# Besides BookBub..... FINALLY, IT'S BOOKBUB DAY, 5/31.



## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I have a BookBub ad scheduled for 5/31 for Fallen Hunter. My first ad with BB went great, but I'd like to see this one do even better. I've already set up a KBoards promo and FussyLibrarian promo to run prior to the BB ad. 

For the money spent, what other promo sites work best with action/adventure, for full priced books at $3.99? I don't mind spending the money if the ROI is there.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

*crickets*

Especially for full-price books.

You could get creative with Facebook or goodreads ads, but I understand that this requires some knowledge as to what works best.


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## ThePete (Oct 10, 2013)

Ereadernewstoday bargain books is always effective. I only have experience with thrillers, but even their featured slots are worth it. Not Bookbub levels of sales, but easily 50% ROI.

Facebook, in my experience, is hands-down the best free platform to promote your books. Of course, it's a moderately large time investment to build relationships with site admins in your niche, create relevant pitches and follow up with all the comments. If you have a couple of hours to spend, it's worth the effort.

You can save a lot of time by having template answers to common comments. You still want to personalize and be as funny as possible, but when time is a factor, you can answer generic questions with the following examples:
1) "Do you need a Kindle to read this?"
_"Not at all. You can download a free Kindle simulator app or go to: (link) for other eReader/smartphone/tablet versions."_
2) Details about relevance to us?
_"I've received great feedback from readers who love [whatever theme]. I'll be happy to furnish free copies to anyone that's willing to leave a critical review."_
3) Suggestions for similar books.
_"[That writer] was an inspiration when I needed a surprise ending to: (name/link)"_
4) Random comments/ pictures:
_"[I have a similar scene in/that reminds me of] the finale to my [genre] series: (link)"_
5) Most anything else:
_"Thanks so much! Please don't forget to leave a review. I'm grateful for, and will obsess over, all feedback. Negative or positive!"_

PS, this is an excerpt from that book I sent you.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

ENT Bargain books have to be priced at $.99. I want to check effectiveness of full priced book ads. I do plan to run an ENT ad on 6/1 at $.99, the day after the BB ad, to lengthen the tail. 

I've had a FB author page since before my first book published and already engage my readers pretty well. Advertising on FB doesn't do so well though.

What I want to do is run full price ads spaced several days apart, to test the effectiveness of several of them.


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## DTW (Apr 13, 2014)

I'm quite interested in non-discounted book advertising as well.  Definitely monitoring this thread; hope people can offer some experience with ads for things that aren't free / $0.99.


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## coolpixel (Sep 17, 2012)

i am interested in promotions site for full priced books too. i haven't come across any other than BookBub, that gives a good ROI... and BookBub is danged hard to get in


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Currently I have the following full price ads set up:

EBookSoda on 5/15, cost $5.
KBoards on 5/19, cost $20.
FussyLibrarian on 5/25, cost $6.

After that I have the following discount ads scheduled:
BookBub on 5/31, cost $260.
Waiting to get accepted by ENT for 6/2.

I'd like to find three more for 5/12, 5/22, and 5/28. That'll give me a promo every 3-4 days from 5/12 to the end of the month.


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

Have you tried fkbooksandtips?

http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/for-authors/


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## spike Pedersen (Feb 2, 2014)

I had good luck with Booksends.


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## Tim McGregor (Apr 2, 2013)

Spike, I'd never heard of Booksends until ten minutes ago when Konrath mentioned it on his blog. You were happy with the return on your money with Booksends?


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

Can't wait to hear your results


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

SevenDays said:


> Have you tried fkbooksandtips?
> 
> http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/for-authors/


Alex, I looked over their criteria and they won't promote any book in a series, except the first one. Saved it for later in the summer, thanks.



spike Pedersen said:


> I had good luck with Booksends.


BookSends is for discounted books also.


