[James Fraser]

I just wanted to let you WC KBers know that I'm in the middle of building an alternative to BookBub.

Distribution channels will be via email list and syndication through my very popular Kindle Android apps. Email list will hit 100,000 subscribers by end March and app users will have passed 1,000,000 by then. It is at this point that I aim to launch the service.

I know a lot of you are finding it difficult to get accepted onto BookBub these days, and many of you wonder where to promote next if you are one of the fortunate ones who happen to have already run a promo. I thought it was high time someone came up with a viable alternative. It might not have quite the level of impact that BookBub does in the early stages, but I aim to continue growing this service in the months and years ahead.

I also aim to change the offering in a significant way. I will invoice AFTER a campaign has run its course and users will ONLY pay for those sales which are directly attributed and tracked via my service. Fees will represent a percentage of the value of any given book and will allow a significant margin of profit for authors after Amazon's 30% and my percentage. Payment terms will be very lenient. So much so, that authors will be allowed to wait for the period of payment (for sales generated during my promos) from KDP before paying the invoice. This will alleviate the stress some authors feel about forking out up to $1,000+ up front (without guarantees, I may add) which BookBub and other services require.

Anyway, I'm just floating this concept to the community (as I do with many of my book marketing projects on KB) and wanted to know what you thoughts on it are / if you can think of any other features that you might want built into the finished service.

Thanks as always,
James

 

[90daysnovel]

ENT does a similar revenue share - and it's great as authors take no risk, and both parties split the spoils. Authors end up with extra as not all sales will be tracked (the extra visibility always adds to the bottom line). In principle, it should be win-win all around.

 

[James Fraser]

ENT does a similar revenue share - and it's great as authors take no risk, and both parties split the spoils. Authors end up with extra as not all sales will be tracked (the extra visibility always adds to the bottom line). In principle, it should be win-win all around.

Yeah, win-win is my thinking. I obviously expose myself to the risk of clients not paying, but I'll have to just take that on the chin. I think most in this profession are an honorable bunch anyway

 

[RM Prioleau]

I also aim to change the offering in a significant way. I will invoice AFTER a campaign has run its course and users will ONLY pay for those sales which are directly attributed and tracked via my service. Fees will represent a percentage of the value of any given book and will allow a significant margin of profit for authors after Amazon's 30% and my percentage. Payment terms will be very lenient. So much so, that authors will be allowed to wait for the period of payment (for sales generated during my promos) from KDP before paying the invoice. This will alleviate the stress some authors feel about forking out up to $1,000+ up front (without guarantees, I may add) which BookBub and other services require.

In a way, I can see why you're doing this, and it certainly makes sense, but I hate not knowing how much I owe beforehand. I like to budget my money so I know exactly how much to pay. I don't like getting surprise invoices.... Even providing authors with a ballpark figure might be assuring enough for me to know how much I am going to need to save up.

 

[James Fraser]

In a way, I can see why you're doing this, and it certainly makes sense, but I hate not knowing how much I owe beforehand. I like to budget my money so I know exactly how much to pay. I don't like getting surprise invoices.... Even providing authors with a ballpark figure might be assuring enough for me to know how much I am going to need to save up.

Thanks for your feedback. Good point. I will include estimates of conversion rates and likely costs for any given genre. I will aim to make this dynamic data which will update in accordance with how big my distribution network is. Obviously, as the target lists are growing all the time, these estimates will need to be adjusted regularly.

Hopefully though, giving authors the opportunity to pay after the following cycle of KDP payments will minimise the fear factor and allow for appropriate budgeting.

I should also add that the tracking cycle will only run for a fixed window of time. I'm thinking seven days from campaign launch. Therefore any additional sales tracked after the period will be gratis to the author. Hopefully, with a spike of sales and increased rank, there will be a decent period of increased residual sales too.

 

[Colin]

Hi James,

My company would definitely be interested in this. And we'd be happy to pay upfront. 

 

[James Fraser]

Hi James,

My company would definitely be interested in this. And we'd be happy to pay upfront.

That's great. Thanks for your interest, Colin! I'll be sure to announce it on here when it goes live

 

[beccaprice]

I'm interested, but what is your "reasonable percentage"? and how do we apply?

 

[James Fraser]

I'm interested, but what is your "reasonable percentage"? and how do we apply?

Hi Becca. Pricing will work out as being comparable to BookBub; who take between 30-35% on total book price. Say a Kindle book costs $3.00. Author makes 70% (ignoring small delivery fee) on every sale. I aim to charge author a fixed 30% of the total value for every book sold, author makes $1.20 per book after Amazon's and my service's cut. The closing period for the sales attributed to me would be a week. Any other residual boost in sales that I've generated for the author after then they can keep. If I've got a list of say 100k emails (ignoring my app delivery here for a moment) with a click rate of 15% (my current average) and a sales conversion rate of 2% (also my current average) that makes 300 sales. That would make $270 fees payable to my service (payable after next KDP payment cycle). Author still makes $360 on the books I have sold for them and they benefit from the full 70% commission for books I have sold after 7 day period as well as the residual increased sales after my 7 day period is up (as their book will have been spiked up the rankings). Hope that makes sense?

Application to the service will be done through my platform. Just putting the finishing touches on the site now. Will be going live hopefully end March latest once the platform is connected up with my email list and apps.

