Anyone else ever get a BookBub ad like this?

[AngryGames]

So, excited squeal, as I just got picked for a BB ad for "End of the Line" on Sept 19th.

However, it was not accepted in USA, but will run in UK, Canada, India, and Australia...

Has anyone else ever done this? If so, can you give me a general idea of what to expect? The email says there's only about 400k subscribers across these four regions, which is fine, as EotL has a sequel that I plan on putting on sale at the same time, and I'm assuming I'll at least break even on EotL itself and make a bit on book 2 + the other 28 titles in my back catalog.

Anyway, was just weird as I once again got bummed when I received the rejection from BB about the book not being accepted, then a day later (this morning on my way to class) I received another email saying congrats!

The only other BB ad I've ever had was in 2014 for a crime fiction novel (was a freebie, did awesome in terms of downloads but back then, I only had 3 other titles published, and one was a short story for free, the other a novella for free). Got me a ton of reviews, but didn't translate into sales (again, didn't really have anything else for sale). They've rejected every attempt since then, and I've almost given up, but suddenly I'm pretty excited. And it couldn't come at a better time, even if it won't be promo'd in America.

Going to try and set up an ENT and Book Barbarian date as well. Any other places I should try? Book(s) will be $0.99 sale, so no freebies.

Thanks, everyone!

[notthatamanda]

I had a 99 cent BB Intl only in December on my psychological thriller.  Got best seller ranks in the UK, Aus and Can.  India was a complete bust, but I wasn't expecting much there.  Nice reviews from UK readers too, more than I expected.  The markets are smaller so the rank takes longer to fall and I had sales for a while with the increased visibility.  I made all my money back and more and that kick started my year very nicely.  I didn't get a lot of readers trying my other titles, which are all romance, which I expected.  The romance readers try the psych thriller but vice versa, not so much.  You may do better with your catalogue.  I did no other promos cause I wanted to see if BB was really worth it on it's own and it was.

Congratulations and good luck.  We love Bookbub results here, hint hint.

[WasAnn]

Yes, that's an international only one and often times you'll get those if they have a tradpub ad booked for that day that's only for the US, or one that's KU US only for that genre.

They're great! Of course, it's a Bub. Good luck!

[AngryGames]

Have you ever had an international-only BB? I'm still excited, and trying to stack some others on top, but Barbarian is out since I already have an ad running for a different book (normally I wait until I get a rejection from Bub before trying the others). Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't as I was out for a while and never did a lot of marketing when I was going full-tilt.

I'm reading as much as I can from others here (while taking 16cr, of which 3 are English classes, so far less time to read/write this semester than if I were still taking gen-ed courses).

[KevinH]

Have you ever had an international-only BB? I'm still excited, and trying to stack some others on top, but Barbarian is out since I already have an ad running for a different book (normally I wait until I get a rejection from Bub before trying the others). Trying to figure out what works and what doesn't as I was out for a while and never did a lot of marketing when I was going full-tilt.

I'm reading as much as I can from others here (while taking 16cr, of which 3 are English classes, so far less time to read/write this semester than if I were still taking gen-ed courses).

Assuming the date works, you should email Book Barbarian and ask them if you can swap out the current book for the one with the BookBub.  As long as it's the same genre (and meets their guidelines), I doubt they'll care.

[WasAnn]

Yes, I have had one and it went shockingly well. It blew their average stats out of the water by about 300%. Got a follow on US only bookbub for the same book a few months later. I'm pretty sure the performance of the Int'l one influenced that. Do everything you can to make it outstanding to enhance your chance of the same.

[angela]

I've had a few international-only Bookbubs, in cozy mystery. They did pay for the ad plus a bit of a tail of sales. It's not nearly as good as getting the whole deal with the US market, but it is still head and shoulders better than any other paid ad newsletters.

[AngryGames]

Okay, read a couple of threads from others who have already run a BB ad, and while mine isn't going to be in USA, I'm still pretty stoked. My friend (possibly manager if she keeps this up!) did some FB boosts just to learn the system and see what maybe works and doesn't work, and she targeted the four largest cities in India (and some in Canada, UK, and Australia). Suddenly almost to 100 page likes and 315+ post likes, with about 85% of them coming from India.

