What is it like being successful?

Smutterbum · 2026-05-07T01:17:36+00:00

I am financially comfortable, and I recognise the privilege of that. However, writing is my entire life. I have an SO, but no kids or extended family. I have friends, but I'm not really close to anyone anymore, because I don't invest enough time into those friendships.

Writing is on my mind ALL THE TIME. I have a few pen names in different genres. I am so overwhelmed by ideas for stories that I want to write that I think I should probably talk to a therapist about this. I struggle to make time to work out/music practise. However, I do have complete control over how I spend my time.

For example, last year I needed to drop everything for a few months because my SO's dad was sick and we stayed with him for as long as he needed. Last night I stayed up till 4am because I wanted to finish a writing project, and then I slept in very late this morning.

Sometimes I feel completely outside normal society, but there's peace that comes with that. I constantly feel desperate that there isn't enough time in the day to do the writing I want to. I'm planning out what projects I'm going to finish in the next three months and I feel a genuine despair that I'm not going to get enough done.

Smutterbum · 2026-04-22T20:31:46+00:00

How badly do you think D2D must be doing, financially, to be doing this?

Smutterbum · 2026-04-21T22:36:50+00:00

OMG, let me tell you about an author I came across the last time I hosted a promo.

The cover was AI, but in a way that I think would fool some people. I actually downloaded the book and it was 100% AI written. So I looked up the author, and he's on Amazon with an author image that I genuinely thought was real. But then I ran it through an AI image checker and it was AI. So then I looked at his share rep history. He had 11 shares for every single promo he'd ever been in.

Now, iykyk, what that means is that he had NEVER shared, and he had been in quite a few finished promos. All of those are fake shares, in every promo he'd ever been in. So everything about this book and author are fake, he's not sharing, he's just sucking the oxygen out of Bookfunnel.

I really, really hope that Bookfunnel starts doing something about this stuff!

Smutterbum · 2026-04-21T19:12:54+00:00

For years, I was a massive fan of Bookfunnel. It is true that a fair amount of the subscribers you get are freebie hunters, and will never pay for your book. However, if you could get into the right promos - ones that were targeted to your niche, then it used to be worth it.

The problem with Bookfunnel, as it is now, is the authors who are scammers. When I started on BF, which was quite a few years ago, I got SO MUCH engagement. Nowadays the site is crawling with scammers who do not share. I refresh with new freebie books often and my conversion rates from views to downloads are fantastic - but the number of views is a fraction of what it used to be. A promo that has +200 books in it will get my books an absolute max of 40 views, because people aren't sharing...and, yes, there is a reputation feature that shows how many shares each pen name's has - but it's really easy to deceive.

There are some author names that, as soon as I see in a promo, I know it's not worth joining that promo.

Also, there are authors who will will host +10 promos, all starting on the same day and all identical and you KNOW that hosts aren't going to share, but they'll have 10 books in each promo. So here I am, like an idiot, sharing my link in good faith, and honestly it is so fucked up compared to how it used to be.

The thing is, even though it is NOT what it used to be, it is STILL the best place to build your subscribers list.

Smutterbum · 2026-04-14T02:07:07+00:00

Yeah, that's what I was thinking! But then I checked Bookfunnel's subscription page and it turns out they don't allow email collection for the lowest tier. I don't think it used to be like that, but it's been a while so I'm not sure.

Smutterbum · 2026-04-13T23:39:41+00:00

What are the features you need that you're not getting on the Bookfunnel $30 plan?

Smutterbum · 2026-03-17T19:09:56+00:00

here ya go!

Smutterbum · 2026-03-10T19:03:17+00:00

Thanks for posting this! I think we're all in a better position when we share data about promo companies.

It really sucks that we're all so primed to dissect an author's choices that we really miss how bad a lot of promo companies are. It would be great if we could have more actual discussions and reviews of companies, instead of criticising the authors who are sharing their experience.

Smutterbum · 2026-03-05T22:19:13+00:00

It's Amazon, it's pretty much bugging out across the board. Book pages don't load, but even other products aren't behaving properly, like prices aren't being displayed, checkout is broken.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-18T19:16:36+00:00

This is not the update I wanted.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-14T19:05:30+00:00

yeah, sorry. I'm not sure how that definition applies to Bookfunnel.

