Good luck, Beth. Sounds like you have a fantastic promo planned!
Maximizing a BookBub--March 7 Sale ***FINAL UPDATE: RESULTS!***
9
So I got approved for a March 7 BookBub! Yay! (Obligatory link to book on sale here!)
My specific goals for this (other than, obviously, sales) is for the book to rank high and place in some categories that are STILL eluding me (namely TEEN). I also know that in the coming months, I won't be able to focus as much on this book, so I wanted to do one last big hurrah before moving onto another few projects and family issues. It should be noted that my current sales average between 5-10 a day, and have been skewing on the lower end of that scale for about 2-3 weeks. My rank tends to hover around 50k, and I'm not ranked in ANY categories, despite keyword finagling, etc.
So, to maximize the power of the BookBub:
Sent preview announcement to my subscribers, March 4th
Result: 81 new subscribers (see previous post for more on that), 639 opens, 171 clicks (not as high performing as I'd like, tbh)
Announced a "spread the word" contest, March 6th
Result: 204 sales
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Best Ranks (midnight): 2580 overall, placed in top 100 of 3 categories
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You can see the contest here. Basically, if people spread the word on social media, they get entries to a giveaway. I also have the contest shared on all MY social media, so it's easier for them to share + gives me an excuse to be promo-y on my own social meda.
You can see the links to social media here:
Advertisement Day Plans: March 7th
Results & Notes
The Fussy Librarian ad went out about 9am, as of 11am, it's the only ad that went out. I've not done any personal promo yet today. Sales are low--only 37. I know it's not fair to judge based on 2 hours, but...within two hours, 37 sales (some of which could certainly be residual from my own promo yesterday--people are still retweeting and sharing). That said, I was pleased to see that FL also announced a $1000 contest in the email, so the preview line was about getting $1k--which I think would lead to more opens. Rank is close to the same as last night. Note: On a whim, re-checked sales--they're now showing 77 sales, just a half hour later. 77 sales in 2.5 hours is much better, and I'm far more pleased with FL. It seems clear that more people are like me, sleeping in on a Saturday
11:50am and I just got my BookBub ad--the huge jump could be because of that... (And within a few minutes, BookBub arrived in my inbox--the jump I saw earlier could certainly have been to others getting their email slightly earlier than me and/or FL.) ENT went out around 2:30 or so for me.
So, within about a half hour, BookBub made my sales leap up to the equivalent of sales from ALL of yesterday. One. Half. Hour.
![]()
By the end of the day, BookBub had certainly given me my best sales day ever.
![]()
My main goals, though, were categories and ranking. I'm super pleased with the results. I hovered in the top 200 overall for most of the end of the day, and got to 180 around midnight (but didn't screenshot).
![]()
More importantly to me was finally placing high in some of the categories I really wanted. This was the best of the day:
![]()
I had also put my short story collection, The Future Collection on sale, and only advertised that through my own social media. Luckily, that seemed to be enough to really boost its presence. I'm hoping for some continued sales and reviews for this one:
![]()
And the morning after was still seeing a nice rank...
![]()
...and not too shabby sales (as of noon):
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Total Sales: Pending
March 6: 204
March 7 968
March 8 71 (as of noon)
Highest Rank: 180
March 6: 2580
March 7 180
March 8 200
Categories Ranked In (with highest rank):
#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Action & Adventure
#7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian
#7 in Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
Overall Thoughts
Despite only getting $0.30 per sale, I've had one of my best royalty days yet. I certainly earned back my investment, and the value in the ranking, exposure, and sales will hopefully continue as reviews and word of mouth builds. This has absolutely been worthwhile and absolutely been something worth doing.
I was interested to see that my own promo on this--which was decently successful, although not the best promo response I've done before--netted me about 200 sales, whereas BookBub (and some from Fussy Librarian and ENT) netted me close to a thousand. This definitely proves that despite my social media presence, the outside promo helped significantly.
I was also worried about earning back my investment based on a 99c sale--I'd considered doing $1.99 instead to get more profits. I'll never know how many sales I would have made this time around based on that price point, but I think 99c was more successful; it led to greater impulse buys.
