Hey,

We all want to sell more books but sometimes it can be difficult to figure out the right strategy - regardless of your experience.

Step 1 is examining the options at your disposal, and prioritizing.

Which can be hard to do without trying everything first... and burning through a ton of cash.

But why do that when you can burn through mine LOL.

Yes, it's another episode in my soon-to-be-renowned Book Marketing Tier List. And today we're looking at B-Tier. Last week we reviewed C-Tier - those middling marketing options which we only recommend in certain circumstances.

If you missed that email, read it here, where you will also find a link to the first episode, covering F-Tier – i.e. the marketing nonsense which should be avoided.

Aw Yeah It's B-Tier

You might remember we wrapped up last Friday talking about group promos, and I mentioned that this week we would be talking about a special kind of group promo - one with a twist.

BookSweeps List Builders

Let's look at what makes Booksweeps a bit special – where you can enjoy viral list-builders from just $50.

That is an affiliate link but let me explain in great detail why I love BookSweeps and why I’m comfortable recommending them to any author – especially if you follow my extensive tips below.

There are a bunch of different promos out there which promise to boost your mailing list. Many of them are terrible, quite frankly.

Even those at the better end of the spectrum often deliver low-quality sign ups. Those pesky readers who grab the freebie and immediately unsubscribe. Or, worse, sit on your list without buying anything - just dead weight... which you pay for, and which affects the deliverability of the rest of your list. Yeah, that can actually impact your genuine fans receiving your launch emails, which is no bueno.

What makes Booksweeps different? It's a fair question, deserving our attention, particularly because I dropped an affiliate link. On the surface, you might think it’s just another group promo which offers readers a freebie or prize in exchange for an email address.

Well, a few things make it stand out IMHO:

(a) Traffic

Book Swaps doesn't require participants to post about the promo. Most (all?) other promos don't just require that, they pretty much rely upon it. Often the only traffic these group promos deliver are what the participating authors collectively generate. Which can result in highly variable results (read: usually not great).

There's little incentive for bigger authors to participate in most of these promos. Everyone else gets to benefit from their hard-won audience, but they get little in return. You can understand things from their perspective or be mad about it - but it's a fact.

Which is one reason why the bigger names love BookSweeps and use it all the time. But how does BookSweeps generate so much juice without this compulsory sharing?

(b) Virality

Gong viral is baked into the BookSweeps business model, so it doesn't rely on the traffic participants might bring. Of course, sharing is still encouraged, and nice to do as it benefits everyone, and generally considered good form - just FYI - but it's not a hard requirement.

And that's because BookSweeps brings the traffic! It works like this: readers enter a competition for a cool prize like a Kindle, in exchange for their email. So far, so what, but the twist is they get additional entries for sharing on social media, and this makes things go crazy. Each share generates more entries, which generate further social shares.

This was the strategy that propelled AppSmo from start-up to eight-figures in annual revenue BTW, so you could say it's legit.

(Aside: AppSumo sells a tool so you can run your own viral competitions. You can buy it in a $49 lifetime deal. That's also an affiliate link, but I saw enough value in it to purchase it myself, with my own money, have big plans for a viral competition of my own this year, and I think a certain kind of more experienced author might see value in it too – not a general recommendation!)

(c) Quality

BookSweeps has many imitators these days and there are plenty of ways you can pursue what are often referred to as inorganic sign-ups. But what truly sets it apart is the quality of the email addresses.

Aside from my own wild experiments in all things marketing, I have acted as a consultant for a bunch of bestsellers, so I know this holds true across many types of lists and genres: BookSweeps emails just perform better.

I haven't reverse-engineered that part fully but all I really care about here are results. And in my experience - running all kinds of launches, not just my own - is that they perform remarkably well.

Not quite as good as organic sign-ups, but as close as you get in the world of inorganics.

I've been around for long enough, though, to know that's not true for everyone, all the time, so here are some hard-won tips to maximize your own BookSweeps experience:

1. Prepare. Have a system in place ready to import the emails as soon as you get them. Namely...

2. Build a special welcome sequence - a modified version of your usual one, taking account for how they arrived on your list, whether they already have your cookie, and so on.

3. This is important: remind these readers why they are getting emails from you up top! BookSweeps is good at explaining that to readers - one factor positively impacting the quality of these sign-ups - but reminding definitely helps avoid spam reports.

