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Paid Promotions - A Case Study of Experience
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Graeme
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Feb 08, 2020 11:52AM
I've completed the revisions (for readability). It took longer the earlier the book. They all have a similar look and feel now.
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Graeme, how do too feel about changing covers for books? I don't like it because my cover artist does a good job on them and I spent good money on them. At the same time I do get the whole changing it up to attract people.
I'm retaining my existing covers and books. The new cover is just for the Omnibus.
Ready to run this promo over the weekend.[1] (Cost $90) FreeBooksy (Thriller) for ASA at FREE on the 15th of February 2020.
[2] (Cost $55) Book Barbarian (Free Book of the Day) for ASA at FREE on the 16th of February 2020
[Just added][3] (Cost approx $20) fiverr bknights promotions aka digitalbookspot for ASA at FREE on the 15th of February 2020
ASA, ATW and TDD will all be free for a 5 day block running from the 14th to the 18th Feb 2020.
TDG & TCW will run at normal pricing $3.99 ($2.70 royalty) throughout the promo.
Total spend is $165 USD.
I help select them. My son in law is a graphic designer and I get him to do all the mechanics.
Nik wrote: "Sounds like a major overhaul, Graeme, especially the revision of all books. Creating an Omnibus with a separate new cover makes a lot of sense, even if to keep with the trend.
Whatever you decide,..."
Overhauling ASA, ATW & TDD is now complete.
Working on TDG, and then TCW (hopefully not much to do there...) but need to add the character lists to all books.
Graeme wrote: "Ready to run this promo over the weekend.[1] (Cost $90) FreeBooksy (Thriller) for ASA at FREE on the 15th of February 2020.
[2] (Cost $55) Book Barbarian (Free Book of the Day) for ASA at FREE on..."
Best of luck, Graeme!
Is this all ebook or do you think it will make to paper?
Pretty much all ebook. I occasionally sell paperbacks.
Graeme wrote: "Pretty much all ebook. I occasionally sell paperbacks."
Ok,
let me know if it ever goes to paper. I am a Luddite.
They are all available in paperback from Amazon.Cheers G
Graeme wrote: "They are all available in paperback from Amazon.Cheers G"
I will look into them.
February 14-18 2020 Initial Results. (2 weeks later)Running stats from the 14th of Feb to 02-03 Mar.
FREE DOWNLOADS: ASA 1204, ATW 746, TDD, 731. So approx. 61% of the people who downloaded ASA, took the option to download the next two books for free.
PAID SALES: 5x ASA, 1x ATW, 1x TDD, 6 TDG, 6 TCW.
KU READS: 1587 ASA, 1650 ATW, 910 TDD, 976 TDG, 2050 TCW.
ROYALTIES: $71 USD in the first two weeks.
Interesting that TDG, and TCW sales are matching up. I.e. no series drop off. This bears out my early research that readers that make it past TDD will go on to read the other books. Hence my developing strategy for the OMNIBUS (ASA,ATW,TDD) to market with.
I won't judge ROI until a full 6 weeks are complete or sales/KNEP reads tail off, whichever come first.
I always advise readers to read the preview online via goodreads or 'Look inside," before buying. The Kindle preview has more information in it.If you like the preview you will most likely like the book.
Setting up first promotion of A Subtle Agency Omnibus (ASA-O),
.[1] Based on Bookbub newsletters, Omnibus volumes and Boxsets are hot sellers for value-hungry readers.
[2] I've been keen for sometime to establish a fresh cover that captures the 'action, adventure, thriller' aspects of this series, and break it away from the plethora of PNR, and vampire = love interest urban fantasy out there.
[3] There is some evidence that readers that complete TDD will almost always go on to read the rest of the series (hence producing a healthy ROI).
PROMOTION: 25th - 29th June 2020 (5 days FREE).
[1] (Cost $55) BookBarbarian (Dark Fantasy) FreeBookOfTheDay for ASA-O on the 26th June 2020.
[2] (Cost $40) eReaderNewsToday (Fantasy) for ASA-O on the 26th June 2020.
[3] (Cost $90) FreeBooksy (Thriller) for ASA-O on the 27th June 2020.
[3]
Picked up eReaderNewsToday which is the best of these sites, and I get rejected by them more often than not, so picking up that promo is very handy.
At close to $200 for the overall promo, budget is about right as Amazon AMS adverts are quite expensive.
