The BookBub rejection email arrives in about the time it takes to make tea, says almost nothing, and I have watched too many authors cancel an entire sale week because of it. A Featured Deal is the biggest single promotion in indie publishing and the one you are least likely to be given. The rest of the week still exists, and most of the 99c sales I run happen there.
This is how I put a sale together when BookBub says no, or when I never applied: which promo sites, in what order, what the week costs, and what you can reasonably expect back.
What a promo site is, and why one is never enough
A promo site is a company that has spent years building an email list of readers who want cheap and free ebooks, sorted by genre. You pay to have your book in one day’s email. The reader opens it, sees your cover next to five or ten others, and clicks through to Amazon or wherever you sell. The bigger sites send to hundreds of thousands of readers per genre. The smaller ones send to a few thousand.
One email gives you one day. Sales spike, your rank jumps, and by the next morning it is sliding back. Amazon’s own recommendations only start to notice a book when it holds a rank for a few days running, which is why a single placement rarely does much. Stacking four to six sites across five days keeps the book moving long enough for the store to start doing some of the work for you. I go into what that Amazon side of the equation needs in what “send traffic to Amazon” requires.
The sites I use, by genre
These are the sites that have run cleanly for my clients. Prices, subscriber counts, and requirements change often, so treat the ranges below as typical at the time of writing and check each site’s booking page before you pay.
- Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy (Written Word Media), the largest of the paid lists. Written Word Media also runs Red Feather Romance, which is the one I use for romance.
- The Fussy Librarian, which has separate paid and free lists and a wide genre spread.
- Ereader News Today (ENT) and Robin Reads, both selective, both reliable when they accept a book.
- BookSends and Book Cave, mid-sized and easy to book.
- Book Barbarian for fantasy and science fiction, which has the most focused list in those genres.
- Bknights on Fiverr, cheap and useful as filler on a quieter day.
Most single placements sit somewhere between $20 and $150 per genre per day, with the big lists at the top of that range. Most of the selective sites want a review count, a rating floor, and a professional cover before they will take your money, and they will turn a book down for the same reasons BookBub does. The review count is the one that trips new authors, which is why the ARC campaign has to happen before the sale rather than after it.
How to stack the week
Set the price two days before the first email goes out, because the change can take up to a day or two to show on every store, and a promo email pointing at a full-price book is money in the bin. If you are in KU, use a Kindle Countdown Deal instead of a manual price drop, because at the time of writing it lets you sit at 99c and keep the 70 percent royalty for the length of the deal. Wide authors set the price on each store directly and check that Amazon has matched it.
Day one is your own list and the biggest site you booked. Day two and three take the next tier, one or two placements each. Day four and five carry the smaller sites and the Fiverr placement. Social posts go out every day, and the newsletter goes out once at the start and once on the last day. Most of the sites let you pick your date when you book, so build the ladder in a spreadsheet first and book everything in one sitting. A sale is at its most effective when the rank climbs and holds, which is why you spread the placements out rather than firing them all on day one.
What a stack costs and what it returns
A five-day stack across five or six sites usually costs somewhere between $150 and $400 in the genres I work in. At 99c on Amazon you earn roughly 35 cents a copy outside a Countdown Deal, so a $300 stack needs in the region of 850 sales of the discounted book just to pay for itself. Most stacks do not get there on the sale book alone, and if that is the only number you watch, you will conclude that promo sites do not work.
The return arrives elsewhere. It arrives in the readers who buy book two at full price the next week, in the KU borrows that follow a rank climb, in the reviews that come in over the following month, and in the newsletter signups from the back matter of a book that suddenly has a few hundred new readers. A 99c sale on a standalone with no series, no back matter, and no list is a charitable donation to the promo sites. The same sale on book one of a four-book series, with book two priced at $4.99 and a signup at the back, is where the numbers turn.
I will not give you an average return, because I do not have one that would be true for your book. What I can tell you is that the sales that paid for themselves within a month all had the same setup behind them: more than one book, a series link that worked, and a review count high enough to be accepted by the selective sites.
What to have ready before you spend a cent
The back matter of the sale book links to the next book and to your signup, and the series is linked on the store so the reader can tap through. The review count clears the thresholds for the sites you want, which for the selective ones usually means a couple of dozen reviews and a solid average. The price change is scheduled. The newsletter email is written and the social posts are made. Sale language, “99c this week only,” is fine in your emails and posts and is not allowed in the KDP description itself, so do not touch the listing copy for the sale.
If the sale is on a backlist title that has been sitting still for a year, this is also the moment to check the blurb and the categories, because a promo email sends readers to the page and the page has to close the sale. The larger backlist plan is in how backlist marketing works for fiction authors.
What wastes the budget
Running the sale on book three, where the promo readers land mid-series and bounce. Booking a romance list for a thriller because it was cheaper. Forgetting to put the price back up, which I have seen cost an author a month of full-price sales. Running the whole stack on one day. Running any of it before the reviews exist. And treating the BookBub rejection as a verdict on the book, when a Featured Deal is a lottery ticket that even bestsellers lose most of the time. The application rules and the reasons they say no are in what a BookBub Featured Deal takes, and none of them stop you running the sale without it.
The review count is the gate most authors hit first, and the fix is an ARC campaign that runs before the sale. My ARC management service runs on a network of 4,000+ readers who already know me, which is how a book arrives at its first sale week with the reviews the promo sites ask for.
Frequently asked questions
Can you run a successful 99c sale without BookBub?
Yes. Stack four to six promo sites across five days, start with your own newsletter, and make sure the sale book links to a full-price next book. A BookBub Featured Deal is the largest single placement, but most 99c sales run without one.
How much does a promo site stack cost?
At the time of writing, single placements typically run $20 to $150 per genre per day, and a five-day stack across five or six sites usually costs $150 to $400. Prices change, so check each site’s booking page before you plan the budget.
Which promo sites are best for a 99c ebook sale?
Freebooksy, Bargain Booksy and Red Feather Romance (all Written Word Media), The Fussy Librarian, Ereader News Today, Robin Reads, BookSends, Book Cave, and Book Barbarian for fantasy and science fiction. Most of the selective ones require a review count and a rating floor.
