Written Word Media Promotion Review

Salve!

As many of you know, I’ve been documenting how difficult it can be for a self-published author to promote their books consistently when you’ve also got a day-job. There are many tools on the web that can help the self-published man or woman, but many require a fair amount of time up front.

Let’s be honest – Facebook and Twitter can definitely feel like you’re shouting into a void, regardless of how many (or how well targeted) your hashtags. I was put onto Written Word Media by my publisher of Antioch Burns – a wonderful woman who is always looking for ways for her author to promote their own novels.

I checked them out, seeing if they’d be worth it. Essentially, it’s an email list-serve type business, where you pick the date you want to promote your novel, then pick the distribution list-serve for it to go out onto. Most of their business seems to be focused on romance novels and the like, but they have a nice, smallish-sized list of about 8,000 accounts for a sci-fi distribution list. The other nice component is that because it is smaller, it isn’t as expensive – $35 for a promotion (one day, but not being buried among tons of other novels.) So I took a calculated “what do you have to lose” risk with Brass Legionnaire. I was tempted to try other novels, but I figured it made the most sense to start with the first book in the series.

Once you pick your list, you pick which type of promotion you’re doing – New Book, Bargain, Free, or Romance. After the results for this promotion on Brass Legionnaire, I’d say I’d be likely to try it again with Laurel Emperor when it comes out.

Results of the one day campaign? Brass Legionnaire hit top 50 in all three of it’s categories on Amazon, sold more books in one day than I’ve sold in the last 4-5 months, and even at 99 cents, made up for the cost of the promotion. If even half the people who purchased the first book go on to buy the next four, the results would seriously boost the series heading into the release of Laurel Emperor.

So long and short, was I pleased? Yes. The service is simple and easy to use, straightforward with the exception of inserting a link to your book on iTunes – I’m not certain how to do this considering that iTunes/iBooks runs on an app, not a web-browser. Regardless, if you’re looking for a quick and simply way to try and promote a novel, check them out.

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***Disclaimer – I was not paid, or offered free services, for the above review. In fact, I hadn’t even planned to do one until I saw the results for myself. Thanks!****