# Books Butterfly???



## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I've been seeing the Books Butterfly guy posting here, so I decided to check out the service. I almost bought an ad, but I was concerned that I was going to be "guaranteed" a certain amount of downloads. It sounds suspiciously like another service that was a scam about a year ago (can't remember the name of that one, but it stirred up considerable controversy and led to Amazon threatening accounts).

Before I buy an ad, can anybody fill me in on Books Butterfly and how it works? 

Thanks!


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Annie,

They're great!


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## Andie (Jan 24, 2014)

Looks like that's only offered for certain genres. And it's a small guarantee for the size of their list. I'm guessing they only guarantee genres/numbers they know they can easily hit with their list.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

C. Gockel said:


> Annie,
> 
> They're great!


At what?

Freebies? Paid listings?

Have to admit to also having reservations because of the disturbing similarities (in site design and ad plan) to the Service That Shall Not Be Named.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> At what?
> 
> Freebies? Paid listings?
> 
> Have to admit to also having reservations because of the disturbing similarities (in site design and ad plan) to the Service That Shall Not Be Named.


I don't think you need to worry. My promo with them hasn't run yet, but in setting it up, I could tell they were being very cautious. I did not get a scammer vibe from them at all. They asked me some very detailed questions before agreeing to run my promotion.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Patty,

They are still in the data collection stage, and I don't think they want me to share my results just yet. They'll work with you, and if they don't think it will work out, they'll be upfront about it and probably say no.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

C. Gockel said:


> Patty,
> 
> They are still in the data collection stage, and I don't think they want me to share my results just yet. They'll work with you, and if they don't think it will work out, they'll be upfront about it and probably say no.


Well, that would only hold water if they weren't charging you. If you got the ad for free then they could ask you to keep quiet about it. If you paid, methinks that sharing results is more than fair game.


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

I did a promo with them and was happy with the result. I've been meaning to post with my ROI on various promotions I've done lately so should do that. For Books Butterfly, I spent $19 and got 540 downloads on my permafree.

The guarantee is not that you'll get x number of downloads but that they will refund your money if you don't as far as I can tell. I signed up for one of the promos and they emailed me saying they were concerned I wouldn't get the number of downloads they guaranteed so offered me a cheaper promo with a smaller guarantee.


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## kimberlyloth (May 15, 2014)

They picked up my book without me knowing (free ad, yay!) and I had 400 downloads. The YA genre is smaller. I'll run a paid ad with them later. They do offer refunds if they don't meet the guaranteed amount. They seem legit and the follow up sales were normal.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Cool...thanks guys! Sounds pretty legit.  Guess I'll give them a try!


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## trublue (Jul 7, 2012)

It worked for my perma free. Love them!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

I paid $35 for an ad during my free promo back in December and had 1000+ downloads that day (I also had Bknights that day). I was happy with that. I noticed quite a few non-US downloads in there, so I think their reach is more international than many ad sites.

I haven't used them since because they now have some incredibly complicated pay-per-download/sale system, which I dislike. Also, the website is hideous to my eyes. They're not scammers, though.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

Hi, I'm from Books Butterfly

THIS:  The guarantee is not that you'll get x number of downloads but that they will refund your money if you don't as far as I can tell. I signed up for one of the promos and they emailed me saying they were concerned I wouldn't get the number of downloads they guaranteed so offered me a cheaper promo with a smaller guarantee.

*******

1) It's Guaranteed Downloads or your Money Back as a Prorated Refund.

So if you buy a slot that says X Sales for $50 and you get only 75% of X sales, then you get 25% back.


2) It's a new model - because we want to switch from 'Pay $50 without knowing how many downloads or sales you'll get' to Pay for Performance. We understand it's new so people are cautious - however, in the long term, it makes the market very efficient and it ensures that money flows to sites that provide measured and good ROI.

There are lots of sites that buy 20,000 Twitter followers or 50,000 Facebook Likes and then basically steal money from the ecosystem. It's not just fraud from authors, it's also damaging to sites that are actually providing a valid service for readers and authors.

3) We're requesting authors to not share sales because

a) We're still testing out results.
b) It creates wrong expectations. An author might do a bundle sales or a series sale and have a really good book with a good cover. Then every other author will think (human nature) that my new book with 1 review and a $5 Fiverr cover will get as many sales.

Once we have more data points we can figure out how to set the right expectations.


4) Yes, our international reach is a lot. We have 11 separate blogs for the main 11 countries that have Amazon markets (links go to the specific Amazon site). We also have Kobo and Nook email lists and Kobo reaches a lot of international countries. Our main blog (www.ireaderreview.com) has been around since Jan 2008. So we get visitors from lots of countries.

It's hard to tell exactly what countries you get downloads and sales from because most countries default to Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. So someone from Rwanda might download your book but it shows as an 'Amazon.com download'.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

Also, Pauline - thanks for the feedback.

Jill had given us some feedback on design a month or so ago. We have a new design ready. We're just busy with some new stuff like

1) ReviewPays - a site for Authors to get reviews in exchange for free copies of their paid books to reviews.

2) Ad Intelligence - a site where all sites that do promotions (including big ones like Good Reads and Amazon and Google and FB) can be rated and reviewed on factors like ROI.

So it might be a few weeks until the new site design is done.

ReviewPays should be ready to go in a few weeks.
Ad Intelligence might be a month or a few months.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I've used Butterfly several times for permafree books and they've always been honest, straightforward and responsive. They'll tell you if, for example, you've repeated a promo too soon and can't expect to do as well as you hope.


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## Lucian (Jun 8, 2014)

Books Butterfly is a useful and legitimate promo site. I've used them before and will use them again. I write thrillers.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> 3) We're requesting authors to not share sales because
> a) We're still testing out results.
> b) It creates wrong expectations. An author might do a bundle sales or a series sale and have a really good book with a good cover. Then every other author will think (human nature) that my new book with 1 review and a $5 Fiverr cover will get as many sales.
> Once we have more data points we can figure out how to set the right expectations.


Your advertising is effective, you don't need to hide the results. Authors sharing data means more business for the most effective sites. The biggest sites, like BookBub, publicise likely results on their website, and set prices accordingly. That's a clean, honest system.

I actually find it insulting that you imagine you have to 'set the right expectations'. Authors aren't stupid. Just because Wayne Stinnett got 50,000 downloads from a site, doesn't mean that anybody else will. The whole point of sharing data on a forum like this is so that people have multiple points of comparison, particularly for new sites like yours. Secrecy just makes you look dodgy, frankly.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Awesome! Gonna buy an ad today!

Thanks everyone!!!!


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

ireaderreview said:


> 1) ReviewPays - a site for Authors to get reviews in exchange for free copies of their paid books to reviews.


I don't see any information on whether or not there is a fee to the author for this.


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## Daizie (Mar 27, 2013)

The pay structure is very strange for a paid book. I don't get it. You couldn't advertise a 99-cent book. You'd never make any money. With ads, you hope to recover your costs, and it's a crap shoot. But still, there's the hope that you can recover your cost and make a profit. A 99-cent book only gets an author 33 cents or so in royalties. So with the platinum plan, I'd be paying Books Butterfly 67 cents for every sale on TOP of the $25 I already paid up front to book the ad, because every sale costs $1. How does that benefit me?

A percentage of sales, like the 25% ENT used to have, seems like it would be more fair and accommodating for authors with books at different price points.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

Daizie said:


> The pay structure is very strange for a paid book. I don't get it. You couldn't advertise a 99-cent book. You'd never make any money. With ads, you hope to recover your costs, and it's a crap shoot. But still, there's the hope that you can recover your cost and make a profit. A 99-cent book only gets an author 33 cents or so in royalties. So with the platinum plan, I'd be paying Books Butterfly 67 cents for every sale on TOP of the $25 I already paid up front to book the ad, because every sale costs $1. How does that benefit me?
> 
> A percentage of sales, like the 25% ENT used to have, seems like it would be more fair and accommodating for authors with books at different price points.


And on a free book, you make zero per sale. But the theory would be that sales would also increase your sales rank and increase visibility of your other titles. Just like a freebie would. The difference being that these are people who actually were willing to spend money on the book and will, therefore, probably read it sooner than later (whereas freebies tend to get buried on TBR lists). And on a higher priced book, it seems like a good deal. I assume they are basing the $1/sale on their own affiliate reports.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Daizie said:


> The pay structure is very strange for a paid book. I don't get it. You couldn't advertise a 99-cent book. You'd never make any money. With ads, you hope to recover your costs, and it's a crap shoot. But still, there's the hope that you can recover your cost and make a profit. A 99-cent book only gets an author 33 cents or so in royalties. So with the platinum plan, I'd be paying Books Butterfly 67 cents for every sale on TOP of the $25 I already paid up front to book the ad, because every sale costs $1. How does that benefit me?


Yeah, I had some discussion with them about that. This is why I won't be using them again (or at least, until they have a different price structure in place). Following that discussion, they put some kind of cap on the amount you commit to spend, so it's so much per sale, up to a limit. But it's still expensive.

Personally, I'm much happier with the conventional arrangement: pay money up front, get whatever you get from the promotion. I'd far rather have a fixed spend and not have to try to work out afterwards how many sales/downloads came from a particular promo site. Too complicated for me.