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

Nothing is even close to Bookbub. In the last couple of months I've had free promos on FKBTs, Book Gorilla, and Freebooksy, at costs of $25, $50, and $100, and none of them even came close to a 1000 DLs, when I got 14,000 for $90 from Bookbub in early March. I dread to think what the returns (or lack of) would be on a full priced book.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

ChrisWard said:


> Nothing is even close to Bookbub. In the last couple of months I've had free promos on FKBTs, Book Gorilla, and Freebooksy, at costs of $25, $50, and $100, and none of them even came close to a 1000 DLs, when I got 14,000 for $90 from Bookbub in early March. I dread to think what the returns (or lack of) would be on a full priced book.


Exactly why I'm setting these up. Fallen Hunter has ranked consistently in the top 10K since January and action/adventure is a popular genre. Spacing them three days apart should keep any spill over from happening and I can give a good idea on how each does.

What's FKBT?


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> For the money spent, what other promo sites work best with action/adventure, for full priced books at $3.99? I don't mind spending the money if the ROI is there.


We're in romance, but in general there aren't any sites out there that I know of that move full price books-at least not directly. There may be some value to visibility,but that's an entirely different ball game.

I wish you luck, though. You seem to be doing very well at this so far!


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

I hope you post your results, I am very interested to see them.  So far I have only mucked with free listings so don't have any suggestions.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I'm planning on some similar promo for my new title next month, Wayne. You've got the spots here that I'll probably use too. And Fkbooksandtips may take later books in series, as long as they're not true series, can stand alone. At least I'm pretty sure they've done a couple of mine. 

Best of luck. It'll be interesting to see how our two titles do, given the difference in genre.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Plus, with Booksends, they charge MORE if you advertise a free book than a book that costs something. That's really odd. It takes a lot more sales from other books to make up for running a free book there. Did I read that wrong?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Caddy said:


> Plus, with Booksends, they charge MORE if you advertise a free book than a book that costs something. That's really odd. It takes a lot more sales from other books to make up for running a free book there. Did I read that wrong?


I'm guessing this is because they cannot use affiliate codes for free books.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Rosalind James said:


> I'm planning on some similar promo for my new title next month, Wayne. You've got the spots here that I'll probably use too. And Fkbooksandtips may take later books in series, as long as they're not true series, can stand alone. At least I'm pretty sure they've done a couple of mine.
> 
> Best of luck. It'll be interesting to see how our two titles do, given the difference in genre.


I try to write each one as a stand alone, but they're obviously a series. Gets a little tedious at times, rewriting the character descriptions. I'll give FKBT a shot. What's to lose?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Might have to think on FKBT. They say full priced books at $3.99 are pretty much a crap shoot and it's $50. I'll probably pull the trigger, just out of curiousity, though.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Added Fiverr for Monday, 5/12. Still need a promotion for 5/22 and 5/28. Anyone know of other low priced promos that will advertise full priced books at $3.99?

Here's the current lineup:
5/12 - Fiverr
5/15 - EBookSoda
5/19 - KBoards
5/25 - FussyLibrarian
5/31 - BookBub
6/2 - ENT (still haven't heard if they accepted it)

I'll post updates after each promo with sales numbers and rank changes.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I added GoodKindle on 5/22, now only need a promo for 5/28. Waiting to hear from FKBT to fill that slot. I'll update the title of the thread as each promo hits and let y'all know how it went. It may be difficult to discern any results unless they're exceptional. Fallen Hunter has averaged 18.1 sales per day so far this month, with a high of 23 and a low of 9.

The promo blitz starts tomorrow.

Here's the current lineup:
5/12 - Fiverr
5/15 - EBookSoda
5/19 - KBoards
5/22 - GoodKindle
5/25 - FussyLibrarian
5/28 - FKBT (Unconfirmed)
5/31 - BookBub
6/2 - ENT (still haven't heard if they accepted it)


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

Will be interesting to see what your results are, Wayne!


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## L. L. Fine (Dec 29, 2013)

Impressive!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The Fiverr promo runs today. I've never used them so I'm not sure what to expect. Fallen Hunter over the last few days hasn't been consistent, selling 9, 20, 21, 15, and 12. The highest sales for the month was 23 on both the 3rd and 4th. If it sells 25 today, I'll consider the Fiverr promo at $5 a success.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I've used them a couple of times for a freebie. Always got me a couple of hundred downloads, which I considered pretty good value. I'm going to try them for a paid book later this week.


