The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 39 – Group promos - are they worth it?

There are so many ways to market your book from paid advertising to join promos and newsletter swaps. But does joining a free group promo really help you with sales or new readers?

Join Autumn and Jesper as they discuss the pros, cons, and possibilities out there with group promos in Episode 39 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

Check out some of the links mentioned in today's show at:

https://storyoriginapp.com/

https://bookfunnel.com/

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (3s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (31s): and hello there. I'm Jesper

Autumn (34s): and I'm autumn. This is episode number 39 amwritingfantasy podcast. Hey, we're going to talk about group promos and if they are worth it., but you know before we get there it's been a, even though we're batch recording things, we always have things going on. It's been always,

Jesper (55s): yeah, certainly. Certainly a lot of things. I mean this here in Denmark we just been hit by a complete like late Shama heat. It's a normally here by the end of August it's, well it's not cool but you know it's the summer sort of starting to come to an end, but now it's just like last couple of days. It's been 30 degrees here and a Celsius of course.

Autumn (1m 22s): Possibly 30 gosh, she's a sure there are no, Oh you mean,

Jesper (1m 29s): yeah, exactly. I mean it's really warm and it's am. It's incredible. I dunno what happened, but it's very wrong all of a sudden.

Autumn (1m 37s): That's funny cause that we've been in am, Adam and I, my husband and I don't like heat and that's half the reason we travel as we get to go up to the North, we like to be like for us to be 70 Fahrenheit. So you know that's pretty moderate. It's like a jacket might be necessary in the morning and usually when we're down in Pennsylvania and usually when we get here it's less stirring hot. But for end of August is actually perfect. Like 70s am. Beautiful, beautiful. It feels like fall, which I can't say it's really felt like fallen August in Pennsylvania since I was a little girl, so I'm not complaining.

Jesper (2m 14s): No. Wow, that's nice. I mean I actually don't mind it being hot outside, but I must admit right now in, you know, sitting inside in my little office here and recording this podcast, I'm like, it's feels like I'm sitting in a sauna or something. It's really, really well.

Autumn (2m 33s): I know the other on the other side of the Atlantic, I've got the window is open and I'm actually a little cool and capris.

Jesper (2m 40s): Yeah. Then that's the thing, right? Because if for me it's, it's late evening time now. So my problem is that if I opened the window or the insects comes in here, eh, if it was daytime it would be no problem. Right. But uh, during nighttime and you have the, you know, the lights turned on inside, then all the insects likes to come and I don't want that. So I have to sit in the sauna here and record. Oh, I will, I will. We're going to hold a few weeks. If you disappear, we know you possibly passed out. Oh shit.

Yeah. I mean, I was out the other day with my youngest son. He was playing in a, in a soccer tournament the other day and he was just as hard as this. It was 30 degrees and luckily none of the kids passed out, but it was, it was really, really, really warm. And they were playing this tournament so they will playing like eight matches or something. And it was, yeah, steaming from above and, but it was really cool. It was, uh, just as kids tournament, you know, and um, and uh, they didn't play very well for the first couple of matches.

They, they sort of draw off you and, and lost a few and maybe one one. So when once the group play was sort of done, then I was thinking, okay, we'll probably go home then because that was it. But then for some re reckless reason, they actually went to the semifinals as the last team that just made it above the cut. So, so then, okay, fine. Then there was one moment. So he played one more match and then they won the semifinal and all of a sudden they have to play the final playing really shitty for all the first like five matches was really shitty.

And then all of a sudden they were in the final. And, uh, it was actually really, really exciting because, you know, this, this tournament that they create, created here was, um, they, it, it's in the local club, so, so it's only the local club players who are there, but they're, they're from all kinds of different age groups. So what they do in this tournament is they mix and match the age groups. So did you have some of the young ones and some of the older ones and so they, they make like teams of five kids, but different ages in each team.

So, so they played together the young and the older ones, which is quite cool. And am my kid was one of the youngest there altogether. So they were playing this, a final match, the final against another team who had actually won every single match. So I thought, okay, they're going to get, you know, beaten really bad now. But they didn't, they really fought for it. And, uh, uh, the, the, the end of the game came and there was still no winners, so they had to play golden gold, you know?

