The contacts database is worth the price alone. Storiad is like a DIY marketing manager for authors The amount of time it saves just in finding contact information for potential book marketing. Given that book writers almost always write and publish more than just books it would be great if the tool was a fully fledged CRM for an author that tracked not only contacts and marketing outreach but also submissions of whatever type of writing (article, book, screenplay, play, poem etc., proposals, query letters) to literary magazines, publications, editors, agents, contests. etc.

While the database of contacts would seem quite useful, it's also harder to navigate than I would like. It's hard to know which categories to choose for my non-fiction book, and even when I do, it's full of irrelevant listings and categories, with no way to filter down more finely (like -Christian for example). And then when I find contacts that seem like they might be relevant, there's no suggestions on what to do with their information. One contact had a website link only, and when I went to their website, their was nothing that suggested they were interested in taking on board a new book in some form.

I didn't even know that the email templates existed until I stumbled onto them after starting a pretend email. And the fact that I have to use the Storiad system to send emails is not ideal. I think I'll be using the DB to find names and then sourcing my own contact methods outside of Storiad, so I'm in control. There's also no way of knowing how receptive any of these contacts are to me reaching out, so I lack the confidence that my efforts will get results.

And the Marketing Plan wizard is a very odd user experience - I tell the site about my book, can pick only ONE thing to learn about, and then have to sit there for 30 seconds or more while it generates a "customised" set of information. This is supposed to save me time, not waste it.

Sure, for some questions, like "the top influencers" maybe it needs to be tailored to the genre, but for things like "the difference between marketing and publicising" I really don't understand why I have to sit there for 30 seconds to get generic recommendations. This content would be better off as a static resource that I can access through a knowledge hub at my leisure. Honestly, I should only have to enter my book details once, and then have access to customised answers to EVERY question that I can go back to at any time.

And it's very hard to get back and choose a different topic. Half the time the "Ask again" option is missing, and I end up having to re-enter all my book criteria all over again, with no way to save what I've done. All I can see to do is copy and paste the text out of each answer into a word processing document so I have some way of coming back to it again later.

I have no need of a website or calculators, as that's my area of strength, so the only value for me is the contacts, the templates and maybe the marketing plan wizard (but I lack the patience to keep using it).

I really wanted to like this tool, but it's just not sufficiently useful from my perspective.

At this point, I MIGHT keep Storiad just so I can go back to the list of contacts and email templates in future if I want to, but I'm not sure that a well done Google search might not just get me as far.

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I wish we could export the contacts database and email them via our own email. It would take too long to go through every single contact, emailing them one by one

I'm giving 3 Stars because the database of contacts is invaluable! I would give it a 4 star if there was a way to access the contacts without all the layers in more of a true database format. I understand that Storiad might not want all the contacts available for batch mailings, but this really needs work on the backend as well as the Author pages. All that said, if you’re an Author, you should get this deal.

I like the layout and I'm excited to have a database for my books. Since users cannot modify the database, I have sent messages to the development team with my suggestions.Since most books are published in several formats, each book entered into the system needs places to enter several ISBNs, not one.Audiobooks need a place for that info.The book titles in the dashboard may need to be smaller to expose more of the title--especially if each format of the book will require its own catalog entry instead of grouped together.I'm hoping to grow with this Storiad database as it hopefully grows in its abilities.

I recently had the opportunity to explore Storyaid, a platform designed to assist authors in promoting their work. While my experience has been largely positive, there are some areas where I believe improvements could be made.

Firstly, I encountered an initial hiccup when accessing the website. However, I must commend the Storyaid team for their prompt and effective resolution of this issue, displaying their commitment to user satisfaction.

As a fantasy fiction author, I was pleasantly surprised to find a substantial collection of fantasy fiction titles within the database. This discovery has proven invaluable to me, as it provides a wealth of resources for research and inspiration as I continue to develop my own fantasy worlds.

One highlight was my interaction with Book of the Day, a promotional service available through Storyaid. They offered an area for me to upload my second book, "Shadows Unveiled," free of charge. This opportunity to reach a broader audience has been a significant benefit to my author journey.

