Catching Adam on Instafreebie Results

On the advice of author Elicia Hyder, I put my first book on Instafreebie. I had low expectations but my results simply blew me out of the water!

What is Instafreebie?

Instafreebie is a service. Authors put their book, or an excerpt of the book, on Instafreebie and readers can download it for free. Authors can request that readers opt-in with an email address in exchange for a copy of the book. This is one way that authors can build an email list.
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​If you go this way, I suggest you join an author group to do a cross promotion. You can find such groups on Facebook by searching for them. And, if you do this, you will have to pay Instafreebie once a month for the email addresses. You can do the free version, but you can't get the email addresses with the free version.

How my email list grew:

Where I was when I signed up for Instafreebie:

• My email list consisted of 2 emails. Yes, two. I knew both of them. 
• I had sold roughly 15 copies of my book while in Amazon in a year.

When I initially signed up for Instafreebie:

• Put up 2 giveaways (1 without opt-in, 1 with opt-in)
• Gained 0 emails from the no opt-in version, but it was downloaded 38 times
• Gained 49 emails from the opt-in giveaway

Then I joined a group of 35 authors to cross promote:

• I switched the no opt-in giveaway to require an opt-in
• I was 1 of 35 authors, all of romance
• The giveaway started on November 1, 2016 -- I had 51 emails on this day when I sent out my newsletter
• Gained 181 emails on day 1
• Gained over 1,500 by day 13
• Over 1,700 people downloaded my book in that time (not all with valid emails)

From 2 readers to 1,500 in less than a month!

I was over the moon with these results. Completely thrilled. I did lose subscribers when they unsubscribed from my welcome letter. My unsubscribe rate was 7%. I was still quite happy because I knew that my book might be seen and read by 1,700+ people. 

And that's the most important thing: eyes on your book. Potential readers who may become fans after reading my first book and be interested to read the second.

So, that's the beauty of Instafreebie.

I'm still working through the data and preparing for a second launch. I'll keep you posted on that after I see how the first week goes. Release day is December 8th for my second book, Forfeiting Adam.

In the mean time, have a great week. Enjoy the process. It's slow going for me right now but I'm learning and hopeful for the future as I get better at running this business. 

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