Now, I have no doubt this will probably be a nothing sandwich in the grand scheme of things, but maybe? It's kind of weird that people in India are clicking Like all over the place, while almost no one in AUS, UK, or CDN has. Are Indians just not as burned out or cynical about FB as we "westerners" are?

Also, didn't get Barbarian to change my promo (starts 9-2-2019, for "Diabolus") to coincide with "End of the Line" on 9-19, but that's okay. I did get ENT to feature EotL on the 19th. Is ENT still a decent promo? And Kobo accepted EotL's sequel, "Launch Sequence" for their featured free deal for the week of 19th - 25th or so. Which is pretty good, I think. Sure, it's a freebie, but it's book #2, and #1 will be $0.99, so hoping for a boost from my other titles.

And I've set up book #2 to also be $0.99 at all retailers during the same week as book #1 being $0.99 (again, other than Kobo, where it will be free), and hoping that #2 will get some love as well.

Not sure what else to do now. It's getting late in the game so I doubt I can get any of the other minor promo sites to give me a slot on the 19th-26th, and even if I could, not sure which are worth chasing. Will definitely remember to push harder on this stuff if and when I get another BB ad (only took 5 years from my first one to this second one!).

Any other tips? Am I missing anything? Ive just gone through both books again and cleaned up what I hope are the last few minor issues that slipped through the previous editing rounds (both books have been out for 2-3 years, and I always go back over them anytime one gets a promo just to be sure). Does anyone have any experience with FB ads/boosts/targeting? I'm not even bothering with Twitter as it's never been good as far as I can tell. But we are thinking about trying for Reddit ad that targets specific subs (books, Science Fiction, maybe even some gaming subs?).

Okay, shutting up. Thanks for reading my nonsense, and again, if anyone has any input, please feel free to post it. I've always been crap at self-promotion, but really trying this time, especially thanks to my friend Kendall who is pushing me (and herself to learn all this stuff) as she believes in me enough to help with the bits about writing that I'm terrible at -- basically, I'm terrible at everything except the writing part. I've spent about 3 hours updating everything at Google Play tonight as I have neglected that platform since 2015 =/.

[notthatamanda]

Bknights on Fiver only needs a two week lead time, and he's very reasonable. 
Not sure how long the lead time is on buckbooks.net is, but he's also reasonable.
mybookcave.com seems to be getting bigger, not sure what he's charging now
It's worth a shot to email bargainbooksy, they might be able to fit you in, more expensive.

Good luck and have fun!

[David VanDyke]

So, excited squeal, as I just got picked for a BB ad for "End of the Line" on Sept 19th.

Note, in current indie parlance, this is a promo, not an ad (also referred to by BB as a "Featured Deal".)

BB ads are the PPC or Per-Mil adverts you see attached to their promo emails.

***

Here's a copy/paste from the BB dashboard showing the choices:

BookBub Ads
Create an Ad
Use BookBub Ads to promote any book, at any time, to a highly targeted audience of dedicated readers. You can target readers by author interests, genre, retailers and location. Learn More
View all Ads

Featured New Releases
View All
Submit a New Release
Submit an upcoming release for a Featured New Release in BookBub's weekly email that reaches millions of readers. If selected, your book will be sent to all the readers interested in your category. Learn more.

Preorder Alerts
View All
Submit a Preorder Alert
You don't have any Preorder Alerts scheduled.

Featured Deals
Submit a New Deal
Apply for a Featured Deal in BookBub's targeted daily email that reaches millions of readers every day.
View all Deals

***

The bottom one (Featured Deal) is actually what you're discussing.

[AngryGames]

Shrug, ad, promo, it's all good. I'll correct myself in the future.

Also, did actually try the ad, but did a CPM instead of CPC. Was a waste of money. Might try CPC, but at $1/per, seems a bit... I don't know. There's no guarantee a click will result in a sale, so a bit risky for me at this time.

[Paul Gr]

and she targeted the four largest cities in India (and some in Canada, UK, and Australia).

Interesting.
I'm in the UK but don't live in a large city, so it looks as if you missed me, lol.
How can this targeting larger cities tactic possibly be effective?
It obviously is, because you've had some success, but I'm puzzled why readers (I'm a reader too) who live in rural areas apparently aren't being targeted.
Or am I missing something?

[AngryGames]

I think instead of targeting at the country level (very wide), she specifically targeted cities within the country. Something like "Mumbai + 30 miles" and so forth. Was the same with UK, Canada, Australia.

