Where's the best place to advertise an ebook sale? My findings...

Hello, all! It's been a very long time since I posted a writing/publishing related Wednesday post, since I've almost entirely devoted my blog to readers, but I wanted to share this information and perhaps encourage you all to share your findings as well. What am I focusing on today? Marketing! Yay, that not so fun part of being an Indie Author. Spreading the word about your books. I've been loathe to spend money on promotion when I wasn't making much in profits yet, but my last royalty payment from Smashwords was enough to make me consider it. The question was, where could I best spend my money for the biggest return?

I've heard many people swear by Bookbub (https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing).  At some point, I'd like to advertise with them, but let's face it, at the time of this blog, advertising a 99 cent romantic suspense novel is $260! I wasn't sure I wanted to put all my eggs into one basket.

Last year I came across a blog describing a 7 day launch strategy, and I'd been wanting to try it. (http://rockingselfpublishing.com/episode-07-the-7-day-launch-strategy-with-darren-wearmouth/)

Some of the things they did I didn't find practical, but I picked the ads I could afford and schedule in time and away I went. I changed Love & Deception (Agents in Love - Book 1) to 99 cents on May 1st, and then set up a week's worth of ads. Here are the ads I chose and they days they ran:

1. HotZippy (http://hotzippy.net/feature-your-book.html) where I chose the Romance eBook Deals page. Ran 5/2 and 5/3 - $10

2. Ebook Booster (http://www.ebookbooster.com/). Ran 5/2 - 5/4.  - $30

3.  Kindle Nation Daily (http://indie.kindlenationdaily.com/?page_id=642). I really wanted to do the Kindle Daily Deal, but there wasn't an opening and I ended up doing the Kindle Fire book of the day. Did the Book Gorilla cross-over promotion they offered for free. 5/4 - $99

4.  Booksends (http://www.booksends.com/advertise.php) 5/5 - $50

5. Ereader News Today (you can contact these guys directly, but this was actually submitted through Ebook Booster - ENT takes a percentage of your sales from their affiliate link) 5/7 - 5/8 - $ Varies based on sales.

So, here I thought I had a pretty good spread of advertisements and I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Here's what happened.

By the evening of 5/2, Love & Deception had shot up the charts, hitting #90 on the romantic suspense best seller's list. Color me happy!! Sales continued strong the following day as well. The highest ranking I hit was 643 overall and 43 in Romantic Suspense. Here is a view of what happened the entire week and for the week following the sale.

 May 1 - 9 sales of Love & Deception
May 2 - 277
May 3 - 55

May 4 - 95
May 5 - 75
May 6 - 16
May 7 - 187
May 8 - 40

All in all, not too bad of an experiment, since I made my money back plus $75. I also sold an increased number of my other books all throughout the rest of May.

In looking over the numbers for the cost of things, I wish I hadn't paid for Kindle Nation Daily (though I have hopes a different ad might do better) or Booksends. They really didn't perform well for the money they cost. However, I was really happy with the Ebook Booster, and Ereader News Today is always a good bet if you can get on with them.

Following the success of this sale, I decided to put an older title, Crime & Passion, on sale for 5 days and bought ads through HotZippy, but did their other two options instead of the romance ebook deal. It was $30, and I unfortunately only sold 28 books through this sale. Not sure if it is because I had done a free giveaway on this book last year and so everyone had it already, or if it was because I didn't pick the romance option for the ad.

I will continue experimenting and trying to increase my visibility as I go along. Hopefully this information helps some of you other authors out there looking for real number sales on ads.

**These results are what happened to me with my books, but results will vary. This blog is for informational purposes only. I am not getting anything from any of the companies for sharing my experience, and your mileage may vary. All companies I dealt with were professional and got my ads out as promised. **

Do you have any experience with buying ads? Anyone you would recommend or warn people away from? Leave me a comment and let's help each other!