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Has Anyone Worked With Bookbub?
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Owen wrote: "Browsing the Bookbub provides a good deal of useful info to consider before submitting. For example, this is what they say about reviews:
'While there is no specific “minimum requirement” for rev..."
I do have one book with four reviews, all 4- and 5-star on Amazon, averaging to 4.3. All are verified purchases, so maybe I should give Bookbub a try. Unfortunately the book is a two-novella collection priced at only $2.99. Not sure it would be worthwhile.
'While there is no specific “minimum requirement” for rev..."
I do have one book with four reviews, all 4- and 5-star on Amazon, averaging to 4.3. All are verified purchases, so maybe I should give Bookbub a try. Unfortunately the book is a two-novella collection priced at only $2.99. Not sure it would be worthwhile.
It was in the parenting category, nonfiction. I was quite appalled.
I am hoping to run a promo with them next month. If my promo gets approved, I'll be happy to share the results after the dust settles.
My promo with them was a huge waste of money. For one, you can't be in Kindle Select and use them. And two, if you are running a "free" book, you have to count on Amazon to MATCH it BEFORE your ad with BB runs or they will NOT run it and you will lose your money (yes, this happened to me and I think it's because Amazon is getting wise to this little price match tactic authors are using. So, when you send in the price match request for FREE they are NOT quick to match it and you have no idea when they will, making it difficult to schedule the giveaway.) You are either stuck having your book for free for two weeks to make SURE Amazon matches the price in time, or you're stuck with Amazon NOT doing it in time and losing around 200 bucks, which happened with me.
There is another site that pro-rates the results. Meaning you only pay for what they got you. That is a money racket since you end up basically paying them for SHIT results that you would have gotten without them. Forget the name of this particular one.
A lot of this has to do with timing, genre, and audience size. And I'm still working out the fine tuning of all of that.
Lucian wrote: "My promo with them was a huge waste of money. For one, you can't be in Kindle Select and use them. And two, if you are running a "free" book, you have to count on Amazon to MATCH it BEFORE your ad ..."Do you have a specific reference from BookBub for this? I've never seen this mentioned on the BookBub site and in talking directly to them, we said our books were in KDP Select and they did not say that disqualified them. We were asking them specifically about free promotions vs discount to clarify some info they published regarding average returns.
If BookBub does not accept books in KDP Select, that would be a major issue, so it would be nice to have it verified directly from BookBub so people in Select know not to apply.
I contacted BookBub on the question of books being in KDP Select and received the following response from Brianna Duff, Account Coordinator at Bookbub:"Many of our partners use KDP Select to set up their discount for their BookBub Featured Deal."
So yes, you can use BookBub if your book is in KDP Select.
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I would like to hear from anyone who has had a "featured deal" on Bookbub, as opposed to a Bookbub ad. My Kindle book (genre, historical fiction; subject, pre- and post-contact Hawaii) is enrolled in KDP Select. The regular price is $2.99. I am considering submitting it for a featured deal in September, after my next 90-day KDP Select enrollment period begins. I don't want to give the book away. (I did that earlier this year on Amazon, netting more than 800 downloads, to no effect since then as far as I can tell.) I plan to offer it for five days at $1.99.Bookbub says paid downloads for all markets "average" 3,300 on deals for historical novels. (Paid downloads limited to the U.S. market average about 2,700.) Can anyone tell me what sales numbers they actually saw for their respective genres vs. Bookbub's averages? Secondly, what was your price point? Finally, did you elect to promote in all markets, or did you limit your promotion to the U.S.?
Lucian wrote: "My promo with them was a huge waste of money. For one, you can't be in Kindle Select and use them. And two, if you are running a "free" book, you have to count on Amazon to MATCH it BEFORE your ad ..."Lucian, all of Amazon's matchings/approvals/anything they do has slowed down.
There are about 48,000 books in "Free Kindle," every day.
For instance, in the past (till about 2 yrs ago), if you had your book on free promo it went back to the original price at around 3:30 am EST, which is 12:30 PST (Seattle time). Now with the many books being shuffled it can take a lot longer. One time it took till 5:30 am, I was already up and the price had not been adjusted. But, that's what happens when lot's of files are in queue.
My book was a featured deal on bookbub, but it was in 2015 so things may have changed since then. I've never been selected again since. It was a sci-fi novel which was reduced from £2.99 to £0.99 in a Kindle countdown deal. From memory I had something like 10 reviews on amazon.co.uk when it was selected for a UK only featured deal. I had something like 200 sales in a couple of days, bringing it to no.1 in technothrillers in the UK and top 10 Sci-Fi. From my experience I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them and use them again, if only I could get selected...
