Notes From a BookBub Reject

Hi, my name is ID and I am a BookBub reject. (This is the part where you all say, "Hi, ID!")

Like thousands of other authors, I have submitted my proposal to BookBub, hoping they will accept my ungodly amount of money and promote my book, only to get the dreaded reject email back that my book (and my hard earned money) isn't right for them at this time.  Even though we all know that up to 80% of the books that are submitted to BookBub are not selected, it still stings. Especially after you've watched the videos and read the stats about how astronomical downloads are with the help of a BookBub promotion.  Despite the fact that BookBub charges more than any other promotional site, most authors make the money up easily through the buzz the site creates around their book--even if the book is free.  So, like most people, I was extremely disappointed to hear that my book, Transformation: The Clandestine Saga Book 1 was not approved--even though I wasn't too surprised. I really didn't have enough reviews (and still don't, honestly) but I was praying for a miracle, but instead I got an opportunity to try a different path, and I'm really happy with the outcome.
Transformation is Book 1 in The Clandestine Saga, paranormal romance

After I dried my tears, I decided to try taking the money I would have given to BookBub and use it to promote my book on other sites.  In my category, paranormal romance, promoting a free book on BookBub costs about $236.  So that was my budget--more or less. I started investigating other promo sites. There were several that I had used before, but I wanted at least one more big name site, one that cost a little more but was likely to deliver.  My initial Google search led me to this invaluable article from Readers in the Know and another tool I use frequently, KDROI, which allowed me to post to 27 sites in less than two minutes was also extremely helpful.  I also contacted a great service I have used before from Fiverr, BKnights, which you can find here, and Genre Pulse, which I have also used in the past with success.
This program is so simple and quick! Who wouldn't want to use it?
All told, I submitted my book to at least 48 different promo sites, and at least 19 picked it up.  (There may have been more that ran it but didn't contact me, though I tried to check each of them every day--I may have missed some.) While I have no way of knowing exactly which sites did the best, I do know which days each site ran my book and how I did on those days. I know that the days I ran the promo with Books Butterfly my downloads were unbelievable (more on that in a bit) and that on the day I ran no promos at all they were nothing to write home about.  So, despite not having the very best data I possibly could have kept (I'll know better for next time) here is the breakdown of what I did on each day of my five day promo and the results I got for my investment of about $250.

On Thursday Oct. 27, 2016, all I did to promote Transformation was to boost a post on Facebook, post in about 60 Facebook groups for free and discounted books, ask my friends to share my posts, and send out a few Tweets. On that day, I gave away 60 ebook copies.  At 7:00 AM, the book was ranked 41,645 in free books and by 11:00 at night when I went to bed, it was at 2781.

On Friday, Oct. 28, I ran the following promos:
BKnights ($11)
My Book Cave 
New Free Kindle Books.com ($5)
Book Goodies ($8)
Booktastik ($10)
The Daily Bookworm
The Choosy Bookworm
Bargain EBook Hunters, a.k.a. HotZippy--two sites ($46)
Book Angel
Readers in the Know
At 7:00 AM, the book was ranked 3221, and by midnight, it was 196. I had 745 downloads that day and it climbed to #3 in Paranormal/Vampires. I was pretty happy with these results. But wait, there's more--much more.
Who doesn't want to be number one?
On Saturday Oct. 29, I ran the following promos:
EBook Stage ($12)
Ebook Soda ($15)
Genre Pulse ($20--I had a half off coupon, which are pretty easy to find!)
EBook Hunters/HotZippy (there promos are two days)
Books Butterfly ($100)
At 12:00 noon, I had 174 downloads on the day, and it was #1 in Vampires, #4 in Coming of Age,  and 204 overall in Kindle Free eBooks.  By midnight, I had 621 downloads on the day and it was holding strong at 218 overall.
Number one in two categories? What?!?
On Sunday, Oct 30, I ran the following promos:
Books Butterfly (this is a three day promo and they say you get the biggest bang for you buck on the second day)
Book Raid
Mega Book Deals
BookZio
Free 99 Cent Books
Reading Deals
It's Write Now
At 1:00 AM, I had 11 downloads.  However, things really started to take off around 11:30 AM when I had 437 downloads. By midnight that night, I'd had 1577 downloads that day. Transformation had started the day ranked 222 in free books, but ended at 85. It was #1 in Vampires and Coming of Age for most of the day.
Top 100 Free!!

I didn't run any additional promos on Monday, October 31, because it was Halloween and I didn't think a lot of people would be looking for books. So the only promo that was still running was the one I did with Books Butterfly.  I peaked at 74 in overall free books and had another 493 downloads that day.

My total downloads for the five day period was 3637. I also had 1068 KDP pages read for the three books in The Clandestine Saga series. I sold twenty copies of the other two books in the series and one other copy of another book.

While I  think I may have gotten several downloads from the various sites I used, I want to talk about Books Butterfly specifically.  If you go to their page, you'll see that they have a lot of plans to choose from. I went with the Pure Gold deal. They actually guarantee you 1,200 downloads for your $100, which sounded great to me. Even if I didn't get anywhere near that number, I would have been happy. (Incidentally, there are some stipulations to that, so read them carefully.) Clearly, you can see how my download numbers changed when this promo kicked in. And the people there are great and very helpful. They respond really quickly to emails and were almost as excited about my success as I was.

And I guess that's what I want to talk about next--was this a success? Ultimately, I wasn't trying to replicate the results I may have gotten with BookBub. After all, it's impossible to know exactly what might have happened. What I wanted to do was get my book to #1 in its category--which I did in two categories--and break the top 100 in free books--which I also did. I was hopeful that I would make enough money in sales from my other two books and from KDP pages to pay for the promo within two weeks and that I would see continued sales for at least a month afterwards. I was also hoping to get some pre-orders for the fourth book in the series, Absolution, which will be released on December 1.  Something else that was really cool was the large amount of downloads I had in other countries, especially Canada, Australia, and the UK.

Two weeks out from the day my promo ended, I have made $145.00 from sales of the three books in the series, and my KDP page count is 62,237 which translates as roughly $300.  Transformation has ranked as high as 9779 overall  and is currently ranked 17,498. And I've had 19 preorders for Absolution, which is a lot better than most of my new releases.

Did this BookBub Reject bounce back and run a successful free book promo? I think so! What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Also, if you've managed to run a successful book promo, let us know how.  I will say, I think part of the success from this promo is due to the fact that it was book 1 in a series. I'm not sure if I would have made my money back so quickly if it hadn't been for the next two books in the series. I do hope more reviews come in, however, as that has been one area where I'm still lacking.

Thanks for reading this extra long post! And if you'd like to check out Cadence Findley, Vampire Hunter, you can find Transformation here.