4. Have a visible and obvious unsubscribe (for the same reason). Don't fret if people do just that - you want those inclined to do so! Much better than dead weight (or spam reports)

5. Import those emails as soon as you get them, and have that customized welcome sequence trigger immediately.

I've seen huge variance in open rates based on how quickly subs are imported. (I mean from averaging 40%-50% open rate to falling all the way to 20%-30% if that import gets delayed a couple of weeks).

Yes, I'm anal enough to test this and tag everyone and track them over time! Which means I'm also aware that if a subscriber starts off DOA, they don't miraculously come back to life, no matter who you pray to.

Follow those tips, and you should see good open rates on your BookSweeps email, which beats any other source, bar organic sign-ups. Of course, I'm assuming you have a solid welcome sequence but that's a newsletter for another day!

​Check out BookSweeps here.

Okay, we're spent quite a bit of time on Booksweeps because I want to ensure you get the best possible results when using it - especially became that's an affiliate link above. But we are sticking with the topic of email for the moment because, once you grow your list, and become bigger, and more valuable... to your "competitors."

What now?

Email Swaps

As with most things related to newsletters, email swaps are wonderful... if used correctly.

And by correctly I don't mean doing it with everybody who makes eye-contact with you; this isn't college FFS.

The concept is simple at its heart: two authors agree to swap mentions of each other's launches. By doing so, they get to pool audiences and grow together - rather than viewing each other as competition. Take that, Old World Thinking.

As you might imagine, email swaps are especially effective when both authors have large lists to play with.

Developing a few relationships like this in your genre can give your launches a huge boost - and have all sorts of ongoing benefits too.

For example, engaging in email swaps can heavily influence your "Also Boughts" on Amazon. This means your mutual backscratching can be turbo-powered by Amazon's giant recommendation engine and deliver sales over a considerable period.

This is why you need to be selective, and only choose authors you really want to partner with. It also works best if both authors have similarly sized lists or audiences generally - so both sides get similar benefits from the arrangement.

The benefits from being choosy don't end with the almighty algorithms. Being strategic means you start viewing it like a partnership - and I've seen amazing things flow from that mindset.

Authors pooling social audiences, cross-promoting launches and sales, building Facebook Pages together, writing in each other's worlds, co-writing a series, and so much more.

Try and identify a handful of similarly sized authors in your niche and start the conversation! It can lead to some wonderful places, and it doesn't cost you a penny. Not bad for B-Tier!

I've no link to share here, because I have no service to recommend - this is old-fashioned DIY - roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Paid services exist, but I recommend avoiding them; I don't like any of them and a few are properly dodgy. Indeed, one of them was founded by a famous scammer so tread carefully if you decide to ignore my advice.

Promo Sites

Some call 'em deal sites, some call 'em promo sites, I call them the best value book slinging options out there; even if you quibble with that I'm sure you will agree that they are the easiest to use.

It's so straightforward: you pay them a small amount of money, they share your deal with their audience - usually free or 99c. All you have to do is ensure your book is discounted on the agreed date.

Quite a few authors don't seem to bother with these sites - for two reasons, primarily, as far as I can tell:

1. They don't want to "devalue books," or otherwise feel its an audience of deal-seekers or free-hunter who won't pay full price. 2. They think results are too small to bother with these days; its not 2010 anymore.

I vehemently disagree with both arguments. I could write 1,000 words disputing the first (and indeed have, on my blog), but let's be succinct. Discounts and freebies are one of the best springboards to growing your list - which will is the #1 source of full-price book sales.

Need more convincing? Watch this amazing video (by me).

As for results, yes, they can be small in many cases. The exception obviously is a BookBub Featured Deal - an S-tier promo option, considered separately in an upcoming newsletter.

However, there are others with significant juice - especially some of the series promo options, or when you stack your deal sites for maximum oomph.

Want to read my curated list of recommended promo sites? Of course you do!

Note: this page is freshly updated with links and prices accurate as of this very morning. Be careful with some other lists out there on the internet which just seem to list every promo site out there. Most are terrible, some are even quite dodgy and could get you in trouble with Amazon.

My list only has the best - personally vetted by me and tested across many genres.

BTW, I'm thinking of revamping the format of that page and presenting the info differently. Please feel free to share any feedback - good, bad, or indifferent! Okay, maybe not indifferent.

And please do share with your author friends on social media - it doesn't just help me; it helps them avoid the crappy sites.

Okay, I'm back next time with the heavy hitters: A-Tier.

Perhaps not next week, because I've something even more fun planned...

Dave

P.S. Music This week is the wonderful Sam Doores with Silver and Gold.