referral program

Last year I created a referral program for our sister site, Shameless Book Deals, where authors/publishers could get themselves a unique link they could send readers to for the purpose of signing up to our newsletter. In return the authors/publishers would earn credit they could use for promotions.

Now that the referral program on SBD has been running for a while and I've got all the kinks (no pun intended) worked out I am ready to move this feature over to Bad Boy Romance and The Sweetest Romance. I'm excited to get this program off the ground with some grand opening special bonuses, and some incentives for readers as well, so without further ado…

THE BAD BOY ROMANCE REFERRAL PROGRAM

The Bad Boy Romance Referral Program will officially start in the month of August 2025. Signups are open as of now, but I won't process them until shortly before August so people don't start sending referrals before the program starts and so the referral grand opening starts at the same time as the Bookfunnel giveaway (details below)

You can view a more detailed description, terms and conditions, and sign to the referral program HERE, but the concise version is that you send people to your own unique BBR signup link, they are tagged as having come from you, each month I tally up the new active subscribers attributed to each of you referral partners and you receive $0.50 USD in Bad Boy Romance credit (which you use via your own coupon code on the promotion request form) per active subscriber. In addition to that…

REFERRAL PROGRAM GRAND OPENING SPECIAL BONUSES

For this first month only, August 2025, I will be giving away some extra bonuses for the top referral partners, who send us the most active subscribers.

• 1st: $100 Amazon GC
• 2nd: $50 Amazon GC
• 3rd $25 Amazon GC

WELCOME BONUS

Everybody who signs up to the referral program gets $5 added to their credit straight away. Please note, however, that you only get sent your code when we tally up the active subscribers attributed to you each month, so if no subscribers are ever attributed to your unique signup form/tag, then you would never see that credit.

NOTE FOR INACTIVE AUTHORS/PUBLISHERS

I understand that Bad Boy Romance has been operating for a long time now and many of you may have moved on to focus on other genres or ceased publishing entirely. At the same time, while you were active in bad boy romance you may have built up your own community of readers who clearly had an interest in the genre. It may be relevant to them to hear about a service like our newsletter and it would be great for us to have them on board. Taking part in the Bad Boy Romance Referral Program, especially in the opening month since it gives you a chance at the grand opening bonuses, gets you credit with BBR. Even if you aren’t actively publishing, if you still have any books for sale then credit with BBR is a nice no-risk way to set a discount and create a promotion for one or more of your books that may not have been promoted in quite a while. A little bump in royalties never hurt anybody!

FOR ACTIVE AUTHORS/PUBLISHERS

Conventional marketing wisdom says that it’s a good thing for potential customers to see your promoted goods/services multiple times, so let’s make sure your readers see your books in our communications as well as yours! Lower the costs of your usual marketing expenses with BBR credit and, in this first month at least, be in to win and help celebrate the launch of the program. The more active authors/publishers who promote with us, the more interesting our newsletters are and the happier our subscribers are, everybody wins 🙂

Bookfunnel Group Promo

I've been a user of Bookfunnel for several years now but until earlier this year I had never used it for more than its original purpose where I could host freebie books for my newsletter subscribers. I've always been happy with what they do, especially how they support readers who have problems with downloading/sideloading the books. Saves me on handling tech-support tickets! However, over the years they have introduced more functionality to their services and I thought it was about time I extracted a little more value out of my subscription, so earlier this year I organised what they call a ‘group promo' on Bookfunnel for Shameless Book Deals, and now I am doing one for Bad Boy Romance to coincide with the referral program grand opening.

This Bookfunnel Group Promo allows a group of us to make content available to new and existing subscribers, all available in one place and we all promote that group promo to our own lists so we can grow our subscriber base.

Since this group promo is brought to you by Bad Boy Romance… it is obviously bad boy romance focused, so if you are an author in the sub-genre and have a story you can include in the group promo, that will be awesome!

Here's the link to the Bad Boy Romance Group Promo – March 2025

Here's the link to general information on Bookfunnel

Here's the link to information specific to Bookfunnel Group Promos

I'd love for you to join this group promo with me!

You will need a Bookfunnel account to do so, and the easiest way to have it build your mailing list is if your mailing list is with one of the services that Bookfunnel integrates with (see general information above). Let me know if you'd like to be part of it, you've tried to join, but you're having any problems and need some help to do so.

Additional Giveaway for Readers

On top of the Bookfunnel Promotion I will be doing an additional giveaway for Bad Boy Romance subscribers in August 2025, so you have even more of a reason to refer them to us.

1st Prize: $50 Amazon GC
2nd Prize: $25 Amazon GC
3rd Prize: $10 Amazon GC

Readers will get 1 entry simply for being subscribed to the BBR newsletter and another entry for each comment they leave on a book promoted during August, but only 1 comment per book will be counted for this purpose. Winners will be drawn at random in early September, so they must have an active subscription at that point.