[Janeal Falor]

Hey! So, I got a BookBub for my book You Are Mine. Squee! Happy about that. I think the new cover helped. Anyway, I am trying to figure out what I can use for stacking promos before the BookBub promo to hopefully maximize the amount of downloads I get and keep my ranking better for longer. *fingers crossed* The problem is that I'm not sure what works anymore. Last time I tried a bunch of different ad sites, I didn't get much movement. I have my plan below. What else would you add to this? Ad sites, AMS, Facebook ads, something else? Any suggestions with those?

I haven't had good luck with FB ads in the past, so I'm not sure about them, but maybe I need to try again? If you had a BookBub for YA Fantasy, what would you do?

My Plan:

ENT - Contacted, haven't heard back
Freebooksy - 10/26/17
BookBub - 10/27/17

Thank you for your thoughts and opinions!

Edit to add: It's a free run, and my goal is a high, sustained rank (if possible). Money could really be used, but I'm hoping to get that as a side effect either way.

 

[aimeeeasterling]

I go back and forth on whether it's cost effective to stack before a Bookbub. I just ran a 99 cent Bookbub on my Wolf Rampant box set (the second time, a year later than the first) and my stack the day before included: Book Goodies, Bargainbooksy, I Love Vampire Novels, Booksends, Manybooks, and Ebook discovery.

The pre-stacking definitely helped improve my rank...but that day ended up $32 in the hole. In contrast, Bookbub day ended up $1,020 in the black, despite the $594 price tag of the Fantasy category.

Would I have been better off skipping the 200 bucks of prequel ads? Maybe so...or maybe the boosted rank helped improve the tail and thus sold more books over the long run. It's so hard to say!

(As a side note --- your new cover is amazing!!!)

 

[CassieL]

I had an international-only YA Bookbub in January. Since it was international-only and I had about ten days' notice, I used FB, AMS, and Bookbub CPC ads to drive sales to the U.S. side of things.

I have another international-only next month in Fantasy and I'm pairing that one with BookBarbarian and ENT earlier in the week. (And possibly Patty's Ebookaroo or monthly promo, but not confirmed.) Part of the reason for that is that I had already booked the BookBarbarian well before I applied for the Bookbub.

I have no solid experience to back up this opinion, but my opinion is Bookbub does well enough on its own that you don't really need to do much else. Unless you think you have a chance at making USA Today I probably wouldn't worry too much about putting other promo sites ahead of it.

What I would do is run AMS during the promo and keep them going after the promo to sustain rank. (I was able to do that for four months coming off a free run on a romance novel and it was very nice.)

 

[C. Gockel]

I think stacking is definitely worthwhile, even though you'll wind up in the hole for the ads the day before.

The thing is, you'll go higher on your BookBub day, get more exposure, and hopefully even more sales. Especially since your series is long, spending more on a loss leader makes sense.

BookBarbarian recently introduced a new category for quick promos. I'd look into those. Also, Robin Reads "Featured Promo" might be worth your while. GenrePulse has worked really well for me lately, and is super easy to book.

Congrats and GOOD LUCK!

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Two things are missing from the equation. Will it be free or discounted? Is your goal money or rank?

If it's discounted, stacking ads before BookBub, even money losses, so long as they sell one or two, will give you a higher peak rank on BB day. Higher rank equals more visibility equals more organic sales. And if it's in KU more downloads and page reads.

If it's free and you stack ads before BB, you'll again get a higher peak rank in the free store and more KU downloads.

Figuring ROI is difficult, particularly if there are several more books in the series, but usually a discounted BB promo will earn more money than a free one, if the series is only 2-4 books. After that, it's difficult to tell. The exception would be if the book in the BB free promo isn't the first in the series. You can get great results by promoting later books free with BB and discounting the first book during the same time period.

But, no matter how you shake it out, you will earn back more than you will spend. I've had sixteen and all of them earned out the day of the BookBub ad.

 

[Janeal Falor]

I go back and forth on whether it's cost effective to stack before a Bookbub. I just ran a 99 cent Bookbub on my Wolf Rampant box set (the second time, a year later than the first) and my stack the day before included: Book Goodies, Bargainbooksy, I Love Vampire Novels, Booksends, Manybooks, and Ebook discovery.

The pre-stacking definitely helped improve my rank...but that day ended up $32 in the hole. In contrast, Bookbub day ended up $1,020 in the black, despite the $594 price tag of the Fantasy category.

Would I have been better off skipping the 200 bucks of prequel ads? Maybe so...or maybe the boosted rank helped improve the tail and thus sold more books over the long run. It's so hard to say!

(As a side note --- your new cover is amazing!!!)

Good to know! And thank you! I think she did an amazing job with it!

I had an international-only YA Bookbub in January. Since it was international-only and I had about ten days' notice, I used FB, AMS, and Bookbub CPC ads to drive sales to the U.S. side of things.

I have another international-only next month in Fantasy and I'm pairing that one with BookBarbarian and ENT earlier in the week. (And possibly Patty's Ebookaroo or monthly promo, but not confirmed.) Part of the reason for that is that I had already booked the BookBarbarian well before I applied for the Bookbub.

