Can You Build Your Author Email List Using Prolific Works?
Can Prolific Works (formerly Instafreebie) help authors to build an email list with their free books giveaway? I tried Prolific Work’s free plan and this was my result.
Book Written - What Next?
Once you have written and published your fiction or non-fiction book, you need to find people who want to read your work. One way is by building an email list of readers.
I am looking at different ways to promote my writing using low cost / no cost methods. Prolific Works is just one example.
This was my personal experience based on the results of using the free option on the website for one week. Results will vary from author to author, from genre to genre, from the types of participants and how they choose to promote the giveaways.
What is Prolific Works?
Prolific Works used to be called Instafreebie. It is a website that helps authors promote their writing. The website allows authors to create and organise free giveaways. There are currently three different plans you can sign up to.
The Basic Plan
The Plus Plan
The Pro Plan
The Basic Plan is free. You can add one author name and get involved with as many of the giveaways as you like.
The Plus Plan costs $20 per month. For that you get the option to choose whether book lovers have to provide their email address in order to get your free book. And you get to track the progress and success of your giveaway. You can fully integrate your mailing list platform if you are with Mailerlite or Mailchimp.
The Pro Plan costs $50 per month. You get everything that is included in the Plus Plan. In addition you can have up to 5 pen names and you can personalise your giveaways.
How I Used Prolific Works
Because I am looking at the effectiveness of low budget / no budget book promotions, I signed up for the Basic Plan.
The website is easy to use. Once I filled in the details required, I uploaded my short story as an epub book without any issues.
Your book goes under review and you will get an email and a pdf review copy when your book has been accepted on the website.
Signing Up To Some Giveaways
The website itself creates several giveaways in lots of different genres. If you click on an option, you will find:
A description of the giveaway
The dates the giveaway will run
The type of books that will be accepted
How many books will be accepted
What is expected of you if you take part in the giveaway
Authors can also create their own giveaways and add their own parameters.
I chose to sign up to two different giveaways:
Let’s Hear it For The Girls
Spring Time Escapes
Time To Promote The Giveaway
Some of the creators of the giveaways will state how you should promote the giveaway. The ways you can promote it is to:
Send a newsletter to your email list
Share using your twitter account
Share using your Facebook account
Share using your Instagram account
If everyone who signs up to the giveaway does the same thing several times throughout the promotion period, a lot of eyes will get to see your book and hopefully download your contribution.
My Results With Prolific Works
I did my bit and sent an email out to my small list. They already have my book so I was promoting the other authors in the giveaway.
After the first week, this was the results:
Let’s Hear it For The Girls
Out of the 99 books claimed from this giveaway, 8 of those were my books.
The highest claimed book had 13 downloads.
Springtime Escapes
Out of this giveaway 122 books claimed from the giveaway, 12 of those were my books.
The highest claimed book had 17 downloads.
How Many People Decided To Subscribe To My List?
A big fat zero!
Am I surprised by the result? No.
If readers don’t have to enter their email address, they generally won’t.
Would I Recommend Prolific Works - The Basic Plan?
From my own personal experience, I would have to say no. If you can not capture email addresses, then you aren’t getting anything from the service.
It is possible that readers will read your book and visit your website or your amazon page but there is no way to track this.
I am glad that I tried the free plan and would be interested to know what the results would be like if I were to pay for the next plan up. I may give this a try at a later date.
I will be trying out other low budget / no budget book promotion options and recording my results.