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## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

Daizie said:


> The pay structure is very strange for a paid book. I don't get it. You couldn't advertise a 99-cent book. You'd never make any money. With ads, you hope to recover your costs, and it's a crap shoot. But still, there's the hope that you can recover your cost and make a profit. A 99-cent book only gets an author 33 cents or so in royalties. So with the platinum plan, I'd be paying Books Butterfly 67 cents for every sale on TOP of the $25 I already paid up front to book the ad, because every sale costs $1. How does that benefit me?
> 
> A percentage of sales, like the 25% ENT used to have, seems like it would be more fair and accommodating for authors with books at different price points.


Yeah, I just noticed this too. Looks like it would cost me quite a bit of money to advertise a 99 cent book and there's absolutely no way I could ever recoup that money.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

Thanks David, Lucian, Dwallock.

******

Pauline, I don't know what to say to you. We ask authors not to share results until we do a formal launch and they are OK with it.

******

For the ReviewPays site

1) It'll be performance based. Pay per review.

2) You can pay whatever you want per review ($0, $1, $5, more). That will determine

a) Where on the page and on the list your book is.

b) whether or not we show your book on our other sites and blogs.

If you have a very good book then you can try $0 and you should still get reader response.

******

Paid Slots.
For people asking about paid slots

1) We had a Silver Paid slot for a while after authors suggested it. It was $1 for every 4 sales. It worked well. However, it takes too much time.

We also had Gold + Platinum. Gold was $1 per sale. Platinum was $25 fee + $1 per sale.

There were more people interested in Platinum and Gold combined than in Silver.

Silver slot will now only be for authors who've already run it with us this year or who've already bought some slot with us in the past. It takes too much time, and it generates 1/4th or less the amount that a corresponding Gold Paid slot or Free Slot would generate.

If you look at the threads, the general consensus is that $1 per sale is fine.

This is Pauline's thread and her promotion results:

Fri 9th  #79,798  Release day, no ads, the only mention was on KBoards  Sales: 41 (18 pre-orders, 23 new)
Sat 10th  #13,996  Blog/social, no ads  Sales: 14
Sun 11th  #11,063  BKnights ($21)  Sales: 22
Mon 12th  #8,274  SciFiFantasyFreak (free)  Sales: 2
Tue 13th  #15,686  AwesomeGang ($10);  SciFiFantasyFreak  Sales: 9
Wed 14th    #20,358  EbookLister (free); SciFiFantasyFreak  Sales: 3 
Thu 15th  #24,101  EbookLister; Flurries of Words ($ Sales: 4
Fri 16th #30,901  EbookLister; Flurries of Words Sales: 5
Sat 17th    #35,540  EbookLister; Sweet Free Books ($5) Sales: 11
Sun 18th    #16,668  Ebooksoda ($10) Sales: 7
Mon 19th    #19,356  BargainEbookHunter ($15); PixelScroll ($15); Booktastik ($5) Sales: 5
Tue 20th  #19,778  BargainEbookHunter ; PixelScroll; Booktastik Sales: 13
Wed 21st    #15,266  GenrePulse ($30) Sales: 23
Thu 22nd  #12,387  BargainBooksy ($40) Sales: 38
Fri 23rd #6,810  ENT ($15) 80.

On this list, apart from ENT, I don't see any paid site offering better value than $1 per sale.

In general, I only know of Bookbub, ENT, The Midlist, BookSends and KND, that offer better than $1 per sale. Feel free to add your lists of sites that are offering you better than $1 per sale for ads for paid books.

*******

Also, 

1) It's for books at all price points.
2) If a person is running a Kindle Countdown Deal then they get 70%.
3) For us less than $1 per sale doesn't work out. 
Every slot takes the same amount of time - evaluating the book, figuring out what genres to run it in (we run it in as many genres as are a good fit), checking stats, sharing details with authors etc.

We want to leave the $5 and $10 slots market for other people. We'd prefer to focus just on higher priced ad slots.


The major reason is time. A low priced slot is too costly in terms of time. Think about it yourself. What is your time worth?

If a paid book slot takes

5 minutes to evaluate
5 minutes discussing with author on emails
10 minutes adding to blog and email lists and sites and figuring out right genres and list positions and review snippets to include.
5 minutes on following up and emailing sales rank tracking and sales rank proof etc.

Then it's 25 to 30 minutes. It just doesn't work out at $1 for every 4 sales.

*******


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

I'm confused. You write:

The biggest sites, like BookBub, publicise likely results on their website, and set prices accordingly. That's a clean, honest system.

******

By writing that you seem to be implying our system is dirty and dishonest. Is that what you meant? That our system is not honest?

That's not the case.

For Free Books it's $5 per 100 downloads. Fixed price slots have prorated refund. You pay EXACTLY what results you get.

For Paid Books now we're moving to $1 per sale. Fixed price paid slots also have prorated refund. Again, you pay EXACTLY what results you get.

******

It's fine if you wanted to write something like

- Your system is very new and hard to understand.

However, it's not right to imply our system is dishonest.

It's the ABSOLUTE most honest system. Authors pay ONLY FOR RESULTS. Authors check their KDP stats and they report to us. WE don't ask for screenshots or anything. We do prorated refunds if results are less.

*******

It's a new system that is MORE EFFICIENT and MORE HONEST than any existing system. Even more so than Pay per Click.
Our system is PAY per Result.

*******

Think of it as

A book promotion site says -

We'll promote your book for 2 days.
You tell us how many sales (or free book downloads) you see above your normal daily average those 2 days.
Then let us know.
We'll send you an invoice based on that.

You never have to pay for anything other than results. And you  are checking results yourself. What can be more honest than that. I'm sure no author is going to cheat themselves.

*******


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

Wow. Trying to understand that paid book page is like deciphering the da vinci code.


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## Guest (Feb 5, 2015)

thanks for the feedback Shane. We appreciate it.


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## 25803 (Oct 24, 2010)

So, from what you are saying, if the author isn't promoting a book in a series, the author who prices his/her stand-alone book at $.99 will lose approximately $.65 for every sale he/she makes through your site? (since the most we make is 35% on Kindle) (and you're charging $1). And if the book is priced to free, she only loses $.50 for every download through your site? Other folks may say, "What a deal," but those kind of losses make it impossible for me.

I'm assuming that like most smaller sites, your readers are looking for bargains, so if the author promotes a book in a series, that the other series books would need to be discounted, too, or there would be a lot fewer sales to make up for the loss?


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## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

The problem with the paid model you offer is that the author ALWAYS loses money. With other sites, there's always the chance you might make some money, but with yours, I have to pay $1 for every book I sell for 33 cents. Unless you allow me to promote a book priced at 2.99, in which case I'd be happy to do it and it would be a good deal.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> I'm confused. You write:
> The biggest sites, like BookBub, publicise likely results on their website, and set prices accordingly. That's a clean, honest system.
> ******
> By writing that you seem to be implying our system is dirty and dishonest. Is that what you meant? That our system is not honest?


Publicising results is honest in the sense of being open and transparent. With BookBub, you know what you have to pay and the likely range of outcomes. An author can make an informed decision. That's all I meant.


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2015)

Pauline, now I understand that you meant 'open and transparent'. thanks for clearing that up.


AS far as open and transparent, our Results page has Sales Rank Changes. I'm guessing you missed that. It's the first link at the top left of the page.

*******

There are price guidelines for every slot type. For most paid books there's no restriction. We promote books at all prices. Provided the price is the lowest price it's been in the last 12 months.


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## dotx (Nov 4, 2010)

I'm still really confused by the prices. For example, what's the difference between Platinum Paid and Gold Paid. One charges an additional $25 but I don't see any benefits for those $25. Yes, that one reads 50,000 readers instead of 30,000, but that's not really going to matter to most of us, who probably will be looking for 100-500 downloads. 

I have a box set of three novellas at 2.99. Can I use the Gold Paid slot to advertise the set at that price? I see you have a box set option but that one has a $300 minimum and that's out of my price range at the moment.


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## RomanceAuthor (Aug 18, 2014)

Well I just went to check the website and. . .

1. it's HORRIBLE! Really, guys, take a look at the top dogs in this business and do a total redesign. it looks VERY much like a scam. Based on this thread I know you're not a scam, but were i not on kboards i would never go back to your site again.

2. The pricing model for paid books wil deter  a lot of authors to promoto 99 cent books - the bargains your readers crave most after free books. you want a pay-per-result model? Fine, then do a 25% commission like ENT used to. . .


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## Guest (Feb 6, 2015)

Yeah, amateur design to begin with. That sucks. You can't even afford to hire a professional to do your website. Yuck.

Eight different packages. EIGHT. Should be 3. 

Of the eight two are gold, two are platinum, two are something...

No one has any idea what you're talking about. The feature list below each package are hilarious. Half of them, I'm standing there with my mouth open. No clue what they mean. There's no context for anything. The person building these is just like 'Any price', '$1, $1 Bundle, $1 Box Set', buy your slot. This many readers. Blah blah.

Pros don't have a site like this. They have a site that any idiot (let alone a smart person) has no trouble figuring out. 

If you're not a pro, you have no reason to be charging publishers this kind of money. 

No one (who isn't a fool) is going to fall for your unprofessionally designed website and actually pay you money for something they can't even see without any reputation you can justify. 

Pay you 100 dollars for 100 sales?

