Though self-publishing opens many doors for authors, it has always been hard for indie authors to break into the publishing
industry.
The biggest problem is that most independent authors do not have a huge book marketing budget. Most of the time, they are cash-strapped. So, the question becomes, “How can I market my book within my budget?”
I totally get it.
With the same curiosity in mind, I thought to try a different promotion method for the marketing of my second book Promotional Strategies for Books, while keeping the budget down to a minimum.
So, I decided to purchase book marketing services on Fiverr for under $100.
Before I forget, I want to mention this article. Go check that out and see how you can promote your business and brand through self-publishing.
Let’s see how the experience was.
How I Picked the Best Book Marketing Services on Fiverr for My Needs?
Before we may start, I want to mention that anytime you deal with book marketing and promotion, it’s a bit of a gamble. You do not really know what you are going to get. And, the results may vary.
Where I could probably get some great results for a certain marketing strategy, you may get poor results and vice versa.
So, NEVER spend what you cannot afford to lose.
Before you may decide to purchase any service, you need to determine if this is going to be something worthwhile.
For this, take into consideration:
- Service’s delivery models
- The audience for that delivery model
- The overlap of people interested in your content
In my case, my mission is to sell more books. I want to see the bestseller ranking for my book in the Amazon self-publish series.
So, I wanted to find services that are different in the type of model and delivery they offer.
Factors I Considered Before Purchasing a Book Marketing Gig on Fiverr
Gig Title
It clearly tells what they are selling.
Gig Description
It tells how well a seller communicates everything. If the description has broken English with ugly typos, syntax, and grammatical errors, I don’t think that’s going to be a good fit.
Gig Reviews
Of course, I was not looking for someone with scammy promised sales. If someone promises a set number of sales, I’d steer clear of it.
I wanted to hire experienced sellers with a good track record, and gig reviews say it all about them.
I check both positive and negative reviews. They give an idea of why people liked them so much and what they disliked about them. Because, in some cases, people have rather really high expectations.
Delivery Time
Some gigs had a good track record, but their delivery time was quite prolonged. However, I needed to get it done now.
So, I wanted to pick the gigs with a quick delivery time, and of course, a good track record.
However, I recommend that you take your time. Do your research. And the gigs with extended delivery time may prove to be worthwhile for you.
Book Marketing Services I Purchased
I purchased all budget-friendly gigs – ranging from $5-$45, making a total of $95.
I could have spent above $100, but I wanted to test out a few different book marketing gigs that could address various budgets.
So, let’s have a look at the gigs I used and my experience with them.
Jasveena offered to promote my book through live interviewing me and blogging it on her site.
Her gig had 111 reviews with an average rating of 4.9. So, I ordered the gig for $5.
Results
She did a full interview with me that was quite delightful and super easy for me to put together.
She actually threw in something extra about me that’s really cool. She took one of my recent interviews and posted it on her blog. A big bonus!
So, I liked this gig for $5. It may not generate the desired results but it promotes my brand.
For authors, it makes a decent opportunity to get such interviews done and share them to your email list or on social media to get more traffic.
I wanted to find something beyond “I am going to tweet you out or share you to my Facebook groups.”
I have heard a lot about Pinterest, so this one got my attention.
Isabelsbooks’s gig had 1492 reviews with an average rating of 4.9 and a one-day delivery time. Not bad!
I ordered her “Kindle book promotion to 500,000 readers” gig for $10.
Results
She posted my book image on 5 Pinterest boards with different capacities of followers, like 500,000, 26,000, and 15,000.
She also offered to promote my book to Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr for FREE.
The vanity metrics didn’t impress me a lot because the real engagement seemed off here. However, I liked the way she promoted my book to her Instagram, Twitter, and Tumbler.
Melrock is the next seller who caught my attention.
Her gig had 1500 reviews with an average rating of 4.9 and a hoot of negative reviews. I gave this gig a shot because I was super impressed by how she responded to those reviews.
I purchased her basic gig package “Blog posts featuring your book for 5 days + Facebook and Instagram Promotion” for $15.
Results
She did five different blog posts for five days, featuring my book with a clean “buy now” button.
I loved the way she added some of the quotes by my customer to the blog posts. It shows my credibility and authenticity as an author.
So, I loved this gig for $15.
Sexychallanges’s book marketing gig had 250 reviews with an average rating of 5.0 and a 5-day delivery time.
The gig offered book promotion on four blogs and social media, reaching 70,000+ people one time. So, I ordered the gig for $20.
Results
I liked the way he featured my book on his blog with a visual appeal and linked out the posts to my Amazon Kindle book.
He made seven different blog posts for me for seven days that is good for my book’s SEO.
I liked this one and would probably return to it in the future.
This gig was the most expensive among all five I purchased.
The seller had a “Fiverr Choice” badge on one of his gigs that had 461 reviews with an average rating of 4.9.
The gig offered to promote my book on their quality website, so I decided to give it a shot.
I ordered their premium gig package for $45. It included the website book promotion with a hot label+ Instagram and Facebook promotion.
Results
Joel promoted my book on his blog with decent content and a brilliant image. I liked the way he used the embedding feature so that people can get a sneak peek of my book on Kindle. Brilliant!
He also shared the book on his Instagram, not bad.
So, Was it Really Worth it?
Let’s evaluate the results by looking at the sales rank stats for my Kindle ebook.
Ok, I ordered the book marketing gigs on December 15, 2021.
The stats of rank on December 14th are 333,104.
And, it spiked up to 75,070 on December 15th– a huge BUMP!
It dipped down a bit for the next few days but again spiked up to about 121,100 in the next couple of days.
So, it was somewhat helpful to me.
In the end, I want to mention that do not expect immediate results when you purchase any marketing or promotion service. Since I ordered five gigs, I wanted to give them a little more time and space because this is book marketing and I won’t get instant results.
Some of these may take a couple of weeks to pick up steam. In this blog, I just showed the least results we could see.
Feel free to check out some of Fiverr’s other book marketing services using the search engine below. You’ll be surprised by some of their great, affordable book marketing gigs.
How I Used 5 Book Marketing Services on Fiverr Video
This post was written in coordination with iraamm on Fiverr and featured on the video for I Hired 5 Article and Blog Post Writers on Fiverr.
A Note from Dale
While most of my blog posts consist of my writing or a guest post writer, this article was different. I wanted to illustrate how easy it is to build out a blog site hiring out content writers. The blog post writer did almost all of the work, while I still produced the meat of the content with the embedded video above. Iraamm simply used the video as the framework and developed a post about book marketing services I bought on Fiverr.
The question is:
Was the ghostwriter worth the money?
You be the judge! Also, find out more about the experience in my latest video where I Hired 5 Article and Blog Post Writers on Fiverr.