In short: the whole thing was VERY worthwhile, and I finally understand just how significant a BookBub can be!
My specific goals for this (other than, obviously, sales) is for the book to rank high and place in some categories that are STILL eluding me (namely TEEN). I also know that in the coming months, I won't be able to focus as much on this book, so I wanted to do one last big hurrah before moving onto another few projects and family issues. It should be noted that my current sales average between 5-10 a day, and have been skewing on the lower end of that scale for about 2-3 weeks. My rank tends to hover around 50k, and I'm not ranked in ANY categories, despite keyword finagling, etc.
So, to maximize the power of the BookBub:
Sent preview announcement to my subscribers, March 4th
Result: 81 new subscribers (see previous post for more on that), 639 opens, 171 clicks (not as high performing as I'd like, tbh)
Announced a "spread the word" contest, March 6th
Result: 204 sales
Best Ranks (midnight): 2580 overall, placed in top 100 of 3 categories
You can see the contest here. Basically, if people spread the word on social media, they get entries to a giveaway. I also have the contest shared on all MY social media, so it's easier for them to share + gives me an excuse to be promo-y on my own social meda.
You can see the links to social media here:
- Reddit: I also posted about the sale on a few relevant Reddit pages
- Pinterest: I just posted the graphic and a link to more info on Pinterest
Advertisement Day Plans: March 7th
- BookBub Ad (obviously the kicker)
- ENT Ad
- Fussy Librarian Ad
Considering boosting the FB postFB rejected my ad for having too much text in the image (they did seem to be counting the titles of the covers as text as well, but regardless, too much text. I was on the fence about this anyway, so I'm not bothering with it right now.- I actually got so frustrated with FB's ad program that I decided to invest $20 in a promoted tweet at Twitter instead.
Considering sending out another newsletter blast, just to advertise sale (debating on sending to the new subs or whole list)Decided against this since I've got such a heavy social media blast--don't want to alienate my readers. I also don't want to send to just the new subs, since looking at them, a significant portion may have come from the sale, so a reminder would be annoying.- I have two more graphics already lined up to share on social media throughout the day
Results & Notes
The Fussy Librarian ad went out about 9am, as of 11am, it's the only ad that went out. I've not done any personal promo yet today. Sales are low--only 37. I know it's not fair to judge based on 2 hours, but...within two hours, 37 sales (some of which could certainly be residual from my own promo yesterday--people are still retweeting and sharing). That said, I was pleased to see that FL also announced a $1000 contest in the email, so the preview line was about getting $1k--which I think would lead to more opens. Rank is close to the same as last night. Note: On a whim, re-checked sales--they're now showing 77 sales, just a half hour later. 77 sales in 2.5 hours is much better, and I'm far more pleased with FL. It seems clear that more people are like me, sleeping in on a Saturday
11:50am and I just got my BookBub ad--the huge jump could be because of that... (And within a few minutes, BookBub arrived in my inbox--the jump I saw earlier could certainly have been to others getting their email slightly earlier than me and/or FL.) ENT went out around 2:30 or so for me.
So, within about a half hour, BookBub made my sales leap up to the equivalent of sales from ALL of yesterday. One. Half. Hour.
By the end of the day, BookBub had certainly given me my best sales day ever.
My main goals, though, were categories and ranking. I'm super pleased with the results. I hovered in the top 200 overall for most of the end of the day, and got to 180 around midnight (but didn't screenshot).
More importantly to me was finally placing high in some of the categories I really wanted. This was the best of the day:
I had also put my short story collection, The Future Collection on sale, and only advertised that through my own social media. Luckily, that seemed to be enough to really boost its presence. I'm hoping for some continued sales and reviews for this one:
And the morning after was still seeing a nice rank...
