Annabelle’s Comments (group member since Apr 15, 2017)

Annabelle’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I agree, Alex. I don't think free promotions are worth it in general anymore. In the past, you could make a book free and it would count toward your sales and boost your ratings and visibility. It's not true anymore. A freebie *might* be worth it on Bookbub, but like I said, I'm not sure.

However, a freebie could be worth it in general if it's the first in the series and someone who downloads it will read all your other books.

Alex: I was using it for different books each time. But the downloads still diminished each time.

It used to be easy to get them to accept you. Actually, in 2010 or so, sometimes they'd just volunteer to advertise your book for free, I heard. It's gotten progressively more difficult, and lately it's nearly impossible. The last few times I've submitted, I've gotten rejected, so I'm not sure if they'll ever accept me again... and I'd like to know if it's worth putting in the effort.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make peace with the fact that they might not ever accept me again, lol.

I'm sure most of you have heard about Bookbub... it's probably the leading ebook advertiser. I've had a bunch of books advertised there as freebies, and even though it's pricey, let me tell you that in the past, it's been worth it. For a $100 ad, I would end up making something on the order of $3,000. And I'd usually get about 50-100 reviews.

How do you earn $3,000 for a free ad? I don't entirely understand myself. But when you advertise for free, your KU pages jump for some reason. A lot. And if there's a sequel, that will jump considerably. And the sales continue even when the book is no longer free.

That said, every ad I've run on Bookbub has worked worse than the last ad. The number of downloaded freebies for the last ad I ran was 20% of what it was for the first ad I ran there.

And I've been researching what happens to the books advertised there. A week after the freebies come out, it doesn't seem like their ranking is that great... usually above 10,000. And it doesn't seem like they have that many new reviews. Which makes me think that even if people download the freebies, they're not reading them.

On top of that, they seem to mostly be trying to move away from indie books. I see more and more trad published books on there. And fewer free books.

Has anyone else had a recent experience with Bookbub?

Hi all! My name is Annabelle Costa and I write chick lit. It ranges from slightly steamy to sweet. I look forward to participating!