So that means that the first one who scores will win the game and then went into that over time and they were playing and am and it was really, it was crazy. I mean at one point my, my young son here, so again, he's the youngest one on the pitch. So he came with the ball dribbling down, uh, towards the opponent's goal. And there was this defendant in front of him is like four years, four years older. And I was like, I was thinking like, Oh, pass the ball, pass the ball, pass the ball. You know, you're not going to get past that.

But he didn't, he actually dribbled past the guy. He was four years older than him and then all of a sudden he was alone in of the goalkeeper and the goalkeeper was like three years older than him as well. And he shot at the goal and it actually went past the goalkeeper, but it hit the post. It's just like, Whoa. And there was this like a, because it was the final, it was probably like a hundred people watching. So they went this like, Whoa, through the entire crowd, you know, this little boy pass pass through pass two kids who were just mud three and four years older than him.

And uh, but unfortunately they didn't win there. So they kept playing for a bit. And then a bit later on in the match, uh, my, my youngest Sunday, he got the ball again and this time he didn't pass it. But actually the guy he passed it to was the one who then, because of that past shut the winning goal and they actually want the final

Autumn (6m 42s): underdogs in the winters.

Jesper (6m 44s): Yeah. It was so amazing. And uh, I was really proud of him. He played so amazingly well and uh, he was almost in tears himself and am when they then, uh, handed over the trophies afterwards though there was only, there was only like one trophy for, for the team. So the team had to pick themselves and all the, all the young, all the boys than said, uh, where you played so amazingly, so what? We're going to give you the trophy. And uh, that was really, really awesome. And then there was the, they had to announce the best player of the tournament.

So the, in the, in the loudspeakers there, they called him up and said that he had played so well. So they, they made him the best, uh, play up the tournament. And I must admit, I tee it up a bit. That was really so proud. It was amazing.

Autumn (7m 29s): I teared up a little bit. I, I live, my kids are, um, this was my vicarious moment cause I don't have any children other than a small dog. So with that is just so, yeah,

Jesper (7m 39s): so awesome man. It was so well the surf and I think there was at least 20 people after afterwards who came over just to tell him how awesome he played and stuff. I mean, people, he doesn't normally talk to people who is not normally on his own team. So it was just amazing. And many parents also came over and said, Whoa, that was amazing. And you know, and he was, he's just a young kid, you know, he's really small compared to the other guys on the pitch. So, and it just, yeah, it was amazing. So that was my little story this week.

Autumn (8m 9s): What is a fantastic story? I don't think I have anything else to top that one.

Jesper (8m 16s): No, it was cool. I liked it. Oh, we on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So actually, um, I, I'm PO, I noticed something that made me laugh a bit in our Facebook group. Yeah. Because, uh, Dwayne poop out of the poll in the Facebook group and he asked for what a cliche or from a mine, and I don't know if it was just for fun that he made that poll or if he needed her for something but but I couldn't help laughing when my load and add an option called something mere models were never meant to witness that.

So it made me smile, but then it made it even better when I saw that the, you know, of course the top spot or the one with the most world are gold, but just below them there is this something Mia moderns were never meant to witness as a, as a cliche thing. I just thought that was so funny. Oh, I, that would be a cliche to mind, but it's just so cool.

Autumn (9m 19s): That is great. I didn't notice that. I've got to get back into the Facebook group. I was been offline a little bit too long, so I have to go check that one out.

Jesper (9m 30s): Yeah, it was, it was quite funny. And am and of course I should also say, by the way, that any of you listening, if you want to join the Facebook group, do you know just search for amwritingfantasy among the groups on Facebook and just apply to getting and we will approve you or, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll also moderate a loop will actually, because often look, he is must faster than both you and me are in approving people, but uh, but we'll let you infrastructure. So, uh, yeah, if that's something you would like to join them, just do that.

Autumn (9m 59s): Yeah. I've got to go in after we're done recording and maybe relieve loop a little bit. We had a whole slurry of people joining today, which is awesome. But, uh, we've been recording podcasts and I've been getting all these notifications of people who want to join. I'm thinking, Oh, poor Luke, we've left him hanging there because we're recording. Should probably go help out after this.

