The Swiss Army Knife Of Websites

I have always believed that everything we use in our lives can be used for more than one purpose. A screwdriver is great for driving screws, of course, but it can also be used as a lever to get the lids off of paint tins.
 
And the same applies to the Bookfunnel website - not the paint tin thing, but other book marketing purposes.
 
Many Indie authors will be familiar with Bookfunnel’s original purpose, which is to deliver free content to readers in exchange for their email addresses. It is a vital tool for people trying to build email lists.
 
It can also be used for delivering free content to existing email subscribers and ARC* readers. So, it is already a multipurpose tool.

---

But did you know you can also use Bookfunnel to sell your books, using the power of “group promos”?
 
And, importantly, if you are already a subscriber it won’t cost you a penny. In terms of advertising, it works out as a really cheap option. A Bookfunnel subscription costs about $10 a month, which you can easily spend in a day advertising on Amazon or Facebook.
 
First I need to explain about “group promos”, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Bookfunnel (if you are, then please feel free to skim over this bit).
 
Basically, you sign up to a group promo by uploading some free content (novella, short story, or a complete book) to Bookfunnel. You create a landing page for the book and then you join a group, usually one that is relevant to your genre so that the free content goes to the right sort of readers – the sort that read your genre and that you want on your email list.
 
Once you have joined the group, you promote the offer on your social media and using your email list, while the other group members do the same. Your content then gets downloaded in exchange for a reader’s email address and that way you can build your list much quicker than you would by relying on organic growth.

---

A good group promo could get you as many as 50 new email addresses, though the average is a little lower.
 
Now, substitute “sales” for email addresses.

Is making 50 additional sales something in which you would be interested?
 
Stupid question – of course you would.
 
Well, Bookfunnel is there ahead of you. As well as what they call “newsletter swaps”, which build your email list, you can also join “sales swaps”.
 
The basics are the same, upload your book, create a landing page and join a group promo, but one that is focused on sales instead of newsletters.
 
The main differences is that you create a sales landing page and add a universal book link  so that the “call to action” button takes the reader to the sales page for your book: Amazon and/or wherever else you sell it. The other difference is that the wording of the promo header makes it clear to readers that the books have to be paid for rather than being downloaded for free (though you can also offer free books).

---

Just as with the newsletter swaps, you promote the group on your social media and to your email list and the other authors in your group do the same.
 
What are the numbers like?
 
Well, typically a group promo of that sort will be made up of between 10 and 20 authors. We’ll stick with the lower figure so that our estimate is at the conservative end of the scale.

If each author has 100 people on their email list, that’s a potential reach of 10,000 readers of your genre. And that’s before you factor in the group's combined social media reach on top.
 
In reality the email lists are likely to be much larger (possibly 1000s of email addresses per author), so the actual reach of the promo is probably going to be considerably higher.
 
All that exposure  costs you nothing.
 
Joining the group costs you nothing.
 
Joining Bookfunnel does require you to pay a subscription fee, but if you already subscribe then that is a “sunk cost”. In other words, you have already paid your money, so you lose nothing, but you stand to gain a lot.

---

Other than their cheapness (you can’t get cheaper than free) there are several other advantages to using these swaps that you don’t get using other advertising methods.
 
1. You are targeting people who read books in general, but who also read your genre specifically.
2. You don’t have to spend time researching keywords or comp authors, which you do for a lot of ad platforms.
3. Readers are used to getting emails from the authors, so they open them (well, most do anyway).
 
As all Indie authors know, January is a slow month for sales unless you write self-improvement books (people who believe in “New year – New me” buy a lot of self-improvement books in January). Everyone is strapped for cash because of Christmas, so they don’t spend much money on books.

---

But that doesn’t mean there is no book market. You just have to go looking for it.
 
Many people get new Kindles or other ereaders for Christmas, so they are looking for books with which to load them up. And people who like reading will still buy books – if they are cheap enough.
 
So, it’s a great time to run a Kindle Countdown Deal, especially if you write series. Set your series starter to 99p (99c) (or even free) and use a Bookfunnel sales promo to advertise it. You can pick up a whole lot of new readers without having to spend money on advertising, so your financial risk is zero. Just for a change you aren't paying to give soemthing away for almost no return.
 
You can promote full prices books, but this does work best if you are offering free or heavily discounted books.
 
And even if you don’t get sales, you are likely to pick up new readers through KindleUnlimited if your books are subscribed to Kindle Select.

---

Pro tip.
 
Email lists cover a lot of territories where you can’t run Kindle Countdown Deals, and you are limited to running them in 2  territories at a time anyway.

​That means that the readers in many territories get starved of bargain books. Canadian and Australian readers will be jumping up and down shouting “That’s us. We don’t get them” right now and those two countries have big book markets.
 
This is your opportunity to get readers in those countries on board because email list are often international, but you will have to adjust the price of the book manually in the KDP price settings. Remember to do that a couple of days before the start of the promo, because it can take a couple of days for price changes to filter through the system to reach all available territories.
 
And don’t forget to adjust the prices back to normal after the end of the promo.
 
You don’t have to be on Kindle to make this work for you. So long as you can use a universal book link to take the reader to the right place to buy your book, you can use these swaps.
 
So, if you are already a Bookfunnel subscriber, what are you waiting for? And if you aren’t a subscriber, this is another reason for joining.
 
* ARC = Advance Review Copy – a book provided for free in advance of publication, in exchange for a review being posted on Amazon/Goodreads after publication..
 
If you have enjoyed this blog, or found it informative, then make sure you don’t miss future editions. Just click on the button below to sign up for our newsletter. We’ll even send you a free ebook for doing so.

---

Newsletter