And then if I don't get my hundred sales just get a refund

THERE SHOULD BE NO QUESTION OF IT

The reason bookbub and other sites get work is because their results are proven by FEEDBACK that they don't have to guarantee them. 

You can guarantee all you like. Without reputable authors endorsing you, your promises are garbage.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2015)

DotX

1) Platinum Paid has more reach and will get you more sales.

2) We don't do Novellas or Boxed sets of Novellas. Only Boxed sets of full-length novels. The minimum for that is $300 because across Kindle, Nook, Kobo we see lots of sales for boxed sets. This is meant more for the crazy 7 books for $1 type of Boxed Sets. Not really for Bundles of Novellas.

*******

RomanceAuthor

Thanks for the feedback

1) We DO NOT want to look at the top dogs and replicate their model or their websites. There are 100 sites already replicating their website and model. Life is short. you should do what your heart says.

I totally understand your perspective. However, why replicate when you can create something beautiful instead. The slot selling site isn't really a focus area for us. Yes, authors who judge books by their covers won't get slots from us because they don't like the website. That's alright. In some ways, it's great - by God's grace we don't have to work with every single author on the planet, just the ones we like  .

2) We actually have no problems with users returning or conversion rate or selling slots. It seems there's a subset of authors who are very wary of 'getting scammed'. With all due respect, our aim isn't to reassure authors that we're not a scam. If you want to take a chance - take a chance. Otherwise there are hundreds of sites you can promote your book at. Readers in the know has a very good list. I recommend it heartily.

We do have a site redesign - however, that's driven by other factors.

*******

ShaneJeffrey - Don't judge a book by its cover. And, with all due respect, you're making quite a few assumptions inc. the assumption that you magically know how many book promotion packages we should offer. That's a bit of a leap isn't it. To recommend we offer 3 packages instead of 8. That made my day.

*******

I appreciate everyone who's giving feedback. Even the one person who character assassinated our website and hurt its feelings (now it's going to start eating too much chocolate and ice cream and get love handles).

To be quite frank, we aren't here to win a popularity contest or to win a design contest on how pretty our website is.

The website to sell slots is a very low priority for us. We're in the middle of the biggest change in books and reading since Gutenberg's revolution and creating a pretty bow tie for a site that sells ad slots is SUPER LOW on the priority list.

Think of it this way -

You have a good book with a hideous cover.

There are still enough people who give it a chance and find they like the book. That group is big enough.
It gives you the luxury of not having to worry about people who say - OMG That cover hit every branch of the ugly tree. There's no way the writing inside could be good.

Wouldn't we all be happier if we avoided people who judged us by our covers?


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2015)

REgarding this:  2. The pricing model for paid books wil deter  a lot of authors to promoto 99 cent books - the bargains your readers crave most after free books. you want a pay-per-result model? Fine, then do a 25% commission like ENT used to. . .


Yes, this is a good point.

We tried $1 for every 4 sales. It doesn't work for us. So we've switched to $1 per sale.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

I don't trust anyone who wants you to keep your results secret. That seems to indicate they have something to hide. If they didn't, wouldn't they be proud of people touting their results? Also, the sliding scale isn't something I would consider. Set a fee and I will decide I'd I want to pay it. I shall stick with BookBub and ENT.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Books Butterfly, please clarify something for me. You charge per download, right? How do you know which downloads came from your site/list? Often a book is advertised on multiple sites during a promotion, and in some cases multiple sites per day; so how can you say for certain how many downloads BooksButterfly secured? Because authors can't. And rankings won't tell you that either. For example, say I ran an ad with BooksButterfly and ENT on the same day. Let's say, for the sake of this argument, I got 1000 downloads and jumped 3000k in rankings. I have no way of knowing whether 1 or 100 or 1000 of those downloads came from BooksButterfly or ENT. How do you know, to be able to invoice for the correct amount?


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## evawallace (Aug 7, 2014)

D-to-the-C said:


> Books Butterfly, please clarify something for me. You charge per download, right? How do you know which downloads came from your site/list? Often a book is advertised on multiple sites during a promotion, and in some cases multiple sites per day; so how can you say for certain how many downloads BooksButterfly secured? Because authors can't. And rankings won't tell you that either. For example, say I ran an ad with BooksButterfly and ENT on the same day. Let's say, for the sake of this argument, I got 1000 downloads and jumped 3000k in rankings. I have no way of knowing whether 1 or 100 or 1000 of those downloads came from BooksButterfly or ENT. How do you know, to be able to invoice for the correct amount?


I'm interested to hear the response to this question.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> 1) We DO NOT want to look at the top dogs and replicate their model or their websites. There are 100 sites already replicating their website and model. Life is short. you should do what your heart says.
> 
> I totally understand your perspective. However, why replicate when you can create something beautiful instead. The slot selling site isn't really a focus area for us. Yes, authors who judge books by their covers won't get slots from us because they don't like the website. That's alright. In some ways, it's great - by God's grace we don't have to work with every single author on the planet, just the ones we like  .


It's not about replicating their models or websites, it's about looking professional. Right now your site doesn't give me any confidence that you know what you're doing. It looks like something from the late 90s.

And the packages are all so freakin' convoluted ... It's a headache just sorting out what's what. You need a simple chart with check marks to indicate which packages have which features. We're your customers--make it easy for us to do business with you and we will.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> Think of it this way -
> You have a good book with a hideous cover.
> There are still enough people who give it a chance and find they like the book. That group is big enough.
> It gives you the luxury of not having to worry about people who say - OMG That cover hit every branch of the ugly tree. There's no way the writing inside could be good.
> Wouldn't we all be happier if we avoided people who judged us by our covers?


You're really in the wrong place to be espousing a philosophy like this.  Kboards is full of people who appreciate the value of professional presentation, starting with covers.

Look at it this way:

Would you go to a restaurant where the windows were cracked and grimy, and the paintwork was peeling?
Would you take your your car to a repair shop where the second-hand models on display had dented fenders and rust spots?
Would you go to a supermarket with beaten-up trolleys and litter blowing around the parking lot?
Would you take your medical problems to a surgery where the receptionist wears torn jeans and a ketchup-stained T-shirt?

We all of us judge things by their covers every day - people, goods and businesses alike. A clean, smart, well-thought-out website means: this business has taken care and trouble to present themselves well, so they must be professional.


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## chris56 (Jun 8, 2013)

ireaderreview said:


> ShaneJeffrey - Don't judge a book by its cover.


But that is exactly what people do - judge a book by its cover or a website by its design - and there's no way to get around it. You only get one chance to make a good first impression and when I clicked on your website the other day, I was immediately turned off. Your site design speaks volumes and does not look professional at all. You've mentioned that you're having a new site designed, but you've already lost your chance to make a good first impression. You should have come out of the gate with a clean, professional-looking website.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Hey Everyone,

I was probably the prototype for the "Series Special" (check it out under 'paid slots'). It was a great ride, and it's a fair deal.

I admit that Butterfly's order site isn't pretty, but his other sites--the ones that readers see--are well done. They aren't fancy, but they're neat and tidy, they don't have ugly pop-ups, and they work. His team also crafts great short blurbs to promote stories too.

Personally, I'd rather Butterfly spend time worrying about the reader side of things.


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## Guest (Feb 7, 2015)

SevenDays said:


> And the packages are all so freakin' convoluted ... It's a headache just sorting out what's what. You need a simple chart with check marks to indicate which packages have which features. We're your customers--make it easy for us to do business with you and we will.


This. I deal with engineers who have brilliant minds and are really good at what they do, but ask them to write a report, they'll come up with sentences and graphs that makes perfect sense... to _them_, and no one else.

I'm sure the way you've presented your packages make perfect sense to _you_. But when more than one person, and most people here are pretty sharp, says that they don't understand what you're selling, then it's time to revamp. I think your business has promise because of the reach your blog has, but I just got lost in the maze of amazing ideas that don't make any sense.

Good luck!


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2015)

Firstly, thank you very much. This is all very valuable feedback.

Let me respond to each person one by one.

****** YodaRead

1) Yodaread wrote: I don't trust anyone who wants you to keep your results secret. That seems to indicate they have something to hide. If they didn't, wouldn't they be proud of people touting their results? Also, the sliding scale isn't something I would consider. Set a fee and I will decide I'd I want to pay it. I shall stick with BookBub and ENT.


Our response: We're just starting with paid promotions and that's why we don't want anyone talking about it. Lots of people discuss our results for free books and some do it right here on the site. For paid books once we launch formally then we'll discuss them.

As far as sliding scale - it's not FOR ONE PERSON or for one set of people. Peopel who don't want a sliding scale can get a fixed price slot. For sliding scale you can set up a limit.

******* D to the C

2) This is a very good question:

*
How do you know which downloads came from your site/list? Often a book is advertised on multiple sites during a promotion, and in some cases multiple sites per day; so how can you say for certain how many downloads BooksButterfly secured? Because authors can't. And rankings won't tell you that either. For example, say I ran an ad with BooksButterfly and ENT on the same day. Let's say, for the sake of this argument, I got 1000 downloads and jumped 3000k in rankings. I have no way of knowing whether 1 or 100 or 1000 of those downloads came from BooksButterfly or ENT. How do you know, to be able to invoice for the correct amount?
*

Firstly, it's only on KBoards that people use a lot of different sites. Most authors that advertise with us use just 1 or 2 sites. A lot of authors have permafree books and even they use just 1 or 2 sites.