There's some interesting comments on here. I looked into using them to promote my book launch, but they don't do that.
They want free books, not just free in KU (and really preferably exclusivity on that free price promo).
They want books to have at least 15 good reviews.
So once I get that I might well try them.
I too have seen plenty of authors say it's worth it.
I had a bookbub featured deal on my historical fiction (set in 1915 America, usually priced 2.99 and in Kindle Select) back in April of this year. It was a one-day free promotion and ended up getting way more downloads than the average stated on the bookbub pricing page. Since it was the first book in a series, it was only a matter of hours before I saw profit during the free promotion, because of sales of the sequels. As far as the actual book that was on free promotion that day, it sold enough and was read enough on Kindle Unlimited in the week that followed that it was enough to recoup the ad cost plus more. Stephen, it would be like winning the lotto if you can get an ad with them on your first try next month, especially if you have specific dates in mind. They turn down about 90% of submissions and are almost certain to do so if the author specifies the promo date. I had to submit every month for 8 months before I was approved for a spot with them.
For anyone who is lucky enough to get a feature with BB, I definitely recommend submitting for worldwide instead of only US. Why wouldn't you want to get maximum global exposure? It's the most exposure your book will ever get for the price imo. My international sales as a result of this promo were enough to pay for the entire Bookbub ad, and then some. I think it was only like $30 extra to go out in the newsletters for the other countries anyway.
Good luck to all submitting for a feature!
Marie Silk wrote: "I had a bookbub featured deal on my historical fiction (set in 1915 America, usually priced 2.99 and in Kindle Select) back in April of this year. It was a one-day free promotion and ended up getti..."Thanks, Marie. I plan to submit with flexible dates when my new Kindle Select enrollment period starts on Sept. 11. Since I don't have a series, I'll go for sales at 99 cents. I have no expectation that they'll accept my initial submission, but I'll keep trying.
My Christmas book was accepted for a BookBub deal for Chick Lit in Dec. 2015. At the time, I had just published the sequel and had 4 books out, none very successful. The book had a templated CreateSpace cover and 23 reviews. It was a free promo and got over 20,000 downloads in 13 countries. I paid $125 and the sequel and other books sold enough to make me a good profit. The book got an additional 60 reviews. Since then, they haven't accepted any of my other books for promos. They reject 80% of requests due to volume. I think their total reach is at 7,000,000. So I'm here to say that you never know. Keep trying. I was shocked when my little book was accepted. They're the motherlode of advertisers.
Definitely go for it. Thanks to BookBub my debut novel knocked the mighty Outlander by Barbara Gabaldon off the #1 slot for almost a week. It has gone on to be my best seller of three books.
My second book has been accepted twice too. It can be done.
I did not have loads of reviews - they truly evaluate the books by reading them. I haven't been submitting recently as I didn't want to be greedy! And, of course, they need long gaps between advertising the same book. I'm probably going to miss out for a while as I have a series in progress and I don't think they take sequels.
Anna Faversham wrote: "Definitely go for it. Thanks to BookBub my debut novel knocked the mighty Outlander by Barbara Gabaldon off the #1 slot for almost a week. It has gone on to be my best seller of three books.
My..."
No kidding? They don't just "look inside"? They actually read the whole book?
I doubt they read the whole book. I usually hear back from them 2 days after submitting for a promo. Besides, how would they have access to your whole book?
The blurb that the Bookbub editor wrote for my featured deal sounded like the editor must have read my book. I couldn't believe it!
My experience with Bookbub:They have gotten WAY more competitive in the last year or so. Many fewer free books are featured and since they basically only advertise freebies by indie authors, that means fewer indie books.
They will almost never promote free books that aren't part of a series anymore.
When I used them a few months ago, I got 20,000 downloads. I got about 30 new reviews on that book. About 150,000 KDP pages read. About 1,000 sales of the sequel.
Worth it? Definitely! That said, the boost didn't stick, so sales dropped back down to baseline after about a month.
Stephen said: No kidding? They don't just "look inside"? They actually read the whole book? Well, as Marie says, it certainly looks that way. Not only was the blurb they wrote accurate but they also suggested I change from Historical Romance to Historical. I'd been wavering as to which genre the book fell into and I'd become increasingly aware that it was not following the formula for historical romance. It was more historical with romance. They gave me the confidence to sit comfortably in a genre.
