but you can only find your book via its title, not through your author’s name. My book ran, as a ‘featured book’ so they do deliver on their promise and you’re not paying for nothing. Results are however…disappointing to put it kindly.

TRY IT ONCE just to see that they post your book cover on their site and you can later on search for it; you can use that as one means of promotion on facebook or twitter when you’ve run out of promoting ideas. They’re not cheats but their readership is not buying/readers either.

PERSONAL RESULTS: on the day of the promo (February/Sunday) there were 0 paid downloads of the promoted book, and 11 downloads of my free book. So this promotion may bring a customer to Amazon to look at the promoted book but it will not be a paying customer. It will be only the freebie-hoarding customer who surfs sites for free books. Each promo, successful or failed, teaches you something.

SUMMARY & OBSERVATION

Weekends are the worst days for paid promotion. Save your promo money. If you’re going to go for paid promo, pick weekdays. Don’t pick weekend days. There are promo sites that are fairly results-oriented and thus are good promo places, but—like with everything else in life there’s a catch. They require a ton of reviews, all higher than 3.9 or so. And if they do have a promo for a book with few or no reviews (new release, for example) they will stipulate that you can only “BUY” promo on Saturday and Sunday.

I truly hate sites like these, even if they tend to produce results, because they are in the same category as ‘gougers.’ They are well aware that Saturday and Sunday promo is flat and they bank on the fact that you will now know that. So they want your promo money, full-well knowing you will get slim or no results for it promoting on weekends. Something to keep in mind when choosing your promo site.

Next blog, three more paid promo sites coming up for review.