...and not too shabby sales (as of noon):
Total Sales: Pending
March 6: 204
March 7 968
March 8 71 (as of noon)
Highest Rank: 180
March 6: 2580
March 7 180
March 8 200
Categories Ranked In (with highest rank):
#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Action & Adventure
#7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian
#7 in Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
Overall Thoughts
Despite only getting $0.30 per sale, I've had one of my best royalty days yet. I certainly earned back my investment, and the value in the ranking, exposure, and sales will hopefully continue as reviews and word of mouth builds. This has absolutely been worthwhile and absolutely been something worth doing.
I was interested to see that my own promo on this--which was decently successful, although not the best promo response I've done before--netted me about 200 sales, whereas BookBub (and some from Fussy Librarian and ENT) netted me close to a thousand. This definitely proves that despite my social media presence, the outside promo helped significantly.
I was also worried about earning back my investment based on a 99c sale--I'd considered doing $1.99 instead to get more profits. I'll never know how many sales I would have made this time around based on that price point, but I think 99c was more successful; it led to greater impulse buys.
In short: the whole thing was VERY worthwhile, and I finally understand just how significant a BookBub can be!
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Thanks Cady and Cheyanne!
Way to go!!! Thanks for sharing your info I'm excited to see how a YA Bookbub goes. I'm sure it will be fantastic!!
I'm excited to see how a YA Bookbub goes. I'm sure it will be fantastic!!Awesome!I just bought a copy, as I've been meaning to. I loved the Across the Universe series (as did my 17yo son )
You seem super organized and have a well thought out plan- I hope BookBub goes great! Fingers crossed for you!
) You seem super organized and have a well thought out plan- I hope BookBub goes great! Fingers crossed for you!
2
I updated the original post, but I know a lot of people (like me!) just click "read new" on posts and I wanted to share here as well.
The good news! I broke into the category that I really wanted to break into--one of the specific teen categories. (I did have to email customer support to get onto the last one, but the Kindle teen lists happened organically, which is nice.) Highest overall rank was 2580, which I will happily take.
![]()
Sales up to midnight were at 204:
![]()
It's been interesting to see just how little money 204 sales brings in at a 99c price-point. Then again, I've gotten a lot of people who said they'd been meaning to buy, and this spurred them--so I consider that a win, even at the loss of profits (there are a ton of "maybe one day" purchasers, so any chance to turn that one day into today is a good day).
So today's social media contest--which is going to cost me about $40 between the price of books and mailing--paid for itself with the sale, and had the added bonus of giving my ranking the boost that I was really hoping for, getting me into the categories I'd been eyeing forever.
Tomorrow's BookBub, Fussy Librarian, and ENT!
(And thank you all for your support!!)
The good news! I broke into the category that I really wanted to break into--one of the specific teen categories. (I did have to email customer support to get onto the last one, but the Kindle teen lists happened organically, which is nice.) Highest overall rank was 2580, which I will happily take.
Sales up to midnight were at 204:
It's been interesting to see just how little money 204 sales brings in at a 99c price-point. Then again, I've gotten a lot of people who said they'd been meaning to buy, and this spurred them--so I consider that a win, even at the loss of profits (there are a ton of "maybe one day" purchasers, so any chance to turn that one day into today is a good day).
So today's social media contest--which is going to cost me about $40 between the price of books and mailing--paid for itself with the sale, and had the added bonus of giving my ranking the boost that I was really hoping for, getting me into the categories I'd been eyeing forever.
Tomorrow's BookBub, Fussy Librarian, and ENT!
(And thank you all for your support!!)
You'll have a lot of fun with Bookbub tomorrow. Enjoy the rankings rise - its addicting!
You'll be fine! Grab a cookie and go read a good book to take your mind off things.bethrevis said:
You mean as opposed to obsessively clicking links and sales stats and ranking page and then repeat?SevenDays said:You'll be fine! Grab a cookie and go read a good book to take your mind off things.
So, within about a half hour, BookBub made my sales leap up to the equivalent of sales from ALL of yesterday. One. Half. Hour.
Or, alternatively, wedge down your refresh key with a hammer and have a clean pile of underwear to hand.SevenDays said:You'll be fine! Grab a cookie and go read a good book to take your mind off things.
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