Those with permafree - How often do you run promos?

trublue

· #2 · Mar 7, 2015

Promo as much as you can. However the sites that actually give you great results will only take you once a month or every six months like with BB.

Whenever you can promo on BB, Freebooksy, ENT, Bookssends, book butterfly, and book gorilla. Also Kindle Book Review does great giveaways. I get a lot of downloads for my perm free. Here is link to their new promo its only like 30 bucks. I always get the add ons so its a little more.

But yes, you need to promo as much as you can. Just make sure you hit the places above. And for the every other day stuff, you can do BKnight on fiver a few times and a FB ad for $20 bucks (just to get your feet wet) You want to keep up with promo places but not go broke. So spend money on the list above as they get results. And drop ten or so bucks on the small unproven places. Good luck.

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Lionel's Mom

· #3 · Mar 7, 2015

I just ran some ads, and before that I did an ENT in November (or maybe Dec, I forget), and before that I did several in October, before that it was August.

If you can handle the initial anxiety about your dls dropping (and they will), you might get to a steady spot where your readthrough rate is much higher than when you're advertising. I found this out when I ran out of effective places to spend my ad dollars and just stopped advertising-- because I had nowhere left to advertise.

Since your freebie is new, do all the ad sites over the course of the next couple months, find out which ones work for you, then start using them again whenever your dls get too low to be able to make a living from the sell-through. By then you'll have more data on what your readthrough rates are, too.

Plus, if you're still adding to the series, you get a bump organically when you publish a new sequel, at least that's my experience. Good luck!

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A Woman's Place Is In The Rebellion

· #4 · Mar 7, 2015

I launched a permafree in January and ran promos into early Feb. I thought my numbers would drop as soon as I stopped promoting (because that's happened with other books) but so far, so good. I intend to run another set of promos in early April to coincide with the release the fourth book in the series.

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C. Gockel

· #5 · Mar 7, 2015

I promote every month, but in February I gave it a rest because I wanted to wait until my new release came out. I saw a definite decline in sales. This month I'm advertising at all the places I planned on hitting up in February and March.

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D-C

Discussion Starter · #6 · Mar 8, 2015

Thanks everyone. When I was selling book 1 as paid, I ran a 99c promo every couple of months. Sounds like permafree is about the same, while experimenting with cheaper sites in between.

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RomanceAuthor

· #7 · Mar 8, 2015

trublue said:
Promo as much as you can. However the sites that actually give you great results will only take you once a month or every six months like with BB.

Whenever you can promo on BB, Freebooksy, ENT, Bookssends, book butterfly, and book gorilla. Also Kindle Book Review does great giveaways. I get a lot of downloads for my perm free. Here is link to their new promo its only like 30 bucks. I always get the add ons so its a little more.

But yes, you need to promo as much as you can. Just make sure you hit the places above. And for the every other day stuff, you can do BKnight on fiver a few times and a FB ad for $20 bucks (just to get your feet wet) You want to keep up with promo places but not go broke. So spend money on the list above as they get results. And drop ten or so bucks on the small unproven places. Good luck.

OMG your new Guardians covers are gorgeous! Who did them?

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G

· #8 · Mar 8, 2015

trublue - thanks for the mention.

I'll add a few thoughts.

1) Permanent Frees are harder to get into Top 100.

2) If you can get them into Top 100, they can start there for a long time.

3) It's much better, at least the first 1 or 2 times, to stack together promotions. If your book is recently permafree'ed then most of the sites wouldn't have found it yet.
So stack up sites and try to get your book into the Top 100.

Stack up means - same day.

Later it'll become much tougher because readers would have found it.

4) The small sites that mention for free are a big help. Apply to as many of them as you can.

5) Later on, after a few months, it's good to have 1 or 2 big sites a month. If you have a good cover and a good book, then the tail will be long, it'll tide you over until the next month.

6) There are lots of promo results threads. Find one for your genre. For the first time, don't space out promotions. You need somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 to get into Top 100 (because Permafree it's tougher). So stack enough sites on Day 1 of your promo run that you can get that. If you get to Top 100 throw in a few more sites.

The ones that work best (pretty similar list to what trublue said) i.e. BB, Freebooksy, ENT, Bookssends, book butterfly, and book gorilla. Note: I don't know about Book Gorilla. The rest are very solid.

BB, Freebooksy, ENT - those are I think the top 3 for freebooks.

Booksends, BKnights are also good. For us let me know genre (via pm if you prefer) and I'll let you know if we're strong in that.

Also MidList accepts free promotions.

BB you might have to apply a few times. Try a few times (you don't have to wait 4 weeks for free books). If you can get in there, then stack everything around them (the day before).

If not, get Freebooksy & ENT on same day and stack everything around them (same day).

BKnights is pretty much automatic since it's $5 if you mention KBoards. Other sites you can see what budget you have left. The small free book sites are very important. Sometimes they can get you as many downloads as a big site.

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kyokominamino

· #9 · Mar 9, 2015

D-to-the-C said:
MY UF series is new to permafree, and so far it's been great.

The initial boom has started to calm down, which got me thinking how regularly I should be doing promo runs. Those with permafrees, do you do ads every now and then, or do you stick to a schedule and blast several sites every couple of months?

I promo'd once a month up until recently. My UF permafree (also, whoo hoo! Fellow urban fantasy author!) has been out since July 2013 and so I'm kind of tapped out on places to promote it because I've submitted the book to pretty much all the sites Kboards has listed in all the major threads here. Every so often a new one pops up and I send my book in. Haven't been accepted by Bookbub yet, though, so if that ever happens, I'll be on Cloud Nine.

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Mike Essex

· #10 · Mar 9, 2015

I typically promo every 2 months. That gives me time to see the results from the prior promo as sales of other books can take a while.

I'm still dipping my toes in and this way I'm building up the confidence to spend a bit more each time.

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D-C

Discussion Starter · #11 · Mar 10, 2015

ireaderreview said:
BB you might have to apply a few times. Try a few times (you don't have to wait 4 weeks for free books). If you can get in there, then stack everything around them (the day before).

Thanks ireaderreview, when you say you don't need to wait 4 weeks for free, for BB, what do you mean? I've applied for a freebie slot with BB and they gave me the standard 'wait 4 weeks' reply.

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J.T. Williams

· #12 · Mar 10, 2015

I'm not trying to hijack the thread but I am curious in regards to series starters (permafree or not) and adding additional books... do you get an algorithm boost because people find the new book and want to read the first one? Or does adding to the specific series cause the entire group of books to go up in ranking?

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G

· #13 · Mar 10, 2015

D-to-the-C

I read here (from an author) that in the Q&A that BB did here, they said

1) They don't get as many applications for free books as for paid books. This I read in that thread too.

2) For free books it's OK to apply again before 4 weeks have passed. This I don't recall exactly but there was something about some books you could re-apply faster. Sorry, that thread is too long so I can't check for you.

You can look at their lists. They have 18 or so deals every day and just 6-9 free books. And a lot of the free books are permafree books and repeats (i.e. books they have featured before). Higher chance of getting into free according to them.

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Holly A Hook

· #14 · Mar 11, 2015

I do a big promo for my permafree every 1-2 months or so. I just had ENT on Sunday which gave me about a thousand downloads and I have the Midlist next month, which I was surprised I got into as they claim they have a 5% acceptance rate for free books. KND's Free Book Highlighter service was also very good. I think having a lot of reviews with an overall good rating helps immensely with getting into some of the bigger sites.