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## spike Pedersen (Feb 2, 2014)

Tim McGregor said:


> Spike, I'd never heard of Booksends until ten minutes ago when Konrath mentioned it on his blog. You were happy with the return on your money with Booksends?


Yes, Booksends cost me $125, and I grossed $324 on increased sales over the next three days. I was happy with them.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Still early, but from what I've seen so far, I'd call Fiverr a total FAIL in promoting a full priced book at $3.99. While it might do well on freebies and discounts, I doubt their promotion resulted in a single sale. 

The promo went on their blog just before noon. Fallen Hunter was ranked at 10,387 at 11:30. Tracking it hourly, it's slipped or held it's ranking every hour and is now at 12,477.

I record my sales every night at 9:00 Eastern Time. That'll be in one hour. The average sales per day for Fallen Hunter this month has been 14.8. Right now, I'm at 12 for today.

Maybe it'll get better later tonight or into tomorrow.

The next ad is eBookSoda on Thursday.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

My experience: My novel was discounted, but I still didn't get any sales from Fiverr. He was fair and refunded my money.  FKBT is candid about saying that discounted books do best. I haven't had success with The Fussy Librarian for full-price books, but I'm in a different genre. 

I'll be watching for your results. Thank you for sharing!


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Yes, the bknights promo on Fiverr really works well for 99 cent books and free books (I had mine up today as well, and sold 20 so far at 99 cents -- which I consider a good deal for five bucks, since normally I sell one or two a day if I'm lucky). It's fantastic for boosting a book that's been really, really down in rankings, or for kick-starting sales on a book with few or no reviews, or for supplementing a more widely advertised 99 cent sale campaign. And bknights is really good about crediting / refunding if you don't get results.

Honestly, I have not seen a single paid promotion that's effective at moving full-priced books. All that really works for full price (afaik / imho of course) is having a mailing list (not that I'd know personally, since I've got 3 subscribers and one of them is me ), getting the Magic Combo that makes Amazon promote you automatically (whatever that is), being a known name (indie or trad published), and... milking the tail of free and discount promos. Which is pretty much all I've got, and I think the only option for a lot of indies.

But I've been watching this thread and the other full-priced promo thread, waiting for someone to prove me wrong.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

IMO the best way to promote a full price book is if it says "book 2" on the cover and book 1 is free or 99c. You wouldn't promote book 2, but you'd promote the hell out of book 1. But the full-price sales you get are those of book 2 and 3, and 4, and...


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## SawyerPentecost (Jul 11, 2013)

I'm watching this with interest. I'm about to try a similar strategy.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

As I said last night, the early numbers were not good. However, overnight sales were much better. In the 24 hour period ending at 9:00 Eastern time, Fallen Hunter sold 12 downloads and the average has been almost 15. The Fiverr ad ran at noon. Since 9:00 last night, Fallen Hunter has sold 11 more, bringing the ranking up to #9341. I'll know better tonight, when I can average the two days.


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## Sonya Bateman (Feb 3, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> IMO the best way to promote a full price book is if it says "book 2" on the cover and book 1 is free or 99c. You wouldn't promote book 2, but you'd promote the hell out of book 1. But the full-price sales you get are those of book 2 and 3, and 4, and...


Absolutely, that too.  Knew there was something I was forgetting... and I even have a permafree! 

Wayne, glad to hear you might've gotten some sales out of the Fiverr promo.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The Fiverr ad ran yesterday at noon. Fallen Hunter sold 13 yesterday and 16 today. Prior to yesterday, it'd averaged 14.8 per day. Hard to tell if any of the sales were a direct result of Fiverr or not. My low day for the month was Wednesday, 5/7 with only 9 and my best day for the month was Friday and Saturday, 5/2 and 5/3 at 23 each. 

Ranking started at 10,387 just before the ad and fell throughout the day until just before midnight to 12,976. After midnight, it rose steadily through the night until 7:30 am EDT, when it peaked at 7,774. I attribute that to two sales in Australia. From 7:30 it dropped throughout the day and is now at 10,092.

