Paid Promotions - A Case Study of Experience

[Graeme]

Hi Eldon. I'm curious too.

[Joanna]

Hi Eldon, absolutely will stay tuned to your blog! And, Graeme , I will follow this thread faithfully. Thank you for considering my request.

[Nik]

Eldon, feel free also to set up a thread or share it otherwise here on the group

[Eldon]

Nik wrote: "Eldon, feel free also to set up a thread or share it otherwise here on the group"

Will do :)

[Quantum]

@_@

Which advertising venue is bringing in the purchases? BB-Thriller? EBB-Fantasy? Or TP-SF&F?

A Subtle Agency: The Metaframe War: Book 1

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,745 > Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#35 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Supernatural > Vampires
#80 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Suspense > Paranormal > Vampires
#402 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban

[Graeme]

The Portalist will run this Wednesday.

BB brought in 8x ASA on Amazon and 4x ASA on Apple, but it is possible not all reports (B&N, Kobo) are in yet.

EBB is currently running at 48x ASA on Amazon, and an ATW sale at full price on Amazon showed up - but could be anything. Waiting for all the reports to come in to see how this particular promotion is going.

Also EBB have 30% sales (15-20+ on current numbers) on average on other channels, but they will not show up immediately.

I will have a fuller picture to report on this weekend by Monday or Tuesday, but could be pushing 80 sales so far with The Portalist to add a few more on Wednesday.

Also EBB provided their own "advert" content, which surprised me - a bit of extra service.

After he witnesses a murder, a teen finds himself hunted by the police, Chinese Triads, corporate killers, and worst of all—vampires.

“Like Underworld on speed, it’s got all the adrenaline and action-packing shots of entertainment you could want.” —Cultured Vultures

[Graeme]

Results as follows.

(Edited to add B&N reports, and finalise Sunday, and Monday residual sales.)

Friday 24th BB: 8x ASA on Amazon, 4x ASA on Apple, 2x ASA on B&N (14 total)
Saturday 25th EBB: 48x ASA on Amazon, 1x ATW on Amazon, 3x ASA on Apple, 1x ASA on Kobo, and 7x ASA on B&N. (60 total)
Sunday 26th: 4x ASA on Amazon, and 2x ASA on Kobo (6 total)
Monday 27th: 1x ASA on Kobo (1 total)

Total books sold over all platforms = 81. (Notice the 75%/25% split b/w Amazon and the Rest of the World (RoW)).

The Portalist Promotion is still to run on Wednesday the 29th

[Ian]

I see this thread has been running all year, but not really noticed it until today, which surprises me given all the activity around it.

This is an amazing set of information. I have not taken the plunge into paid advertising, but I think the time is coming. I'll be putting out my third novel in a few months and will want to plan a more proactive marketing campaign around that. Bookmarking this thread for future reference! Thanks so much for sharing.

[Quantum]

Graeme wrote: "Results as follows.

Friday 24th BB: 8x ASA on Amazon, 4x ASA on Apple.
Saturday 25th EBB: 48x ASA on Amazon, 1x ATW on Amazon, 3x ASA on Apple, 1x ASA on Kobo.
Sunday 26th: 4x ASA on Amazon.

Tot..."

EBB reeled in the bulk of the sales—by a huge margin. I wonder if it was b/c of the unsolicited pro bono TLC. Eye-catching tag lines and spot-on. They have solid copy writers.

[Graeme]

Hi Ian. You're welcome. I will do a summary for the year.

[Graeme]

Hi Alex.

EBB is ok. If I can pick up another 20 sales with TP, that would be good.

The tag line was unexpected. They do some work to optimise the advert.

[Graeme]

Writing Milestone: Just hit 100 sales of my books in a month (with no days left to spare) for the first time.

Amazon: 80 sales
Barnes&Noble: 9 sales
Apple: 7 sales
Kobo: 4 sales

Also, B&N, Apple, & Kobo do not complete their reports for 1 to 2 days so I would expect the final total for November to increase.

[Marie Silk]

Congratulations Graeme!!

[Graeme]

Thanks Marie.

[Eldon]

Graeme wrote: "Writing Milestone: Just hit 100 sales of my books in a month (with no days left to spare) for the first time.

Amazon: 80 sales
Barnes&Noble: 9 sales
Apple: 7 sales
Kobo: 4 sales

Also, B&N, Apple,..."

Outstanding!!

[Graeme]

Thanks Eldon, much appreciated. However I think it is really about the marketing. Hopefully the new readers will enjoy it.

[Quantum]

If the marketing collateral truly describes the strengths of your books—which is the case for The Portal tag lines and the book blurb itself—then the majority of readers will like them.

[Graeme]

This is the key Alex, it's finding the right readers who will appreciate the genre.

[Quantum]

Totally true! I might also go deeper to qualify a sub-genre or even a niche. For example, your stories excel in their fighting action scenes as well as the complex machinations of the different factions. So, your stories will draw in those kinds of readers.

