Before I get into more details and tips for success, remember, a promotion that doesn’t do as well as hoped isn’t necessarily a failure on the author’s part. It can be a failure of the marketing done on the author’s behalf – and marketing does fail frequently in my experience. That said, it's up to the author to put his or her best foot forward. You really need to take your time with any submissions to these services, make sure your work is highly polished with good cover art, and provide as much detail as possible in your submission.
Further, to be clear, no one who participated in the study was disappointed with BookBub. Participants gave BookBub two thumbs up with caveats and our highest rating.
Did the participants think BookBub was a good value? Yes, that's what the score of 10 indicated.
Did the participants think BookBub was perfect? No, that’s why the score was a 10 and not a 20. Online promotion services in this category have a long way to go towards perfection—BookBub included.
Will the participants be using BookBub again? Yes, absolutely.
I was asked many questions about the residual value of online book promotion services, as in: Is there value beyond the promotion period?
To be clear, the study looked at the value of the promotion not just on the day of promotion but within a reasonable window of time that extended beyond. As an example, a book may see 80% of its boost on Day 1 and Day 2, 15% of its boost on Days 3 to 5, and 5% of its boost on Days 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, and that windowing effect was taken into account.
These offerings are really one-time and done, with little residual value. Remember, many of these services are featuring 20 – 30 or more books a day with promotions appearing on “daily feature” pages, promoted through daily emails, and often on social media. It’s important to remember that success with these services isn’t just about the daily newsletter emails to followers. It’s also about the service’s web site and social media channels. Thus, there are 3-parts to promotion strategies using these services that must be considered.
With the “daily feature” page, your book is one of many. Successive daily promotion pages quickly follow the page your book is on. Thus, after 7 to 10 days, your book is already several hundred books back in the queue. Some promotion services distinguish themselves by making their web sites about more than the listings, and that helps to build traction.
With daily emails, your book is included in a daily email. Successive daily emails quickly follow. Thus, after a few days, the email containing your book has already been superseded several times.
It’s also important to remember that just because a service has 1,000,000 followers doesn’t mean 1,000,000 are going to see your promotion. Typical open rates for promotion services that use daily emails are likely 2 to 3%, though I’ve seen claims as high as 6 to 12%. Open rates are posted by some services if you look for them, though self-reported and based on all classes of recipients.
With an open rate of 2 – 3% and 1,000,000 emails sent, that means about 20,000 to 30,000 are opening the email. With an open rate of 6% and 1,000,000 email sent, that means about 60,000 are opening the email. With an open rate of 12% and 1,000,000 email sent, that means about 120,000 are opening the email. Once those emails have been opened, some subset of those who did so will make one or more purchases based on what they read.
Going back to the idea of residual value. Marketing isn’t just about the sales made, but also building brand, following and cache. However, most of these services would have to rethink their entire approach to build any actual product awareness: daily pages and daily emails don’t build anything.
With 20, 30 or more books featured at a time each and every day, readers are simply being overwhelmed and it’s highly unlikely any value is being built. ENT and BookBub might be exceptions, as their larger followings make the building of traction more likely. As ENT and BookBub are quite popular, they may also have higher open rates than smaller services.
Anyone working at these services may wonder how they can start providing more value more consistently. There's no easy answer but here's a start: Don't feature so many books at once. Build additional value using your website and social media. For examples of better websites, start by looking at how ENT is doing things.
The
effectiveness of this category of book promotion services has changed over
time. Services focusing on free and discounted ebooks have grown and matured
with the ebook/kindle marketplace itself. A mature following isn’t the same as
a new, hungry following.
When many of
these services started, they were rapidly expanding and growing their
following. Now much of their following has matured along with the services
themselves. As a result, there’s likely a growing percentage of members who may
not be actively seeking new reads or who may not be seeking new reads as frequently,
as well as a base of members who continue to actively seeking new reads.
Because of this, these services must constantly grow their membership base with
not just new members, but with members who are actively seeking new reads.
I know when
I first started following these services, I couldn’t wait to open the emails
each day to discover new deals. A few weeks in though, I was only checking
every few days. A few months in, I was only checking sporadically, and mostly
when I needed something to new to read. Now after several years, I check only
every now and again—and I’m someone who reads ravenously, daily.
Regarding
repeat advertising for the same product, some discussion should be made about
the possibility of diminishing returns—and that should definitely be
highlighted. The first time you advertise a product in a new market you are
likely to capture the attention of a larger part of the market than with
subsequent advertising in the same market. In fact, with each subsequent ad for
the same product, you may find less and less of a return.
Keep in
mind, the concept of diminishing returns applies to advertising the same
product in the same market repeatedly. Thus, one way to get continued success
is to market different products rather than the same product. Also, keep in
mind the market itself can change over time. In the early days, this was
especially true with BookBub. BookBub with 2 million members didn’t have the
same market as BookBub with 4 million members. Not only did BookBub have 2
million more members, but the company also started doing things in different
ways. Growth and change create new opportunity, and if BookBub continues to
grow and change these opportunities will continue to flourish.
Open rate is
only one metric for success in email newsletters. Other important metrics
include clickthrough rates and conversion rates. Going back to what I was
talking about earlier with open rates for the email newsletters from these
services. The open rate is the percentage of members who open the newsletter.
If a service has 4-million members and a 10% open rate, that means about
400,000 will open the email on any given day.
The
clickthrough rate is the number of members who click through to a sales page
after they’ve opened the email. If the clickthrough rate is 26%, that means out
of those 400,000 about 104,000 will click a book link and land on a sales page,
whether at Amazon, Google Play, Barnes & Noble or somewhere else. Thus, in
the end, the 4-million member base is whittled down to about 104,000 who have
progressed far enough to make a purchase decision:
4,000,000 to
start
400,000 who
open the email
104,000 who
click through to a sales page
Those who
click through may do so more than once, but typically are only counted on the
initial click through. Because the newsletters always have multiple features,
each book typically receives some portion of the click through.
