BookBub promo. Interview with Richard Fox

[ratsy]

So we have started to talk a lot about online marketing sites and promos so I wanted to share the efforts of indie military SF writer, Richard Fox. He joined me to talk about a few things, one of them being the FREE giveaway promo he did with book one of his Ember War series. I think the results were quite good.

Interview with Richard Fox, author of The Ember War Saga

I know it is very hard to get on to BookBub and Richard did what it took to get his book listed on there. I also noticed since his promo, he has garnered about 20 more reviews on Amazon as well.

 

[Brian G Turner]

He talks about getting tens of thousands of free downloads, which is great to see - but it's unfortunate that we don't get to hear much about how this converted into sales and actual income, other than it paid for his Bookbub promotion.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

He talks about getting tens of thousands of free downloads, which is great to see - but it's unfortunate that we don't get to hear much about how this converted into sales and actual income, other than it paid for his Bookbub promotion.

Well, he's giving a good indication with that - Bookbub will have cost him somewhere in the region of $400. If he covered that in a day, that's probably about 600 sales (assuming they're price-promoted. Could be less if they were full priced sales.)

Nice interview, Ratsy. Bookbub have been, in my experience, a pay-back deal and are probably the only ones who have so far (Book Barbarian, too, to be fair, tend to cover the cost of using them.) I've put in for a US deal and am waiting to hear back*. *nibbles nails nervously*

* I don't think I'll get accepted, though - I think my reviews in the US would need to be more plentiful.

 

[ratsy]

Brian, I think we get an idea. If he sold enough in the first day to cover the cost, we have to think that those sales kept up as his ranking stayed strong. Also the image where it is #1 in free, there are 143 reviews. He now has 180 reviews, which is a huge increase in a couple weeks. His books are currently ranked 1,748 - 1,566 - and 1,398. If you believe a KDP calculator, this means he is selling around 300 copies per day in the US only. And with a fourth instalment coming in a couple of weeks, it has added to his readership. Not only that, but many of the people who took the free book may take a while to get to it, so it may have a prolonged effect.

The bottom line is: If you can get a bookbub, do it.

Jo, I highly recommend you trying the fivr site. It has great reviews and he got over 800 DL's before the bookbub email went live. And it's 5 bucks. I'd love to see how it does for someone's regular kindle promo.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Brian, I think we get an idea. If he sold enough in the first day to cover the cost, we have to think that those sales kept up as his ranking stayed strong. Also the image where it is #1 in free, there are 143 reviews. He now has 180 reviews, which is a huge increase in a couple weeks. His books are currently ranked 1,748 - 1,566 - and 1,398. If you believe a KDP calculator, this means he is selling around 300 copies per day in the US only. And with a fourth instalment coming in a couple of weeks, it has added to his readership. Not only that, but many of the people who took the free book may take a while to get to it, so it may have a prolonged effect.

The bottom line is: If you can get a bookbub, do it.

Jo, I highly recommend you trying the fivr site. It has great reviews and he got over 800 DL's before the bookbub email went live. And it's 5 bucks. I'd love to see how it does for someone's regular kindle promo.

All right, then. I'll let you know. At that price, I'm prepared to gamble.

 

[ratsy]

Heck, I'll pay the five bucks for you!

 

[pambaddeley]

Looks like it can work OK when you have a series, because you make the first book free; have seen people posting about this on Goodreads also. I think it probably works most effectively when you have several books available, especially a series.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Looks like it can work OK when you have a series, because you make the first book free; have seen people posting about this on Goodreads also. I think it probably works most effectively when you have several books available, especially a series.

Nope, let's hit that one on the head in case it puts people off having a punt. It worked fine with me for both a standalone and first, to date, single book of a series (5 weeks to go to book two - eeeeee!) free downloads don't always equal reads and the jury is out as to whether or not they work, even for a series (personally I think they do and your first in a series should be a loss leader.)

 

[pambaddeley]

Oh OK. Sorry, have forgotten if I've read elsewhere - this was for a free download, not just reduced price?

Just trying to understand how this works, not that I'm imminently going to be in a position to try for a Bookbub, having still got the final edit to complete before investigating pro editors ....

 

[Gary Compton]

I personally think going free is a waste of time apart from giving your ego a boost. I did free on Malevolence and it went to #1 but those rankings dont carry over to the paid ranking list so what's the point.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I personally think going free is a waste of time apart from giving your ego a boost. I did free on Malevolence and it went to #1 but those rankings dont carry over to the paid ranking list so what's the point.

For a standalone, it doesn't work. But for a series using the first as a loss leader to get people reading and buying the next has good evidence of working (and the big publishers do it for that reason - David Weber's first two Honor Harrington's were free recently to get people sampling and trying.) that's what Richard did - and remember it raises the profile of book two and three if they get a rankings boost which means the readthroughs go up.

 

[Gary Compton]

The read through's have nothing to do with sales even when they are free.

It is when someone borrows the book under Kindle Unlimited

So no ranking boost in paid sales because of free downloads so I cant see how borrows would increase.

Just saying.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The read through's have nothing to do with sales even when they are free.

It is when someone borrows the book under Kindle Unlimited

So no ranking boost in paid sales because of free downloads so I cant see how borrows would increase.

Just saying.

Not on book one - on book two/three. That's what you use it for - to open the series to new readers who, if they like it, but the second and third. Retailers use it all the time as a sales tool - because it works. Yes, you lose book one's sales for a couple of days but by then book one is slow anyway. Getting it into the hands of the readers is what it can do. Readers don't pick up series on book 2 - so you need to make book one as widely available as possible to draw them in.

 

[Gary Compton]

I will bow to the greater knowledge of Jo Zebedee for 2 reasons:

1) She is a woman
2) Women are always right!

Onwards!

 

[ratsy]

Just an update on this. Richard's new release from Feb 19th is ranked 341 on amazon. He is killing it!

 

[Richard Fox]

Hey everyone,

Sales on the first day of the bookbub promo paid for the ad. What I'm sure happened was BookBub sent people to the Amazon page and about 100 hit the 'buy all three' button and got 3 for the price of 2. KENP reads went much higher after the promo as well. I've picked up several hundred more folks on the newsletter as well.

I had a 99 BB promo for a stand alone book (The Red Baron), it made the costs back right away but the book wasn't sticky and I didn't have any more titles in that genre for happy readers to go to next. Sad face.

Bottom line: You will get a lot of mileage from your BB buck if you discount a series opener and have someplace to go for new readers, either a mailing list or further titles in that series. Having both is best.

 

[Brian G Turner]

You will get a lot of mileage from your BB buck if you discount a series opener and have someplace to go for new readers, either a mailing list or further titles in that series. Having both is best.

Cheers for the advice, and welcome to the chrons forums, Richard Fox.