Writing books is fun. Selling books is difficult. When I reissued Sea of Hope, I believed readers would be compelled to download it just because it had a spiffy new cover. Nope. A good cover helps, but it's nearly impossible to get noticed these days in the book world.
I tried Facebook ads, but they were not very successful. So I opted to try as many book promotion sites as possible. I was not lucky enough to get into Bookbub. Robin Reads also turned me down, maybe because at that point I priced the book at $1.99.
Still, Booksends accepted the book at $1.99. The ad ran on April 7th. I sold a few books and that was that. I figured I had to drop the price to $0.99 if I wanted to sell more books--even though I would not make up the price of the ad.
On April 27th an ad ran in Ereader News Today with the book at $0.99. Sales were terrific! The book's rank on Amazon soared. 😃
On May 12th, I ran an ad on Bargain Booksy with my book at $0.99. I sold about twice as many as I did with BookSends, but not anywhere near what I sold with Ereader News Today.
My ad in Fussy Librarian ran on June 4th. I sold about one sixth of the books I sold in Ereader News Today. Nevertheless, new readers discovered the book. In fact, which each of these promotions, I was able to reach people who were willing to take a chance on my book.
On June 16th, Sea of Hope was featured at BookGorilla for $0.99. I sold roughly twice as many books with BookGorilla as I did with Fussy Librarian, but only one third of what I sold with Ereader News Today.
Meanwhile, I went begging for reviews--since the reviews from the first edition of Sea of Hope no longer exist.
Marketing is very tough work, but book promotion sites do help in getting books into the hands of readers. Maybe one of these days, I'll get into Bookbub. Wish me luck!
For a list of book promotion sites go to Best Book Promotion Sites 2018.
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