- [Dale] $4,266.
What would you do with that kind of money?
I'm an absolute lunatic
and decided to run a year-long case study
with the help of Book Award Pro.
How many book awards could I apply for and win,
and what would the cost be?
And is it worth investing so much in book awards?
But first, a brief history of Book Award Pro.
I have to admit to you that I had a lot of reluctance
when a friend of mine introduced me to them
because there are so many services out there
for self-publishers.
Some are good and, for the most part,
some are pretty terrible,
but this friend said, "you have to check it out,
give it a shot."
And before I knew what, I got into a video chat
and I was talking with the founder of Book Award Pro
Hannah Jacobson,
and she's just an absolute doll and a gem.
So I said, "you know what,
why don't I just give this a try?"
"Why don't I just test it out?"
But before I kind of get into the story of how I tested out,
it's important that we kind of lay out exactly
what does Book Award Pro do.
It essentially works as a matchmaker for books
and book awards.
Now, they have three different plans,
it includes the Essentials plan,
which is about nine bucks
and includes just kind of a gathering together
of some general broad matches for your book.
Then there's the Plus plan, which runs about $59,
and actually includes everything
inside the original plan,
as well as intelligent targeting.
Meaning that, there's an actual algorithm that figures out
your book and the book awards that it's going
to best be possible for it to win.
So with that said,
there's also the top tier plan,
which is the Pro plan at about $189.
That includes the intelligent targeting
as well as actually submitting one book award entry
per month on your behalf.
So I issued a challenge to the folks over at Book Award Pro.
I said to them, last year, I said,
"what can you do for me in 30 days?"
And they nervously kind of were like,
"Well, you know,
maybe we can kinda make things happen?"
So we started out on the Pro plan.
That's the top tier plan, on September the 10th.
Now, as a reminder,
the Pro plan includes covering one entry fee per month.
So, this means that I'm not only paying
for Book Award Pro's services,
but they're also covering the entry fee
on the award's programs
'cause, after all,
book award programs aren't necessarily free
to submit your book.
Although, there's probably some exceptions to the rule,
but it's all fully automated.
Meaning that,
they will just take care of it for you.
Now, they come along with some nice press kits
and it's all made for you
and an includes your book.
It's very professional looking
and some awards you can apply
for multiple categories at no extra cost.
That's kinda cool because I'm figuring that I'm investing
in each one of these book award programs.
And if I just submitted it to one,
when I could have done say two or three at the same cost,
then all the more better.
See now they handle that for you, again.
Now, remember these points.
I have the discretionary expense.
Meaning that, I can afford
to lose this money that I'm investing in this.
We're just doing this for the case of-
First of all,
love getting book awards.
I'm not going to lie to you,
but also just kind of this case study.
So, I can afford to invest and lose out on this.
Now, this is the best case scenario on the top tier plan.
Meaning that, you might hear me saying
I'm using the Pro plan,
but you can walk it back all the way to the Essentials plan
and just do all the award submissions
on your own if you wish to.
I'm going to use these awards to market and promote my book,
and I also have a plan
for marketing it through Amazon Ads,
Author Central, local media appearances, website promotion,
and also my email signature.
I did four different books over the course of the year.
Let's start that with the first book,
which was "Amazon Keywords for Books".
Now, right out the gate,
since it was the first 30 days,
I said, "okay, we can't just do one book award."
"We're going to have to do multiple ones."
In fact,
I asked that they do a fast track boost,
which is an upsell that they have,
where they will apply to five different book awards
for $999.
Before you start cringing here,
this covers the award submission fees.
So, that means that they apply it on your behalf
and they cover all the fees.
Now, during the time that I ended up doing the 30 days,
I got some pretty good results and I stayed on
for an additional two months.
I submitted to nine different awards.
Won five awards.
Now, this was three months on the Pro plan,
plus the fast track boost.
All in, I invested about $1,566.
Now, that's the cost for the entry fees included there,
so that's about $582,
which broke down to about $70,
65,
69,
65,
125,
$90, which covered two submissions,
59
and 39.
Now, Book Award Pro gets about $984.
And you're probably saying,
"okay, what's the math on that?"
Well, it was about $189 per month in the Pro plan
for three months, plus the fast track boost,
which was 999,
which was a total of 1566.
You remove all of the entry fees for 582,
and that's where you get 984 for Book Award Pro putting
this all together.
Not bad.
Now, there's one noteworthy thing about this first set
of book awards.
I got one from Literary Titan on "best book".
They offered a free editorial review on their site.
They sent me a frame and a certificate
and this certificate wasn't just something they printed off
on their copy machine at home.
This was very professional
and it actually had some embossing on it.
So I was very impressed by this.
Let's go over to the next book,
"Promotional Strategies for Books".
I submitted this to six awards.
I won three awards.
Now, this was on three months of the Pro plan.
I didn't use a fast track boost
because after seeing great results,
I said, "you know what?"
"Let's just go ahead and pull back just a little bit."
So, all in, I spent about $567.
The cost-free entry fees was a total of $276.
That was 75,
89,
115.
Now, Book Award Pro gets about $291.
That's of course, 567 minus the 276,
and that's what Book Award Pro gets at 291.
Now, there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy
about this time around.
I recall the Wishing Shelf Awards,
they gave me a "nonfiction books for adults" award,
and they had a panel of reviewers that went through
and actually judged my book.