Sometimes an
additional metric called the conversion rate is used to track the number of
people who then make a purchase. However, that’s a difficult metric to track
because it relies on sales reporting, which is often estimated or
self-reported.
Tips for Getting into BookBub from BookBub, Plus 20 Questions and Answers from BookBub
Like Country
Clubs and Men's Clubs, BookBub builds buzz among authors by seeming to be
exclusive. In 2014, they accepted 1 out of 4 submissions. For 2015, they’re
currently reporting that they accept 1 out of 5 submissions and that’s what
we’re seeing as well. But the only real criteria they seem to have relate to:
Current
sales rank
Current sale
price relative to past on sale prices
Number of
favorable reviews relative to total reviewsOr in other words, they're largely looking for already successful authors to make even more successful.
Never
forget, BookBub is offering a service. They exist to serve authors, authors
don't exist to serve them. In 2014, BookBub earned about $12,000,000 from
authors (our estimation, not theirs). If they want to keep earning that kind of
money, they'll need to start being fair about their selection process, start
looking at the product offered itself, start posting real sales numbers for all
authors and not just the winners, and stop paying attention to what we all know
can and are being bought: reviews and sales rank.
So what does
BookBub itself have to say about all this? Do they have specific tips for
successfully getting featured? Yes, they do, and here they are with my
revisions as appropriate for clarity.
What is the
biggest factor for getting into or not getting into BookBub? Discount. More
specifically, the discount relative to the everyday price of the book. Books
must be discounted by at least 50%. As an example, a book priced every day at
$5.99 and offered at $2.99 has a 50% discount. A book with a discount less than
50% will not be accepted.
BookBub
accepts novels. Does BookBub accept novellas, short stories or picture books?
Any work of fiction must be at least 150 pages. Any work of nonfiction must be
at least 100 pages. The exceptions are for cookbooks, middle grade readers, and
pictures books. Cookbooks must be at least 70 pages. Middle grade books must be
at least 70 pages. Picture books must be at least 20 pages.
So novellas
and short stories are acceptable as long as they meet the length criteria? Yes.
We don’t currently accept stand-alone novellas or short stories, but we do
accept collective works.
Does BookBub
use reviews to determine whether to feature a book? Yes. Customer reviews and
ratings are used to determine whether to feature any book. BookBub also looks
for critical reviews from trusted editorial sources.
Such as?
Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Amazon editors, book review sections in newspapers.
Do deeper
discounts help to get into BookBub? Yes. BookBub promises members that any book
we feature is deeply discounted or free. The deeper the discount from the
everyday price, the better. Remember, the deal BookBub features must also be
the best deal available at the time.
Does BookBub
accept always discounted books? Not usually. A book that’s always discounted
doesn’t meet our criteria for a limited-time offer.
What is the
best price point for a deal to get accepted? BookBub rarely accepts deals
priced higher than $3.00. For the best chance at getting featured, make sure
your deal is $2.99 or less.
Does the
price history affect a submission? Yes. BookBub doesn’t accept submissions for
books that have had a better price in the previous 90 days. We don’t accept
submissions for books that will have a better price in the near term (approximately
next 30 days).
Does BookBub
accept free books? Yes. BookBub only features books that are free or
discounted. Free books are our most popular listings, and we’re always looking
for submissions of good free books.
Does BookBub
accept always free books? Not usually. A book that’s always free doesn’t meet
our criteria for a limited-time offer.
Books that were on sale at
the time of submission often weren’t selected. Can you tell us why that could happen? BookBub
looks for limited-time offers and typically 14 to 30 or more days in advance of
a feature. If the book is already on sale, it won’t be a limited time offer by
the time we feature it.
During the
submission process, we are asked for how long after the feature will the offer
be available. We found that our answer here really seemed to matter. Does it?
Yes. Again, BookBub looks for limited time offers. A book that’s going to be on
sale for 60 days isn’t a limited time offer.
A deal has
to be widely available for acceptance. Can you explain? Yes. A deal must be
available on at least one major retailer in the US or UK.
An example?
Amazon US or Amazon UK.
I notice BookBub is looking at Amazon Canada too, and breaks out US, UK and CA separately in pricing when you get accepted. Yes. US, UK, and CA pricing is separate. The audiences are separate.
Does the
number of retailers matter? Wider availability is better, but a deal only at
Amazon US, Amazon UK or both is sufficient.
How often
can an author submit a book to BookBub? Each book must have at least 6 months
between features. A book featured in February can’t be featured again until
August.
But what if
a book is rejected. When can the author resubmit? BookBub asks that authors
wait four weeks before submitting a book for consideration again.
But what if
an author has multiple books? BookBub looks at submissions for individual
books. An author with many books can submit each that meets our requirements.
But BookBub
will only feature the same author once every 30 days? Yes. BookBub won’t
feature the same author twice in any 30-day period.
ReadIndies
recommendation: Authors with multiple books should wait to see if they are
accepted before submitting a different book for consideration.
Submit your book to BookBub @ https://www.bookbub.com/submit-order/new
Learn about BookBub pricing @ https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing
Hope this special report helps you get into BookBub! To share your BookBub success story with our readers, send an email to williamstanek@aol.com with subject BOOKBUB STORY TO SHARE. Be sure to include full details about your promotion including the cost of the promotion, the total sales attributed to the promotion, the category you were featured in, the sale price, the number of days for the sale, the everyday price of your books, the number of reviews and the overall rating at the time of the submission. No attachments, please enter the details into the body of your email.
Thanks for reading,
Robert Stanek
