Hellooo everybody!
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was running a BookBub feature deal, and asked if you wanted
to learn more about them, and the answer was a resounding yes, tell us more. In particular,
this topic was requested by one of my patrons over on Patreon, Thomas Gore. Like a lot of writers
Thomas has been hearing about BookBub for a while now, and wanted to know the real advantages of
working with them. So today I am breaking down my experience with BookBub, how it all works,
and whether or not I believe it's worth the hype. If you're not familiar, BookBub is a
free online service that connects readers with handpicked book recommendations. Specifically
books that are on sale. Basically readers sign up for BookBub, they list their reading preferences,
and then they receive notifications whenever books that meet those preferences are discounted. There
are a lot of websites that do this, but BookBub is by far the most popular. And that's because
they are extremely exclusive about which books they feature and recommend. Because of this,
author's fight tooth and nail to get their books featured by BookBub. And because of that, BookBub
feature deals can be really expensive. Which leads a lot of writers to wonder, is it all really worth
it? You're paying a hefty price tag, so you gotta get something out of it, right? That's exactly
what we're gonna figure out today. I'm gonna give you an overview of how BookBub works, how to apply
for a feature deal, and my personal experience with using them for a feature deal. I have run
three feature deals through BookBub, and I kept detailed notes for two of them, and I will present
those notes to you today. Is the juice really worth the squeeze? Stick around to find out.
(The sound of a pen scratching. LOGO.)
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your style, check out the first two books in The Savior Series. And you wanna check ‘em out now,
because the third book in the series, The Savior’s Army, is coming out really soon.
Now I'm breaking down everything you need to know about BookBub starting with the most
obvious question: why BookBub? There are a lot of platforms who offer the same service as BookBub.
You pay a fee, you price your book at a discount, and they will recommend your book to their
readers. You can definitely use other services but BookBub is considered the main place to go,
and that's because they have the largest list of readers. And they have the largest list of readers
because, as we already covered, BookBub is super picky about the books that they recommend. Other
websites have a lower barrier to entry, they'll recommend pretty much any book that's discounted.
Whereas with BookBub, you have to prove that your book is of quality, or that there's some
kind of clout behind it. Because of this readers trust BookBub, and they flocked to that website.
What services does BookBub offer for writers? BookBub isn't just for readers. Authors can
join BookBub, and they definitely should. You can create an author page where readers can
follow you, review your books, and check out any books you personally recommend.
It's great to have a BookBub author page because anytime you release a new book,
all of your followers will be notified, which is huge free marketing. Even if
you don't use their pay for features, get a BookBub author page right now. And get your
readers to follow you. Speaking of, if you haven't followed me on BookBub do it, now!
BookBub also allows writers to run ads on their platform. Basically you can pay to have an ad of
your book appear in one of their newsletters. It's your job to figure out how this ad looks,
and what will make it successful. So really all of the burden is on you to get it right. But what
we're talking about today is what BookBub is best known for, and that’s feature deals. As
we already covered, the entire point of BookBub is for readers to receive a notification when
books that meet their reading preferences are discounted. That's what a feature deal
is. BookBub is featuring your book to their audience, and that's a service that you as an
author must pay for. BookBub selects these feature deals by sifting through a bunch of applications
from various authors. It's your job to contact BookBub and say “Hey, I plan to discount my book.
Could you please feature it in your newsletter?” And of course, you're gonna have to pay for it.
How do you apply for feature deal? There is a simple application on the BookBub website,
and it is super easy to fill out. You have to choose the genre for your book,
your book's discounted price, which platforms you plan to run your discount on, and which
countries this discount will go into effect in. For example, you might say your book is fantasy,
it's discounted to 99 cents, and you plan to run the discount on Amazon, Google Play,
Barnes & Noble and Apple Books. And this discount will only run in the US. After you plug in this
information, it's gonna to show you the price you will be paying if your deal is selected.