I'm also considering composing and running a new advert with Bookbub during the promo. It would give me a way to compare adverts with the last one I ran for the ASA standalone.
I might get some new insights.
Cool cover, Graeme & best of luck with the promo! Would be interested in hearing how it goes
Thanks Nik, and Leonie.I plan to add RobinReads, BookBarbarian, eReaderNewsToday, and AskDavid (Twitter) - the usual suspects.
I wish you all the luck and progress in the world Graeme. Your writing certainly deserves it. Lots of very interesting information and analytics in here.
Jeffrey wrote: "I wish you all the luck and progress in the world Graeme. Your writing certainly deserves it. Lots of very interesting information and analytics in here."Thanks Jeffrey, much appreciated.
One of the reasons for creating my Omnibus version was to use it with Amazon 'AMS' advertising.As part dipping my toe back in that water I've done some research on the 7 keywords that loaded with the book.
List of Keywords for AMS / # of competitors / Avg monthly $ (Higher is better) / Amazon Searches per month (Higher is Better) / Competitive Score (Lower is better)
vampire thriller / 13280 / 14576 / 1568 / 60
dark fantasy book series / 36499 / 13450 / 5575/ 53
Dark Fantasy Kindle Unlimited / 1121 / 627 / 5607 / 45
Dark Fantasy Adventure / 25069 / 14331 / 8828 / 41
Dark Fantasy Thriller / 16586 / 14265 / 1510 / 53
action adventure ebooks / 72962 / 16245 / 8822 / 60
new adult and college fantasy / 15839 / 4306 / 3182 / 48
Some interesting points,
Dark Fantasy Kindle Unlimited has 5607 searches a month, but only earns $627 in sales. What this indicates is that people are using those search terms and not finding what they want. Perhaps ASA-O will catch their eye.
Competition scores are not higher than 60, indicating a fair chance to actually appear on a page in front of a potential reader.
I need to make sure that all the terms above are used in the product description to match the searches, and that I utilize Amazons (10 genre listing options).
I hope to be ready to get back to advertising by beginning of June. Due to costs and budgets. I'll run my adverts for 7 day (1 week) blocks at $5 per day. Amazon tends to 'spend the money,' hence I'll run one week per month for a $35 cost per month.
And see how it goes.
Good luck with the Omnibus and the renewed strategy! Hope it works and well done on the research. Looks like "Dark fantasy" and "Action adventure" are quite popular
I started my AMS advert on the 9th of May, with the following results.9th-13th - Zero sales
14th-18th - 5 consecutive sales of ASA-O over 5 days.
19th - 2 sales of ASA-O over 1 day.
Spent $54, so wildly not cost-effective... however, when we dig into the numbers.
Approx 47K impressions over 11 days. 66 clicks. for 7 orders.
Of those, one phrase generated 7500 impressions, 24 clicks and 6 sales.
That phrase is 'Michael Anderle.'
I.e. ASA-O is working very well on the audience that searches with 'Michael Anderle.'
I haven't seen any on sales for TDG or TCW from these sales yet, but it takes awhile to read the book, so there should be a lag.
Graeme wrote: "Approx 47K impressions over 11 days. 66 clicks. for 7 orders.Of those, one phrase generated 7500 impressions, 24 clicks and 6 sales...."
Interesting. Do you pay per click and, if yes, how much for a click?
I've got 9 attributable sales of ASA-O, 106 clicks which cost $90.34.Avg cost per click is approx 85 cents.
Pretty expensive per sale at approx $10 per book.
At best, I'll recover half that with on sales.
Just closed the advert for this month as total spend on AMS has reached my monthly budget of $100.I'll restart this at the beginning of next month to create a 10 day burst prior to the free promotion later in the month.
Or not, I might just do this occassionally...
Now locked in. (Just need to set the 5 day free window in KDP).Setting up first promotion of A Subtle Agency Omnibus (ASA-O),
.[1] Based on Bookbub newsletters, Omnibus volumes and Boxsets are hot sellers for value-hungry readers.
[2] I've been keen for sometime to establish a fresh cover that captures the 'action, adventure, thriller' aspects of this series, and break it away from the plethora of PNR, and vampire = love interest urban fantasy out there.
[3] There is some evidence that readers that complete TDD will almost always go on to read the rest of the series (hence producing a healthy ROI).
PROMOTION: 25th - 29th June 2020 (5 days FREE).
[1] (Cost $55) BookBarbarian (Dark Fantasy) FreeBookOfTheDay for ASA-O on the 26th June 2020.
