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Is Bookbub.com really the best promo site?
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Quantum
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Oct 19, 2016 01:31PM
according to http://authorearnings.com/report/octo...but what about askdavid.com? any others?
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BB is going tradpub heavy lately. In the short run this really hurts independent authors but in the long run I think it will do us some good. It all boils down to subscriber trust which is something they have gotten the lions share of.
My understanding of BookBub is that they are so strict with their criteria that the subscribers know they are getting quality, vetted books.Other services like askdavid, bargain booksy, and booksends have no such filter. Anyone can promote, so the quality of the books comes into question.
Fussy Librarian and ereadernewstoday have a vetting process and a fairly long waiting list. If you can get your book in, they would probably offer a more engaged subscriber base.
That only shows, that there is a market need for sifting books and offering them vetted and discounted. I think out of the entire readers' audience only a relatively small fraction takes chances with unknown authors, while much more rely on recommendations, previous experience or external vetting... If average reader reads 10-15 books a year, he/she doesn't have a lot of room for mistakes..
Yes bookbub is the best. It is common to have 30K to 60K downloads from a free promotion listed with them, whereas with most the other sites combined, the best I could do was nearly 6K.
But BB is not above assuming a book is superior if it is tradpub. Still, their vetting process is vigorous - always a good thing. The thing that bothers me is I don't believe it is a blind process. In other words I think they reserve so many snacks for big five books and the rest they open to independence. If the quality measures are the same it should be every book for itself.
There are quite a few indies on the SIA group that have been accepted for BB listings :). Sadly I am not one of them...yet lol. I submitted to them for the first time right after my September promo and got turned down. You have to wait 4 weeks to submit to them again. BB says that you have a better chance getting a spot with them if your book is available on more than one platform, but several indies with books enrolled in Select have gotten in with them. It seems really hit and miss, but I believe you absolutely have to have a good cover and decent reviews to have a chance. My book was reviewed by BB when it was a #1 best seller, by the way. They say they turn down 85% to 90% of submissions, and it is mostly due to space, not book quality.
Marie wrote: "There are quite a few indies on the SIA group that have been accepted for BB listings :). Sadly I am not one of them...yet lol. I submitted to them for the first time right after my September promo..."That's what I used to think until I saw a book that was featured in my category. I was very anxious to see what the top dogs look like so I studied the featured books for a few weeks. The book in question was absolutely horrible. The cover looked like a Microsoft Word experiment, it only had four reviews at the time and the average rating was around 3 1/2 if I'm not mistaken. Two of the reviews were very favorable one was so-so and one was bad because the reviewer felt that the formatting was poor and there were one or two typos. I couldn't believe it! I was so ticked off lol. What made it worse was that book ran for six days. Six. Days. You can ask my husband because I ranted and raved like a crazy woman each of those six days ha ha. As of today that same book now has 7 reviews on Amazon with a 3 1/2 rating. I just don't get it.
MarieEditorial reviews are really important to these guys and I think if you get a few heavy hitters under your belt you will get featured. All of your other ducks are in a row.
Tara wrote: " What made it worse was that book ran for six days. Six. Days. You can ask my husband because I ranted and raved like a crazy woman each of those six days ha ha. As of today that same book now has 7 reviews on Amazon with a 3 1/2 rating. I just don't get it. "Haha I love this so much! How strange, though. I wonder how that book got a spot?
Marie wrote: "Tara wrote: " What made it worse was that book ran for six days. Six. Days. You can ask my husband because I ranted and raved like a crazy woman each of those six days ha ha. As of today that same ..."an error? tradpub?
since bookbub is the "single most significant third-party player, outside of the retailers themselves," then the book promo market is ripe for a disruptor--as is amazon.
MarieI think the assumptions of quality were based on the blurb. It was a book about parenting based on Shakespeare. Shakespeare makes everything seem classier?
The book is tradpub but small/medium press. And the author must not be doing any promo at all. Like, nothing. The book is several hundred rankings below mine and I'm no Hugh Howie.
AlexI agree. I've often wondered who will topple the giant but I don't think it will be a topple as much as it will be a divided empire. BB will continue to decrease its indie slots in favor of tradpub and another promo king will emerge to scoop up the indie refugees. Everyone knows we'll pay handsomely for exposure so eventually a strong man will emerge from among the decent four or five serious promoters that currently work with indies. Then the cycle will reset itself after 5 years or so.
