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Bookbub has, for a long time now, been regarded as the gold standard in marketing your book. But it has also been incredibly difficult to land a spot there.
Two authors who were fortunate enough to be accepted discuss whether the process was worthwhile, what they think got them accepted, and what the results of their ads were.
#IndieAuthorFringe Is Bookbub still worth the money? @rachelamphlett @DavidPenny_ http://bit.ly/2r6MFKV Share on X
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Thank you so much for this excellent interview. I learned a LOT. Happily, I am already doing a few of these things. Unhappily, I am not yet selling enough to cross over into the black ink, though Book Four is due out in October (2019). Such a sharp learning curve! :/ Maggie
That was fascinating–thanks David and Rachel. I recently had my first BookBub promo and have earned over 10X the price of the ad in 11 days. That sounds more like David’s results; unlike him, I’m wide and 30-35% of my sales are from non-Amazon platforms. Interestingly, I haven’t seen as big a jump in audiobook sales as I’d expect from such a successful promo, and nothing seems to move the needle much on my print sales. Like David, I pitched for a historical mystery slot and was put in the Historical category, which is interesting because I do way better on Amazon in the mystery categories.
I think what makes Rachel’s BookBub results more like a regular promo with, say, Freebooksy is that she’s avoiding the US market. So far (and I’m well familiar with Amazon’s 30/60/90 day cliffs so I’m not getting too excited!) I’ve noted much more resilience in the long tail than before the BookBub. I don’t really know why this is, but I’ll take it.
Great insight into Bookbub. If I may, I’d like to offer up my own experience?
I finally got a free one for a permafree book after my 5th try. The book was the first in a 9 book series and it was wide. The first three times I submitted, it was not wide. It was only the second time I’d submitted it as a free book. it’s a romantic mystery with lesbian themes. I submitted it worldwide in the LGBT category which is far less expensive than any of the other categories it fits.
The book did well with over 11,000 downloads on Amazon alone and thousands more from other retailers. The tail was more than 60 days long as readers read that book then picked up the other individual books in the series (in succession, as David mentioned) and also boxed sets.
Interestingly, a few weeks after the Bookbub ad ran (March 1st, 2017) I started to see upticks in sales of the two books out so far in my cozy series and of my two romance books. All have crossover characters from the nine book series.
From Amazon alone, I made 10 times my money during the month of March. Sales worldwide tacked on another 25% above Amazon. Now, 90 days out, my Amazon sales have returned to normal but wide sales continue to grow.