Jesper (10m 19s): Yeah, maybe we should, but, uh, he's doing a good job though.

Autumn (10m 24s): You're doing an awesome job. So yeah, shout out to Luke. Thank you. Are awesome. Amwritingfantasy Facebook group. Moderator, so I thought it was funny cause I saw a comment that Irish had left on our recent YouTube video slash podcast where she could, on the one we were talking about whether or not you should take a break from your writing. And she said she could see both sides. And I totally agree. I was thinking about this because one thing we didn't mention to that episode is I think you, yes. For when you go on your family vacation, you try not to.

Right. So that's like a week or two off as well. So need to take writing breaks that during the year.

Jesper (11m 1s): Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, and that's, I think I also, I hopefully I made it clear in the last episode as well. Um, you know, that I haven't written anything for probably a month now or something because I'm so busy and in recording costs us, uh, for for amwritingfantasy so, so yeah, I mean, absolutely I do. I do take breaks and as you said, especially when I go on the case, but you know, you always catch me anyway. Autumn because I tried to make those, like I make these announcements before I go on vacation that I'm not going to work, I'm not going to do anything.

I will check the email and just reply if autumn sends me something, but otherwise I'm not gonna do anything. And then of course I'm going to send you something and then I always, you, you, you call me out on it and then you say, well, I thought you was supposed to be on vacations, but I don't write anything. No, but I, I am really and not doing anything, you know, I always end up doing something.

Autumn (11m 57s): Your brain definitely does not turn off because we're a certain vacation. You came back and I think you had like three or four pages a world-building. Um, I just had to do it. So it's true though. Sometimes when you take a break, you didn't go and you're like, I'm not going to be writing. That's when everything, Oh, you wouldn't like I always joke the minute I stepped into the shower and there's no possibility of writing paper or the minute I start cooking a really involved dinner, those are when the idea finally goes click and you're like, Oh shoot.

Jesper (12m 34s): Yeah. But that's exactly it, right? I mean as soon as you wind down from your day to day, being busy and running are about and whatever else we're doing on a day to day basis. So one, once you start with Lexington, all those creative things pops up in your mind and then I accidentally end up writing it down and sending emails to you. Autumn so yeah.

Autumn (12m 57s): Well I respond and we get work done even when we're both supposed to be taking a break, but that's okay.

Jesper (13m 3s): Okay. That's a good point that I was made though. You know that it is important especially, and I think she was also pointing out about, uh, the, you know, the print outs situation and, and there especially, it is really important to sort of give yourself a break. So I fully agree with that.

Autumn (13m 19s): I've certainly enjoyed mine, but I've got to get back to it.

Jesper (13m 23s): Right. So group promos, could you hear the sigh? I don't even know where to start with this because knowing almost no experience with, I mean, the funny thing I guess is that in the future we're going to release fiction together, but at least up until this point we've done so separately. So it means that you have some experience with group promos where I have very little, so I'll have to give you the reins on this one. Autumn

Autumn (13m 51s): that's fair enough. But yes, I think I've probably joined with mailing lists. Uh, they'd call him newsletter swaps even though you're not actually swapping your a mailing list with another author, you're just promoting another author in your newsletter. And I think I've been doing that since maybe my first year as an author or they started up pretty quick and there's been, I've seen the rise and fall of so many different platforms where you can organize them, share them. I've seen everything from, and I've actually hosted some group promos on amwritingfantasy or not amwritingfantasy but on autumn writing my personal website and Yesper I know you joined that one and you could probably mention what you thought of it, but that was back in the days when you had to build it yourself.

Now book funnel and story origin and some of the other ones, it's a freebie. They allow you to basically they create a website for you and you just send people there and so they have your own website. So there's a lot of ways of using them and the are often that you have to send that out to your newsletter and so that's sort of why you don't do that. Is that correct?

Jesper (15m 0s): Yes, that is correct. I mean am my problem, I have done it at some point some years back. But my problem with it is that I treat and, OK, let, let me back up a bit because otherwise this is gonna sound like I'm saying that in everybody else's, not treating their subscribers with respect. Uh, and that's really not what I'm, what I'm trying to say. So I don't, I don't want to put my foot in the middle of the heinousness to you, but what I'm, what I'm getting at is that I find it really important to always treat subscribers with respect.