I'll give them the benefit of doubt and say the ad paid for itself, with two sales, even though both days average was below the monthly average.

The eBookSoda promo is Thursday.


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## pajones (Apr 21, 2014)

Wayne, Which of the Fiverr promo you chose?


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## Michael Gallagher (Jan 23, 2010)

HI Wayne-

I usually lurk in the background here and try not to comment.  I've been watching this thread for a couple of days - it sounds like an expensive experiment, but I'm also interested in seeing your results as the various campaigns progress.

I think you have one thing going for you and a couple of other things to consider....

Your book is obviously being exposed to a wider audience with an in-your-face promotion which will hopefully lead to new readers being exposed to your work that will (a) purchase this work and enjoy it, but more important (b) like it enough to continue to purchase other books in your catalog at full price.

I think you have two larger things to consider - first, a lot of the voracious Kindle book readers follow multiple lists / sites which could start a law of diminishing returns for your ad dollar; however, action & adventure is a very popular category, and you're targeting sites with various (and increasingly larger) size of the audience.  

I think the larger obstacle to you, and it was also mentioned by another poster, is you're keeping this one at $3.99: being mixed in with freebies / books at 99 cents for lists that are composed of bargain hunters is often difficult and people may balk at paying $3.99 for an author they are unfamiliar with and move on to something else as they were initially conditioned to go after the freebies and now 99 cents is "last year's free" from a psychological standpoint.  I'm not just saying this for your book, but I try to point that out to other authors - I would imagine the main goal is to get your initial book into as many hands as possible with the idea they will like it enough to keep on purchasing your other titles at a much higher point than your entry book; that way, you can enjoy the benefits of more sales at the higher commission rate.  For lists / sites like FKBT, $3.99 is often a tough sell and I point that out in the author / advertising section of the blog's website.

Despite what I said about pricing above, only you (vs. me or any other person) really know your title and its plusses and minuses.  I hope your promotion blitz does well over its course and I'm interested to see how it all plays out.

Regards,

Michael


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## Paul Kohler (Aug 14, 2013)

Watching this thread with interest!


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

A free promo site (as in, it is free to promote there, and you can list any book under $3.99) that has done right by me is Authors on the Cheap: https://www.facebook.com/AontheC Just list your book in the comments with with Price / Ratings/ Genre and then your link.


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## Eva Lefoy (Jan 25, 2014)

Are there any restrictions on content? Gay erotica okay?

Thanks

Eva

Sent from my LG-VM701 using Tapatalk 2


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Michael Gallagher said:


> HI Wayne-
> 
> I usually lurk in the background here and try not to comment. I've been watching this thread for a couple of days - it sounds like an expensive experiment, but I'm also interested in seeing your results as the various campaigns progress.
> 
> ...


As I pointed out at the outset, these promos aren't for any other thing than to see how these sites do on a full price book at $3.99. On 5/31, this book will be discounted for Book Bub and stay discounted through 6/3 for ENT on 6/2.

While it might seem expensive, the total before BookBub is less than a days royalty. So, in the interest of "research" I set up as many as I could.



Eva Lefoy said:


> Are there any restrictions on content? Gay erotica okay?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> ...


I really have no idea, Eva. Maybe someone else here can answer that.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

http://www.fiverr.com/bknights if you mention you are from KBoards, he gives you $25 worth of promo for $5. Mine is running today. Lots of threads are popping up about bknights and I wanted everyone to know lots of us got the whole shebang for $5. At $5 it is probably worth it, but I don't think I would pay more than $5.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Cherise Kelley said:


> http://www.fiverr.com/bknights if you mention you are from KBoards, he gives you $25 worth of promo for $5. Mine is running today. Lots of threads are popping up about bknights and I wanted everyone to know lots of us got the whole shebang for $5. At $5 it is probably worth it, but I don't think I would pay more than $5.