And be prepared, BookBub is not cheap. This is an extremely popular platform with very direct
marketing. So you're gonna have to fork over some cash. Lastly, it's time to plead your case. I said
it once and I'll say it again, BookBub is very particular. They only want the best of the best
for their newsletters. So you gotta make sure your book stands out. That means listing your
credentials. Is your book an Amazon bestseller? How many five-star reviews does it have? Has the
book won any awards? What's your platform like? You are competing against a ton of authors, so you
really need to make yourself stand out and shine. And be sure to follow their submission rules to a
T. Once you submit your application, be prepared for rejection. Thousands of authors are vying for
a slot. This is a process that requires time and patience. Many authors apply roughly once a month,
until they're finally selected. If they're ever selected at all. If you're selected,
the details of your deal will be emailed to you, you will be billed, and then it's up to you to
make sure you get your book discounted on time. Again you need to follow their directions to a T,
because if you don't discount your book on time, they're not gonna feature you. You done fucked up.
What are some of the most popular BookBub strategies? Again, this is exclusively in regard
to feature deals. Listen, there are a bazillion different strategies that a writer can have for
putting their book on sale. Obviously if your book is on sale, more readers are gonna buy it,
because everyone loves a discount. But you also have to take into consideration that a discounted
price means you're going to receive a much smaller royalty percentage. If your goal is simply to
reach more readers, or get greater exposure on a platform like Amazon, then it doesn't really
matter that the royalty percentage is going to be lower, because you will probably reach that goal
using a BookBub feature deal. But as we discussed, BookBub feature deals are very expensive, so a lot
of writers would at the very least like to make their money back. Because of this one of the most
popular strategies for featured deals revolves around series. If you've written a series,
or you're in the process of writing a series, it's very common to request a feature deal for book one
in that series. Basically, you discounted book one, it is then featured on BookBub’s newsletter,
a ton of new readers read it, and there's a good chance that a small percentage of them will then
go ahead and buy book two, or three, or four at full price. This is usually how writers are not
only able to reach new readers through BookBub, but also make their money back and potentially
gain a profit. Again, there are plenty of strategies to use, either way you're gonna
reach new readers. But if you wanna make your money back, this method is considered the norm.
And now for the moment we've all been waiting for. Is BookBub really worth it?
I'm gonna preface this with what should be an obvious disclaimer. Every author's
experience with BookBub is different. And every author's goal is different. My experience is not
reflective of everyone's, if BookBub worked for me, all that means is BookBub worked for
me. If it didn't work for me, that means it didn't work for me. Are you following this?
Authors are not a monolith. Please do not treat what I'm about to say as if it is universal,
because if you do you’re fucking stupid, I have run three feature deals through
BookBub. And by my goals and standards, all three of them were a success. I only
have data for two of those BookBub deals. So we're gonna break those down right now.
Let's break down my very first feature deal with BookBub. For this deal, The Savior’s Champion was
discounted at 99 cents for two weeks. I was approved for a domestic sale on Amazon, Apple
Books, Kobo and Barnes & Noble. That means this sale would only be promoted to readers in the US,
and they would receive links to The Savior's Champion on all four of those platforms. The
price for this feature deal was $516. At the time of this deal, the companion novel for The Savior's
Champion, The Savior’s Sister was available for preorder. My goal was to introduce brand new
readers to The Savior Series, and hopefully see a portion of those readers preorder The
Savior’s Sister at full price. Because this was my first BookBub deal and I was a novice,
I fucked up. The sale didn't end up going through to Apple Books, Barnes & Noble,
or Kobo. So the day that the feature deal ran, it was only on sale on Amazon. The folks at BookBub
were super nice about this. They said they would go ahead and feature the deal, but only share the
Amazon link. I was discouraged, but hoped it wouldn't affect the performance of the deal
too much. With that said, on the first day of the feature deal, I sold 753 copies of The Savior's
Champion. For reference, that's a fucking lot. It also hit number one on Amazon's epic fantasy list,
which is not an easy list to top. By the end of the two weeks, I sold 1,352 copies of The Savior's
Champion. This came to a total of $468.47. As you can see, that was a ton of books sold in
just two weeks. Despite the fact that the deal only went through Amazon. But you can also see
that because the book was discounted to 99 cents, I did earn back what I paid for the deal. However,
during the feature deal, I saw a jump in preorders for The Savior’s Sister. Ninety people preordered
The Savior’s Sister during the feature deal, and they preordered at full price. That came
to $440.37. This does not include BookBub readers who didn't read TSC immediately,
and thus didn't pre order TSS immediately. They may have preordered it or ordered it later down
the line. When combining what I made off of TSC and what I immediately made off of TSS,
we are looking at a combined total of $908.84. This means not only did I reach nearly 1400 new
readers, I also made a profit of nearly $400, after taking into consideration the cost of
the feature deal. All in all despite the hiccup, I considered this a huge success.
