I’m about to set up another Kindle Countdown deal for my book Visions of Zarua. In the past I’ve run a few ads on AMS, Facebook and Goodreads but I wouldn’t say they had resulted in many sales.
I want to ask;
Readers how / where do you discover books and are you more inclined to buy a book during a deal period?
Indie Authors where have you advertised your countdown deals and have they resulted in a good sales? In fact, while we’re on the subject where do you advertise your books whether it’s a promo or not.
I have a limited budget and there are so many sites to choose from, so I’m looking for some guidance. My genre is fantasy, so I’m looking to target readers of fantasy fiction.
Please get in touch and start a discussion on the difficult subject of advertising.
Thanks for your help!
P.S. I have blogged before about my experiences with KDP and if this time turns up any good results I’ll be sure to share them with you.
Suzanne Rogerson Fantasy Author 
It will depend on how far ahead you’ve got the Countdown promo planned but Robin Reads is a good place to set up a promo. They book really quickly so check on their calendar and schedule your promo around their approval of the date you chose. Once you’ve got the date figured out, you can try booking with Bknights on Fiverr and I think that’s about $5. They have better results with free but right now you want visibility so the more promos you have surrounding the countdown deal the better.
Speaking of countdown deals, I never figured the point of 99, 1.99 and then 2.99 countdowns. I usually just choose 99 cents because then you can have more flexibility around your promos.
Other sites to consider are the Fussy Librarian and Bargain Booksy, both of which I’ve used in the past. I’ve tried all of them actually and have a promo scheduled for Robin Reads in August and just finished one with Fussy Librarian this week.
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Brilliant, thanks Liz. I’ll check into these options and check dates etc. It’s funny you mentioned price increases, I’ve only just realised that’s an option, I thought it had to go up in price each day and that you can only run the promo for a few days. So silly of me. Hopefully my new knowledge and extra exposure will result in better sales this time! Good luck with yours too ;-).
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Countdown deals are tricky because they’re only good for US and UK and you have to use it up only once every 3 month term unlike free days can be split up all 5 separate days if you want or consecutively. But that only works if there’s sell through and that’s one reason why some books are split into 2 parts. Part 1 is free while the part 2 is for sale.
The price increases don’t do anything. If you want visibility, it’s best to do 99 cent pricing all throughout and set up promos on those days to maximize your ranking in the amazon store.
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Wow you certainly need to book some of these ad sites well in advance.
So far I’ve managed to book BKnights and Bargain booksy, and have an AMS ad scheduled though they haven’t let me mention the countdown deal.
I’ve also applied for Ereader news today but I needed the ad to go next week and it doesn’t give them 2 weeks notice so they’ll probably reject it.
Fussy Librarian and Robin reads are booked up into August and Sept, so I shall try for them with my new book.
I’ve decided to give myself permission to spend the money and try them all once. As you said, its all about exposure and increasing visibility.
I’d love to know how your ads have gone.
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I don’t have any personal experience of this yet, so can’t say with any authority what does or doesn’t work. However, I’ve heard from an increasing number of different self-published writers who swear by the benefits of having a mailing list that I’ve decided I’m going to start one myself, next month.
Logically, mailing lists have obvious advantages over paying for an ad campaign controlled by other people, targetting people who you can’t be sure will pay any notice to the advertising. The principal benefit is that you can safely assume that anyone who signs up to your mailing list has actively demonstrated their interest in you and your books. So, when the time comes to email out notifications of special offers etc. you know that you are targetting people who are already predisposed to responding positively to the notification, rather than just ignoring it.
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Yes, I’ve heard about emails lists and decided I didn’t want to go down that route. But you have given a very persuasive argument for them and I may well be converted. I’ll add it to my to do list.
Thanks for commenting, Ian.
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