Check Out These Popular Book Promotion Websites to Reach out to a Wide Audience
- By SreePoorna
- January 19, 2021
As an author, one way to attract more readers to your book is by having more reviews. If you are just starting your journey as an author, your book’s biggest challenge is to get readers for your book. If you have not published your book, writing the book, getting it edited, and publishing is the easy part compared to getting reviews.
Why would a reader buy a book from an unknown author? How to make them read? The only reason a reader will pick your book is when he sees a good number of reviews on your book or your book review on a good review site. The easiest way is to contact book reviewing sites. A lot of readers visit book reviewing sites before they order a book. If you can get your book’s review on such a site, your book will be noticed by many genuine readers, and you can expect some sales.
Things to Consider while Finalizing a Book Review Site
Just like there are thousands of books available for readers to choose from, there are hundreds of book review sites. Other than book review blogs, there are numerous websites available for authors to get reviews for their books. The first thing you need to do is shortlist the sites with a good number of visitors weekly/monthly. This will ensure once your book review is live, it is seen by many people. The second parameter to consider is the kind of visitors to the website. For example, you have fiction, but the website you finalize for review has visitors who are interested in non-fiction. You won’t get a good response in that case.
Some book review sites publish your book review for free, while some charge you for a book review. You will have to decide what kind of book review you are looking for.
How does a Book Review Site Work?
The free websites may not take all the books for review. Once you approach a book promotion site, you need to discuss the promotion/review charges, if any. Once that is finalized, you will have to send the review copy to the book reviewer. Once they receive the book, the reviewer will read the book and publish the review on the website. These websites also have a good number of subscribers. As part of the package, they may also send the book review to their mailing list.
Different Websites for Book review/Promotion
Now that you have a fair understanding of a book review’s need and process, we can mention different book review and promotion websites. Below are some top book review websites in various categories.
Paid Sites
Needless to say, if a website is getting a good number of visitors on its website and can give your book a good number of views, they will charge you for putting a review on their website. If they have other mediums of earning like Google ads, then the website may charge you less even if the visitors are high.
1.BookBub
You should only shortlist this website if you have a high marketing budget. They have millions of subscribers on their platform, and they charge you depending on the price and the category of your book. They may charge you between $100 and $4000 for the promotion of your book. You not only can use the website for review but also for creating deals around your books. Overall, it is a great platform to explore, given you have a high marketing budget.
Avg. Monthly Visits: 6.281M
Paid Promotion from: $100
2. Free Booksy
If your only intent is to get readers for your book and, in turn, get reviews, this is a great site to check. To use their services, your book should be free. They have over 530,000 registered readers, and depending on your book genre, they may charge you between $30 and $150. If you enroll on their platform, you can get a good number of downloads, and you can accept reviews in return. This is a good platform to consider if you are looking for initial reviews by giving readers a free copy.
Avg. Monthly Visits: 1.201M
Paid Promotion from: $30.
3. Kbookpromotions
If you are an author of an eBook and your budget is somewhere between $140-$780; this is the place for you. They accept only eBooks, and the maximum price of the book should be $9.99
Avg. Monthly Visits: < 5,000
Paid Promotion from: $140.
Budget-Friendly Sites
Not everyone has a big budget for book promotion. As a new author, you may not be 100% sure of your work and may want to first get a few reviews before you go all in. If you are looking for budget-friendly websites for promotion/review, check the below websites:
1. Many Books
You can get the book review service for $79. The rates are quite reasonable given the number of monthly visitors on the website is half a million. You can also promote your book through their newsletter. They have 175,000 active subscribers. They pretty much cover all the major genres so you can check them out for review and promotion.
Avg. Monthly Visits: 1,34,270
Paid Promotion Starts from: $79.
2. BookGeeks
If you are looking for a book review blog dedicated to Indian authors and have a limited budget, you should check BookGeeks. They do not only book reviews but also author interviews and also have marketing plans.
Avg. Monthly Visits: < 5,000
Paid Promotion Starts from: NA
3. Book Bongo
The site offers promotional activities that are free and paid, and the price ranges up to $150. The paid option enables the authors to promote the book to numerous Facebook groups, thus getting great exposure. They will also be featured as a banner on the website.
Avg. Monthly Visits: < 5,000
Paid Promotion from: $10.
Several other budget-friendly sites wherein you will get great exposure are BookDoggy, BookMelon, TCK Publishing, Book Barbarian, and The Fussy Librarian, amongst others.
Free Sites
If you don’t have a budget for marketing and are still looking to promote your book, you can look for free sites. There are a lot of platforms that help you spread the word about your books without any charge.
1. Ebooks Habit
You can submit your book for promotion under the free plan. Given they are not charging you anything, they don’t accept all submissions. If your book is chosen, they will make 4 Tweets about your book, they have 485,000+ Twitter followers. They will also send your books in featured mail. If your book has some initial good reviews, you should approach them for free promotion.
Avg. Monthly Visits: < 5,000
2. It’s Write Now
It is another platform that offers a free plan for book promotion. If the website selects your book, your book will be listed on the front page for up to 3 days and will also be included in the daily book selection email newsletter. Your book should be available on Amazon as Kindle and should be priced at $3 or less.
Avg. Monthly Visits: < 5,000
3. Inkitt
This one is a great platform to promote your book to a wide audience and reach out to thousands of readers. Inkitt is also a publishing company that offers the authors a publishing deal worth hundreds of dollars if the readers like it. However, they promote Fiction books only.
Avg. Monthly Visits: 6, 38,942
There are numerous websites such as Book Angel, eReaderIQ, Free Books, Book Hippo, eBookStage, Bookpraiser, where one can promote their books for free.
Genre specific
Some book sales and a marketing expert will advise you always to target readers specific to your genre. If you also believe the same, it is best to approach genre-specific websites for review and promotion.
1. ExciteSteam
If you have a book in the romance genre and a limited budget, you can check ExciteSteam. They promote the book through a newsletter, on their website by giving a book review and their Twitter feed. Their paid promotion starts from $15. Your book should be free or should be available at a discounted price at the time you approach them for promotion.
Avg. Monthly Visits: 16, 308
Paid Promotion from: $15.
2. Book Adrenaline
If you are looking for a website that will promote books under mystery and thriller, you should check Book Adrenaline. They mainly take books that are free or are heavily discounted. Their paid promotion starts at $15, and they claim to have a lot of satisfied authors with them.
Avg. Monthly Visits: 1,06, 935
Paid Promotion from: $15.
By now, you have a lot of options to choose from to promote your book. Even if the above list does not suit you, you know what to look for while selecting a book review and promotion website. Book promotion services such as those listed over here prove to be a great help for authors looking to reach out to a broad audience. Whether you have opted for traditional publishing or self-publishing, promotion on such sites should be on your marketing plans.