What kind of results (clicks into Amazon) can an author expect when promoting a FREE ($0.00) book with Digital Book Today?
Before we do this, here are some baseline guidelines to understand.
- Results are for clicks into Amazon. Once the reader gets to the book page on Amazon, it is up to the author and Amazon to sell the product.
- The majority of our readers read Romance (many sub genres), but they do read other genres. We do have readers that enjoy Mystery, Thriller, Sci-Fi, Young Adult, Self Help, and more.
- Results vary widely by book depending on: genre, quality of cover, rating, # of reviews, author readership, and other factors.
- At least for Digital Book Today, the day of the week for the past couple of years does not make any difference.
- Total number of clicks into Amazon from DbT has not changed for the past 3+ years. We lose subscribers everyday, but through advertising we have replaced lost or dormant subscribers. Just being honest here. Of course we would love to say we have grown, but simply the eBook market has matured and becoming dominated by a few very large book sites (Amazon, Goodreads, BookBub, etc). Our advertising rates and traffic have held steady for 3+ years.
- Everybody gets emails daily (often many) from many websites. Do you open every email everyday? Of course not. Only emails that are opened are of any value.
- Total number of subscribers stats are for the most part useless. The only important stat are subscribers that open emails and take action by clicking on books. Physical mail in your postal mailbox (mass mailing) has always been considered successful if they get a 1-2% return. Must still be working judging by my mailbox. I have read (not sure how valid), but a 10-20% electronic email open rate is considered successful.
- As an author, the only number that is important are the number of clicks you are getting on your book. Not the number of “subscribers” a website claims to have. Yes, we are currently paying our email provider (AWeber) to send out emails to 24,000+ email subscribers which is not a small expense. Occasionally we delete subscriber email addresses that have not shown they have not opened an email in 365 days. Again, it is about clicks into Amazon and not the total number of subscribers.
- We highly encourage an author to layer their book promotions by using multiple eBook sites to help move the Amazon algorithm needle.
- OK, enough of the fine print…
Important point to understand about the business model of Digital Book Today.
We have 2 distinct areas that generate clicks into Amazon.
- Our Daily email to our subscribers
- Only paid advertised books are featured in this email (Featured Free Book promotion – paid advertisement)
- As the stats below indicate, most books get a substantially larger amount of clicks into Amazon from our daily email than they do from being only on The Top 100 Best Free Kindle Books list.
- The Top 100 Best Free Kindle Books List which is on Digital Book Today (since 2009).
- The top part of this list contains our Featured Free Books (paid advertisement & included in #1 above)
- Benefit #1: This ad contains a larger book cover, ratings, and book description.
- Benefit #2: A paid Featured Free Book stays on top of this list for up to 4 days (if free that long) instead of sliding down the list and getting lost in the 100-150 books that are listed.
- The rest of the books are submitted books via our submission page (a free listing for all authors)
- This listing includes a thumbnail image, title, rating, & genre. No book description.
- Note: a listed book will continue to slide down the page over the course of 4 days. An author will see a substantial decrease in downloads as the book moves down the list. However still a great FREE option to test out our service. A stats image is included at the end of this page.
- Here is the link to our submission page (minimum requirements must be met). Does you book not meet our minimum requirements for a free listing? No Problem! You can still purchase a Featured Free Book promotion – a paid advertisement.
- The top part of this list contains our Featured Free Books (paid advertisement & included in #1 above)
What kind of results (clicks into Amazon) can an author expect when promoting a FREE ($0.00) book with Digital Book Today?
A great question and we are going to attempt to provide the results from specific day (July 16, 2018). We promoted with a Featured Free Book promotion a total of 4 books from 4 different genres (Crime Thriller, Paranormal Romance, Young Adult Sci-Fi, LGBT – Memoir). At the time of this promotion, none of the books had more than 69 total reviews.
Want to see what it looked like? Here is a link to our blog post/email that was sent to our subscribers on July 16, 2018.
Please note that individual results will vary, but hopefully these stats can be used by an author as a guideline to what they can expect when promoting a free ($0.00) book on Digital Book Today and a comparison to other eBook services.