However, my primary critique lies with the Storyaid website itself. As a fiction writer, I value the creative aspect of presenting my work, which I've achieved through my Wix website. Regrettably, I found Storyaid's website-building capabilities to be limited, preventing me from adding additional pages or customizing it to suit my creative vision. As a result, I'm unlikely to use this platform extensively for website creation.

In conclusion, Storyaid is undoubtedly a valuable resource for authors, particularly in the realm of book promotion and discovering fellow authors' works. Nevertheless, improvements in website customization options could make it an even more compelling tool for creative writers like myself. I look forward to seeing how the platform evolves in the future.

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I stumbled over Storiad around early-2020 and loved what they had then. Sadly, my attention was elsewhere and I lost track of the tool.

As an indie author, I wear many hats one of many includes book marketer. Well, for whatever reason, I lose that hat a lot more than I care to admit. Because I'm not as attentive to my book marketing responsibilities, obviously, I don't get as many sales or new readers. Then, when I'm set to do a big promotion, I'm ill-equipped for it, so I lose a lot of time on busy tasks that can otherwise be automated.

Enter Storiad. I've been an avid AppSumo customer for years now, so when I saw Storiad was available for lifetime access, I lost it. Still curious if the lifetime access was worth it, I popped back onto their site and WOW!

Three years made a tremendous difference. The user interface is clean and clear, everything is intuitive. And, if I was ever lost or needed clarification, there were brief instructions or video tutorials to get me through it.

I had a couple of issues, but Storiad Support resolved them fast. The first issue was when I went to redeem the AppSumo code, and they were FAST to handle it. Then, another issue came up where I was confused about the upload limits for the Book Profile pages. And, they clarified that it's 10MB for the ebook sample, and 5MB for the audio sample.

SIDE NOTE: The Author Profile and Book Profiles are really professional, almost like a better version of what Amazon has.

The main reason I got it was for the ridiculous database of contacts. Over forty-thousand contacts! I scoured through the options and it seems endless, so the keyword search feature helps to narrow down my searches so I'm not overwhelmed. Will I need to use every contact? Most likely not, but the ones I do see are tremendous.

There's an email outbox, so if I'm communicating an upcoming release, or searching out editorial reviews, I can get it all done at once. They have ready-made templates where I can customize what I'm sending out if I'm emailing a group of contacts.

I've bought dozens of deals on AppSumo over the years, but this one is, by far, my favorite and is the exact thing I needed in my author business.

Five well-earned tacos!

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TL;DR Storiad is already a great tool for market research and outreach, and it has the potential to be even better as the product matures.
The good:
The contacts database alone is worth the price of the LTD.

The marketing wizard is chock-full of ideas. Some are things every author has heard before, but others are novel concepts.

The Storiad owner is responsive and helpful. When I emailed, I received an immediate, personalized reply. Can’t get better than that.

The gonna be good:

The interface could use tweaking. There’s a dashboard where you record information about your book, but audiobook format is missing.

Authors can only record a single publisher and publication date for each book. Different formats often have different publication dates. A simple solution is to track the information for each format separately on the Storiad dashboard.

Even though my book is published, my Storiad dashboard proclaims “No books published yet.” I believe this just means that I don’t have any books for through Storiad, but I’m not sure.

The marketing wizard includes limited genres for fiction, and non-genre fiction (i.e. Literary Fiction) is completely missing. As a result, all my Storiad marketing plans are for general fiction—helpful, but very broad.

Storiad includes automatically populated email templates to make using their extensive contact database fast and efficient. I think this could be a significant feature, but the templates I tested were almost identical regardless of whom I was contacting.

Some of the auto-populated email fields also don’t seem accurate. For example, I’ve entered a Book Description on the dashboard, but when I use the wizard to email a book blogger, Storiad prompts “[Insert your book summary here].” Huh? How is that different from my Book Description, and where do I enter it?

The “Getting Started” videos are prominent when you first sign up for Storiad but afterward somewhat hidden. I’d suggest putting a link to a page where users can access the videos on the left of the screen, along with the links to the Author Website and Marketing Wizard.