We aren't talking about results like 100 downloads or 200 downloads. The results are VERY CLEAR. For Free Run books they are a LOT. Even for permafree they are good (though much less than Free Run).

Also, rankings DO tell where downloads came from. Because you can track rankings and tell exactly when email list and blog post went out and how that affected sales rankings over the next 6-12 hours.

****** Seven Days

1) it's about looking professional. Right now your site doesn't give me any confidence that you know what you're doing. It looks like something from the late 90s.

Yes, we have a new website design on the way. However, you have to keep in mind that we already have more slot requests than we can process. It's just not a priority.

2) And the packages are all so freakin' convoluted ... It's a headache just sorting out what's what. You need a simple chart with check marks to indicate which packages have which features. We're your customers--make it easy for us to do business with you and we will.

* With all due respect, you're not our customers until you've bought slots with us. Perhaps you don't see it - However, there's a very big risk in fixing something that isn't broken. The slots model works great for us and we aren't going to change it just for the promise of something that may or may not materialize.

******* 
Regarding what Pauline wrote.

No, the correct analogy is

We're running a restaurant and we're getting enough customers. Now - do we just do some marketing and get more customers, or do we listen to a set of people who are saying - Hey, make the decor modern and then we'll eat food at your place.

Do you see the inherent risk? There's nothing guaranteed.

This: A clean, smart, well-thought-out website means: this business has taken care and trouble to present themselves well, so they must be professional.

We really don't want authors whose requirement is 'website must look professional'.

*******  Chris56

This is what you write:

You only get one chance to make a good first impression and when I clicked on your website the other day, I was immediately turned off.  Your site design speaks volumes and does not look professional at all.  You've mentioned that you're having a new site designed, but you've already lost your chance to make a good first impression.  You should have come out of the gate with a clean, professional-looking website.

That's not true.

If tomorrow an author says results are really good at Books Butterfly, you will come and get a slot regardless of what you think of the website.

******* Adly

This: I'm sure the way you've presented your packages make perfect sense to you.  But when more than one person, and most people here are pretty sharp, says that they don't understand what you're selling, then it's time to revamp.  I think your business has promise because of the reach your blog has, but I just got lost in the maze of amazing ideas that don't make any sense.


Actually, this is PERFECT.

This is the second FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM. Authors want some model that they are comfortable with. We want to change the model completely. Sooner or later authors will convert.

******* A General Thought

I see Two Fundamental Problems

1) Risk Aversion
If you look at ALL your objections. There's a common thread through all of them i.e. I'll only advertise where I trust the site and know about it and am GUARANTEED that I won't be cheated.

That's risk aversion. That's fine. Just wait until enough other authors have taken the risk for you and confirmed the site works and is legitimate.

2) A New Model Authors are not used to.

It's very simple here - We're going to use the model we like and Authors are free to use it or not use it.

*******

I appreciate all the feedback. I really do.

I think a lot of it is what we're looking for.

On another site Jill Nojack said the website was aesthetically unappealing so we did a redesign.

However, we don't really care about things like

1) Looking Professional.
2) Creating trust for the Author.
3) Doing a model that makes authors comfortable.

Firstly, the demand is almost infinite.
Secondly, we can deliver results.

So, we're just going to shift everybody to our way of thinking.

It's basically the equivalent of Authors saying -

Hey look Yahoo is showing display ads and its website looks so professional and everyone knows about Yahoo.

Hey Google - why are you showing text ads and charging per click. Why does your website look so casual and non-professional.

*******
Why replicate what exists.

If you don't want to do business with us because

- you don't know whether you can trust us or not
- you think the website doesn't look professional
- you don't like the slots don't follow the existing schemes of being given a fixed cost and fixed range of downloads that you're used to

Then just wait 6 months. For more results. Until more authors are talking about us.

Demand is almost infinite. And by the Grace of God we have enough money from other channels to not need to make a lot of money from book promotions. We did it free from 2008 to Aug 2014. Now, we are starting off with Monetization and we aren't willing to focus on the wrong things like appearances or reassuring people about us.

*******

This forum is very valuable for us because

1) We figured out what authors are looking for, what results they're getting, what they're willing to spend.

2) We are getting very good feedback on some aspects.

3) An author gave us the splendid idea of doing a reviews website (www.reviewpays.com) and it's seen really good response from our readers.

So I do appreciate all the feedback.
However, we aren't going to change our DNA. A Tiger can't become a sheep-eating wolf. No point wasting time on learning how to hunt sheep.


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2015)

Also, this: Personally, I'd rather Butterfly spend time worrying about the reader side of things.

thanks C Gockel.

honestly, there isn't really enough time to capitalize on all the opportunities that are present. Sites that have small ambitions have a lot of time to think about 'How do we impress authors'. We, unfortunately don't.


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## Alexander Rodgers (Aug 17, 2014)

Andie said:


> Looks like that's only offered for certain genres. And it's a small guarantee for the size of their list. I'm guessing they only guarantee genres/numbers they know they can easily hit with their list.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


They do only do certain genres. I was told that readers dont like serials.


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2015)

ireaderreview said:


> Firstly, it's only on KBoards that people use a lot of different sites. Most authors that advertise with us use just 1 or 2 sites. A lot of authors have permafree books and even they use just 1 or 2 sites.
> 
> We aren't talking about results like 100 downloads or 200 downloads. The results are VERY CLEAR. For Free Run books they are a LOT. Even for permafree they are good (though much less than Free Run).
> 
> ...


You know it doesn't matter if some authors or most authors schedule promos the same day - there could be still some random blogger or fan who tweets / facebooks your book that day and you get an extra bunch of downoads - which Bookbutterfly expects to be paid for.

It shouldn't be luck of the draw. You cannot say exactly, accurately, factually how many sales your website gave us. Sure, you can prey on authors are happy with those crazy terms, good luck with it  But don't come here and pretend you know what you don't.

Nevermind the authors with books in KU. Their ranks are all over the place lol. I wouldn't be surprised though if what I just said made no sense to you at all.

That last part I had to quote as well because it just sums up why I'll never do business with you.


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## Goulburn (May 21, 2014)

1/ I have dyslexia and I also have an age related blind spot. Just explaining that my vision is not great, before stating that I am able to read and understand the seven packages offered by Books Butterfly. Yes, I agree, the website would benefit from a skill of a good editor, as I was buying a promotion, and not an edit, it didn't bother me. I don't expect Books Butterfly to resemble any other site or business model other than their own. I didn't find the website at all confusing.

2/ I have used Books Butterfly, and I was happy with the service. I was delighted with the personalised email contact and what appeared to be a genuine interest in assisting me to market my books.

3/ I have personal evidence that Books Butterfly is interested in a successful promotion and is not asking authors to pour money into a money drain. I applied for a Pearl package recently, on the heals of a prior promotion, and they have asked me to wait four months. Money grabbers would have taken my money.

4/ I have used other services that are recommended on kboards, (bknight on fiverrr) that also give a money back if the results do not eventuate from the promotion. I see nothing wrong with a promise to refund if you do not get results. To me, a money-back guarantee, if not satisfied, sounds like good business practice.

5/ I purchased a free book promotion package on Books Butterfly, months ago, which worked out at five cents per book. I did my calculations and I only needed 2% of those who downloaded a free book to purchase one full priced book and I would be in profit from the promotion. I thought that good value, and I am a happy customer.

6/ Please accept this as my experience and not as a rejection or critisism of your views about Books Butterfly.
_Happy writing and promoting. 
Cheers Ryn. _


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

ShaneJeffery said:


> You know it doesn't matter if some authors or most authors schedule promos the same day - there could be still some random blogger or fan who tweets / facebooks your book that day and you get an extra bunch of downoads - which Bookbutterfly expects to be paid for.
> 
> It shouldn't be luck of the draw. You cannot say exactly, accurately, factually how many sales your website gave us. Sure, you can prey on authors are happy with those crazy terms, good luck with it  But don't come here and pretend you know what you don't.
> 
> Nevermind the authors with books in KU. Their ranks are all over the place lol.


Agreed. I'm not going to pay you per download unless you have a way of tracking exactly what sale came from where. Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads - these word-of-mouth channels can shift free units very quickly and we can't track them (blame Amazon, they don't release the analytics).

Why should I pay BooksButterfly on a guess?

Ranking doesn't mean a thing. It just shows where that book is in relation to other books. The ranking will change without selling a single unit.


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## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

BB, is there a reason you don't use an Amazon affiliate account? It sounds like it would be very helpful for your situation - it allows you to see _exactly _how many sales each book has gotten through your link, _exactly _how many free downloads there are, and _exactly _how many clicks each link had. (Plus, you earn a small commission on each sale).

As others have mentioned, asking authors to report what's come through their sales dashboard is a minefield. Some days my book will have zero sales; some days it will have ten. If I happen to get ten organic sales on the day my BB promo runs, do I need to pay you for them? This problem is compounded when authors promote during a countdown deal; our sales are just too unpredictable to make an accurate guess about where they've come from. Either we under-report and you lose money or we over-report and pay for organic sales.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

> BB, is there a reason you don't use an Amazon affiliate account? It sounds like it would be very helpful for your situation - it allows you to see exactly how many sales each book has gotten through your link, exactly how many free downloads there are, and exactly how many clicks each link had. (Plus, you earn a small commission on each sale).