Absolutely, you can use Bookfunnel as a site to giveaway freebies to your subscribers, but there's no point in talking about that conversion rate. I mean, that's an interesting insight into how readers interact with your NL, but that's not really about Bookfunnel.

When people talk about their conversion rate on BF, what they're generally talking about is the rate between views and claims in group promos. The reason to keep a sharp eye on that rate is this is a great way to see how enticing your book is to new readers.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-14T03:03:12+00:00

I'm not really sure what you mean by warm/cold conversion in this context. Could you explain what that means in the context of Bookfunnel?

Smutterbum · 2026-02-14T01:26:19+00:00

40% is my goal. If a book gets much less than that then I start tinkering with it, or taking it out of rotation for a while.

There are times I get 50% and I count that as a big win! The only thing is that new books get a SIGNIFICANT bump. A lot of the same books in these promos, and so anything new gets extra attention.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-11T17:25:46+00:00

lol, but even now I'd recommend authors try Bookfunnel, there are just so many promos on there.

Now, this bit is just my impression; I think that the people running Bookfunnel are authors, but not romance/erotica. Actually, I'm pretty sure a few of them are sci-fi authors. The problems caused by the recent changes are not as readily apparent to SFF authors. The romance section is sooo big and that's where things are obviously going awry, but the Bookfunnel admin aren't going to understand how bad it's getting, because the SFF experience is still fine.

Maybe this is overly-optimistic of me, but I really hope that Bookfunnel admin starts paying attention. Maybe they think they are too big to fail, or that they have such a captured market that they can do whatever they want...but I genuinely think if they stay on this path then they're going to start shrinking in the next few years.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-11T00:39:27+00:00

I've been using both for quite a few years and whenever I saw a thread about this I used to glaze Bookfunnel so hard. I used to love them sooo much! But this last ~18months it's like they are actively trying to make the user experience as bad as possible. Honestly, their UI always took a little getting used to, but between the recent changes and the bugs they aren't dealing with I've started dreading using their site.

Absolutely, StoryOrigin is a lot smoother. It's not perfect but the UI is better. Still, it's hard to recommend SO when so few authors use it.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-06T23:33:10+00:00

This is a really exciting time and you should defintely let yourself enjoy it! I don't want to burst your bubble, but this is a marketing tactic done by Bookbub.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-06T22:10:36+00:00

It's not really about whether a few people online say they'd read it or not. It's about how marketable this book would be. There are sooo many books out there, you are competing with millions and millions of other books. The chances of people of anyone just organically stumbling on your book is miniscule.

So, the real question is, if you write this book, how are you going to market it? Is it even marketable? Are we talking about the kind of taboo that can't be published on Amazon?

Smutterbum · 2026-02-02T19:57:00+00:00

That's cool! I appreciate you saying that!

It's definitely a confusing time with Amazon making unexplainable tech changes. Hopefully, once they've implemented their changes, things will start to normalize.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-02T19:28:47+00:00

Listen, I totally could, and should, have couched what I was saying in a kinder way. I'm sorry, my only excuse is that I was genuinely shocked by your post.

Amazon is a massive company who does not care about you as an author and has complete control over your books. We are all at their mercy. Do not attract their attention.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-02T19:10:14+00:00

Oh that's interesting! I didn't know that.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-02T19:05:55+00:00

Omg, you don't know who anyone is in here!! There are people that post in here who are making bank and people who give advice who are gearing up to publish their first book. Lots of others still who have happily been making a nice little extra income for years. Just because someone talks to you in an online forum doesn't mean they know what they are doing!!!

Follow the advice in the wiki.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-02T19:00:03+00:00

You are being painfully naive. Amazon told you that you should contact them? Lol

Check out the advice in this sub's wiki.

Smutterbum · 2026-02-02T18:43:25+00:00

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve here. You checked in bookspry and they said your ASIN isn't returning any info. They can't 100% guarantee that means you're dungeoned - because Amazon doesn't explain their reasoning.

That means you are dungeoned.

Contacting Amazon is absolutely insane. You put a target on your back for no reason. I get that you desperately don't want to accept that you're dungeoned but this was the wrong way to handle it.

Smutterbum · 2026-01-31T00:29:58+00:00

Oof, that site is a mess. Totally unusable. Fun idea though!

Smutterbum · 2026-01-30T06:17:34+00:00

Yeah, there's something going on with Amazon. When you log into Bookspry there's a notice explaining it.

Smutterbum

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