Maybe I should put it like that because, and, and by that I'm not saying that running, you know, newsletter swaps are not treating them with respect. But what I mean on the other hand is that I feel personally and miles may vary here, so make up your own mind as what, what do you listen to think and, and maybe you see this differently as well of them. So I'm looking forward to hear your, your sort of thoughts on it. But at least in my own personal view, I think that if I'm going to push, you know, push a book or, or recommend a book or whatever you wanna call it to my email list, I should have read it because otherwise I don't, I don't want to do like, okay, uh, can you put my book on your email list and then I'll put your book in my email list if I've never read it.

Because I feel, at least to me it doesn't feel fair to my subscribers and that's why I stopped doing it a long while ago because I just feel like I have no idea if this book is good or not. And uh, yeah, I don't know that that's just my sort of philosophy.

Autumn (16m 34s): I can understand that because I think when it comes to doing individual swaps with authors, which is more what you're talking about, it is so hard to tell the quality. I mean, it helps to look at the cover and see if it looks professional. Maybe read the first couple of sample paragraphs pages that are on Amazon to double check. Because I definitely learned that one very early on is that, you know, it's don't just accept something out of the blue without looking at it first. Because yeah, you don't want to send something that you're kinda cringing and you're hoping your readers will never read it or they'll not think crazy for recommending it.

Then it comes to the group promos, which are a little different because then you're just selling a reader, Hey, here's a whole suite of books that are either they're usually on sale or the freebies or to sign up to get the freebie. So you know, they know they're subscribing to a whole lot of other authors, which again, do you want your readers to be overwhelmed by signing up for another 50 books? But at the same time, there are also great opportunities for spreading the word. I know with my first book, my debut novel, Boardman of water, you know, that's been Permafree now for a few years and I've, I'm actually still toy with the idea is some point.

Does that Permafree status and does it need to end thinking about that? Because I think that'll be a question maybe for a another podcast coming up is, you know, should Permafree be permanent, but we'll come back to that later. But I know when I was my only book or you know, the first book, I only had one trilogy and I felt like I was pushing that out to way too many promos and I wasn't seeing much gain because it was like every promo I could join I was putting that in and I thought, okay, you know, you have to start limiting who where you're putting in.

And I think that's my advice even today. It doesn't hurt to try a sale's promo. I've done, I'm doing both now. Sales promos and group promos where you're doing a free book that people are signing up for. And sometimes I do a free promo where literally the book is free, just go get to soccer. It's fine. I'm giving it away. And I think, uh, by doing those, you do get to run into other authors. Everyone joins in to send it to their newsletter and you usually get a pretty slick graphic.

And so you're just sending them saying, Hey, you know, it's not like necessarily this is the book you should go look at but go see if there's anything here that suits your fancy. But again, it's easy. This summer I have never seen so many group promos and I don't know if it's because people are just getting their act together. They're realizing that these, for authors where they're usually free to join, there's a few that have maybe, you know, chip in to get an Amazon gift card. Do you know something that'll make more people come and look at that page? So there are a few that costs, but in general, these things are free.

Uh, what you're doing is actually supporting other authors. So that's awesome because seriously, that's one thing I love about authors is where we're so good. We're not competitive, we don't look at each other as competitors. We looked at each other as, Hey, I can only feed a reader, you know, one or two books a year that leaves, what, 364 days or you know, 300 something other days that they need to read books. And I can send them yours. That's not a problem. I want to make sure that they stay a reader and don't give up on books cause I can't find anything to read.

So these group promos, you know, they give readers a chance to go look at them, check them out. But again, I know this summer I have seen so many, I usually use book funnel and story origin. I used to use instaFreebie, but I've been off that for a little while now. And it's just, I literally, I, this morning I got a notice of for new promos I think every day. It's a weird day that goes by when I don't get a notice that I have at least one new group promo that is open to be joined.

