10 Comments
User's avatar
According to Mimi's avatar

Very interesting idea! I will save it until I'm a bit further along on my fiction path. Thank you!

Expand full comment
Jon Howski's avatar

That’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure the cost per subscriber is worth it for me at the moment as my substack is free. I do have a paid sub level where I will gift copies of every book to new and current paid subs so I’m considering using BookFunnel for that to make the experience easy for both sides. However using the posts to promote the sale of published books is the strategy I want to pursue at the moment.

Expand full comment
Simon K Jones's avatar

There's a monthly subscription option, which is what I used for a while to test it out. You don't need to commit to a year. Anyway, BookFunnel aren't paying me, so absolutely only do it if it makes financial sense. :D

I think for me it's paid off in the long-run. I'm curious to see what it does returning to it this coming July. By the time I stopped using BookFunnel, it felt like diminishing returns and was bringing in far fewer new readers than Substack itself. In the last month, though, I've had Substack dry up a bit (unexpectedly - not sure what's going on), so I thought I'd poke at BookFunnel again.

Expand full comment
Jon Howski's avatar

Thanks for the advice

Expand full comment
David Perlmutter's avatar

I have used it occasionally, but I may need to do it more....

Expand full comment
Karen Mclaughlin's avatar

You’re a gem Simon. Thank you for explaining this so well and including all the screenshots.

I’ve just started a serial fiction here on Substack (you were my inspiration) and it’s been so hard to get readers. Bookfunnel seems like a next option!

Expand full comment
Simon K Jones's avatar

It's worth a try! I just mentioned in another comment that there's a monthly plan, so you could always try that rather than committing to a year.

Glad this was helpful, though - and I hope you get some good results if you give it a try.

Expand full comment
Piotr Niedzieski's avatar

I haven't yet learnt how to use BookFunnel, thanks Simon for writing this!

So the way I understand it, if you used a part of your Triverse serial I can use a short story that is freely available (ie. non-paywalled) on my Substack?

Expand full comment
Simon K Jones's avatar

You can use whatever you want of yours for the promo, that's up to you. If you're trying to attract new readers, who will happily stay on the newsletter, it works best if the freebie matches up to the regular newsletter content. In my case, if someone enjoys reading the free Triverse sample, they will probably also enjoy getting new chapters in their inbox.

Expand full comment
Bruce Landay's avatar

Simon, hanks for another great tutorial. Not sure I’m ready for book funnel today, though will keep it in mind for a good option n the future.

Expand full comment