Bookbub – a great thing for readers!
I meant to post this two weeks ago, but life is too damn hectic.
A few weeks back, I did a three-day promotion in connection with Bookbub.com. For the benefit of the book marketing wonks out there, here is my report.
Diary of a Small Fish had received a lot of very good reviews in its time, but for some time, my book marketing mojo ain’t been workin’. Consequently, its sales ranking on Amazon languished in the low 400k area, save for the occasional ebook purchase that drives it down to the 200k’s for a day or so. Sales through Smashwords have been almost non-existent for months, save for the occasional onesie from Barnes & Noble.
When my agent submitted Law & Disorder to the acquisition people at Thomas & Mercer, she urged me to shake off the cobwebs and boost Small Fish, because the editors at Amazon (unlike a lot of TP types) pay attention to stuff like that.
My experience to date with paid book promotion had been pretty dreadful. Ereader Daily News, Facebook, Ads on the Cheap – none of them achieved squat. I was beginning to wonder if any paid promotion worked.
Bookbub’s attraction is that they have developed a huge number of actual BOOK BUYING readers who have signed up for email alerts of daily book deals. Imagine that – readers who are ASKING for email spam! All you do is sign up, give your email address, your preferred genre(s) and your chosen format (i.e., sales venue). When I signed up (to see the product as it is delivered), I soon received a nice, clean, clear and simple email with three book deals – one free, one 99 cent and one a higher price (usually, the email includes one traditionally published bestseller). I clicked on the 99 center, and it brought be right to the Amazon buy page. So far so good!
Bookbub also seems to recognize that the value in their mailing list is preserved by insuring that the products they’re selling are of good quality – so before they take your money, they check out your book. You have to have a certain number of favorable reviews to be approved. I do not know if they utilize any additional vetting criteria beyond that. Perhaps the bar is fairly low, but I know of at least one superb novel that was turned down. However, several of the free books I’ve downloaded I quit on after only a few pages. Not poor formatting or typos, just not grabbing me.
So, Bookbub accepted Small Fish, took my money, and scheduled my promotion for the date I chose. Their fee is based on two factors – your genre (which dictates the number of readers) and your price promotion: the lower your price, the lower the fee. Free book promotion is $220 for the mystery/thriller genre. At 99 cents, the fee was $440. For the traditionally published bestsellers that are lowering their $9.99 price to $5.99, the cost is over a grand.
I chose to run the email on a Wednesday, for a promotion that ran through Friday. My limited experience is that ecommerce drops off heavily on weekend days, so I scheduled the promotion to lead into the weekend.
The Bookbub email went out in tranches, the first of which appeared to land at 2:00 pm on Wednesday. I tracked the sales hourly for the first day. Here’s what they looked like (totals are cumulative):
B&N Amazon
|
3:00 PM |
100 |
27 |
|
|
4:00 PM |
143 |
50 |
|
|
5:00 PM |
171 |
85 |
|
|
6:00 PM |
207 |
135 |
|
|
7:00 PM |
231 |
223 |
|
|
8:00 PM |
257 |
316 |
|
|
9:00 PM |
280 |
391 |
|
|
10:00 PM |
305 |
456 |
|
|
11:00 PM |
317 |
503 |
|
|
12:00 AM |
325 |
540 |
Notice that Smashwords is not listed. Why? Because not one single unit was purchased through it during the entire three days. Not one.
So, sales chugged along at between 60 to 120 sales per hour throughout the entire day, totaling 865 for the day (Wednesday).
Sales on Thursday dropped off significantly to 153 (B&N) and 203 (Amazon), and even more so on Friday, 59 (B&N) and 41 (Amazon). Totals for the three days were 537 units at B&N and 799 units at Amazon.
Financially, things worked out fine. Obviously, when you shell out $440 for this type of thing, you’re most concerned about breaking even, which I did comfortably. The key is what happens after the promotion and you’ve brought your book back up to $3.99 (or whatever). It’s a little soon to tell, although I have sold several units through B&N today.
As far as Amazon ranking, the promotion drove Small Fish from the low 400k’s to a best of #134 overall, #38 in the mystery/thriller category, and #14 in “contemporary fiction.” Those ratings, unfortunately, did not last a long time, and I am left with the nagging reminder that online book sales require – REQUIRE – persistent promotion of one sort or another.
I’ve got this cool sandwich board I’m going to try out.
A final word about Smashwords. Does anybody, anywhere, sell any books through them? Is it really possible that a promotion of this type could sell 1300+ books without a single one of them through Smashwords?
Filed under: Uncategorized | 8 Comments
Tags: amazon, book promotion, bookbub, diary of a small fish
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hahahahahaha
Sounds like great one-day results. Was the price cheaper if you’d just done one day (on which the majority of the sales were logged)? If you were doing it again, would you just do one day?
No, Robb. The price is for the email. You keep the promo open for 2-3 to give everyone a chance to check their emails.
Persistence is the key. Spending money on chance people will continue to buy your book is risky as you saw. Of all the books I’ve got out now I’ve found doing blogs, tweeting and the occasional posting on FB works best.
Pete, we tried two coupon promotions on Smashwords and sold ony 4 books. No upfront costs, however. Our books don´t sell on Smashwords, just Amazon and sometimes B&N, so for us if B&N folds, it won´t be a great loss except for book signings.
Thanks for the tip about Bookbub…will try it out.
Smashwords is useless, Sheryl. I’m convinced.
Great that things worked out as well as they did and you made more than you spent. However, ultimately the end game really does have to be getting that contract on your next book. Two years ago I had optimism about self-publishing. It really felt like a way to have a direct relationship with readers. I had reason to be optimistic. My novel was selling. The numbers weren’t great, but they might not have been with a small press either, and I knew people who were doing MUCH better — Lexi Revillian, Dan Holloway and Jake Barton to name three. These days it seems so much harder, despite the Cinderella stories that one occasionally hears.
I just had a five star Big Al review come out and it yielded me ONE sale. ONE! Where is a badly behaving author going nuts after a negative review to get Big Al’s site viral, when I need one?