Bookbub results thread- have you tried their site?

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dakota

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I'm just wrapping up a sale on my werewolf novel in which I used bookbub to advertise the sale and I thought I'd give you the results. I know bookbub has been discussed in other threads but i thought a thread to share results would help people make decisions on whether to use the service or not. My experience was fairly successful in that I made my money back, but just barely. The reason I consider it successful is because, as of Sun. (4 days after the bookbub email went out) I'd sold over 500 copies of Tamed at a sale price of $1.99. While I'm not getting rich, it is another 500+ people who have given my novel a try and have paid to do so. Of course, going into the promotion I had hoped to be closer to the top end of their reported results, but I am pretty happy to have hit the average. For horror they report sales from 40 ebooks to something like 1100 so over 500 is a good number for me. Plus, I haven't heard sales for Mon. or Tues. though the rate of sales had declined quite a bit over the weekend so I doubt they've gone up too much.

Have you used bookbub and, if so, how did it go for you?
 

Button

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I've tried to advertise with them twice and they rejected my offer both times. The first time I realized I set the planned 'sale price' for longer than a week. I didn't realize it until after I'd sent it in.

The second time I sent it in, they rejected it again. I'm not really sure why.
 

MartinD

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I knocked on their door without success. Their rejection letter was surprisingly similar to the rejection letters I used to receive back in the Bad Old Days (frustratingly vague).
 

NoelleAD

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I had a promotion run with Bookbub last week, and I was very happy with the results. I chose a title that had never had much sales momentum, and I reduced the price from $2.99 to $.99 for a week.

It went out to their Romance list. Before the promotion, the book was sitting at a ranking of around 5000 at Amazon and 30,000 at B&N. I made back the money I spent on the ad in about eight hours. On the second day, the book peaked in the rankings at 45 on Amazon and 13 on B&N. I'd never been able to get a book to move on B&N before, so I was thrilled with this.

The sales and rankings dropped very quickly, though--much faster than my books that moved up the rankings in a more natural way. By the fourth day, it was down considerably. But, still, it was well-worth the money I spent on it, as far as I'm concerned.

(No one knows me here, since I never post and only created this account a few weeks ago, but I've been lurking for seven years and have learned so much from you all. So I thought I'd share some of what I know. This is me.)
 

dakota

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Button, MartinD, I couldn't tell you why they didn't accept your books. They have a bunch of stipulations listed so maybe you didn't meet one of their requirements. For instance, the second book in my fantasy trilogy wouldn't meet their standards because I don't have very many reviews for it. I probably won't even try to submit that book. I also think they have something about the price. It has to be the lowest price offered for your book. I don't know how far back they go. And the sale price has to be at least half the regular price. I don't know if any of these reasons fit your situation though.
NoelleAD,
That's really good results. I'm seeing the same kind of follow up. My sales drastically slowed after the weekend. I expected that though because the book I advertised had been out for over a year and my sales were pretty anemic at this point before the promotion anyway. I got as low as in the 600s for ranking at Amazon but I'm already back up in the 15,000s. I hit 135 at BN. I made my money back and sold a few books, so it was well worth it.
 
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Button

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It might be the low number of reviews. All of my reviews have been over on GoodReads and not on Amazon. :) If they just checked the Amazon page, they wouldn't see them.

Aw well. I might try again later.
 

ellisshuman

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Thanks for this information = I am planning to use Bookbub in the future, just building up my reviews on Amazon first before I approach them.
 

sarahdalton

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My Bookbub went out on the 2nd Feb (I think that's the date - it was Superbowl Sunday so maybe an American person can correct me!) and I felt it went very well.

I reduced my price to 0.99 (from 2.99) and sold just over 300 on the first day and well over 100 on the second day. My ranking went from around 100k to 2k overnight. My book was #1 on Children's SFF/SF bestsellers on Amazon.com for about a day and a half.

For a few weeks after the advert I was selling 20-30 books a day. The sales for my second book went up too.

I've had pretty good, steady sales since then. It's a few months later and The Blemished is back at 2.99 and I'm selling around 5-10 books a day and staying between 15k and 25k in the rankings. The Vanished remains between 30 and 40k most days. Before Bookbub I was lucky to sell one a day so it's been really great for me.
 

MartinD

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Button, MartinD, I couldn't tell you why they didn't accept your books. They have a bunch of stipulations listed so maybe you didn't meet one of their requirements. For instance, the second book in my fantasy trilogy wouldn't meet their standards because I don't have very many reviews for it.

On Amazon, my book is review-lite, too, but the handful of reviews are glowing (and from real review sites, too). If I sound a little bitter, well, yeah.

One of the women in my writing group was advertised on BookBub and she said, quite openly, that every family member and friend she knew gave her novel a 5-star review even if they hadn't read the book.

I asked friends and family not to leave reviews. My mistake, I guess.

End of snit-fit. Back to What Has BookBub Done For You?
 
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