It's also a question of they got my Time Travel Romance onto some good 'Also Boughts'. That, I think, has made the long term difference, though it is no longer selling anywhere near as well as in the first six months after.
However, for those of you with doubts, here's something to feed them: I had to pay considerably more for an ad in the Historical Genre than in the Historical Romance genre - but they have more readers in that genre They are, after all, running a business - but they run it well as far as I can see.
yes, I wasted lot of money as a new writer not knowing any better.
Becoming an author has been the longest learning curve I have ever known.
Annabelle wrote: "My experience with Bookbub:They have gotten WAY more competitive in the last year or so. Many fewer free books are featured and since they basically only advertise freebies by indie authors, that..."
Wow! :-O
Totally amazing figures. Well done xx
Last year my debut novel was accepted for a bookbub ad. It's a women's fiction/contemporary romance. At the time it had about 70 reviews with a 4.6 rating. I was very pleased with the results. It was expensive. 700$. I was running a .99 cent countdown deal and I sold over 1,500 books on the day my book was promoted by them. Also, my unlimited reads were through the roof. More than I'd ever had. For over a month I averaged anywhere from 8,000 - 12,000 pages read a day. I made just as much money on pages read as I did on sales. Oddly, I haven't been accepted since. The second book in the saga is out. Both books have high ratings and a good number of reviews on both amazon and Goodreads. I'll keep trying, though. A lot is dependent on how many books are on their site in your genre and mine is very competitive.
Effie wrote: "Last year my debut novel was accepted for a bookbub ad. It's a women's fiction/contemporary romance. At the time it had about 70 reviews with a 4.6 rating. I was very pleased with the results. It w..."Thanks. I'm looking forward to see what happens when I submit the week after next.
Good luck. Don't get discouraged if you get rejected. Just try again when you run your next promotion. I'm still trying to get a second crack at it.
I guess the thing to do is submit with flexible dates. Then if/when I get a date, I can schedule a promotion. Meanwhile, my Kindle and Amazon paperback sales (never more than very modest) have died. I've sold some paperbacks through Ingram, including, amazingly, 22 in one day, which remains a total mystery, especially since I haven't been accepting returns. Bookscan doesn't count Ingram sales to retailers, only retail sales when the barcodes are scanned. I'm trying to keep my book in front of people by advertising on Facebook and Amazon (paying per clicks, not impressions) and posting manually to Facebook reading groups.
Anna Faversham wrote: "Becoming an author has been the longest learning curve I have ever known."And guess what? It keeps on winding ever upwards until we draw our last breath on earth!
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Sounds dicey. You're reviewing others in exchange for a review. It's review swapping, no matter how many people are involved.
Also, off topic.
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
#4 - Stay on topic. No thread hijacking.
#5 - Reviews happen. We aren't here to discuss them or swap them.
This topic is about Bookbub, as stated in the title and in the original post, not a place to discuss other Goodreads groups.
I'm sorry. someone asked and I answered.
I just started getting serious with Boobkbub ads a little over a week ago. Not their featured ads, which I understand are really hard to nail down, but just regular advertising. Still feeling my way to higher click-thru rates, but getting better at it. I've spent more than I've earned, but the ads have driven people to buy my book, which is a first in series I published a little over two years ago. When I completed the second book in the series recently, I added the first two chapters of it to the end of the first book, which has been driving readers to purchase the second without advertising. Once I'm finished with the series, I'll make the first book free and continue to add the first two chapters of the next novel at the end of the one that came before it. So far, even though it's not making enough to pay for the ads, they're putting my book in front of people and I'm getting some action. Once I hit on a winning formula, the sales will go up - of that I'm certain.
I've advertised on Amazon and all it did was empty my wallet for very little return. In contrast, the sales generated from Bookbub have paid for about half of what I've spent so far. Bookbub ads give you several templates or you can make your own ad. They provide a lot of information on what to do and how to do it. Plenty of helpful info in their blog. It's a great place for Indies to advertise, but it does cost money. I recommend utilizing the CPC vs. the CPM (which is cost per thousand impressions). The CPM will blow through your money faster than a high-priced (you pick your analogy), while the CPC option only charges for the clicks. Makes a huge difference. Hope that helps anyone who's run across this question. I see no one else has posted since September 2017.
I have used Bookbub, and have got plenty of clicks, but I've got more success with Voracious ReadersI'm thinking of unsubscribing from BookBub to be honest
This is staggering. What genre is that? Must have been a slow day.