Everything else:

There are a couple of IMHO absolute basics that are missing. AFAIK, there’s no way to change your username or, more important, password without help from Storiad staff.

The website wizard (used to create your author website) defaulted to the wrong email address but never sent a confirmation email when I attempted to correct the address. I tried both my own branded email address and my Outlook author email address, but neither one worked. I already have a website, so I scrapped the idea of creating one in Storiad.

Conclusion:

It’s obvious the person behind Storiad put a lot of work and thought into what authors need to succeed in today’s market. Access to the Storiad contact database alone is worth the price of admission. If you’re willing to take a few risks—and what author isn’t?—then I’d suggest grabbing Storiad while the LTD is still available.

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It was specified on the deal page and 100 times in the questions....this is in one language.

Now that we have that out of the way...

I have not fully built out an author page yet, I dont have my own book yet, but I have spent a few hours in the backend and build a page that I then deleted to test out the platform...and it is solid and full featured.

The sites you can build are nice and are simple to set up, but if you want look to be pretty much infinitely customizable, but the initial templates are solid.

The outreach portion of it is interesting and something I have not seen anywhere else. They not only have a database of editors, reviewers, blog reviewers, podcasters, etc so that you can go through, find the ones most applicable to your book, or books, and then reach out to get them to review, collab, etc your book.

I can see 100 different uses for this aside from straight up asking if they would like to review your book, so let your promotional imagination run and out hustle the other authors. btw like marketing anything a lot of the success is the hustle.

If you write books, if you want to write a book, if you have clients that write books, then this is a great deal. It looks like they have overhauled it over the past two years so my guess is that it just gets better.

Pros-not complicated to setup and use, a full outreach platform for writers with a database and email tool

Cons-they have some new YT vids, but hopefully they do a lot more of them going forward. Both to help us maximize the platform and to teach us how to market and sell books.

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Disclaimer: I looked right over this tool and went for the fresh shiny ai toys. Nevertheless, as a content creator it is important for me to always have ways to produce and get my content out there. When I wrote my first back about 15 years ago there was no such information even available. I was in the dark about everything. I was like a kid who had wondered off the camping trail at summer camp back in 1978 while attending a Camp Jamboree with the Boyscouts after just winning the knot tying competition... Wait? Did I just share a personal story of something that happened many years ago that could possibly make a best seller. "How I Got Back On Track One Summer" Okay, yeah that was a true story but now I can see how actually becoming a best selling author can now become a reality with a tool like Storiad.

Warning, this tool will not be for everyone and do not be dismayed by the one star review from a person who wished it had Spanish, yet they were told it does not do Spanish language. Appsumo c'mon we have to get this fixed. Okay now back to the tool. I logged in looked around and thought to myself. "For this price as a content creator, I would be a SaaS fool not to pick this up" Why? It does everything they say it does. I helps you plan your book launch. Now you don't have to pay some Face Book or IG Guru 15k to help you launch a book and estimate your earnings based on demographics and genre. It even gives you a Wordpress site. Add water, microwave for 2 mins and your website is ready. No really it was just that simple.
I showed this tool mixed with 2 other Black Friday tools and made a "Reading Hack Pack" out of it. You can see that first hand by going here.
https://youtube.com/live/ULR6hIqbegA

This tool is clean, nice, and neat. The people who designed it really know books. Did I mention that they give you contact information for over 42k, Book bloggers, and book contacts, whom you can reach out to, and gain traction on your book to help you become a best seller by getting it into the hands in as many people as possible.

Thank you Appsumo for bringing Storiad here. I feel like it was a missing piece to my content strategy.

Pros:
+Website created in literally seconds
+Well Designed

Cons:
-Need more help files
-Need a step by step (what goes where, when does it go there type of instructions)

+/- Not sure if it has this so I put pro and con. I need letters or templates on how to approach and or write 42k contacts. I need to know what to say to them and how to set it up. I need videos of how to approach the big boys. If it have this then it is a double ++ but if it does not then it is a double - -

Overall fine tool and I highly recommend to anyone wishing to establish their authorship in a very competitive landscape.

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