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Featured Free Book #1
- Blood Therapy B00WZN6T0U
- Lynda Hilburn – Paranormal Romance – 4.3 stars on 57 reviews
- 368 Clicks into Amazon: Email to our subscribers
- 207 Clicks into Amazon: From The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today
- 577 Total clicks into Amazon
- $20 Ad cost
- $0.035 CPC (cost per click)
Data: Blood Therapy B00WZN6T0U
- Clicks from our email to our subscribers
- July 16, 2018
Data: Blood Therapy B00WZN6T0U
- Clicks from The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today.
- Days 1-3: July 16-18
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Featured Free Book #2
- B01NAIHBHM Moral Misconduct
- David DeLee – Crime Thriller. Police Procedural – 4.6 stars on 7 reviews
- 404 Clicks into Amazon: Email to our subscribers
- 83 Clicks into Amazon: From The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today
- 487 Total clicks into Amazon
- $20 Ad cost
- $0.041 CPC (cost per click)
Data: B01NAIHBHM Moral Misconduct
- Clicks from our email to our subscribers
- July 16, 2018
Data: B01NAIHBHM Moral Misconduct
- Clicks from The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today.
- Days 1: July 16, 2018
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Featured Free Book #3
- B07F2MWXT4 First Mistake
- D.J. Chang – LGBT, Memoirs, Biography, Inspiration, Finding Purpose, Life – 4.8 stars on 18 reviews
- 123 Clicks into Amazon: Email to our subscribers
- 62 Clicks into Amazon: From The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today
- 185 Total clicks into Amazon
- $20 Ad cost
- $0.108 CPC (cost per click)
Data: B07F2MWXT4 First Mistake
- Clicks from our email to our subscribers
- Days 1: July 16, 2018
Data: B07F2MWXT4 First Mistake
- Clicks from The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today.
- Days 1: July 16, 2018
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Featured Free Book #4
- B06XY3MWGD Locked Tight
- Susan Kaye Quinn – Young Adult Science Fiction – 4.6 stars on 69 reviews
- 244 Clicks into Amazon: Email to our subscribers
- 118 Clicks into Amazon: From The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today
- 368 Total clicks into Amazon
- $20 Ad cost
- $0.054 CPC (cost per click)
Data: B06XY3MWGD Locked Tight
- Clicks from our email to our subscribers
- Days 1: July 16, 2018
Data: B06XY3MWGD Locked Tight
- Clicks from The Top 100 Free Kindle Books List on Digital Book Today.
- Days 1-3: July 16 – 18, 2018
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Below is what a listing looks like on The Top 100 Best Free Kindle Books List when an author uses our submission tool (or an outside service that submits to multiple sites) to promote a book that will be priced at $0.00 on Amazon. This is a free service that we have offered for 9+ years.
What can an author expect just for submitting a free book to be listed on The Top 100 Free Kindle Books list?
- Results below are for 7 Days – Sept 4-10, 2018
- 117 books had 100+ clicks into Amazon.
- An estimated 65+ books were Romance
- Why do some books do better?
- Quality, professional looking cover
- A rating of 4.0+ stars
- In most cases 150+ reviews
- The most important question for authors are…
- Just do a free book submission and get 25-125 clicks into Amazon?
- Purchase a Featured Free Book promotion and get 75-450+ clicks into Amazon?
- Submit to other sites that will promote a book priced at $0.00?
- Will this be enough to move the Amazon algorithm needle on your book?
- We can’t answer these questions, but wanted to give you some real life stats from Digital Book Today to decide what to do with your valuable time and/or money.
- We believe our CPC (cost per click) on our Featured Free Book promotion is effective and competitive when comparing to other eBook sites.
- Click here to see more details of this promotion.
For further information please contact us by email at AnthonyWessel@DigitalBookToday.com
Results below are for 7 Days – Sept 4-10, 2018 – only from The Top 100 Best Free Kindle Books List.
Important note: The stats below do not include any clicks into Amazon a book would have received if they did a paid ad to our mailing list.