Actually, Viglink would be better. More in-depth reporting, and affiliate income from B&N, iBooks, Kobo and Amazon.


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## Guest (Feb 9, 2015)

Thanks a lot Ryn. I appreciate your post.


*******
I'll do this the same way. Answer one by one.

******* ShaneJeffrey

What you wrote is Risk Aversion.

If we run a book for two days. Then there is EQUAL PROBABILITY that there is a dip in sales or a rise in sales from EXTRINSIC factors.

How often does this really happen? 

This:  there could be still some random blogger or fan who tweets / facebooks your book that day and you get an extra bunch of downloads

If there are authors who randomly see a fan tweet and get a bunch of downloads then great. All the authors we've been running ads for don't see that happen on a regular basis and are very happy comparing against their normal daily average.

*******

For D-to-the-C

You write:
Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads - these word-of-mouth channels can shift free units very quickly and we can't track them (blame Amazon, they don't release the analytics). 

Basically what I'm hearing is

'It's not a good idea to run a promotion with a site that can get you a lot of downloads or sales, because there's a 1% chance that during that 2 days stretch, someone randomly shares your book on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and 10% to 20% of downloads might not be from the site'.

In other words, you're willing to give up on a good promotion because there's a very small chance (let's say 1% to 5%) that some portion of downloads (let's say 10% to 20%) might be from social media.

*********
It's the author's choice.


****** Darcy

1) No, we cross the Amazon Affiliate limit of no more than 20,000 free book downloads in a month.

2) If your range is 0-10, and you're in one of our big genres then you don't need to worry. Sales aren't going to be a small number where there is doubt over where sales came from.

3) Here's something to think about

OK, so we run our book and we get you a good sales rank. We take credit for 2 days. Now, your book gets visibility and stays on the lists for a while after that. Perhaps 3-4 days. Perhaps 1-2 weeks.

Are you really going to claim that the benefit of that is outweighed by some small random fluctuation you see? That someone on twitter mentioning your book and generating a couple of sales or a few dozen free book downloads outweighs spending a week on the Top 100 Lists for your genre.

*******

Thanks for the suggestion C Gockel.

Viglink is an interesting idea.


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## mythsnake (Oct 22, 2014)

Are your prices in US dollars, or Canadian dollars? Since you're a Canadian company, I assume it's Canadian, but that's not at all clear on your website. And there is a not-insignificant price difference between the two currencies.


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## Guest (Feb 9, 2015)

Sorry, when the discussion touched restaurants, reminded me of this...


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## Guest (Feb 10, 2015)

Prices are in US dollars.

Yeah, these days the difference isn't insignificant.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

Although I've only used Butterfly for free books, I like the pay-per-sale model. You get what you pay for, no BS. It gets the site invested in your success and your ROI will always be above breaking even. Now I just have to figure out how to make it work for me.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Can somebody provides me a link to that mysterious guy, please?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Here's why the model wouldn't work for me. I don't use social media to advertise, so I'm not worried about 1 or 2 sales from that. However, a number of our books are on price-watch sites. We often see up to 80-100 sales a day or two after discounting many of our titles. I'm not willing to pay a site not responsible for those sales for those sales. I also don't generally use one small site to promote, but stack promos. How do I attribute doing it that way?

Additionally, virgin frees in the genres I deal with get hundreds and thousands of downloads without promo. Non-virgins still see a decent percent of that (usually because off the same price-watch sites mentioned above). Again, not willing to pay for results not directly attributable to a site.

And $300 for a box set? I've spent a LOT of money advertising a LOT of box sets. I don't even pay that for established sites.

Then again, I'm a KBer, so apparently not the target client:


> Firstly, it's only on KBoards that people use a lot of different sites. Most authors that advertise with us use just 1 or 2 sites. A lot of authors have permafree books and even they use just 1 or 2 sites.


Ammy affiliate links aren't the only way to track. How about using bitly links or other trackable shorteners, then charge per click? For romance and thrillers at BookBub, I have a very good idea of what CTR is from the list sizes provided and the conversion rates for both free and paid books. Other site owners provide similar stats. Data is king. A site that can't tell me how many clicks my ad produced just doesn't cut it in my book.

Of course, these are my opinions only, based on my sales model. I spend quite freely -- probably $40,000 over 100s of ads so far -- but I don't spend indiscriminately.


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## A. N. Other Author (Oct 11, 2014)

I know the website is a little hard to understand, but I kind of like this model. A cleaner experience might attract more authors, but once you get your head around the idea, it is just like any other promotion. 

I started thinking of it this way:

Often we lose money on the day due to few downloads, even on a $20 promo, but most people will shrug at it and figure they didn't lose much; they knew it was a risk. We will also happily pay for free-book promos, sometimes as much as $50 or even $100, which gets us visibility, and - if we have others in the series - the knock-on effect of additional sales for other books. 

With Booksbutterfly we have a guarantee of downloads. More downloads = more visibility, so if it gets you into the Amazon top 20 of a popular genre, if I lose $0.66 per book I would think of that as just SPENDING $0.66 per book to get me on the front page for my genre. Whenever I've done a money-losing high-download promo I've usually seen a decent sale return when it goes back to full price. And I only have ONE book for sale until the end of Feb. Then it will be two. With more books this year, I imagine I'll try this - or something like it. This might be worth considering just from an exposure point of view.

To ireadreview - two questions:

1) Do I understand it correctly that there is no upper limit on the Silver 50, Gold 75, Platinum 100 & Diamond 150 options? So if I buy the Platinum 100 and get 75 downloads, I pay the $75 only, but if I get 300 downloads (approx break-even) I still only pay $100? 

2) Everyone is asking about $0.99 promotions - does it HAVE to be at that price, or just the lowest price from the past 12 months? So if i've had my book at $3.99 for 12 months, can I just promote it at $3.99, or just $2.99? (I'm not in that situation, I just wanted to clarify).

And a suggestion: organise the options on your site into "Fixed Price" and "Pay as you Go". It will help cement the concept in potential customers' minds.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

I understand and generally agree with both sides here.

BB could benefit from a facelift and clarification, BUT he's a one-man shop as far as I know and he's trying to put his effort into what really matters - getting results for the client. Until he actually wants to grow his business explosively rather than focus on methods (and a lot of experimentation, it seems), from his point of view I think he's got his heart and his focus in the right place. 

Just one man's opinion, of course.

I'll try out a paid-book promo soon for a 2.99er and report results.


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2015)

Responding to everyone's comments

*** A) Phoenix Sullivan

1) Firstly, no matter what your concerns are, there's always a way to set up your promotion so that 1 to 3 days are exclusively with us. We aren't talking about 5 extra sales here or there.

I think you should just focus on the sites that work according to the model that you personally are most comfortable with. My understanding is that you've sold million of ebooks so why change a winning strategy.

2) What are these price-watch sites you talk about? eReaderIQ? Something else? You talk about them as if they are a very big factor but this is news to me. You're the only person I've ever seen who mentions getting hundreds of sales when you do a price-drop. Could it be that your books just have a large following?

3) My understanding from all your posts across various threads is that books you release as free for the first time almost always end up in Top 80 Free, without any promotion. That's great.

Truth is that most authors get 10-100 downloads when they first release their book free.
That most authors hardly see any sales even with good promising books.

it's far more rewarding to work with authors who would like to see their first 50 sales. Or hit the Top 100 for the first time ever.

Think about it yourself - Who would you rather work with?

Option A: Very successful publisher/author who says - 'Oh, we reach #80 already without promotion. #55 means nothing.'.
Option B: An author who finally after 3 years of writing her first book, and struggling to get visibility for 6 months, sees it reach thousands of readers and always has a Top 100 spot to cherish.


*******

*** ADDavies

This, exactly: With Booksbutterfly we have a guarantee of downloads. More downloads = more visibility, so if it gets you into the Amazon top 20 of a popular genre, if I lose $0.66 per book I would think of that as just SPENDING $0.66 per book to get me on the front page for my genre. Whenever I've done a money-losing high-download promo I've usually seen a decent sale return when it goes back to full price. And I only have ONE book for sale until the end of Feb. Then it will be two. With more books this year, I imagine I'll try this - or something like it. This might be worth considering just from an exposure point of view.

You've hit the nail right on the head. That's it EXACTLY. We're selling visiblity, basically. There are some authors who can leverage that visibility into a lot of money and some can't. Some of the authors who promote with us share figures and there are authors who're making a lot of money. You have to leverage the visibility properly.

Every single promo site, no matter what their claim, is selling Visibility. Over the generations the promo sites have evolved mostly to game Amazon's algorithms. Which is an interesting strategy until Amazon massively updates their algorithms (which it does every couple of years).

****
Regarding your questions

To ireadreview - two questions:

1) Do I understand it correctly that there is no upper limit on the Silver 50, Gold 75, Platinum 100 & Diamond 150 options? So if I buy the Platinum 100 and get 75 downloads, I pay the $75 only, but if I get 300 downloads (approx break-even) I still only pay $100?

* Yes, that's it exactly. However, we're not going to do things like give you a Silver 50 slot when our testing suggests your book will get 150 downloads. We might give you a Platinum 100.

