How We Rank Book Promo Sites

What “Best Fit” means

When you run a plan, sites are scored and sorted by how well they match your book. The default “Best fit” sort uses three tiers:

1. Exact sub-genre match— the site explicitly accepts your sub-genre (e.g. “Cozy Mystery”). These sites reach the most relevant readers.
2. Parent genre match— the site accepts the broad genre your sub-genre belongs to (e.g. “Mystery”). Still a strong match, but the audience is broader.
3. All-genre sites— sites that accept books across all genres. These tend to have larger lists but less targeted readers.

Within each tier, sites are sorted by claimed audience size (largest first). You can switch to other sort modes — Biggest reach, Cheapest, or Reach per dollar — at any time.

Claimed vs measured figures

Audience sizes shown in the directory are claimed figures— the subscriber or follower count each site reports on its own website. We display them because they’re the only consistent metric available across all sites, but we label them “claimed” throughout the planner so you know what you’re looking at.

We don’t have access to actual open rates, click-through rates, or download counts for most sites. When authors share results with us, we note patterns, but we don’t publish unverified performance claims. If a site stops reporting its audience size, we show “Not stated” rather than guessing.

How we keep data fresh

Promo sites change their pricing, requirements, and genre coverage regularly. We run automated checks on every listed site to catch changes:

• Every listing is re-checked automatically about once a month on a rolling daily schedule. A batch of sites is verified each day so the whole directory stays current without hammering any single site.
• If the page content hasn’t changed since the last check, the site is marked as verified automatically — no human review needed.
• If content has changed, the differences are flagged for manual review. We check the proposed changes before updating anything in the directory.
• Failing sites are re-checked within days. If a site goes offline for three consecutive checks it is automatically paused and hidden from the directory. Its detail page stays live with a notice so authors searching for it can find alternatives.

Every site page shows a “Last Verified” date. If you spot something out of date, let us know and we’ll re-check it.

Neutrality rules

GenrePulse runs its own book promotion service. Our listing appears in the directory alongside every other site and is ranked by the same scoring algorithm. We don’t boost our own position or suppress competitors.

• GenrePulse’s own entry is labelled “Run by GenrePulse”so you always know when you’re looking at our service.
• The “Best fit” sort is based entirely on genre match tier and claimed audience. Whether a site is ours has no effect on the score.
• Every site gets the same detail page with the same fields: cost, audience, requirements, genres, lead time, and verification date.
• We don’t accept payment from other promo sites for placement or higher rankings in the directory.

How sites get listed

We aim to list every legitimate book promotion site that accepts Kindle books. New sites are added when:

• Our weekly scan of author communities and promo-site directories surfaces them.
• Authors or site owners suggest them via our contact page.
• Site owners claim and verify their listing directly (coming soon).

All new sites go through a manual review before appearing in the directory. We check that the site is operational, has a clear submission process, and provides enough information for us to fill out the listing accurately.

Eligibility filtering

When the planner generates a stack for your book, it filters out sites your book doesn’t qualify for. A site is excluded if:

• Your book’s genre or sub-genre isn’t accepted.
• Your promo price point doesn’t match the site’s accepted price points.
• Your book has fewer reviews than the site requires.
• The site’s lead time is longer than the days until your promo starts.
• The site doesn’t accept KU-enrolled or wide-distribution books (as applicable).
• The site’s minimum time between features hasn’t passed since your last promo there.

Excluded sites are shown in a collapsible section with the specific reason, so you know exactly what to fix if you want to qualify in the future.