On Writing and Publishing: BookSweeps Review

BookSweeps is a book giveaway service that offers promotions where readers get free books or an ereader if they agree to sign up for the participating author’s newsletter.

I decided to try their service after I got an email offering $15 off a list builder promotion.

This is what I experienced.

COST

As suggested in a course, I tried to gain mailing list subscribers through Facebook ads. I failed miserably. I was losing money fast and not a soul signed up. I killed the ad. Sure, I could have tweaked the ad until it gave me results, but right now I’m short on cash and I’m looking for options that I know work.

BookSweeps offers their list builder program for $60, and they promise their promotion will give you at least 400 subscribers or they will give you a chance to enter another promotion for free.

Also, you must be prepared to gift your book to two of the winners. It doesn’t matter if your books are part of Kindle Unlimited, you can still book them, I learned that when I joined this promo!

Now, for $45, I was willing to give them a try. Just once, at least. I took the plunge.

GENRE

The genre I chose was Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance.

Because I consider my books to be in the urban fantasy category (because they’re about vampires, werewolves, witches, etc, living in our urban world), I chose to join this promotion. As other authors began to join the promotion, I noticed a lot of them offered romance and steamy sex, which I don’t. It made me think maybe I chose my genre wrong for this promotion. If I find the subscribers don’t unsubscribe because I don’t offer steamy sex and romance, then I’m willing to give it another try in the Fantasy genre.

We’ll see.

BEFORE THE PROMOTION START

I can tell the people at BookSends have been doing this for a while. In fact, I think I remember seeing their banners ever since I started on this author path two and a half years ago. Back then I wondered what you needed to do to be a part of a promotion like this. I figured the authors must know each other or something. Ha! Nope, they just need to pay up.

Once you log into your account in the BookSweeps website, you’ll see a lot of important material tailored for you and your specific promotion.

There, you’ll find banners they create (both with all books and one highlighting your book). They also have several blurbs you can use for when you advertise the promo online, which include Facebook and Twitter.

And of course, you must share it on your newsletter, no matter how big or small.

DURING THE PROMOTION

You are just as important as anybody when it comes to sharing the promotion.

Our promotion lasted three weeks, but then they announced they would extend the deadline. Oh well.

I shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and my newsletter, as was expected of me. On Facebook and Twitter, I promoted it more than once.

There is not much to do but wait, really.

JOINING THE PROMOTION AS A READER

Using my personal email, I joined the promotion, too.

I did this for several reasons:

1. I wanted to see what the subscribers looked at. I found the pages they saw when they joined.

The first thing I saw was the list of all the authors next to a checkbox. I was asked to select which author’s newsletter I wanted to join. There was an option for all of them, and I took it.

The second screen asked for my name and email address.

The third and final screen asked if I wanted to join THEIR newsletter for a chance to win a $50 bookstore gift card. I agreed.

2. I wanted to receive the other author newsletters. I’m new to newsletter writing and I was curious to see what the other authors did. I thought I could get some ideas and the like.

3. Finally, I wanted to win. I mean, who doesn’t want a new Kindle?

AFTER THE PROMOTION

The promo ended and I received an email saying it had ended and that, in about 10 days, I would get an email with a file that included everyone who had signed up for my newsletter and the names of the winners (to send them my book for free).

This was June 12th.

I honestly forgot about it for a while. I mean, ten days was so far away back then. On June 24th, I emailed them back asking them if they had sent something if I had missed it. They replied the next day saying they were finalizing the date.

A few hours later, I received their final email. It was long and great because it walked me through step by step everything that needed to do with links to everything I needed to do, from gifting my book to the winner to uploading the list of subscribers to Mailer Lite, to examples of what I should do to try and keep my subscribers subscribed.

They also included a note saying most of the time 5% of the subscribers will leave. In my case, I think it’ll be more because I saw a lot of paranormal romance there, and I’m not a paranormal romance writer. We’ll see.

24 HOURS AFTER WELCOMING NEW SUBSCRIBERS

I imported my new subscribers with ease and generated a welcoming email for them where I included a link to my free prequel and some links to my Facebook page, blog and, website.

I ended up with 495 subscribers from this.

Twenty-four hours after I sent the welcome email, I found that:

– 13 subscribers had unsubscribed (2.6% so far)
– 25 people downloaded my prequel story (5%)

2 months after:

– 35 additional subscribers had unsubscribed (about 10% so far)
– between 3 and 5 subscribers unsubscribe every time I send a newsletter (usually twice a month)

I hope this helped any authors out there wishing to try BookSends. It certainly helped me to put it in writing.

Cheers!