Thanks, Cherise. I'll keep that in mind for next time.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> http://www.fiverr.com/bknights if you mention you are from KBoards, he gives you $25 worth of promo for $5. Mine is running today. Lots of threads are popping up about bknights and I wanted everyone to know lots of us got the whole shebang for $5. At $5 it is probably worth it, but I don't think I would pay more than $5.


I agree completely. Mostly because I'm not sure those extras actually do anything. I keep trying to figure out what each of those extras are, and I keep getting the feeling that no matter which gig you choose, it's the exact same as the others, and all of the others will happen anyway. They only post a link to the book page on facebook and occasionally twitter. It isn't like they're posting a link to your book in these places. It seems no matter what gig you choose, they list your book on their website, and then the links to the website go out to Facebook. They do this everyday no matter what. So if you pay the extra five, I'm not sure what is different. It's completely possible they have other channels than their basic website/twitter/facebook that I see, but I don't know, and I really have no way of finding out.


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## Joseph Turkot (Nov 9, 2012)

I'm wondering if before BB ads are better than after. I'm thinking of the movers and shakers list (I ask because I don't know how important that list is), but it calculates the jump in a short amount of time.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Joseph Turkot said:


> I'm wondering if before BB ads are better than after. I'm thinking of the movers and shakers list (I ask because I don't know how important that list is), but it calculates the jump in a short amount of time.


I posted upthread about why. In short, the algorithm the Zon uses in ranking is more than just hourly or daily sales. It also factors in (to a much less degree) sales over weeks and months. By running ads before BB, I hope to slowly move it up the ranking into the 5000's or 4000's before the BB ad on 5/31. My goal is to crack the top 10 in Paid Kindle.

I also have a couple set up for after, to lengthen the tail.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

I'm not sure anyone buys through the movers and shakers list, and honestly, a Bookbub add should put you at the top of most categories.

The main sales that create a nice longtail are going to come from Popular List placement. The problem is that Amazon has removed Bookbub sales from their Pop List algorithms, which is why the Bookbub longtail has shrunk to almost nothing. I think backing it up with smaller promos is a good idea. I think they still allow some promo sales to count, so if you strike gold and pick one they haven't blacklisted, you'll definitely get a higher placement on the Pop List. It's good to do these experiments to see what's working right now.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Briteka said:


> I'm not sure anyone buys through the movers and shakers list, and honestly, a Bookbub add should put you at the top of most categories.


It certainly does. Last month a BB ad put Fallen Palm at #1 in three subgenres, where it stayed for several days.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Just confirmed FKBooks and Tips for 5/28. ENT finally responded and scheduled me for 5/22. I wrote back and said I requested 6/2 and asked if they could move it. If not cancel it, the price won't be reduced until 5/31. 

EBookSoda runs tomorrow.


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## EllisaBarr (Apr 22, 2014)

This is such an interesting thread.  Thanks for keeping us updated, and I hope you're enjoying your extra time at home.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The eBookSoda ad ran today. Hunter was featured, again at full price, with only one other book. To break even, I needed 17 sales. 

Sales in the US was 14,  slightly lower than the months average of 14.8. But, I sold 4 more in the UK for a total of 18. I haven't sold any of the three in the UK all month. Is eBookSoda primarily a UK based promotional site?

At only $5, I'd call eBookSoda a win. A 50% ROI and there may be more tomorrow.

The next promo in the lineup is our own KBoards, scheduled for Monday, 5/19. The target is 19 to break even.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Yes, Ebooksoda is based in the UK.


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## Ronny K (Aug 2, 2011)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> At only $5, I'd call eBookSoda a win. A 50% ROI and there may be more tomorrow.


I don't know how much traffic the ebooksoda website gets, but one cool aspect is that your book will stick on your genre's front page for a good little while. http://www.ebooksoda.com/ebook-deals/action-adventure


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Ronny K said:


> I don't know how much traffic the ebooksoda website gets, but one cool aspect is that your book will stick on your genre's front page for a good little while. http://www.ebooksoda.com/ebook-deals/action-adventure


Yes, that's why I allowed four days between it and the KBoard ad. Although the ranking has dropped into the 12K range, it got a huge boost in the UK and is now in the 22K range there.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

So far today, I've had only 6 sales on Hunter in the US and an additional sale of Palm in the UK. I'll attribute the sale of Palm in the UK to eBookSoda also.

