Good reviews sell books. It’s how most of us make buying decisions, especially online – we look at those star ratings, whether it’s books or wheelbarrows. So what’s the easiest way to build a set of rave reviews? Giving your book away to new readers. It sounds counterintuitive but it’s true – it’s the best way to build your email list – your #1 selling tool – and to get your book the great reviews it deserves.
Most of the time, our first book is just laying the tracks for what is to come. In over 500 interviews conducted for the Women in Publishing Summit and podcasts over the past six years, I have yet to find an indie author whose first book blew sales out of the water. But once they had an email list and dedicated readers, it's a different game entirely.
This is why we’re excited to introduce you to BookFunnel, a bronze sponsor of the 2021 Women in Publishing Summit.
What is BookFunnel?
BookFunnel is an online tool that allows you to build landing pages and deliver your book to interested readers. Our team uses it to build landing pages for our authors to share their Advance Review Copies (or ARCs) because it’s SO easy and integrates with any author website. It lets you add anyone who downloads the ARC to your mailing list, or you can keep them on a separate ARC list and invite them to join your regular newsletter later, if you’d prefer. BookFunnel gives you a seamless tool to speak directly to those who are most invested in your book — the people who are already reading it!
What really makes BookFunnel special, though, is the way it helps expand the pool of ideal potential readers for your ARC through the power of the BookFunnel community. On any given day, there are dozens of promotions in which you can participate. Just choose the genre and theme that’s right for your book and you’ll be part of a coordinated, linked group of authors sharing a massive e-book giveaway with ALL of your audiences.
So if you’ve written a great YA fantasy, you can join a group of other YA authors that’s as small as 3 or 4, or as big as 100! Each author shares their unique link to the promotion, and together you reap the benefits of fresh new readers checking out your book and being added to your email list! We have seen the results for our author clients – a well chosen BookFunnel promo can grow your newsletter by the hundreds!
Our Experience Using BookFunnel
As we mentioned above, we use BookFunnel to build landing pages for our authors. These landing pages help us deliver an ARC to new readers and we build an engaged email list at the same time. We know how important word of mouth marketing is in the publishing world which is why we choose to leverage the power of BookFunnel for our authors.
Trust me: getting your book out there to ideal readers, getting those ideal readers on your mailing list, and growing them as your readers will result in reviews which, when implemented properly, results in more readers.
I see this in action all the time. A friend of mine will post on social media, “I just read this new book by xyz and it was awesome!” Or they'll leave a review on GoodReads, the mecca of rabid book reviewers. If they also leave a review on Amazon, that helps other readers find it too.
Word of mouth marketing is so powerful that large publishing houses give away thousands of copies of a book IN PRINT. That's super expensive, but it doesn't cost you anything to give away your ebook and Book Funnel makes it even easier.
BookFunnel is a bronze sponsor of the Women in Publishing Summit.
If you’re looking for a reasonably priced, multi-use tool to get your ARC out into the world, BookFunnel is a great investment! And our whole team is over-the-moon that BookFunnel has joined our Women in Publishing Summit as a Bronze Sponsor this year. Their generous support, along with the rest of our awesome sponsors, is what allows us to take on the enormous project of the Summit every year!
BookFunnel is generously offering $50 off the first year on their more robust plans to our Summit ticket holders, so if you are excited about the opportunities to get in front of new readers using BookFunnel, grab your ticket and stay tuned!
Damon, the CEO of BookFunnel, who is the lone dude in our entire Summit, and quite an entertaining interviewee, gave me some AMAZING ideas of ways to grow your email list that I can't wait to share!