[Leonie]

Excellent

[Graeme]

Thanks Leonie.

[Graeme]

Reporting for the promotion period has finalised.

The Portalist delivered 22x ASA on Amazon and 1x ASA on Apple.

Total sales for November were

Amazon: 84 (+1 when the price for ASA was dropped) sales
Barnes&Noble: 9 sales
Apple: 8 sales
Kobo: 4 sales

Total of 106 at a net cost of $2.95 USD per book (calculated after royalties, this is essentially the cost of finding new readers for the series).

Noting that a reader that costs approx $3 to find, costs approx $0.50 if they go on to buy ATW at full price, and then become profitable ($2) on the 3rd book in a scenario where all books cost $3.99.

[Graeme]

December promos are

[1] (Cost $50) RobinReads (Fantasy) for ASA at $0.99 on Saturday 16th of December (Amazon, B&N)
[2] (Cost $70) BookBarbarian Double Feature (Fantasy) for ASA at $0.99 and ATW at $2.99 on Sunday 17th of December (Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo).

[EDIT] Had to reschedule the BB feature as it was too close (less than 30 days) to the last BB feature.
[3] (Cost $40) BargainBooksy (Fantasy) for ASA at $0.99 on Sunday 24th of December (RESCHEDULED) (Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo).

I will run both books discounted from the 12th through to the end of the month as I'm away on holidays.

[Graeme]

I've got royalties in $USD flowing into my Paypal account (from Pronoun, Draft2Digital), and I'm turning these dollars around to invest directly into advertising paid in $USD.

This approach avoids exchange rate fees from USD to AUD and from AUD to USD,

I think it may be worthwhile investigating opening a USD account to accept Amazon and CreateSpace royalties (currently wired to Australia) and see if I can't keep everything in USD and avoid exchange fees.

The only time I would want to bring money back to Australia is to take a profit and (I imagine) I'm a long way from that while I'm building the readership to past the break even point.

[Graeme]

The simplest solution for me would be for Amazon to support Paypal which is unlikely... but I'll check.

No - Amazon (with Amazon Pay) is a direct competitor to PayPal.

[Graeme]

[1] (Cost $50) RobinReads (Fantasy) for ASA at $0.99 on Saturday 16th of December (Amazon, B&N)
[2] (Cost $70) BookBarbarian Double Feature (Fantasy) for ASA at $0.99 and ATW at $2.99 on Sunday 17th of December (Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo).

Have now run, results as follows.

RR, 9x ASA, 1x ATW on Amazon. 1x ASA on B&N.
BBar, 9x ASA, 2x ATW on Amazon, 2x ASA, 2x ATW on B&N, & Apple.

18th, picked up another 2x ASA, 1x ATW on Amazon.

Not a bad result overall. Starting to pickup random ATW sales which I assume are follow on sales from satisfied ASA readers.

Next promo and the last for this year is the B-Booksy on the 24th Dec.

I'll write a summary of this year, pulling out the useful tidbits of knowledge in early January.

[Nik]

Good luck with the last promo and looking forward to the summary!
I bet your on-spot sharing helps a lot of authors, willing to try marketing, to shape their road maps

[Graeme]

Thanks Nik, it has really helped me learn as I go, and if others can learn from what I share - it's all good.

I have the release of in January, and I may well rethink my strategy around free versions of ASA, given I will have two follow on books.

But I will have a long think about that and how to market the series and pricing (which I think should go up rather than down as more is on offer).

[Marie Silk]

Sounds great, Graeme. How excellent that you are seeing sales on the sequel! Wishing you all the best on novel #3 :).

I'm still running free promotions for the first book in my series which successfully drives [regular price] sales all the way to book #7. I have run 99 cent discounts on the sequels a few times, but they are quite successful at the 2.99 price point.

[Graeme]

Thanks Marie. I have your strategy in mind, but I think it works best the more books you have, and my shelf is still a little thin.

[Graeme]

[3] (Cost $40) BargainBooksy (Fantasy) for ASA at $0.99 on Sunday 24th of December (RESCHEDULED) (Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo). Has now run.

Results are 19x ASA and 3x ATW on Amazon. 5x ASA on B&N, Apple and Kobo.

An excellent result.

[Graeme]

Picked up a total of 13x A Traitor's War sales in December 2017, which I find quite encouraging as some of the buyers of ASA seek out the sequel.

[Graeme]

Christmas discount prices are now over. I have reset ASA and ATW prices to $4.99 USD.

My previous base price was $3.99, I have increased the price on several premises.

[1] As the series grows it offers more value to the reader.
[2] A higher base prices offers a larger discount during promotions.
[3] I would like to one day earn a living from writing.

[Graeme]

Hunting BookBub.

