Newsletter Growth: High volume, low click rate I used CraveBooks for newsletter growth for my romance author brand. Pros: - It was very simple to set up - It was not very expensive - There was a high volume of signups - ~20 of the new subscribers went on to join my ARC reader group Cons: - The click-rate for these new signups is .7% (compared to Written Word Media's newsletter growth program which has a click-rate of 6%) - I got reported as spam a *lot* in the first few weeks by the new signups, this caused significant issues with a launch campaign - High volume of unsubscribes in the first two weeks (1/4th of the initial group) Cost to value, I'd still say this was a net win. The timing of everything with my new release and getting reported as spam was not CraveMedia's fault, therefore I won't let it affect my star rating.

Giveways- a Total Waste of Time I don't know if the company can help. I did the giveaway for my book Seeking the Light of Justice. In 24 hours, you gave away 1263 books. That sounds great. I got emails from all those people. However, it didn't generate one sale or review. I did a giveaway on Goodreads and got the same results. I am doing the same on my website. The results are the same: No reviews and no future sales. It's a total waste of time and money.

Shubhi was very helpful and courteous. Shubhi was very helpful in navigating my Mailchimp page. She is kind and very professional. Because of her, I have regained my faith in Cravebooks. THANK YOU, SHUBHI,

Awesomely Good Fast response from emails. Always the best of teams.

I found that giving away books did not… I found that giving away books did not increase sales. I had over 1500 email lists and followed through with emails. it didn't help my book.An explanation could be beneficial for other authors who are promoting their books. My book caters to a specific Christian audience and serves as a self-help guide on dealing with abuse, which means it may not resonate with everyone. Despite having a substantial number of email addresses from Cravebooks, I reached out to them with polite and straightforward emails to further engage with the audience. Unfortunately, I did not receive any response at all. This led me to believe the list may not have been targeted enough for my book. Additionally, I discovered that reasonably priced, targeted email lists are available for purchase online. This worked better for me as I was able to build a private following. Since giving away books didn’t seem to help, I wanted to cancel giving away further books but didn’t realize once you signed up for the giveaways, canceling it was difficult. However, the company did reach out to me, and we resolved the situation. My situation should not affect another novelist who might need a more general audience. Cravebooks created nice ads and kept my book out in public through continuous campaigns. That is always helpful, and I would be happy to use them again. Promoting books is difficult, and using several sources can be very beneficial. Thank-you.