Book promo -- UGH. It's really not the fun part, is it?
If there's a book promo opportunity out there, I've probably tried it. I've spent THOUSANDS on book promotions and hundreds of hours on research. Maybe I can save you some time.
So my Bookbub experience seemed to be different than most. Firstly, I applied only once. Instead of the year of rejections that I was expecting, I got a personalized email asking me to add another platform. I added it and was given the deal.
My book, Kingdom Cold, ran in the Fantasy category in the US and Internationally. 1,800,000 people. The cost of the promotion was $700 in March of 2019. The book was discounted to 99 cents. I also had almost 100 reviews at the time.
Everywhere I read said that BookBub was the holy grail of book promotions and I wanted to maximize the effect. Here's what I did.
25 other PAID book promo sites
30 other FREE book promo sites
2 book fairs
10 newsletter swaps
2 Blog tours
BB Marketing
AMS Marketing
Facebook Ads
Facebook Featured Page Post
My Bookbub was on a Monday so I spread the ads out from the Sunday before through the entire week, hoping to hold my place when my ranking rose.
The Bookbub email went out, but it didn't go everywhere at once. My sister got it at 6am and my mother didn't get it until 2 pm, even though everyone was checking all day.
I don't think I knew beforehand that the Bookbub editors write the copy for your ad and was pleasantly surprised. Here's a screenshot of my ad in the email.
I opened the email and my heart stopped one of MY FAVORITE AUTHORS had a BookBub deal the same day. We had nearly the same genre, hers YA Dystopian, and mine YA Fantasy, but hers was a well-known best-seller and mine was not. Here I was looking at the email with my promo and all I could think about was a different writer's book. I do think that has something to do with my lack of a positive result.
Amazon sales:
The first day I sold 565 books.
The second 81.
The third 71.
It was a sharp decline after that.
Keep in mind that I had many other promos going. Now, you're maybe you're thinking-- that's not that bad. 717 at 99 cents. BAM made your money back... except the royalty for a 99 cent book on Amazon is 30 cents ish. Oh... yeah.
BUT what about the sell-through to other books?
I had the second book in this series available for pre-order but I only sold about 10.
What about other platforms?
A combined 228 books sold on other platforms (Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Kobo).
My takeaway, if you're not well-known, run a FREE Bookbub feature. I'd rather run a free one and have 20,000 books out there than 700, 30 cent books out there.
There are positives from this. On Goodreads, I have a lot more people reading and reviewing my book. I have a lot of people adding my books to their want-to-read lists. More pre-orders for book 2 are coming in. People are taking a look at my previously published work.
Spent: $3,000
Earned: $400
Most book promotion sites have huge DEAD lists. Check their twitters, facebooks, instagrams. Are people liking their posts? Are they getting retweeted? If not, don't do it.
Promos worth doing: Bookbub, Ereader News Today, Free Booksy, Robbin Reads. (Only when promoting a FREE book). Don't bother with a 99 cent or more promo. There are too many free books out there to contend with.
I did enjoy 3 days at Number 1 in my category which I consider to be a huge success. I also have a new regular stream of sales that range from 4-6 sales per day at full price. It's all about the long game. Best of luck with your promos. Feel free to ask me questions. <3
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