Six Marketing Features that Make the Marketing Service Worth Exploring
As an indie publisher, you have likely built up a hoard of shiny, eye-catching ideas about how to get the word out about your books over the course of your author journey. Unfortunately, the sheer number of opportunities may be enough to paralyze your inner marketing dragon.
If you are looking for convenient ways to promote your books or expand your marketing strategy to a wider selection of readers, Book Cave’s unique mix of features could simplify your life. The marketing service offers digital book delivery for free books, paid newsletter promotions, author group promotions, and movie-like content ratings for books, and it boasts a community of readers already using the site. Many services on the platform are free, so you’re able to spend your treasure on other things; the cost for other services is based on your book’s genre and price.
This month, we’re exploring six of Book Cave’s most enticing features. Read on to decide whether one of these marketing routes sounds right for your business.
1. A Community-Managed Movie-Like Rating System
Unique to Book Cave is a content ratings system for books, modeled on the movie industry and determined by Book Cave’s own community of readers. My Book Ratings (MBR) is like Goodreads or LibraryThing in that readers can submit their own ratings for titles. As an author, target your book’s audience more clearly by filling out the MBR questionnaire for each of your titles. You also have the option of paying Book Cave for an official rating. Publishers and authors who share the MBR logo and book rating on other sites are required to submit a listing to the Community Book Ratings database.
The Community Book Rating questionnaire creates a “free, permanent book listing that many readers use to find books in their comfort level,” according to the site. When authors book a newsletter promotion, the book listing will also appear on Book Cave’s “Deals From Retailers” page: https://mybookcave.com/books. New readers are drawn to Book Cave’s site through its book deal newsletter, e-reader and tablet giveaways, and book rating database.
Price: Community Book Ratings, which display an average rating between an author’s self-report and readers who have rated, are free. Official Book Cave Ratings cost between $25 and $75, depending on book length.
2. Subscriber Magnet Delivery
Along with sharing content reviews and information about your books, Book Cave also offers some distribution opportunities. Users can create unique links for their marketing, deliver advance review copies, or reward email subscribers with a freebie or a sample of their work.
Book Cave integrates with AWeber, Mailchimp, MailerLite, ConvertKit, EmailOctopus, Mad Mimi, SendFox, and Zagomail, so readers who download books through Book Cave are automatically added to authors’ mailing lists. The dropdown menu lets you choose from your email lists, or groups, for each subscriber magnet. Book Cave only supports EPUB and MOBI formats. Each subscriber magnet can have multiple unique links, so it’s easy to track the number of downloads from each newsletter swap, group promotion, or push for reviews. You can also limit the total number of downloads per link, make links active, or turn them off completely.
Pro Tip: Book Cave’s blog has a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots to guide you through the process of uploading your subscriber magnet, as well as other useful tips and strategies for authors. Visit https://mybookcave.com/authorposts, then select “Tutorials” on the right side or search for a specific topic.
Some email services aren’t supported, and Book Cave doesn’t have an API or the ability to connect to Zapier to create a workaround. Book Cave doesn’t support direct sales or audiobooks; the site refers authors to BookFunnel for that.
Price: Free
3. Group Author Promotion for Magnets
Like other book promotion sites, Book Cave offers users the ability to organize group promotions with other authors in order to build email lists and boost reach for everyone involved. As promo organizer, you can choose to add a giveaway prizes for up to ten winners, as well as choose which authors’ email lists will receive entrants’ sign-up information. Possible prizes for readers include $10 to $100 gift cards for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apple Books; or a Kindle or Nook device.
Discover existing group promotions in Book Cave’s Facebook group, in the site’s author newsletter, or on the author dashboard, where you can also apply to participate in group promotions. You can also create your own group promotion with step-by-step tools. Email Book Cave about your group promotion to feature your group promotion on its author-facing pages and in its author newsletter. You also have the option to limit your promotion to a private group of authors.
Price: Free, but authors can add an optional paid giveaway; Book Cave fees are based on a book’s genre and retail price.
4. Feature Your Book or Series
Book Cave’s newsletter will advertise your free or discounted book or series to its subscribers and on its website for a fee. The company estimates its total subscribers at 117,000 and its total social media reach at 225,000 followers. Book Cave supports thirty-six genres and subgenres, and its MBRs offer additional information about themes and topics that may help match books more closely with readers. Subscribers to Book Cave’s newsletter fill out their preferences about genre, ratings, and themes, including trigger warnings, when they sign up. Your book or series information will be saved, making repeat features convenient.
Pro Tip: Book Cave’s minimum book length for promotion through the site is one hundred seventy pages. Formatting and grammatical errors can disqualify books, and ninety days must elapse between paid promotions. No serials are allowed, and digital box sets must be written by the same author.
Price: Paid, based on book genre and e-book price category (free, priced under $1, $1 to $1.99, and priced over $1.99). Series promotion ranges from $26 to $74, depending on genre and e-book price category. See https://bcd.mybookcave.com/subscribers-and-pricing for a complete pricing table and the number of subscribers for each genre.
5. Author Profile Page
Author profile pages offer another place to showcase your subscriber magnet, build your email list, notify book browsers about current paid Book Cave promotions, share your bio and a short interview, and share New Release Alerts with followers. Readers browsing retailer deals at https://mybookcave.com/books or the MBR database can connect to your email list through your subscriber magnet on the “Offers” tab.
Once you’ve created an author profile, followers will receive new release notifications and be notified by email whenever your books are included in a Book Cave paid promotion. To get the “Offers” tab on your author profile, you must create a magnet and set it to public or be currently promoting a book or series with Book Cave. This feature is also the only place on the Book Cave site that allows a preorder promotion. The link to your author profile is shareable.
Price: Free
6. Private and Public Author Group Retailer Promotion
Authors can create their own group retailer promotions and recruit other authors by invitation only or with the help of Book Cave’s author newsletter and author dashboard.
The group promotion organizer can screen participants to match the target audience. Authors can add a giveaway for readers for an additional fee.
Book Cave must create and manage group retailer promotions because of submission requirements and in order to issue invoices to participating authors. The site requires a minimum of thirty to thirty-five authors to cover advertising costs and the cost of the prize, if offered. Contact Book Cave for more information.
Price: $30 per participating author, which covers prizes and advertising.
With a flexible interface and the ability to connect with other authors and new readers, Book Cave is a unique platform that combines the best features of other popular book review and promotion sites into one. If your dragon’s hoard of marketing strategies is feeling a bit thin, it may just be a treasure trove worth exploring.
Laurel Decher