That's a lot of promos. And I know when I first saw it I was like, Oh this is great. And I happen to have like for first in series books. I have four series out now. So Hey, I've got lots of books. I didn't, you know, go push out. I got two new releases that I can put a new release promos. And you get really excited until you go and sit down to do your newsletter and you realize that you know, you signed up for like six promos and you're supposed to be telling your readers about six different promos. You need to start, you need to come down and definitely take a look at, you know, what are you getting out at the start?

You know, tracking the link, seeing if people are using them. I know when I do a book funnel one, I don't just send them a generic one. I use a specifically create a special link for each promo so I can go back in and see how many people downloaded the book. I can get those, that feedback. So I know if it was really worth my while. A book funnel is really cool because it also tells you how many people look at the page versus downloaded. So if you're seeing age discrepancy there, you can be like, ah, I got to work on something because people are looking at it, the cover is off asleep good enough for people to go look at it.

But for some reason they get to and something on there is not, you know, they're not clicking through. So there's some great nuances, things you can kind of tweak, tease out by doing these promos. But only if you take the time to do the stats. And one of the important things is you have to join the right promo. Uh, there's a lot of multi-genre like new release promos, so that could be a multi-genre one. There are some 99 cent books, which is again a multi-genre one. You know, am I going to do good, do well there or should I just stick to the ones that are Epic fantasy or dark fantasy or the ones that are specific like magic worlds.

Uh, there's one that was recently heroines, that was great. And then there was another one I went to join that they made it sound like female magic users. And when the promo came out, the graphics, it was all about witches. I was like, okay, no, I'm pulling my phone out when I'm not writing. Which craft? I love witchcraft. I would love to write a book on it, but these are not in, this is about elemental magic on a fantasy world that's not going to fit anything else in is probably a waste of my time and maybe my readers won't like it, but I have no proof of that. So I'm probably gonna to waste their time by sending it to them.

Jesper (22m 48s): Yeah. Yeah. And uh, of course, I'm glad that you pointed out the difference between the newsletter swap and a group promo. Uh, I was also the one you ran, I can't remember a long while back. Uh, actually maybe it was,

Autumn (23m 3s): yeah, there's probably, I think at least it wasn't this year, so it might've been 2018

Jesper (23m 8s): probably then. Yeah. Uh, but I was part of that and, and uh, I think I got like, I don't know, three, 400 subscribers or something from that one, uh, onto the email list, which is, which was pretty good. Um, so I mean there is of course, well, okay, again, let me back up a bit here because there's so many nuances in this conversation because one thing you're saying, okay, a group promo, you get 400 suffers from it. And that's wonderful. Yeah. Okay, that's good.

But you can also look at it from the angle of saying, but okay, so these 400 subscribers just loaded Kindle with 50 different books and they're not gonna read any of them anyways. So what's the point? Right. And then on, and then of course I could then switch it back the other way around and then start arguing, well, okay. But then if you have them on your email list, it's stand up to you as the author to, to write even beta emails than the other ones so that they get invested in intrigued in U S North or, right. And of course that's, that's within your power to, to try to do something there.

But but there is some sort of argument hidden somewhere in here around the quality of the subscribers, you know, uh, I've heard many, many times for like Freebooksy and stuff like that. You know, that you can get a ton of subscribers but they are worthless. So, and since we are paying for subscribers on the email list, at some point we also have to start asking ourselves, you know, what kind of readers do we want on that list? Right, exactly. Yes.

So it's just, it's, it's, it's a bit complicated.

Autumn (24m 47s): That's where, I mean, cause I was going, you took the words out of my mouth. You get subscriber as it is up to you to make them believe that your book is worth reading. And of course you only get like maybe one or two emails to get them excited and maybe off of you, it's in your power, but you're not going to get every single one of them sticking with you. And of course, hopefully that's why there's the unsubscribe button. And hopefully if you're doing list cleaning, um, that might be when you start cleaning out some people who've never seem to be opening your emails or responding to you.

And there are, I think the group promos where people have to go down individually and pick a book that they think looks interesting, are far better than the group promos where they are basically signing up to win a prize. Like there's a few out there where everyone who goes into, it's going to get a free ebook to the winner or free paperback. Okay.