2) Everyone is asking about $0.99 promotions - does it HAVE to be at that price, or just the lowest price from the past 12 months? So if i've had my book at $3.99 for 12 months, can I just promote it at $3.99, or just $2.99? (I'm not in that situation, I just wanted to clarify).

* $1 works best. $2 for some strange reason very few authors try at. $3 works very well if it's a bundle.
There are guidelines. IF we like your book we'll run it at any price. But it has to be the lowest price in 12 months - otherwise it upsets readers and they leave.


* And a suggestion: organise the options on your site into "Fixed Price" and "Pay as you Go". It will help cement the concept in potential customers' minds.

Thanks for this. This is a brilliant suggestion. This again is exactly what we want to create - we just hadn't thought of it that way. this is brilliant. Since it's a way of explaining that people already understand.

Authors who are comfortable only with Fixed Price can pick that, with the added bonuses of

- prorated refund if ads underperforms
- no extra charge if ad overperforms

Authors who want highest visibility and best results - can pick Pay as You Go.

******* David VanDyke

Hi David

This is actually what we're focused on - Until he actually wants to grow his business explosively rather than focus on methods (and a lot of experimentation, it seems), from his point of view I think he's got his heart and his focus in the right place. 

Right now we could focus on just expanding monetization. However, there are two problems with that

First: Every generation of sites I've seen (both in general tech, and in book promotion and app promotion) - make the same mistake. They find something that works. Then they keep doubling down on it until it paints them into a corner. I think it's called the Innovator's Dilemma.

Take book promotion sites.
The very first generation got stuck in excellent monetization and lots of great options. Didn't realize how much growth there could be.
The second generation didn't realize social media would take over.
The third generation didn't realize that FB would take away access to Fans. Turning their biggest strength into their biggest weakness.
The fourth generation is currently in play.

It'd be very easy for us to make a comfortable amount of money and just let things chug along.

However, already things are evolving very fast. Bundles and Serials are taking over. Kindle Unlimited and Oyster and Scribd (Scribe?). Amazon Pay per click.

So if a site focuses too much on how to explode money, the only thing it explodes is itself. Much better to focus on things that create sustainability, no matter how the ecosystem changes.


Second: Results are much better by focusing on how to create value, rather than focusing on how to get maximum value out of the ecosystem OR how to destroy all value in the ecosystem.

Any person/site/company creating value will always get rewarded. Value you create for people of good intentions always comes back to you in one way or another.


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## chris56 (Jun 8, 2013)

ireaderreview said:


> We really don't want authors whose requirement is 'website must look professional'.
> 
> ******* Chris56
> 
> ...


No, actually, I wouldn't.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2015)

OK, Chris56, thanks for letting me know.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

chris56 said:


> > If tomorrow an author says results are really good at Books Butterfly, you will come and get a slot regardless of what you think of the website.
> 
> 
> No, actually, I wouldn't.


This is a really interesting clash of philosophies. There is an element of truth in the idea that authors will chase after the most successful promo sites, regardless of any other considerations. Almost everyone aims for BookBub, despite the price, the hit and miss element, the short planning timeframe.

But there's only one BookBub. Everyone else is an also-ran. So authors choose amongst them based on a number of criteria, of which effectiveness is only one. The website, the price, the attitude of the site owners, the type of audience, the long-term potential - all of these are considerations which I personally take into account. My own objectives for a promo are a factor too. Not everything is about total sales numbers.

For example, BooksButterfly produced good numbers of downloads for me on a free promo, but there was a strong international element. If I were focused on improving rank in the US Amazon, that wouldn't be so helpful. Another example: some promo sites are better at reaching non-Amazon readers, so that's a consideration for an author who's gone wide.

Promotion isn't just about sales and ROI, despite the heavy emphasis on it in threads here.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> 1) Firstly, no matter what your concerns are, there's always a way to set up your promotion so that 1 to 3 days are exclusively with us. We aren't talking about 5 extra sales here or there.


The thing is ... there's not. Quite a few sites/Facebook pages/blogs advertise books without the author's prior knowledge. Have a look around here and see how often someone says, "Hey, I had a sudden spike in sales. Where the heck did it come from?" And sometimes they never find out (been there myself a couple of times, where Googling showed nothing. One time, Booksends picked me up on their own and the downloads were significant--in the thousands).

You need a way to separate your sales/downloads from the everyday noise so that authors aren't paying you for something you didn't rightfully earn.


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## CDM (Apr 6, 2014)

My concern is that Books Butterfly is not seeing us (the Authors) as the customer. Sure the readers are important, and a must to see this thing work. But aren't we just as important. Without the authors, there would be no readers. I am not sure if he realizes how many of us are browsing Kboards at any given time, searching for info on where to advertise. We are talking thousands, and word of mouth spreads pretty quickly here. He seems to be spending more time telling us how wrong we are rather than trying to ease our concerns. In the working world I was trained to believe the customer was always right. PERIOD. If you say you don't need us, and are not concerned with impressing us, that you already have more authors willing to give you their money than you will ever need then why exactly are you here. You say in 6 months, after we see the results we will come to you to post our adds. This might be true if you put your ego aside and were a bit more obliging to our concerns. We are telling you your adds are confusing. Instead of saying that's too bad, why not ask what can we do to help you understand. Is that too difficult?


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

CDM said:


> My concern is that Books Butterfly is not seeing us (the Authors) as the customer. Sure the readers are important, and a must to see this thing work. But aren't we just as important. Without the authors, there would be no readers. I am not sure if he realizes how many of us are browsing Kboards at any given time, searching for info on where to advertise. We are talking thousands, and word of mouth spreads pretty quickly here. He seems to be spending more time telling us how wrong we are rather than trying to ease our concerns. In the working world I was trained to believe the customer was always right. PERIOD. If you say you don't need us, and are not concerned with impressing us, that you already have more authors willing to give you their money then you will ever need then why exactly are you here. You say in 6 months, after we see the results we will come to you to post our adds. This might be true if you put your ego aside and were a bit more obliging to our concerns. We are telling you your adds are confusing. Instead of saying that's too bad, why not ask what can we do to help you understand. Is that too difficult?


**applause**


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

ireaderreview said:


> We ask authors not to share results until we do a formal launch


I think you shouldn't ask this.

You're providing a marketing service, so why should your paying customers not share their results?

I intend it as "feedback from a potential customer", not as "criticism", but it does come across as "We have something to hide". That can't be a good thing for you, surely?


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

I would be curious to see how things worked out for advertising a full priced book.


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## chris56 (Jun 8, 2013)

PaulineMRoss said:


> But there's only one BookBub. Everyone else is an also-ran. So authors choose amongst them based on a number of criteria, of which effectiveness is only one. The website, the price, the attitude of the site owners, the type of audience, the long-term potential - all of these are considerations which I personally take into account. My own objectives for a promo are a factor too. Not everything is about total sales numbers.


I agree. I take a number of different factors into consideration before I decide to spend money for a service. To me, a website is like a business card and if it's sloppy and looks unprofessional, it doesn't instill much confidence. Second, how the service provider interacts with prospective customers speaks volumes. If you promote your service here on Kboards, you have to be prepared to answer tough questions and you have to be able to do it gracefully. Check your ego at the door, be transparent, and really listen to what people are saying. Being defensive only serves to alienate people.

Most authors here don't have deep pockets. They have a set advertising budget and want the most bang for their buck. They'll choose trusted sources that provide accurate data of over someone who asks customers who have used their service not to share specific data. Really, data is key when it comes to choosing advertisers to promote books. Pricing is obviously a major factor as well and I can't speak for others, but I prefer a flat fee pricing structure. Given that there's no accurate way to determine where downloads are coming from, the pay-per-download structure simply does not work.

I have seen a number of service providers post on Kboards and some are defensive while others are patient and considerate. When you come to an open forum like this, you are the face of your company and if you approach prospective customers with an attitude, don't expect them to choose your service.


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## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

I just wanted to note, as well, that one of the biggest problems - knowing exactly how many sales/downloads came through Books Butterfly - is an easy fix. I understand that you have over 20,000 free downloads a month and so wouldn't earn anything through Amazon affiliates, but you can still use them. It's basically a free tracking service.


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2015)

Thanks for the responses

******* Pauline

1) Pauline, Fantasy is not a very big genre for us so results for a Permanent Free in Fantasy (which perform considerably worse than first time free and other genres) isn't necessarily the best indicator.

2) We have 75% US audience. When you consider an email list of 100,000+ email subscribers that's still a lot of readers. I think what happened with your promotion is that because your book is permafree, in a small genre for us, and you might have promoted it with other sites, the US audience had already seen it. Anyways, I can't know without seeing your country wise specifics

3) What you wrote about 'There is only one Bookbub. everyone else is an also-ran.'

This has been true every 2-3 years for a different site.
Kindle Nation Daily
then eReader IQ
then eReader News Today and Pixel of Ink.

Things change all the time. Perhaps I'm wrong and Bookbub takes over all of books. Perhaps I'm right and in 2 years some other site is the flavor of the month.


******* Seven Days

1) What you wrote:  One time, Booksends picked me up on their own and the downloads were significant--in the thousands). 

That's the sort of spike authors see when the advertise with us. Out of nearly a thousand authors we've had one (exactly one) author who had problems agreeing to a payment.

300+ performance slots in the last few months and just 1 author who had an issue because of what you think is an issue i.e. separate sales/downloads from the everyday noise.