I have no solid experience to back up this opinion, but my opinion is Bookbub does well enough on its own that you don't really need to do much else. Unless you think you have a chance at making USA Today I probably wouldn't worry too much about putting other promo sites ahead of it.

What I would do is run AMS during the promo and keep them going after the promo to sustain rank. (I was able to do that for four months coming off a free run on a romance novel and it was very nice.)

BookBub definitely does well enough on it's own. I just wonder about a more sustained rank from stacking before? I don't know. But good to know about the AMS during and after. This is a free run too, and I would be ecstatic if I could keep it going for four months, but yeah, not hitting USA Today.

I think stacking is definitely worthwhile, even though you'll wind up in the hole for the ads the day before.

The thing is, you'll go higher on your BookBub day, get more exposure, and hopefully even more sales. Especially since your series is long, spending more on a loss leader makes sense.

BookBarbarian recently introduced a new category for quick promos. I'd look into those. Also, Robin Reads "Featured Promo" might be worth your while. GenrePulse has worked really well for me lately, and is super easy to book.

Congrats and GOOD LUCK!

That's kind of what I was wondering/thinkiing. I'll have to check those out. Thanks!

Two things are missing from the equation. Will it be free or discounted? Is your goal money or rank?

If it's discounted, stacking ads before BookBub, even money losses, so long as they sell one or two, will give you a higher peak rank on BB day. Higher rank equals more visibility equals more organic sales. And if it's in KU more downloads and page reads.

If it's free and you stack ads before BB, you'll again get a higher peak rank in the free store and more KU downloads.

Figuring ROI is difficult, particularly if there are several more books in the series, but usually a discounted BB promo will earn more money than a free one, if the series is only 2-4 books. After that, it's difficult to tell. The exception would be if the book in the BB free promo isn't the first in the series. You can get great results by promoting later books free with BB and discounting the first book during the same time period.

But, no matter how you shake it out, you will earn back more than you will spend. I've had sixteen and all of them earned out the day of the BookBub ad.

Wow, sixteen? That's awesome, and doubly so that they've all earned out.

It is a free run. Money is nice, but I'd like rank because I feel like the more books I can get out there, the more the rest of the series will sell. It's 4 books long with a prequel. I've never thought of trying the later books in the series because they aren't standalones at all. But if people would buy the others... maybe?

And thank you all for your thoughts! You guys are awesome!

 

[JaclynDolamore]

The new cover is great!

Personally I would just do the BookBub. It really depends on your personal goals and strategy, there is no one right answer. But I'd rather save the other promo sites for another run later since they are only effective so many times or every so often. Plus if you haven't had great luck with promo sites in the past, the problem MIGHT have been your pitch, so you can see how BookBub pitches your book, and steal their pitch for the future maybe...? I had an international one, BB only, and the tail was amazing.

 

[Janeal Falor]

The new cover is great!

Personally I would just do the BookBub. It really depends on your personal goals and strategy, there is no one right answer. But I'd rather save the other promo sites for another run later since they are only effective so many times or every so often. Plus if you haven't had great luck with promo sites in the past, the problem MIGHT have been your pitch, so you can see how BookBub pitches your book, and steal their pitch for the future maybe...? I had an international one, BB only, and the tail was amazing.

Thanks! And that makes sense. I wonder about the pitch, it's worked awesome in person, but online is always a different ballgame.

 

[D A Bale]

Don't discount the benefit of some of the smaller and less expensive sites like Reading Deals, Fussy Librarian, Booktastik, My Book Cave, Book Pebble, and then some of the mid-range ones like Robin Reads, Book Barbarian, eBooks Habit, Book Sends, etc.  Even stack a few of them each day if you can get them on the schedule a couple of days before your BB.

Good luck!

 

[Janeal Falor]

Don't discount the benefit of some of the smaller and less expensive sites like Reading Deals, Fussy Librarian, Booktastik, My Book Cave, Book Pebble, and then some of the mid-range ones like Robin Reads, Book Barbarian, eBooks Habit, Book Sends, etc. Even stack a few of them each day if you can get them on the schedule a couple of days before your BB.

Good luck!

Oh, I completely forgot about Fussy Librarian. And I haven't heard of some of these others. Thank you!

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Wow, sixteen? That's awesome, and doubly so that they've all earned out.

It is a free run. Money is nice, but I'd like rank because I feel like the more books I can get out there, the more the rest of the series will sell. It's 4 books long with a prequel. I've never thought of trying the later books in the series because they aren't standalones at all. But if people would buy the others... maybe?

And thank you all for your thoughts! You guys are awesome!

I had a BookBub promo on book 6 in my first series back in April, 2015. It was a discounted promo and book 1 in that series was also discounted. On the day of the BB promo, book 6 sold 1463 copies and book 1 sold 228. The promo earned out before mid-afternoon. The combined affect boosted both books into the top 1000 and book 1 continued to sell high for weeks, drawing hundreds of new readers in.