Jesper (25m 38s): Or the way you, even the worst, the ones where they give away like a am Amazon gift card or something. I think that's some of the worst thing that you can ever offer because those people are there because they want the gift card, not the books.

Autumn (25m 50s): Yes, exactly. And often a gift card, you're not even sure they're gonna use it for books. It'd be at least that's they're giving away a Kindle or something. You have an idea that they like books, but again, they can turn around and sell it. So. Exactly. So those are, those are the ones, I mean I joined those when I was first started and you can get, originally, I think the most I've ever gotten from one of those was almost 5,000 subscribers. That was early on, very early on. So it was one shot. You suddenly get 5,000 subscribers, you know, but again, as soon as you get that, you're probably sending out an email and those 5,000 people are getting emails from what, 25 30 different authors.

So later group promos have gotten more organized where the like, okay, I've seen one where it's like if your last name starts between a and D, you can send on this day just that readers don't get overwhelmed. But again, that's what those inboxes are gonna look like for that entire week. It's going to be from all these authors and all these introductions. And I know I'd be like, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete.

Jesper (26m 57s): Yeah. Or people just use like a fake a on another fake. But you know that you just use the Hotmail account that they just created for this stuff. And then as soon as they get the books onto the Kindle that, you know, they never log into that Hotmail account. They never read the emails, they just grabbed the book and then that's it. Right. So what's the again, what's the value there then?

Autumn (27m 16s): And exactly. And plus I know those group promos just like everything. I think this is even true with book sales, just everything it's, or even advertising, it's harder to get those numbers. I mean, my first promo that I ever did, I think I got 10,000 downloads now I don't even get 10,000 downloads. If I do a book funnel, it's just there are so many more books. So now you know, you're talking about a couple hundred a baby, a thousand subscribers are fantastic. But honestly that one month long promo that I organized, I was thrilled with the outcome because you know, most people are, we're seeing between two to 500 subscribers.

That is fantastic. In a month. Some of the ones I joined now, you know, I think I just had a group promo where I think I had 322 downloads and I'm like, Hey, that was pretty good actually. It is. I was actually really surprised. So there are still some ones, but again, it's coming. It's drilling down and telling yourself one, you can't join every single one there is because then you are going to get your book out there to maybe too many people. And again, if they're choosing it, that's great. But again, you're sending it to your readers too and you should do your part.

And so you don't want to drive your readers crazy with like four or five, six promos of every single email. It's kind of, you know, that's really taking advantage of them. Or are you doing a newsletter where you're just sending out emails about other books or are you doing a newsletter that's about your writing and you've got to make that choice and find that balance.

Jesper (28m 44s): Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I would say, you know, if it's sort of like a group promo for example, like the one you hosted the last year where there was a ton of free books and then you know each, each person within that promo code then email their own list and say, okay, here's a link from where you could download a ton of books and needs of the authors in there gave a book away for free. And I think something like that is fine because you're doing a service to your reader by, you know, here's a lot of fantasy books that you can get for free.

So most readers will like that. But that said, you have to be really mindful because if you do that all the time, if I was on my favorite authors email list and he was, he or she was emailing me, eh, let's say every second week with another 50 books that I could die, I would go and seem pretty quickly. It's like, what the, I mean, I cannot not read all these books anyway. And I mean once in a while doing it like once every six or something like that. To me, and again, this is personal preference, so take that with a grain of salt.

But in my personal preference, that would be okay. Uh, the, the newsletter swaps I hate, but I don't know. I mean, I, I do know that, uh, this might be a bit of a different sort of topic, but it's been something that I've really been turning over and over in my mind because I've been thinking that for like, I think it was two podcast episodes back, I was mentioning how I was thinking about creating like a free course for four authors, uh, to give away to, to our new led newsletter subscribers on, on amwritingfantasy.

And one of the things, our sessions or whatever you wanna call it for for that free costs has been around. I want to talk something about this Permafree stuff, which is linked into the newsletters or sorry, LinkedIn to promotions. And, um, and, and this topic that we're talking about here today, because obviously the value in group promos is because you're giving away a free book. But I still haven't really made up my mind and that's what I want. I want to make up my mind so that I can give sort of a here's my, here's my why as to why I'm thinking the way I am.