2) I totally understand that for some authors it's a deal breaker. that's great. There are hundreds of promotion sites to work with. You can choose one that is fixed price.

******* CDM

1) Yes, I think you're right. I don't see authors as customers.

Readers are customers. The money is flowing from readers to authors.

2) I have no problem with feedback.

My problem is when it's not constructive.

Authors write things like

yuck. website design is ugly.
there's no way to guarantee downloads. This must be a scam.

That makes it hard to take feedback. Constructive criticism is great.

3) We will consider your concerns that are reasonable. Some of your concerns are things completely OPPOSITE to our direction for our business model.

We want pay for performance. Because you are comfortable with fixed price you want fixed price.

It's not really an issue. If we deliver results, authors will pick us. If we don't deliver results authors will pick someone else.

******* ZOE

1) Thanks, that's good feedback.

We aren't going to share results until we have our new website up and launch.

Please feel free to interpret it any way you like. it could mean 'we have something to hide' or it could mean 'we'll share the figures when a new prettier site will be up' to maximize impact of the change.

******* Chris 56

thank you. This is very helpful feedback. I'll respond to each item separately

1) Website as business card.

This is true. I think the huge market demand has made us careless. Let's see - as things change we'll have to fix this at some point of time.

2) Answering tough questions gracefully.

There are two facets to it.
We treat people the way they treat us.

If someone asks questions gracefully, then we're glad to answer gracefully.
If someone is rude then we have no obligation to take abuse from them.

3) You write: I prefer a flat fee pricing structure. Given that there's no accurate way to determine where downloads are coming from, the pay per download structure simply does not work.

You're talking from your perspective.
We haven't seen any problems using pay per download. Neither in paid nor in free.
Our aim is to move the entire market to performance based. If we fail, it'll be a glorious failure. If we succeed, it'll transform the market.

4) Thanks. this is the most valuable part and perhaps some day I am wise enough to benefit from it.

I have seen a number of service providers post on Kboards and some are defensive while others are patient and considerate.  When you come to an open forum like this, you are the face of your company and if you approach prospective customers with an attitude, don't expect them to choose your service. 

Sadly, it's not now.

***** Darcy

1)  THIS: 
I just wanted to note, as well, that one of the biggest problems - knowing exactly how many sales/downloads came through Books Butterfly - is an easy fix. I understand that you have over 20,000 free downloads a month and so wouldn't earn anything through Amazon affiliates, but you can still use them. It's basically a free tracking service.

No it isn't. Check any website of your choice. See which of them are in associate program. Then see how many are using tracking link on free books.
Or, check the estimated downloads at all sites. They all say 'ESTIMATE'.

Amazon does not share free book download figures for books. It only tells you a daily total of ALL books.

*******

Please rest assured that we are taking all this feedback seriously.

I think there are a few sources of disagreement

A) Authors are comfortable with a fixed flat fee price and want some guaranteed proof that downloads came from the site they promote with.

For that, we want to shift to performance based and allot all sales for day of promotion and next day to us. Those are two things very different from what authors are used to. We're doing fine and growing very fast without having to change our model.

So I really don't see any need. At some point of time we'll be putting up estimates for sales and downloads on the site. However, we're always going to have performance based and sales/downloads attributed to us exclusively.

*******

B) This idea that authors are our customers.

Not really.

There's an ecosystem.

We have readers, authors, publishers, platforms, websites, service providers.

Every company has to decide who their REAL CUSTOMER is.

We've made a choice and our priorities roughly are

1st - What's best for the future of books & reading
2nd - what's best for our team
3rd - what's best for readers
4th - what's best for discoverability & the ecosystem
5th - what's best for authors
6th - sustainability

So, let's think

Is what's best for the future of books & reading critical for authors? Yes.
Is what's best for our team critical for authors? No, not really.
Is what's best for readers good for authors? Sometimes, not always.
Is what's best for discoverability & the ecosystem best for authors? Sometimes, not always.

Yes, so you're right. Authors are considerably lower on our priority list than readers and the future of books and our own interests.

Yes, from the perspective of authors, that's not ideal. Authors would ideally like some service that is totally focused on what's best for them, at very cheap rates, with infinite sustainability i.e. run a book every week and get great results every week and be very cheap.

That's totally not our priority, even if it were possible.

Does that mean that we can't create a win-win-win situation? No. We still can.

Every element in the ecosystem has different priorities. They still work together when there is common ground.

*******

This might sound crazy - however, we do want to challenge and frustrate authors.
Because we want to shift everyone to Pay per Performance. It'll make the entire ecosystem very efficient.

It's just a matter of putting the right systems in place to track pay per performance very well and then you'd have the amazing upside of never spending a dollar that wasn't well utilized.

Currently authors are saying there are two options

1) We pay per performance and there's a slight chance that someone mentions our book on witter and we have to pay 10% extra.

OR

2) We pay Fixed Price and it's not efficient but we at least are comfortable with it.

The end goal is to have BOTH

A very efficient system that is measurable and also familiar.

For that a succession of sites and companies will have to drag authors, kicking and screaming, into the brave new world.

We're completely OK to be the ones to do it.

*******

Lastly, I think a lot of authors make the mistake of thinking authors don't have their own priorities and interests.

Authors are human and look for their own interests FIRST.
So what you think is the BEST SCENARIO isn't necessarily the best scenario either for us or for the future of reading or for readers. It's the Best scenario for you.

If we are to connect readers and authors and do a good job then we have to do a good job for BOTH. Which means it's guaranteed that there will be elements that upset authors and elements that upset readers.

It would be disingenuous, perhaps even dishonest, to pretend that an ecosystem can be created where both readers and authors are deliriously happy. There are always going to be market forces and shifts and points of stability and periods of chaos. If readers hold the power then readers will hold sway. If authors hold power then authors will dictate terms. You just have to figure out what you think is most likely and do your best.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

ireaderreview said:


> 2) Answering tough questions gracefully.
> 
> There are two facets to it.
> We treat people the way they treat us.
> ...


I'd like to address this:
"If someone is rude then we have no obligation to take abuse from them."

Actually, per our Forum Decorum, there IS an obligation to be civil. If you (generic you) believe a post is rude, by all means, report it. If you (generic you) don't wish to report a rude post, either (a) ignore it completely--not all posts need to be responded to--or (b) respond politely.

Also, I've never regretted, as technical support, as a salesperson or as a moderator here, responding to rudeness with civility. It costs nothing to be civil and can be a great advertisement.

I haven't read thoroughly every post in this thread--I know some tough questions have been asked. There were some posts that were borderline. There might have been some snark on both sides that I missed. So, let me remind everyone that it IS possible to ask tough questions and to disagree politely, and that's the kind of discourse we expect on KBoards.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2015)

Hi Betsy

thanks for the clarification.

Let me clarify things on my end.

I'm not being rude to anyone who's being rude to me. I'm answering them straight.

People are taking issue with the fact that I'm being candid. However, if I understand correctly, there's no obligation to not be candid.

You can check all the threads.

I haven't referred to anyone's book cover as ugly or accused anyone of being a fake author. However, there have been authors who have not run any ads with us who have made uncourteous comments. In future I'll report these.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> I don't see authors as customers. Readers are customers. The money is flowing from readers to authors.


Readers are MY customers, as an author publisher.

For YOUR business, the money flows from authors to you. That makes authors your customers. Whoever pays money to you is your customer.



> For that, we want to shift to performance based and allot all sales for day of promotion and next day to us.


So if an author has a promo with you on a Tuesday, and Bookbub on Wednesday, you'd claim both days' sales as due to you? Really? Because that's what you seem to be saying here.

Performance-based ads are a splendid idea, and both Amazon and Google already have such systems in place, with CPC. But it only works if you have a measureable performance factor, as they do. This system of - well, you pay us per sale, but YOU work out how many sales were due to us... I just find that unworkable (because it's just not possible to calculate). And you put all the onus on the author to come up with a number. So some people will rip you off and some, more conscientious, will agonise over every last sale, and the whole system creates uncertainty and confusion, and that's not a good way to do business.

For me, when I do business with an advertiser, or anyone in fact, I like a clearcut arrangement: I pay $X, you supply certain pre-agreed goods or services. For an advertiser, the agreed item supplied is NOT sales (because no one can guarantee that), but publicity. My book is mentioned on an email/website/whatever. So long as that happens, the terms are met. This vague pay-per-sale but you have to guess the number of sales - that's not businesslike.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Putting aside the fact that you've basically told me you don't want my business because our books might be popular with readers and I wouldn't be appreciative enough of the sales you might get for them, I will say that I think the concept of pay for performance is great.

Where I think you're misunderstanding the market is that a LOT of the sites operate under a PfP model. There's just a different degree scale being used. ENT, of course, used to take a percentage of identified sales. Hands down the best deal around until they decided to expand to other retailers and to monetize their ads for freebies. So they went to the BookBub model.

The BookBub model is pay for _averaged_ performance. Their pricing matrix is based on exact CTR and average conversion rates costed against list sizes. They readjust prices frequently as their data indicates, and they do it fairly per list expectation. When they started offering add-ons for the UK at a 5% premium, I tracked a number of books finding that the paid sales and free downloads in the UK averaged around 5% of the US sales/DLs. When they upped the price to 10% of the US cost, guess what? List performance was indicating performance in the UK was generally about 10% of the US.