Next we'll take a look at my most recent BookBub deal. This featured deal was once again for The
Savior's Champion, which was discounted at 99 cents for one week. That's half the length of
time as the previous deal. I was approved for an international only deal on the platforms Amazon,
Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play and Apple books. This means the sale would only be promoted to
readers outside of the US, and they would be given links to all five platforms. The cost of this
feature deal was $196. You'll notice this feature deal was a lot cheaper than the previous one,
and that's because a bulk of BookBub’s readers are based in the US. Because of this, this deal will
reach much fewer readers, and in turn, the deal is worth less. This is important to note because
since we're reaching fewer readers, we're gonna see fewer sales. Like my previous sales goal,
my goal was not only to reach new readers for The Savior's Champion, but to see some crossover and
buy The Savior’s Sister at full price. This time I wasn't a novice, and I didn't fuck anything up.
The sale went out on all five platforms, and the deal happened without a hitch. Admittedly,
I did not check to see if TSC hit any Amazon bestseller lists, because this deal was going
down during the release week of Shut Up and Write the Book, and I had other shit to do. However,
during this week-long sale I sold 415 copies of The Savior's Champion, which isn't as impressive
as the last deal, but it's still a lot of books in a very short amount of time. This came to
a total of $143.79. So like the previous deal, I didn't break even off of TSC sales alone. However,
once again we have to take the sales of TSS into consideration. During the week of the
feature deal. I sold 35 copies of The Savior’s Sister. That came to a total of $171.26. Again,
this does not include BookBub readers who ended up buying TSS at a later date. Altogether my
total was $315.05. This means I made a profit of $119.05, after taking the cost of the deal
into consideration. Once again I consider this a success. Not only did I reach new readers for The
Savior Series, I also got a bunch of them to buy book two in the series at a higher price.
So there you have it, was BookBub worth it? In my opinion, yes. If you snag a BookBub feature deal,
I do recommend that you do additional marketing yourself. I mentioned my
BookBub deals through my newsletter. I mention ‘em here on my YouTube channel. I
mention them on social media. Again this is exclusively my personal experience,
but my experience was positive, and I will continue to use BookBub in the future.
A huge thank you to Thomas for requesting today's video. If you'd like the chance
to have a video dedicated to you, or if you want access to tons of other rewards,
check me out on Patreon. I got it linked below.
Don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I post new videos on Wednesdays, and if you wanna be
alerted AS soon as I upload, ring that bell. Shut Up and Write the Book is available right
now in ebook, paperback, hardback, and…what did I forget? Audiobook, that's the one. So if you want
a step-by-step guide to writing your book from start to finish, definitely check it out, I got it
linked below. If dark fantasy romance is more your style, the first two books in The Savior Series:
The Savior’s Champion and The’s Savior’s Sister, are available right now. I got ‘em linked below.
And be sure to follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram, TikTok,
and Facebook. And of course you can follow me on BookBub @JennaMoreci! Bye!
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