I just set up the Kindle Countdown Deal for the end of the month. Fallen Hunter will be $.99 from Friday evening, 5/30, until Tuesday evening, 6/3, to cover the BookBub promo on 5/31 and the ENT promo on 6/2. ENT still hasn't got back to me confirming the date yet, though. Then it will be $1.99 for 24 hours and $2.99 for 24 more hours, before reverting back to full price Thursday evening, 6/5.

When the BB and ENT ads run, I'll also be promoting on Facebook with a paid ad for two weeks and on Twitter.

By the time all this is done, my fourth book, Fallen Out should be published. I hope to be able to do a BB ad on it for FREE soon after publishing. I know they don't usually take books without reviews, or low reviews, but I'm hoping that since they accepted Palm on the second submission and Hunter on the first (with only 13 reviews at the time), they might make an exception.


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## Michael Kingswood (Feb 18, 2011)

Briteka said:


> The problem is that Amazon has removed Bookbub sales from their Pop List algorithms, which is why the Bookbub longtail has shrunk to almost nothing.


Do you have any evidence of this or are you just speculating?

By all accounts, the "stickiness" of rankings has a lot to do with how long you were up there (ie - a quick boost will fall just as quickly, while a long sustained run will remain longer), not with the reason someone made their purchase.  And how would they filter for that anyway? And more importantly...WHY would they do that?


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Michael Kingswood said:


> Do you have any evidence of this or are you just speculating?
> 
> By all accounts, the "stickiness" of rankings has a lot to do with how long you were up there (ie - a quick boost will fall just as quickly, while a long sustained run will remain longer), not with the reason someone made their purchase. And how would they filter for that anyway? And more importantly...WHY would they do that?


I think it's easy enough to see. If you sort results by "New and Popular" in any of the categories, you're unlikely to see books that were advertised on Bookbub high in the results, even though other books in the bestsellers lists are there.

But I don't know... it could be that you're right and it's got more to do with sustained sales than whether or not it's featured by Bookbub. I suspect this only because I've had a few crazy breakouts when I put a book to $.99. I'll sell 100 or so copies of the book overnight just on its own steam--no promo or anything. And then--it just drops. That would never have happened several years ago. Back then, anything that picked up and did well got heavily promoted internally by Amazon and kept doing well. So it may simply be an algo change that refuses to favor quick flashes of sales.

However, they _could_ easily filter out the Bookbub sales because they'll all come with the Bookbub affiliate tag attached to them. So, it wouldn't be hard to write an algorithm that says to count all the Bookbub sales for the bestseller lists, but don't count them in the popular list.

Why would they do it? I rather imagine they don't like it when anyone besides them has so much power over what sells well in their store. Right now, Bookbub books are all over the Top 100. I bet Amazon isn't real keen on that. They sell their own advertisements, and they probably don't want all the spots crowded out by some upstart company. OTOH, they probably love all the additional income that Bookbub brings them, so they aren't trying to squeeze them out entirely.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Michael Kingswood said:


> Do you have any evidence of this or are you just speculating?
> 
> By all accounts, the "stickiness" of rankings has a lot to do with how long you were up there (ie - a quick boost will fall just as quickly, while a long sustained run will remain longer), not with the reason someone made their purchase. And how would they filter for that anyway? And more importantly...WHY would they do that?


I'm not sure what evidence you'd like to see. BookBub used to equal a better listing on the popular list and now it doesn't, or if it does, it's a very small increase, likely due to non-BookBub sales of the book generated by a higher placement on the Bestseller list.

The stickiness of your Best Seller placement has everything to do with sales. If most people were buying from the Bestseller List (they aren't), a fast rise in Amazon's promotional ecosystem should provide a large increase in sales. Unfortunately, most people DON'T buy off the Bestseller list. They buy by browsing genres and the New Release list, which are all handled separately by Amazon's algorithms. Best seller ranking CAN result in a bump in sales, especially once you hit the overall 100 Paid list, but most of the time, it's simply a results list of sales and not a catalyst. The reason people see a quick rise and fall during a BookBub ad is because the BookBub ad is what's driving sales, and not Amazon's promotional ecosystem. A BookBub promo used to look very different and resulted in a huge longtail because it caused Amazon to promote the book more. This is no longer the case.

