Group free book promotions: What are they & why do indie authors participate in them?

Freebie

You can have my 89-page novella, 'The Silver Maid,' for FREE. One way you can pick up your free copy is through a group free book promotion. Let's discuss what a group free book promotion is and why I choose to do them.

Approximately 3 times each year, I sign up to participate in a group free book promo. I use BookFunnel, pay them a fee, then through their website, I get to create and join group book promos, like this one:

Click on the graphic to check out my current free book promo

BookFunnel ensures that reader email addresses stay private and secure, help authors stay compliant, and manage the delivery of free books to readers (which should be immediate).

What is a group free book promo?

• This is where you join a group of other authors whose books have something in common, like genre, theme, or main character.

• Each author provides at least one free book.

• These books are all listed on a single landing page.

• Each book can be downloaded for free by anyone who visits the landing page

• Every participating author promotes the same landing page to all of their subscribers and social media followers.

• Readers can download as many or as few free books as they like during the promotion period. Most frequently, a group promo will run for four weeks.

Why do authors participate in group free book promomotions?

• All group participants (indie authors) work together to promote the same landing page, and every page visitor will see every available free book. This helps indie authors get a lot of extra exposure by having lots of pairs of eyes looking over our books.

• These promos help connect readers with books they may enjoy. In author land, we call these books that we give away for free our "reader magnets" because we hope that they will attract new readers.

• To download a free book, readers must provide an email address that subscribes them to the author's mailing list.

• Readers can unsubscribe at any time.

• There is no catch. If you want to, you can unsubscribe from the mailing list as soon as you receive the free book and then never be contacted again.

Participating authors hope that the people who download their free book will enjoy it enough to:

a) Stay subscribed to their mailing list

b) Read more of their books

c) Want to tell other people about us and our free book

d) Leave a review

Current Promo Details

• The following group free book promo runs until the 31st December 2025.

• After this time, you will no longer be able to download any free books via the link. These promos are time-sensitive. That's why when we are promoting, you'll hear us say things like "get in quick" and "for a limited time only" (because it's true!).

• This particular promotion includes 43 different books by various indie authors (who self-publish their books and are not signed by a publishing house. Read THIS BLOG if you're unsure what an indie author is).

• Click on the following graphic to browse the books on offer:

So, what happens when this particular free book promo is over?

How can you still get your free copy of The Silver Maid?

Right. So, if you miss out on the above free book promo, you will miss out on the other free books, but you can still download my free book by subscribing to my mailing list.

You can do this 2 ways:

1. Visit my website: www.marleybetts.com, and complete one of the subscription boxes. They look like this:

1 subscribe box...

2 subscribe boxes

2. Head to the landing page for The Silver Maid and click 'GET MY BOOK':

Click on the picture if you want my reader magnet once the above group free book promo has ended

Too easy, right?

What does subscribing to your mailing list get me? Why would I want to?

Good question! Subscribing to my mailing list means that you will start receiving my monthly newsletter, Books, Colour & Chaos:

Can you see my "reader magnet"? Yep, there's The Silver Maid.

In my monthly newsletter, you will usually find:

• A comic or two (as well as write books, I also draw comics)

• A poem

• Short reviews of the books I have read during the month

• Links to each of the blog posts I have written during the month

• Info about what I've been up to (personally and creatively)

It's fun! I hope you'll join me by downloading your free copy of The Silver Maid and subscribing to my mailing list.

Do you need another link? Of course you do!

Any other questions? Please ask, I'd love to hear from you!

Much love,

Marley