Getting More Instafreebie Downloads

Joynell Schultz

Instafreebie is one platform authors use to distribute free stories to readers. A bonus to using Instafreebe is they have author group giveaways with a purpose of growing your newsletter. (Readers get a free book if they sign up for your newsletter.)

I had been struggling with this a little, as I only had short stories that I could give away free. All my novels and novellas are enrolled exclusively with Amazon and enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. In addition, I don’t have the budget for a fancy designer cover for a free giveaway, so I make my own.

Both these issues (average covers and shorter stories) resulted in less downloads than the other authors in the group giveaways. This was fine, as I continued to grow my mailing list, but made growth slow and I questioned the cost-effectiveness of this method.

Well, I found the secret for me to have DOUBLE (or Triple!) the downloads to my free stories!

It’s bundling them into a box set — and making it LOOK like a box set. (Note: I think this method will work for ANY platform, including Book Funnel, and even for sale on Amazon.)

For example…Here is what my Quick Escape: Fantasy Tales freebie used to look like:

Quick Escape LQ

And now, I give away the same freebie, and changed the image to this:

Quick Escape 3D

And it gets double the downloads, even though each story averages only about 2000 words.

I did the same with my Superhero Wives short stories. I used to give away just one story:

Stellar Life of SH Wife

But I bundled it with a few other short stories I had to create this:

SHW Box

And downloads doubled!

You can see how Quick Escape: Fantasy Tales stands out on the page here:

instafreebie

That’s it. I just wanted to share this little trick with you. (FYI: I make my covers at http://www.canva.com and then made them look like a box set through https://lite.boxshot.com)

are physical books obsolete_

Of course, now that I have the subscribers, they need to be paired with a stellar newsletter welcome series to keep them reading.

As always, thanks for reading!

–Joy

 

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