 

[69959]

I like that payment method. I recently ran a promo with ENT and it's nice knowing that because it's based on sales, I won't lose any money.

 

[MonkeyScribe]

This all sounds good in theory, but my default is skepticism because of all the scams and semi-scams that pass through here. Is this Amazon-only? There's a huge need for something that works in the UK, and Nook, Kobo, etc., also need some extra marketing love.

 

[60169]

Hey, James...

Like everyone on here, I'm always on the lookout for new venues, so I wish you luck.

Here's my one suggestion: Although I understand that some people will enjoy not paying until 60 days after the ad has run, personally I prefer to pay immediately, as soon as the amount has been determined. Maybe you could offer a small (10%?) discount to folks who pay within 5 days of receipt of invoice?

Also, as Michael says, anything that could be done to build a list that services the UK would be looked at very favorably, I think. I've mostly been invisible there, but when I managed to see a spike in visibility there about a year ago, I sold really well there, about a thousand copies in 30 days. I've probably sold less than 200 copies there in the trailing 12 months and would love to find a way to get "out there" again.

If you pull it off, we'll all beat a path to your door, waving our checkbooks.

 

[Quiss]

How about freebies and permafrees?

 

[Mark E. Cooper]

Sounds good in theory, but you will find most authors here use bookbub to promote either freebies or $0.99 deals. Now freebies obviously won't work for you even with tracking, so that is a huge downside unless you have a special freebie only set price. The $0.99 deals are doable, but Amazon will take 65% not 30%, so not much in it for you.

I do see other prices offered using bookbub, but by far the highest percentage is free or 0.99. Just saying.

 

[Justawriter]

Hi Becca. Pricing will work out as being comparable to BookBub; who take between 30-35% on total book price. Say a Kindle book costs $3.00. Author makes 70% (ignoring small delivery fee) on every sale. I aim to charge author a fixed 30% of the total value for every book sold, author makes $1.20 per book after Amazon's and my service's cut. The closing period for the sales attributed to me would be a week. Any other residual boost in sales that I've generated for the author after then they can keep. If I've got a list of say 100k emails (ignoring my app delivery here for a moment) with a click rate of 15% (my current average) and a sales conversion rate of 2% (also my current average) that makes 300 sales. That would make $270 fees payable to my service (payable after next KDP payment cycle). Author still makes $360 on the books I have sold for them and they benefit from the full 70% commission for books I have sold after 7 day period as well as the residual increased sales after my 7 day period is up (as their book will have been spiked up the rankings). Hope that makes sense?

Application to the service will be done through my platform. Just putting the finishing touches on the site now. Will be going live hopefully end March latest once the platform is connected up with my email list and apps.

I like the idea, but this is about twice the price of ENT. They charge 25% of the profits, so in this scenario it would be roughly 150 to ENT and 450 to the author vs. for your model it would be 270 to you and 330 to the author. ENT is so effective, how would you be offering double their value?

 

[James Fraser]

I like that payment method. I recently ran a promo with ENT and it's nice knowing that because it's based on sales, I won't lose any money.

Thanks Stacy. That's what I'm aiming to achieve.

 

[Magda Alexander]

Will you accept erotic romance and erotica books?

 

[James Fraser]

This all sounds good in theory, but my default is skepticism because of all the scams and semi-scams that pass through here. Is this Amazon-only? There's a huge need for something that works in the UK, and Nook, Kobo, etc., also need some extra marketing love.

I understand your concern, Michael. Hopefully though, enough of you on here know me now as the 'book marketing guy' (from my other projects) to know that I'm not a scammer. Besides, in this instance, the only person who could be scammed would be me - by clients deciding not to pay me for results I generate (as I mentioned earlier).

Yes, this will be only for Amazon at the moment. Maybe I'll roll out to Nook etc. later, if things take off. Currently my UK list and app registration stands at around a third of the size of my US audience. I will only be tracking US sales, so any UK sales (or any other territories) generated as a result of my activity will be a bonus to the author.

 

[Calvin Locke]

I'd be interested.

 

[James Fraser]

Hey, James...

Like everyone on here, I'm always on the lookout for new venues, so I wish you luck.

Here's my one suggestion: Although I understand that some people will enjoy not paying until 60 days after the ad has run, personally I prefer to pay immediately, as soon as the amount has been determined. Maybe you could offer a small (10%?) discount to folks who pay within 5 days of receipt of invoice?

Also, as Michael says, anything that could be done to build a list that services the UK would be looked at very favorably, I think. I've mostly been invisible there, but when I managed to see a spike in visibility there about a year ago, I sold really well there, about a thousand copies in 30 days. I've probably sold less than 200 copies there in the trailing 12 months and would love to find a way to get "out there" again.

If you pull it off, we'll all beat a path to your door, waving our checkbooks.

Thanks for your feedback Shawn. Clients will be invoiced as soon as the seven day tracking period is up. Therefore the choice will be there to pay right away if an author so wishes. I just wanted to include long period payment terms as a way of offsetting the 'risk' authors feel they might be taking by using the service. Paying after they've been paid seems a fair way of achieving this.

I do like your idea of offering a discount for speedy payment. I might well work this into the platform. Thanks for that!