Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Marketing Loft [Public] => Topic started by: Lysmata Debelius on October 22, 2018, 10:16:27 PM
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I've read through the Bookbub FAQ but I don't see this mentioned. If you arrange a featured deal with Bookbub (assuming you get it of course!) does it matter if your book is at the 99c price for a longer time than the dates mentioned in the featured deal?
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Not that I know of.
I wish I'd raised the price on mine sooner, though. If you raise the price while it's still high in the bestseller lists you can earn a nice chunk of extra royalty.
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Thanks, Simon. That makes sense.
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Here's something to think about:
Fairly often, I get to the BookBub email four or five days after it was sent. As a for instance, I haven't looked at Friday's yet and it's Monday already.
If I click on the book I'm interested in, my click goes to a BookBub page that tells me the deal is over and pushes other books. This may be somewhat less frustrating than clicking on a book from an ENT ad that came in on Friday also and going to the Amazon page only to find that the discount price is no longer showing.
BUT, if the deal is over, in the second case I'm still on the author's book page on Amazon, where I might break down and buy the book at full price anyway. Not so with BookBub.
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Here's something to think about:
Fairly often, I get to the BookBub email four or five days after it was sent. As a for instance, I haven't looked at Friday's yet and it's Monday already.
If I click on the book I'm interested in, my click goes to a BookBub page that tells me the deal is over and pushes other books. This may be somewhat less frustrating than clicking on a book from an ENT ad that came in on Friday also and going to the Amazon page only to find that the discount price is no longer showing.
BUT, if the deal is over, in the second case I'm still on the author's book page on Amazon, where I might break down and buy the book at full price anyway. Not so with BookBub.
That's worth knowing. Thanks!
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You have to leave the price at the discount for as long as you promised to when you submitted the deal application, if I remember correctly. You check a box that says you pledge to leave the deal up for that length of time. Now, you can set the length of time from a day to a year (or more?) but if you don't do what you promised, you are subject to them sanctioning you for your next application(s). So, raising the price earlier than you contracted for is taking a big risk.
That aside, the question is always "what's your goal?" If your goal is to generate new readers by discounting a Book 1 and getting read-through, then it makes sense to leave it discounted as long as it's selling above its "normal" level, whatever that is. That's what I do. When the sales fall to about where they were at full price (which for a Book 1 is never above 3.99) then I raise it back to normal. It can always be discounted again.
If your goal is immediate money, rather than getting the book into as many hands as possible, especially if it's a standalone book, then you should only discount for a short period. In this case, your goal is to convert to a full-price range (70% royalty) at the peak of sales ranking, which is usually 24-48 hours after the BookBub runs. Just make sure you didn't promise a week and then raise it early. With this strategy, you can support your BB with post-run per-click ads (AA (former AMS) or Facebook, usually), which you can leave running for as long as you're getting a positive ROI from the ads. This synergizes nicely with the ranking boost you got from the promo, keeping your book higher and getting more sales.
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Thanks for that very useful answer David. I'm still only looking for more readers reading my books, money is nice but not my main goal at this stage. So it would probably make sense to keep the book at 99c level for a bit after the deal period is over.
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Related, I just asked Written Word Media (Newinbooks | Freebooksy | Bargain Booksy | Red Feather Romance) the same question about Bargain Booksy.
They replied: "We have found that our readers typically engage with our books the day they are featured in the newsletter. You may see some traffic up to a couple of days after your promotion but the majority of clicks & purchases should be seen on the actual promotion date."