I ran Bookbub ads over the weekend. Got two clicks in Canada and sold two box sets there. Also spent the $20 budget for the US and got nothing. I can't say for certain that the two Canadian clicks led to sales, I have a different compilation in a sale on Kobo and I got one there with no ads. So if there's a Kobo code I haven't cracked it, not even close.
Hope you did better.
Yeah, that's tough. When you don't have traction at a retailer, that twenty bucks is going to be hard to recoup. I hope you broke even, or at least didn't lose too much. Even though it's not a huge amount of money, it still wears at you from a psychological standpoint.
About a year ago, I entered
Clouds of Venus in Kobo's 10-dollar "Science fiction free page" promotion. I was hoping that would give me some traction, but that didn't happen. After the initial flurry of downloads, the free download rate settled down to about what it was before the book was on the free page. No sell-through, either, from that promo.
Since then, I've only applied for Kobo promos that take a percentage instead of costing money up front. It simply doesn't make financial sense for me, at this point, to do otherwise. If I ever get momentum there, then I'll reevaluate, because what didn't work before might start working. But until something changes, I'm not throwing any more money at Kobo promotions.
So far during this weekend's promotion, I've sold four copies of
Hostile Planet, three of
Mind Games, and three of
Ruined Worlds. These numbers are typical for how my books perform during Kobo's 40%-off promotions.
Once the promo ends, I expect paid sales to drop back down to one every couple of weeks or so. Until the next in-house promotion, that is.
But any paid sales are better than none, and I value every sale. There are plenty of authors out there who sell nothing at all, and I try to keep all this stuff in perspective as best I can.