Noting that Bookbub only allows up to 14 days of discounts from a base price in the previous three months for a promotion to qualify, and the promotion needs to be "the best price," indicates a new strategy.

[1] Higher base price.
[2] Promo price of $1.99 (or possibly 0.99) for all other promotions.
[3] Tightly target promos into 3-4 day clusters in a given month to come under the 14 day limit.
[4] Seek $0.99 ASA promo with BookBub.

We will see how this goes in 2018.

[Graeme]

Here's another thing - temporary rankings on Amazon are meaningless.

The key is to build the audience for your work and to identify and target markets where you will find repeat readers who will buy the other books you have written.

The larger your audience, the more valuable your product becomes.

Grow your audience.

[Philip]

Outstanding advice and guidance Graeme and glad to hear of any sales following advertising - hope in marketing yet and an indication of the effort involved.

[Graeme]

Hi Philip, this whole 'selling books,' game is an exercise in persistence.

[Graeme]

Summary results for 2016 and 2017 (eBook only)

2016: A Subtle Agency published on 17th May 2016. Free only advertising, exclusively KU on Amazon. 22x sales from May to December 2016. Average sales per month of 2.75 units.

2017: Began advertising in January 2017 (BargainBooksy, followed with eReaderNews, etc)

Noting that A Traitor's War was published in April 2017 (hence a short year).

Results as follows.

Amazon only: A Subtle Agency x316. A Traitor's War x67.

Pronoun (Amazon, B&N, Apple & Kobo) during Sept/Oct. A Subtle Agency x144, and A Traitor's War x21.

D2D (B&N, Apple & Kobo) from November. A Subtle Agency x33. A Traitor's War x4.

Summarised.

ASA x493, ATW x92 (8 months). Total all books x585. Avg per month of 48.75.

Clearly, paid advertising is the difference between 2016 (2.75 avg/mth) vs 2017 (48.75 avg/mth).

Note numbers above do not include KNEP reads, paperback sales or free downloads (approx 2k ASA were downloaded free).

The advertising sites I will continue using are as follows.

BargainBooksy
BookBarbarian
RobinReads
eReaderNewsToday
Early Bird Books and The Portalist.

I will continue to pursue BookBub.

[Graeme]

Sales goal for 2018: 1000 eBooks.

[Quantum]

Concise and informative summary.

Although it certainly helped that you had your second book out last year, it just goes to show that you have to pay to play.

[Graeme]

Indeed.

Authors swamp each other with their offerings, and I think each of us has to take strong and steady action to find and accumulate an audience.

As time goes, I will find more and more readers, and perhaps one day a critical mass will be achieved which will make it self sustaining.

[Quantum]

I think you’re already building a core. Once I put your ARC The Dragon's Den on my currently reading list, I received 5 likes.

[Nik]

Impressive improvement, Graeme and solid and achievable goals for the new year!
What were the total costs vs income, if you have them written down and care to share?

[Graeme]

Hi Nik, after taking in consideration royalties (which are a distinct help in defraying costs) I have the following.

[1] Costs to sell each book range from $1 to $4 for the advertisers that I listed above.

[1] BargainBooksy is the most efficient.
[2] Early Bird Books and the Portalist achieved the highest numbers at substantially higher per book cost.
[3] eReaderNewsToday is good.
[4] BookBarbarian and RobinReads are the weakest in my list, but still useful.

So I can maximise cost efficiency per book and take longer, or I can spend more money (EBB) and go faster.

Since time waits for no man, I will spend more in 2018 than I did in 2017.

If I hit a BookBub feature, than I'll spend $700 USD+ that month. One of the things I learned about BookBub was the requirement for the promoted book not to have been discounted for more than 14 days in the last three months.

I will structure promos to run in tight 4 day sets per month, which will give 12 days of discounts on ASA in each 3 month period, so perhaps that will help me get through their selection process, but I will have to wait until late March 2018 to make my next application.

[Graeme]

Alex wrote: "I think you’re already building a core. Once I put your ARC The Dragon's Den on my currently reading list, I received 5 likes."

Thanks Alex, I agree with you. My visibility is improving over time.

[Nik]

Graeme wrote: "Hi Nik, after taking in consideration royalties (which are a distinct help in defraying costs) I have the following.

[1] Costs to sell each book range from $1 to $4 for the advertisers that I list..."

Thanks for this elaborate info, which, I'm sure, provides lots of food for thought to fellow authors here

[Graeme]

Cheers Nik.

[Graeme]

I will be conducting a book launch for The Dragon's Den with New In Books who are in the same stable as BargainBooksy.


[1] $299. Book Launch: The Dragon's Den at $4.99, Fantasy, 06 Feb 2018.

Got cancelled - see below.

[Nik]

Steep price, but hopefully worth it. Good luck, Graeme!

[Graeme]

Thanks Nik,

Suffered a bit of sticker shock on that one, used up the last of my Pronoun royalties to defray the cost.