Because right now I'm not sure because on one hand, I mean I have my own and you also have your own, your one for free Permafree and I do see every day probably like, I dunno, maybe 10 downloads on Amazon without me doing anything. It's just because it's free. And that's certainly 10 downloads. I wouldn't have been there otherwise. And then of course, if, if some people liked the book, then they will go and buy book number two in the book number three and so forth. So there's a logic there at play.

But this is then the flip side. And this is where I haven't really made up my mind which camp I'm in and I need to figure that out. But I also understand the argument of saying yes, but since Rita's I able to just download so many free books as as it is possible today, there's a ton of free books out there. Basically the, the, that that was, I don't know who coined this term, but somebody, somebody called it Kindle stuffing, you know, that you're just filling your Kindle up with a ton of books just because there's also this collector's item, eh, sort of need that kicks in.

Like, Oh, it's awesome. Like I have 2000 books or whatever, you know, at the end, they're not gonna read any of it anyway. And they're not, if they are downloading this many books and signing up for this many promos, they're not going to read the emails either. So, so what I, when I was saying early on that it's the new job as an author to make sure that you write emails that that hooked them. But if they don't read any of them, it doesn't really matter. And you know, you're just playing into a game of, yeah, let's feel everybody's people, you know, every, every one's Kindles up with free books.

And then I don't know what the point is anymore because the goal is gone in this terminology he or, or this point of view, but, but as again, as I said, I don't know which camp I sort of believe in, if I believe that it is a good viable option to do the Permafree because years back it was a very viable strategy and it worked really well. But nowadays with so many free books and so many people downloading them, uh, I'm not sure if we've sort of moved past the point in the market where the free book is not that good anymore to have.

But yeah, I, I really don't know and I, I need to do more thinking because I cannot make up my mind. So I know that's not very helpful. That's my thinking.

Autumn (33m 18s): But I, I don't disagree and I do think that, um, I know even like I said, we both have PERMA freeze. But my two, my newest series, the one I've got two in the works that I'm, that I'm going to finish one first and then finish the other one. But I have put out two novellas and I did not make them free. And people, I'm sorry, leaders who are listening to this, I have no plans of making them free right now. If you happen to hunt around, you may find them in a free promo somewhere, but it will be exclusive.

It's usually only for a couple of weeks. It's only by my choice. Otherwise they're on Amazon and they are 99 cents and I'm not planning on making them Permafree I'm planning on doing that and maybe every once in awhile opening them up briefly on my website or through these group promos and that'll be the only way to get them for free. And it is a, it's a different technique and more people are using that where you know, your book is for sale online, a for sale on Amazon. But occasionally you can get it as something exclusive and that adds that little extra shine that hopefully people will read it.

And I also think that novellas are becoming more of the, the way of giving away a free book. You and I both have full length Epic fantasy novels. I know mine is 105,000 words and I do have people downloading it every day without even being advertising it. Uh, they do go on and read the incomplete six books series, which is fantastic. And I loved that. But so I don't know, maybe born of water will stay free because I don't have a novella at the beginning. But you know, if I ever came up with one, I may switch it over and create a novella and put that at the beginning and offer that as free.

I'm not sure. And that's the tough thing. Readers, if you're listening to this, writers are not trying to milk you for money. We're trying to make a living. I am a full time author and graphic artists. This is literally how I put food on my plate. So I don't think there's anything wrong with making a living where you can afford to eat and be creative and get paid to be a creative individual. I think it's fantastic. I hope. But it is important and it's not always, it's not easy every day cause trumps me.

But book sales fluctuate. Yeah. Yeah it does. But you start getting smart with this as a business and you have to start asking questions. I'm happily, I'm a prolific writer enough. I except for my two week recent break when I've got to get myself back in gear and get this book done. Uh, you know, I'm usually a prolific enough where I can release a couple books a year. I can hoping to do an entire series plus what we're writing next year. 2020 is going to be big and that is fantastic. And that's a good way of doing it.

And because I have 16 books out, I can play with different techniques and that's amazing. That's so much fun.