I'm truly baffled that if you believe PfP is the wave of the future, why do you not track the performance when the tools are readily available? You're right, I am spoiled by the sites that manage to watch their list trends and adjust their prices accordingly and invoice me for the amount due. When ENT was on the percentage PfP model, THEY tracked sales and invoiced me once. They made it seamless. I didn't have to look at average sales/DLs across several vendors, check around to see who else might have mentioned the books, do the calculations, get back with them, and work out a refund. They respected that MY time is valuable too.

Most importantly, they didn't take the attitude that promotions should revolve around their site. Or that I should refrain from advertising elsewhere for 2 full days so that I could report the right numbers to them. THEY did not inconvenience ME.

Your site does offer different levels of fixed-price options. Only they aren't really options because AFTER you check a book over, it sounds like YOU decide which price tier the author pays. By breaking their lists out by genre and charging against genre list performance, or charging by placement or other visibility enhancements on the emails, many of the other sites are doing the exact same thing you are. Only they really are upfront and transparent with their pricing in a way that your site isn't.

With all the right mechanisms in place, and a fair rate to start from, pay for performance is the ideal. But if your site doesn't even have the simplest of tracking tools in place, and your competitors are offering sliding scale rates in a fair imitation of a pay-for-performance model based on carefully analyzed data that's refreshed on a short and regular cycle ... well, it's like Google Play trying to compete with Amazon's sophisticated sales environment. There's just no comparison.

As for price-watch sites, there are many, many out there: eReaderIQ, OHFB, KND Ebook Tracker, and lots of smaller ones. As for freebies, last September KDP glitched out and reverted a book that went free at 2:00am Central Time back to paid at 8:00am. By then it already had 300 downloads, and a Google search popped it up on about a dozen sites, none of which I'd scheduled ads with. I can assure you it's happening a LOT more frequently than you might see reports for. At least for popular books that your readers would also likely respond well to. But written by the kind of authors you'd rather not work with.

Do keep in mind that many of us belong to private groups, some chock-full of popular, better-selling authors. We're all looking for ways to optimize our sales and to reach new readers through effective new ad sites. We're comparing notes -- about costs, results and overall experiences. We're just as delighted to squeeze out an extra 50 ranks at the very top as other authors are to crack the Top 100 of a subgenre. And when we find a site that can do that for us, we share.

You've been hustling hard here on KBoards whether you need the business or not. If you don't need it, congratulations! If you do, remember that word-of-mouth travels quickly from here to Facebook. And what you say here is reflected there.


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2015)

1) Firstly, those hemingly guys are going to solve this entire problem authors have with what site generated results. They'll basically come up with a list of

For every genre - which site gives best results for free & which site gives best results for paid.

Then you can pick. Of course, you could still argue that perhaps random Twitter mentions and GoodReads mentions created good results for Site X every single time they ran a promotion. But at some point it'll become clear it's not random.

Results for every site will become clearer and clearer as Hemingly adds more data points.

And I suspect at that point there'll be a super clear hierarchy of what site is good for what genre and the top 10-15 sites in each genre will get just absolutely overwhelmed.

*******

2) Obviously, if you're running with Bookbub the next day or some big established site then there's no issue.

The problem is when an author claims something ridiculous like 'My cousin tweeted so I think 500 downloads came from that'. We have less than 1% authors have any questions about splits and only 1 who we couldn't agree with.

Let me give you some examples

Author ran with us & BookSends. Us 2 days and BookSends 1 day. We split downloads 50%.
Author ran with us & 7 other sites. I let author know 2 were good and 5 were useless and we probably generated 33%. Author was OK with that.

I'm not being able to explain this properly. In the 300+ Performance slots we've run in the last few months, we've had exactly 4 authors who were doing multiple slots with different sites. 4. Just 4.
3 of them we came to a very comfortable agreement with. 1 we couldn't but we're still on good terms.

Now there are two possibilities

First: There are 300 Performance Slots we're missing out on in that same time stretch because authors want to run multiple slots and they can't figure out our model.

SEcond: There are just 10-20 slots we're missing out on.

We suspect it's the latter because in our website analytics and author questions and other queries, multiple slots on same day hardly ever comes up.

*******

3) Think about what the Hemingly guys are trying to do. They're trying to figure out EXACTLY how many sales each site genreates for each ad slot. Based on sales rank changes.

Now, we've tracked sales rank changes for books we mention EVERY SINGLE DAY since March 2014.
That's why we want performance based.

The more clarity and data there is about promot sites, the better for sites like us which focus heavily on performance based advertising.


*******

4) You're claiming that we don't have anything measureable but we hav ethe one thing that's undisputed. 
Sales figures from your KDP Stats
Download Figures from your KDP Stats.

Let's clear away everything and consider an author who is in an ideal situation for our ad.

Author with low or steady daily average sales or downloads.
Author who hardly ever gets spikes due to social media or price drop sites or other channels.

Author runs with us.

Sees super clear spike.
Calculates sales and/or downloads due to us.

Reports to us.

Then we invoice them.

*******
Since we've been tracking since March 2014 we know exactly what each sales rank change means. So when authors tell us their sales or downloads we know if they're accuurate/close or they are trying to rip us off.

Number of Authors that have tried to rip us off: ONE. Out of nearly a thousand.

Number of Disagreements: ONE. And that author was kind enough to offer to pay anything. she left it to us.

******

Basically, all we needed was a third party to step in and clearly evaluate each site for each genre. Hemingly is doing it and soon other companies will be. There's just too much money in this space for it to be left untouched.

Then the thing that you think is unmeasurable will become measurable.


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## Guest (Feb 13, 2015)

Phoenix

1) Firstly, thanks for the data points.

2) Let me rephrase your first paragraph.

Rather than deal with an author who isn't comfortable with our model and is constantly second-guessing whether it was not us and some price-drop site that generated sales,
We'd work with authors who are OK with our model and LOVE the results they get.

3) Our intention is not to inconvenience you. It's to focus on readers who are doing one site at a time and aren't marketing experts.

4) Your entire argument is

You prefer averaged sales pricing + fixed price

over our
Pay for Performance

Because you don't think all the sales generated were due to us.

Luckily there are lots of authors who don't feel that way.

5) Yes, I don't mean this in a bad way. But we're focused on discoverability. Our readers know this. That's why they come to us. We want to find the hidden gems, not make the big authors bigger.

If you're already selling millions then what motivation is there for us? We'd rather help someone who has a great book but hasn't been able to get his first 100 sales.

Everyone focuses on what makes them happy. Why should we focus on someone else's idea of happiness. We want to help the underdog, the undiscovered gem, the solitary solider fighting against the never ending sea of loneliness that 95% of authors have to face. THAT is what our aim is - to solve the problem of discoverability FOR THOSE AUTHORS.

6) Again, you're listing down exactly the authors we don't want to focus on.

This: Do keep in mind that many of us belong to private groups, some chock-full of popular, better-selling authors. We're all looking for ways to optimize our sales and to reach new readers through effective new ad sites. We're comparing notes -- about costs, results and overall experiences. We're just as delighted to squeeze out an extra 50 ranks at the very top as other authors are to crack the Top 100 of a subgenre. And when we find a site that can do that for us, we share. 

***** you're ASSUMING we want such authors.
No, we don't want popular bestselling authors.
We want the authors who have the ability and talent to become bestselling authors but don't get a fair chance.

I'm not sure how to say this -

It means a heck of a lot more to an author to go from unknown to 100 sales than for a bestselling or better selling author to go a few sales ranks higher.

*******
I've been hustling hard here because it's all data points.

Things like

Hemingly
How sites perform so we cna help authors who do our author intelligence service with us.
Some authors are happy with $1 spent per paid book sale.
Some authors want 10 sales per $1 spent.

Some authors need reviews.
Some authors need editors.

This is real life data from actual authors.

KBoards generates a very small percentage of our sales. However, all the data and intelligence shared here is invaluable.

Take Hemingly for instance. Now we know that they're solving the measurability problem for us. If they solve it, we're set because then things will become very efficient and it won't matter whether our model is great for marketing or not - our performance will be measured. Which is how it should be.

*******

Also, I have to say - thank you.

I had never really thought that authors like the fact that all the work is done for them when calculating slot rates. It'll be very interesting to see how things progress with our Performance Slots and Authors Measure results Slots.

We will be sharing ranges at some point of time. Well, perhaps. But we really like pay for performance and it's working great so far. I find it interesting that it is causing so much friction here on KBoards.

For authors we do slots with, it's never an issue. 1 time. That's it.

*******

Why exactly are you getting out of publishing. You seem to be super passionate about it and are very successful at it. Makes no sense to me.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

A couple of things--

I think that there have been dances up to the line of courtesy on both sides of this thread.  I agree that a couple of posts a little less courteous than they should have been, though at this point they've been asked and answered and everyone has moved on. 

You are a professional presence here; feedback on presentation is a normal part of the process here.  If someone had asked why you wouldn't take them on as a client and you had said that their book didn't meet your standards, that would not be inappropriate.

At this point, the original question has been asked and answered, so I'm going to lock this thread.  

I invite you to start a promotional thread for your service if you want to continue to have a discussion with our membership.  Once you do, you can have a link in our Yellow Pages.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Betsy
KB Mod


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