And that was pretty neat
because I had a number of editorial reviews that I was able
to put over on Amazon Author Central.
Next book was "Amazon Reviews for Books".
I submitted to seven awards.
I won six of those awards.
Now, one of those was about three awards from one source,
called the Firebird Book Awards,
more on them in just a second.
It was on five months on the Pro plan altogether,
no fast track boost.
All in, I spent $945.
The cost for entry fees was $407.
Now remember, every time I say these entry fees,
that was included in the monthly fees that I pay in
towards Book Award Pro.
That means I'm not having to spend extra on this.
So, all in all, that was 55,
89,
69,
99
and 95.
Now, Book Award Pro gets about $538
for doing all this for me.
Now, the noteworthy thing was the Firebird Book Awards.
They gave me three different categories for one entry fee.
This included "writing and publishing", "reference",
and also something called "suggest a category".
And as the year kind of wrapped up
of working with Book Award Pro,
there was about one month to spare.
And I said to them,
"what can we be able to do
with the compilation of "The Amazon Self Publisher"?
"Can we be able to replicate exactly what we did
at the start of our year?"
And they loved the challenge.
They embraced it this time.
They felt just a little bit more confident
since there was so many X factors
in play the very first time around.
So this was "The Amazon Self Publisher" book.
We wrapped up the year with a big bang,
by, first of all,
of course,
we get one month in the Pro plan.
And we also had the fast track boost like we did
at the very beginning,
which gets me five award submissions.
Now, this expedited the process exponentially.
We submitted to seven different awards.
Of those seven awards, I won three
and some awards were still open.
Now, just a couple of days ago,
this is beyond the one-year case study that I did with them,
I got an additional three awards
and two of those actually came from, of all places,
the Firebird Book Awards.
Now, all in, I spent about $1,188.
That's $189 on the Pro plan, plus the 999 fast track boost.
The cost for entry fees was a total 382,
that's 39,
65,
75,
55,
which was for two different categories,
$89
and $59.
Book Award Pro gets about $806, when it's all said and done.
Now, the noteworthy thing is we came full circle
because Literary Titan, I had got it submitted again there.
I got the same perks,
got the editorial review as well as some promotion,
but sadly I didn't get a certificate this time around.
I'm not sure if they stopped doing that
within the year that had got it last,
but either way,
I was really, really happy with Literary Titan.
Big shout-out to Thomas Anderson
and the gang over at Literary Titan.
So, my total investment, add up the total cost
of the monthly Pro plan fee,
which is about $189 times 12,
and that's $2,268.
Now, remember, I also got to fast track boosts.
That was 999 a piece, so of course that was $1,998.
The actual investment
in Book Award Pro was a total of $4,266.
Book Award Pro gets, for all of their work, $2,619.
And considering all of the work that they put
into this and being able to work on my behalf,
it really was so much easier.
Now, had I had to do say the Plus plan
or the Essentials plan.
It would have required so much more work,
which I just don't have the discretionary time.
But if you are the type of person
that has the discretionary time,
then maybe those are going to be for you.
My final thoughts,
were there any knock-on effects?
Well, it's kind of hard to tell.
I need a more controlled environment
and since I already do promotion through my YouTube channel,
through my blog site, as well as running Amazon Ads,
I can't be entirely sure
that book awards themselves would increase the amount
of sales that I was getting.
Now, here's the really cool thing,
is there were some additional perks
from some of the awards they gave some prizes,
perks and editorial reviews.
You know, one-offs like what Literary Titan did,
or editorial reviews on a panel of reviewers was one
of them I really love.
They also will give you digital seals,
embossed seal stickers, certificates,
and so much more.
Not to mention there was additional marketing
through websites, social media,
and various things that are attached to each one
of these book award programs.
Not to mention, Book Award Pro wants
to see their clients succeed,
so they will trumpet your victories across all
of social media and that's at no extra cost.
I think that's pretty stinkin' cool.
And of course,
let's not forget to mention,
on the Pro plan you get media kits and instructions on how
to actually properly promote your book,
whether it has been nominated
or it has actually won an award.
Now, would I recommend spending over $4,000 on book awards?
Well, it depends on what you do with it
because it's not just as simple as plug and play.
"Well, I won some awards,
where's the money?"
"Have it come raining down on me."
"Bring that truck over here, full of gold coins,
that's exactly what I deserve."
No, you're going to need to actually,
you know, market and promote it.
This is a great opportunity if you're an award nominated
or an award winning author.
And also, don't spend what you can't afford to lose.
I could afford to lose that money
because it was a great case study,
and also to be honest with you,
I had that discretionary expense.
If you're the type of person that you're watching this
and going "well, that's all well and good Dale,
but I don't have $4,000."
Totally cool!
Remember, there's different tiers on those plans.
So even if you can't afford that top tier plan,
you can always walk it back to one
of the other two plans until you can't afford it.
So you can just test out any
of those number of plans and just do it yourself.
The Essential plan is more than sufficient,
or you can even jump up to the Plus plan.
So that way you're getting more intelligent targeting.
Hey, for more details about Book Award Pro,
you can visit my affiliate link
at dalelinks.com/bookawardpro
and speaking of Book Award Pro it wasn't too long ago,
I actually interviewed the founder
of Book Award Pro, Hannah Jacobson.
It's over here inside this interview,
I'll see ya on over there.