Self-promoting as an author is tough. You’re a one-person band filling all narrative roles (the MC-leader, the plucky grunt, and klutzy disaster-prone comedic relief). Self-promoting as a debut self-pub is even tougher: you have a whole new skill set to learn from the ground up. After the actual writing, it’s the area of self-publishing I’ve spent the most time thinking about and reading material about online.
I thought I’d launch a new series to archive my promotional efforts. I plan to blog about each of these separately, but this page will hold the “consolidated” list. What seemed to work for me, what didn’t, and whether I might leverage that idea again. For most of the tactics, it’s hard to tease out exactly what the bump was, but I’m trying my best from my own perspective. I’m also using some basic tools, which I’ll list separately on the comprehensive archive page.
So, to catch us up to speed: the two used to date.
The Tactics
Free eBook Promo (KDP Select)
Result: ~30 downloads; no measurable follow-on (no reviews, no obvious read-through).
Since my book is enrolled in KDP Select, I tried one of the Free Book promotions. You can do one per three-month enrollment period for the title. On paper, it felt like a no-brainer: lower friction, more eyeballs, maybe a few reviews. I didn’t promote it heavily – just a post on my not-very-read blog, and one to my small list of Blusky followers.
In practice, it produced about thirty downloads—but there’s no way to tell whether any of those downloads became actual reads. More importantly, I didn’t see any reviews appear in the month after the promotion, which makes me doubt it generated meaningful engagement.
This tactic isn’t bad so much as it’s hard to measure, and at this scale, it didn’t move anything I could observe. Also, there’s the lingering idea that one of those thirty might have eventually purchased the book on their own, once promotion started in earnest. And now, since they have a free copy, they will never.
Takeaway: I probably won’t run a free promo again. Next time I’d rather try a $0.99 sale—even a small price to filter for readers who are at least somewhat committed to opening the book.
Reaching Out to Book Clubs (Goodreads)
Result: No reads; one “taker” that felt scam-adjacent.
Your mileage may vary, but this one was a dead end for me—and may have even increased my exposure to spam. It’s suggested by a surprising number of blogs and newsletters as a way to build your early reader base. Again, makes sense – they see a book they might like, get a free copy from the author, read and become a fan. Maybe even leave a fair review. As an avid reader, I might join such a club. And endless parade of free books I get to select from!
So, I scoured Goodreads groups and posts for book clubs and groups that explicitly invited authors to suggest titles for their readers (offering a free ePub, PDF, or Kindle copy for any club takers). I reached out to a bunch.
From those reach-outs, I got exactly one response. The organizer listed my book on their club site, but none of their members requested a copy. A month later, they suggested I buy an ad on their site to generate interest among their readers. (Hey, it’s only $30! To Start!). That pitch sent me digging. When I looked at other books they’d supposedly reviewed, many of the reviews read like boilerplate (“This book was great!”) plus AI-flavored rephrasing of the back cover blurb. These reviews didn’t appear to be posting on either Goodreads or Amazon (you could track this by checking reviewed titles that had few reviews on either of those sites, making it easy to comb through them all), so they would have been usable in an editorial context only.
If it wasn’t an outright scam, it felt very scam-adjacent—so I backed away. A quick Reddit search confirmed that I wasn’t the first indie author to encounter the same warning signs from this particular book club. (You all have my blessing to chortle about my baby-author naivety).
Takeaway: Unless a book club has clear evidence of an active, engaged readership (thoughtful past reviews and no pay-to-play vibes), I’m skipping this route going forward. In fact, I think I’m skipping it anyhow unless someone specifically recommends a group to me. Given the ramp-up in scam activity, the time investment will be a bit too intense for me, given the rough-to-diamond ratio I predict.
A little disheartening, but as I wrote about last week, I’ve got quite a few more irons I’d like to try in the fire from February to June when the second book launches. I’ll keep you posted.
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