Jesper (36m 13s): Once you have, the easier it becomes, obviously

Autumn (36m 15s): it does, it's try different tactics with different books and not sweat it because when you only have one series to play with, it's a big change. Does decide to put something in Kindle unlimited to do, you know, make something free versus not free. Those are big changes and they have a very big impact when it's your only series.

Jesper (36m 34s): Yeah, indeed. And if I, if I can just share one more of, uh, my, uh, look it from this side and then look it from that side arguments here because you triggered something else in me and what you just said because yeah, I mean when you were talking about am that we also have to make a living from selling books and, and you know, that we shouldn't feel, I guess you didn't say this, but I guess it's, it's sort of embedded in there somewhere. We shouldn't feel ashamed about charting for our work. And I'm sort of of the opinion here.

So, so he, okay, so he comes to a side and afterwards I'll give you the B side, but, but the AA side is saying, I mean Kindle books or eBooks, it doesn't matter if it's Kindle or on COBOL, wherever you're selling books. But a book for five, six, seven, eight, I'll even say nine 99 it's damn cheap. I mean, come on, you're, you're getting like 100,000 word novel that is probably taking sometimes years, but at at least quite a while. And uh, if it's a very experienced writer than it'll be fast obviously.

But then you're also getting quality, but you're getting a quality novel for let's say, just go with a high price you and say 10 bucks, 10 bucks is not a lot for a book. And I feel like we have sort of put ourselves in a situation a bit as authors of where now there is an expectation that you can get it for, you know, almost nothing. And, and that's sort of the, the B side of this whole argument is, but what are, what are we, what is our goal here?

I mean, what are we trying to do? Because if, if on one hand you were saying, okay, a side here I'm charging nine 99 side is saying I'm going to go Permafree obviously the besides argument here is that well if I'm going after and Rita who has never heard me before and I'm going to say to him, okay, Hey read my book and you just have to give me $10 and then I'm saying, and by the way, that's not expensive at all. And then the reader, if I put the reading glasses on and he looks at the beside and the byside, well well you don't know me so you have never read any of my work.

So I think it's free ad and I'm going to give you this book for free. And then you can make up your mind yourself. And if you like it, you can read more and then of course you have to pay for it. But at least there was no barrier of entrance here that you need to pass it. You know, it's the barriers soloed at that. You can just give it a try. It's like a free sample thing, which is, which is sort of like they do in the supermarket as well. When they want you to buy some new chips or something, right? They give you a few future taste and then they want you to buy but so a and B side here, I mean they don't, but they both have valid points in my view.

And again, this is where I cannot make up my mind because if we have really taught the readers of in today's day and age that you should just expect authors to write books for free. I mean then we just shot ourselves in the foot and, and what is the point then? Right? But on the other hand, since everybody else in the market or not everybody else, no, I'm exaggerating now but right but but since there is a lot of people in the market who are giving their books away for free and the barrier of entrance is so low, as I said before, how are you going to compete at that?

Against that if you're saying, but I'm going to chow chow to nine nine to nine, right. I mean, if you're having a huge email list and you and the people love what you're doing, then well that's not a problem. You can just sell it for nine 99 and people will buy it. But I'm coming at this from the angle of what is the advice for a new author? She should you, should you make your poop Permafree and then say, and then I'm going to run some group promos and whatnot to, to get my name out there. Or are you just Kindle stuffing? You know, are you just playing into the, to the Kindle stuff in game and actually it's not gonna make any difference for your author career at all.

And I don't know. So again, I need to make up my mind so I can make it cost module on this stuff because I really, I don't know right now.

Autumn (40m 40s): Well, I think that that's gonna be a question that's, Hey, that's when we can ask our listeners as well.

Jesper (40m 45s): Oh yeah, that would be good. Yeah. I would love some perspectives on this.

Autumn (40m 49s): Yeah. Let us know if you think you know, free books are Kindle stuffing or if you think that's a really valid way, especially as a new author, if it's something that we should be looking at and doing so that you know, you get to be known as you were, you know, learning and growing as an author. And you know, once you get your email list to like something reasonable and 5,000 you can start charging like at least 99 cents for your new novella. And you know, let us know what you think because next week we talk about character arcs.

Narrator (41m 30s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.