So, I’m about to start my first StoryOrigin book prelaunch promo next week. It’s called David and Goliath Sci-Fi/Fantasy promo where authors giveaway all or a portion of their book to interested readers for a short period of time. So far, there’s lots of interest from authors. So many in fact, that I’ve decided to setup a second David and Goliath Sci-Fi/Fantasy promo for July.
The goal of these promos is to help authors grow their list of subscribing audience readers for future works and book sales. It works by having authors get together and (using their respective email subscriber lists) promote each other’s books through a single promotion page. It’s like a mini popup online bookstore with free books and short stories (for a short time only). By leveraging our email lists together, everyone benefits, authors and readers alike!
I think the reason for attracting so many authors is that the David and Goliath Sci-Fi/Fantasy promo differs from the other promotions. Looking at the other promos, I typically see a large number of books presented at these giveaways. Too large in fact. It’s overwhelming, especially in this age of the 30 second Internet attention span.
Personally, I have no interest in scrolling down through page after page of book images that mostly don’t tell me what the story is about. Yes, a few images do give me some inkling of the story or setting but if the pretty book cover picture doesn’t catch my eye, I’ll keep on scrolling down till my 30 seconds are up and then it is time to move on to some other click bait.
Focusing on Sci-Fi and Fantasy stories, I wanted to make my promos different, more targeted, informative and form a bond between established authors with large subscriber email lists and authors just starting out with no or minuscule reader email lists. Hence the name of the promo, David and Goliath!
This give-away promo has no more than four authors featuring no more than two books each. I designed the promo to include a quick one line tag for each of the no more than eight books to be presented in the David and Goliath promotion. That image is shown right up front to the reader to tempt him/her to glance down to the tantalizing book images and click that download button. You can check out the second promo (still in the works) by clicking here!
Does this strategy work to gather more subscribing readers to our email distribution lists? Too soon to tell. But I am getting some positive feedback from the authors themselves. So much so that I’ll need to open up a third David and Goliath Sci-Fi/Fantasy promo.
So, what do you think of this promo giveaway strategy? Feel free to leave a comment on this post, then head over to the StoryOrigin page and signup for this promo opportunity. And don’t worry if you don’t make this second promo opportunity as I will invite the authors in the “Pending Application” list to launch a third and fourth David and Goliath Sci-Fi Fantasy promo giveaway!
Speaking of establishing a bond with other authors, I would like to introduce a fellow author who lives “across the pond,” James Murdo. If you like the science in “Gods Games” than you’ll love the ancient machine intelligences, resurrected species with no memories of the past and creatures composed of gravity strings in James’ book, Echoes of Gravity. It will make you wonder about what is hidden in the void between galaxies. Also, checkout his newsletter.
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| What is hidden in the void between galaxies? (Now on Amazon) | An upside down SciFi retelling of the greatest biblical story ever told! (Coming Soon! Read the First Chapter NOW for FREE!) |
If you like these stories and want to know more, please subscribe to this blog and I’ll send you periodic (about once every other week) updates and musings on GOD GAMES as I work to self-publish this SciFi Retelling of the Greatest Biblical Story Ever Told.
