I've begun dabbling in promoting Inn Dreams, and as you know, I'm only looking at reasonably priced sites. I do have a small list of sites I used in the past, but it's worth looking in unfamiliar places as well. I had bookmarked a couple of new ones as I ran across them, and I delved into those yesterday. Ultimately I determined that they weren't for me. One labels itself an online book fair, in which authors of the same genre get together and create a "fair". Not only does it require the authors themselves to promote it, but it charges far too much for that "privilege". Another was simply out of my price range, especially for an unattractive interface.
A couple of the promo sites I've previously utilized provide a list of other sites as well. They all may be inter-related; I don't know, but any site for which I can't find a price list is immediately suspicious to me. One has to fill out the submission form entirely before even finding out how much the promo will cost. To a writer who's poor, believe me, there's a huge difference between fifteen dollars and fifty.
Aside from hiding their pricing, I like to know how much of a readership a site has and what genre it favors. Again, this is where ROI comes into play. For all I know, some of these amateurish-looking sites might have only five participants. If a site is doing well, it should want to flaunt that. And I don't want to find myself stuck on a romance site, because no one will want my book.
I know what the "biggie" operations are: BookBub, to some extent the Written Word Media twins of BargainBooksy and FreeBooksy and The Fussy Librarian. One thing these places do right is focus on the book. All the tiny places basically ask for an author's life history and her every social media link. What reader cares about an author's social media? I sure don't. Filling out these forms might feel productive at the time, but it's just busywork. All a site should ask for, if anything, is an author's website address.
Then there are the super-picky places. One requires a book to have a certain number of reviews (difficult if the book was just released), some have a minimum star rating. Some require both. Hey, I'm paying you. Take my money. And frankly, if they're worried about sullying their reputation, they first should have a reputation.
I'm not sure yet which other sites I'll advertise on. I keep staring at my list and not feeling pumped about any of them. I can take the easy way out and use BookBub again, but contrary to what other authors (and Gaughram, for that matter) say, BookBub is no magic bullet. In fact, most of my BookBub ads performed terribly. Plus there's the whole "comp author" thing I hate.
As for old business, apparently Voracious Readers Only won't stop offering Inn Dreams as an ARC until I replace it with another book (which isn't near ready). I'm not crazy about that.
And my BookSprout campaign now has seven takers. Not awful for a site that specializes in romance.
I've yet to hear from LibraryThing about my giveaway submission, which is odd since July is coming right up. Even if an author is declined, LT sends them an email to let them know. Maybe I messed up somehow and my submission didn't go through. At this point it hardly matters. Do I really need more ARC readers? I have too many right now. And I'm thinking Inn Dreams isn't going over well. I have two Goodreads reviews which are kind of backhanded compliments. They don't explicitly say it, but I read them as, "It's not that bad!" (And no, I just looked because one of the promo sites asked me how many reviews my book has. You know I don't intentionally read reviews.)
And all those ARC readers? Even the one who raved about my book and promised to post her review on day one? Zero Amazon reviews. It's just a stupid, worthless game.
On that cheery note, I'm off to stare at my promo list again and figure out what I can afford.
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