I can always ask her to register here and explain exactly what she's doing.

[AngryGames]

So, it's been a week since I've had my International-Only BookBub ad for "End of the Line" and thought I'd share some modest results. I'll also include book 2 in the series, "Launch Sequence" (no book 3 yet, working on it!) as I discounted it to $0.99 as well for the run.

"End of the Line"
Amazon - 346
D2D - 69
Kobo - 112
B&N - 0
GPlay - 0

total: 527

"Launch Sequence"
Amazon - 72
D2D - 6
Kobo - 138
B&N - 0
GPlay - 0

total: 216

total for both: 743

Some notes: Google Play did not have either book listed in the BBub markets (UK/AU/CA/IN) because apparently they changed something at some point, and I did not have "currency conversion" turned on. After spending time with BBub and on the phone with Google, Google finally alerted me to where the problem was, but the promo day was already at its end, so... Lesson learned. But it's weird as I've got plenty of sales in UK, Canada, etc from previous years, and I don't remember getting a notice about this currency conversion thing. No big deal, to be honest. The BBub Int'l Only ad was only $160, and I definitely made more than that.

Kobo - did not realize Kobo was going to be this decent. I'm starting to really like Kobo as a platform. Their in-house promotions, scheduled sales/price changes, the dashboard... I really am liking it a lot. Going to definitely put as much effort into Kobo as I do Amazon.

D2D - All but one sale is from Apple, and while Apple has never been a huge platform for me, I'm going to also put some extra effort into it. I really like D2D's dashboard and tools, and again, scheduled sale prices and so forth. Since I don't own any Apple hardware, I'll continue to use D2D.

Barnes & Noble - Not sure if it's just B&N as a platform that completely stinks now, or what. I have done decently well at B&N over the years, but this year has been absolute crap. Not a single sale from this promo, which is weird with BookBub. Must be a sign that B&N is on life support?

***

Other notes - Still riding the tailwind from this, and now as readers are finishing the promo book + its sequel, I'm getting a little bit of sales on my other titles. Nothing spectacular, but I didn't really expect it without the BB promo including USA. Had an ENT promo for EotL the day after BBub, so some of those sales are USA-based. Am really hoping for another BBub but with USA this time.

I know that the sales numbers aren't spectacular, but to be honest, I've been out of the loop for a couple of years, and my 30 titles have mostly sat on these retail platforms without a single ounce of promotion. As I'm now getting back into it full-swing, I'm starting to see some lift, and it has encouraged me to keep going.

Facebook - started a Facebook account again (deleted mine the day after the 2016 election as it was just nothing but everyone fighting), and this time I'm ONLY using it for book stuff. Friend helped me by learning the advertising / boost side, and while I've gotten tons of engagements and a decent amount of page likes for my author page, it of course doesn't seem to have resulted in many sales. I didn't expect it to, but as much as I hate FB, I know it's worth having, and will keep trying new things with it (tips would be appreciated!).

One odd thing about the FB stuff is that my friend promoted/boosted the page and my EotL promo with specific targeting of places like individual cities in the UK, Canada, Australia, and India. Almost no engagements or such from UK/CA/AU, but India... tons of likes and engagement stats. Well over 1k+ on multiple posts in terms of likes. However, during this whole promo week, not a single book was sold to an Indian reader across all platforms... Weird, right? Not a surprise, but still, kind of weird. I guess I'm just not destined to be popular in India!

Okay. That's all for the moment. I'm very happy. Could be better, sure, but something something gift horse something, and I'm absolutely not complaining.

So, to reply to the OP's original question, yes, BookBub is still worth it, and as others have said, it's still the #1 gold standard for book promotion for indie authors. Even just an International Only promo.

[AngryGames]

Huh... Sorry for continuing to babble, but a miracle has happened and I've just gotten another BookBub promo, this time for a crime fic / thriller (I applied for crime fic but they chose it for thriller) book. And again, International Only, no USA.

Absolutely not complaining. More amazed than anything. Took me 5 years to get a second BBub promo, and suddenly two in a row. Kind of hoping this is a good sign / trend. Could really, really use it at this moment in my life!

[notthatamanda]

Congratulations and good luck!

[Lynn]

That sounds great, though. :D Good luck with it!