[2] (Cost $40) eReaderNewsToday (Fantasy) for ASA-O on the 26th June 2020.
[3] (Cost $90) FreeBooksy (Thriller) for ASA-O on the 27th June 2020.
[3]
[4] Bookbub Advert with a $60 USD budget set to run from 26th to 28th June.
Picked up eReaderNewsToday which is the best of these sites, and I get rejected by them more often than not, so picking up that promo is very handy.
At close to $200 for the overall promo, budget is about right as Amazon AMS adverts are quite expensive.
I'm also considering composing and running a new advert with Bookbub during the promo. It would give me a way to compare adverts with the last one I ran for the ASA standalone. (25/June edit - added as per above).
I might get some new insights.
Insights are always helpful. My publisher is running with a BookBub promotion as of Monday. (The reduced price promotion.) We're interested in several things - it's the first book in my Frontier series, so any sell throughs for that series. Also, to see if the new fantasy then picks up any more traction.
I've found this thread very insightful, Graeme.
I'd love to hear about your experience with bookbub, esp with regards to on sales in your series
Will keep you updated, Graeme. This was the second submission of the book.
So far today (first 24 hours since promotion): 1433 copies of Incursion sold yesterday on Amazon world wide. 65 Resistance, 52 Defiant, and 5 copies Amethyst Pledge.
That came from my publisher this morning, about 10.30am AEST. Publisher is quite happy right now. As am I. Currently sitting at 113 in the Kindle store of amazon.com, which corresponds to 2 in Science Fiction Adventure. In .com.au, sitting at 50 and 1.
Will be interesting to see if the flow on continues, Graeme. Historically, this series has a fairly strong buy through effect.
113 paid in Kindle store - That's brilliant, and congratulations.
Leonie wrote: "Will be interesting to see if the flow on continues, Graeme. Historically, this series has a fairly strong buy through effect...."There is every reason then to think that you will have a strong follow through on this one.
Graeme wrote: "113 paid in Kindle store - That's brilliant, and congratulations."Thank you. I'm pretty happy right now. It may well be fleeting, but you enjoy it while you can.
I've found this thread incredibly helpful, Graeme. It's part of what inspired the BookBub promotion.
You may find that sales of Incursion hold up strong for a couple of days before they die down.Geez, just scraping in below a 'best seller,' tag in a couple of relevant genres.
Leonie wrote: "Graeme wrote: "113 paid in Kindle store - That's brilliant, and congratulations."Thank you. I'm pretty happy right now. It may well be fleeting, but you enjoy it while you can.
I've found this ..."
I'm pleased someone got some value out of it. I'm still to secure a Bookbub feature, but I haven't been trying for a while as I prepared my Omnibus as 'the vehicle,' to take to Bookbub.
Now I'm out of budget for the current 3 month cycle, so my first run at Bookbub with ASA-O will have to wait a couple of months.
That said, I'm incredible encouraged to hear about your experiences.
Frankly (in 1 day) you just picked up 100s to a 1000+ of new readers who will love your books and your first series, and are likely to flow onto your other books.
That's finding an audience - for me, that's the key. Finding new readers, and accumulating readers over time.
So, was your feature in the science fiction genre?
Yes, I think that is the key. Visibility makes a huge difference, very clearly. Incursion was first published in 2012, so there's some runs on the board as well there. It has a healthy 60 reviews on Amazon which helps, I think. And having a series to sell on to - which you have, of course. I really hope you get that feature on BookBub!
So do I.Did you have an option to got with free rather than 0.99? Was that a discussion with your publisher? Did you have a rationale for paid over free?
Science Fiction Adventure. The publisher sets the price, and this was an experiment, really, but we've definitely recouped the cost of the promotion, plus some extras. No idea exactly how much, but having that 'Bestseller' label is incredibly nice.
And just in Science Fiction currently sitting at number four.
Leonie wrote: "Science Fiction Adventure. The publisher sets the price, and this was an experiment, really, but we've definitely recouped the cost of the promotion, plus some extras. No idea exactly how much, b..."
Sorry, did you hit #1 in a paid genre?
World, Writing, Wealth
Books mentioned in this topic
BookBub Ads Expert: A Marketing Guide to Author Discovery (other topics)A Subtle Agency (other topics)
A Subtle Agency (other topics)
A Subtle Agency Omnibus (other topics)
A Subtle Agency Omnibus (other topics)
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