SFFMP 158: Making the Best Use of Promo Sites with Will from Book Barbarian

This week, we were joined by Will Turnage, the founder of the discount book promotion site, Book Barbarian (in addition, he runs Red Roses Romance and Book Adrenaline for mysteries and thrillers). He’s also the author of three science fiction and fantasy novels, and is a fan of the genre. We asked him about some best practices for authors using promotional sites.

Here are a few of the specifics that we covered:

• What it’s like writing and running a business from Cartegena, Colombia.
• How Will turned from author to founder of a book promotion site, one of the first devoted to scifi and fantasy.
• The challenges of building up a subscriber base and keeping new people coming in (yes, these guys have some of the same challenges that we have as authors!).
• Some trends that Will has seen — what sub-genres of SF&F tend to be most popular and what types of covers work well.
• How many reviews you should have before submitting your book to a site like Book Barbarian.
• Whether it’s necessary to have a high normal price and deeply discount to appeal to readers.
• Best practices when it comes to free books.
• Ad stacking across multiple book promo sites to sell/give away more books and in the hope that your book might stick on the store sites for longer.
• How often one should submit books to promo sites and when one might experience diminishing returns.

You can submit your science fiction and fantasy titles on Book Barbarian or sign up as a subscriber. You can also check out Will’s novels, Rise of the Jinn, Extermination Day, and NanoSwarm on Amazon under William Turnage.

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