My Story Cartel Experience

Byaudenjohnson

Story Cartel makes your book available to readers for free for a limited time. Readers download it in exchange for an honest review. A review get readers entered into Story Cartel’s monthly contest where they can win things like an Amazon gift card.

“The books you see on Story Cartel are all offered free by generous authors in exchange for your honest review. For book lovers, Story Cartel is a resource to discover great books and fresh authors; for authors, it’s a platform to build deeper relationships with readers. As long as it meets our guidelines, any author can launch their book on Story Cartel.”

I mentioned before that I was trying this out with The Sciell. I didn’t have to pay anything because of BookBaby. To put one book on Story Cartel, you need a token which costs $30. Not bad.

The Sciell was on Story Cartel for 20 days and I got 2 reviews out of it. Given that reviews are so difficult to come by, I’d say Story Cartel worked. Now, these reviews are 3 stars, which means they have no effect on my book sales. But, that’s how the publishing industry works. Everything is a gamble.

I would say Story Cartel is not for someone who doesn’t have a significant fan base. The site doesn’t do anything, for free, to tell readers about your book. You have to do that yourself. To get the word out, I:

  • Talked about it on Twitter
  • Blogged about it
  • Ran 2 Facebook ads
  • I change my book’s message from “Darkness isn’t evil just angry” to “Family runs deeper than blood”
  • I mentioned it on 2 Goodreads groups I’m active in
Overall, I’m reluctant to say my Story Cartel experience was a success because reading case studies, I learned that some people got thousands of downloads and over twenty reviews. The reviews I got haven’t led to book sales or increased word of mouth. As mentioned earlier, from other Story Cartel experience I’ve read, people have gotten a lot of positive reviews through this site. I would say Story Cartel is worth a try. 

Here are some more Story Cartel stories
The Story Cartel Experience 
How I got more book reviews using Story Cartel
My Story Cartel Experience

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