I have tried a few things over the last year and thought I’d share my views/experience...

[ratsy]

Great stuff. I can't wait to see how it works out. Good luck Jo!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Okay, I still have a weekend at 99p to go, but the paid promos have all run. I made a mistake and put 2 into the same day so results are a little skewed but, actually, that might be a good thing - a good sales spike hits up the rankings well. Anyhow, here are the results of the Inish carraig jury:

Monday - no paid promo but I facebooked and tweeted and had 6 sales, all in the UK. My interview was broadcast in the early evening which accounted for a few of those, I think.
Tuesday - Bargain Booksy. By far the most expensive promo of the week at £25 - 8 US sales, 3 UK. Not worth it and I won't use them again. (And they're quite a big player.)
Wednesday - none, but I had a busy day on Tuesday, running events and local radio. 4 US though (which were probably a carry over from Bargain booksy) and 1 UK.
Thursday - BKnights from Fiver (@ratsy) - 4 US sales, 5 UK (which a second showing of my interview might have influenced.) it probably cover its cost, but not much more and I wouldn't use them again.
Friday - Booksends (£15) and Book Barbarian (£10) - 39 sales, 38 US, 1 UK. I think most of this was from Book Barbarian for two reasons - their ad hit first and was already getting steady sales and they had a good impact last time.

My verdict - Book Barbarian, every time. They're great value, they're hitting the right market well and for sff they're only beaten by the far more expensive Bookbub.

Now, two things. Normally these figures only tell the first half of the story. These sites are used by Kindle Unlimited customers, and usually these sales are reflected in similar readthroughs later - and already around 400 pages have been read today.

Also, this promo was focused on the US - I'll do another UK focused next - so to have over 50 sales in a market I'm invisible in is great. (I see this as stones in a pond. Both my books get a lot of recs from readers. Each sale is a stone with ripples from it. I see the challenge as getting enough ripples to start to fill the pond)

So, I hit my target 70 sales which should just about meet the costs of the promo with any readthroughs being profit. I also have 2 days left with me sitting in the low 5000s in the kindle us store, so hopefully will get another couple of sales. My plan for the weekend is to hit a bit of twitter and facebook promo and hopefully get another couple of sales.

Either way, I hit my target and am a happy writer.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

Firstly Jo, great work on Inish Carraig, the reviews are great (deservedly so)

Secondly...
I agree that Bargain Booksy has a weak offering, I had no "luck" with them in the summer
I have had good results with BookSends and I would recommend them

Thirdly..
I have never used Barbarian but have them book for the end of this month in conjunction with a US Kindle Countdown... I will let people know

 

[thaddeus6th]

As I have no useful comment to offer ( ), just thought I'd say that's interesting and helpful to read of your experiences with this sort of thing.

Oddly, someone (Joey Pinkney, I think his name was) offered some free publicity for Bane of Souls. At first I thought it was a scam (I am Captain Suspicious), but it was genuine. Wish I'd paid closer attention because for a few consecutive weeks the sales were better than average, and I can't recall how much they overlapped.

I know that's not much help, but I did say I have no useful comment to offer...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Firstly Jo, great work on Inish Carraig, the reviews are great (deservedly so)

Secondly...
I agree that Bargain Booksy has a weak offering, I had no "luck" with them in the summer
I have had good results with BookSends and I would recommend them

Thirdly..
I have never used Barbarian but have them book for the end of this month in conjunction with a US Kindle Countdown... I will let people know

Booksends is good to know. I thought I had booked them for the Wed and not the Friday so had no baseline to go by. I'll definitely try them again - at ,£15 they're good value and the combined sales yesterday were good enough to indicate it generated some sales.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A quick update. BargainBooksy sent me a customer feedback form and I fed back that sales had been disappointing. They responded yesterday with a full refund and apologies. Quality response. I like a company that takes its customer service seriously.

 

[pambaddeley]

It's nice that they did that. I haven't heard of any similar service apologising and refunding the writer.

 

[Kieran Song]

I've used bookbub and e readers news today
The combo pushed my book into the 100s rank. Of course, it was in the romance genre where the fan base is more rabid lol. My biggest suggestion, start with e reader news today or book gorilla, or one of those smaller sights the first day, and then use bookbub (if you're accepted) the next.

Kindle rankings are all about velocity of sales from what I remember.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I've used bookbub and e readers news today
The combo pushed my book into the 100s rank. Of course, it was in the romance genre where the fan base is more rabid lol. My biggest suggestion, start with e reader news today or book gorilla, or one of those smaller sights the first day, and then use bookbub (if you're accepted) the next.

Kindle rankings are all about velocity of sales from what I remember.

This is the second time I've hear this suggested in the last day or so (maybe you're on other forums?) but the majority of sf books would struggle to be classed as romance and selling in a unmatched category is potentially worse than not selling at all.