As to why Amazon does this, there's several reasons. First, they don't like other companies profiting in this manner. Second, it gives authors a reason to buy false reviews. And third, and probably most importantly, Amazon wants to make money, and giving books with BookBub sales prices more visibility means there's less visibility for the more expensive books that produce more money for Amazon.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

***********


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

BKnights with Fiverr just offered me a refund, which I declined and asked if he could run it again on 6/3 at $.99.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Nice to see that EbookSoda is starting to give some ROI, even on the small investment it currently is. As a subscriber/reader, I love them and I'd really like to see them take off like crazy!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Tomorrow's the KBoards promo. I'm really looking forward to see how this one turns out. I'll post the average sales of Fallen Hunter, over the past three weeks and the ranking, just before the promo starts tomorrow morning.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Not sure what time the KBoards promo goes out today. Currently Fallen Hunter is ranked #12,990 in Paid Kindle and #10 in Sea Adventures. In the last 24 hours it reached as high as #9702 around noon Eastern time yesterday and as low as #13,729 at 0330.

I'm hoping for a pretty good boost in sales.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I'm not sure what promotion you signed up for, Wayne.  The Free and Bargain Books promo is generally around 8:30 am, PT  (Harvey is on the west coast.)  Other promotions are later in the day. 

Betsy


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## DJ Edwardson (Mar 15, 2013)

Interesting thread, Wayne. I just released the second book in a series and I'm looking for ideas on how to promote it. I think the staggered promotions idea looks promising. I look forward to seeing your results. Hope it goes well for you!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I'm not sure what promotion you signed up for, Wayne. The Free and Bargain Books promo is generally around 8:30 am, PT (Harvey is on the west coast.) Other promotions are later in the day.
> 
> Betsy


Bargain Books promo, Betsy. Should be out any time now, then. Just checked and it looks like I screwed up again. Fallen Palm is being featured instead of Fallen Hunter. Oh well, it needed a boost too.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Switching gears real quick, since I messed up and listed the wrong book with Harvey for a KBoards Bargain Book promo. No big deal, it needed a boost too. Actually, we can get a better idea of the results with Palm, because over the last two weeks it's been selling very consistently between 8 and 11 a day, averaging 9.7, after coming down from the BookBub ad last month.
Over the last 13 days it's sold 11, 11, 11, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 9, 11, 10, 9, and 9, in that order

Fallen Palm at 11:00 Eastern was ranked at #16,129 and #15 in Sea Adventures. 
Current monthly sales at 11:00 was 196.
The promo was listed on Facebook about 11:15.
The break even target will be 17 sales. ($20/$2.74=7.3 books+9.7 average=17)

And we're off to the races.......


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

ElHawk, 

I ran a combined eBooksoda / Fussy Librarian / Awesomegang / Fantascize Promo this Sunday. I had 700 downloads yesterday at a combined cost of $76. Today I'm still seeing higher than average downloads, so I'm really pretty happy--if the rate of downloads continues I'll have 1000 downloads from the venture easy. On a slightly sadder note, my Saturday BookSends/BookBasset promo did not go as well. I'll definitely continue with the Basset, but I don't know about BookSends.


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## coolpixel (Sep 17, 2012)

C. Gockel said:


> ElHawk,
> 
> I ran a combined eBooksoda / Fussy Librarian / Awesomegang / Fantascize Promo this Sunday. I had 700 downloads yesterday at a combined cost of $76. Today I'm still seeing higher than average downloads, so I'm really pretty happy--if the rate of downloads continues I'll have 1000 downloads from the venture easy. On a slightly sadder note, my Saturday BookSends/BookBasset promo did not go as well. I'll definitely continue with the Basset, but I don't know about BookSends.


Was this a full price book or a discounted one?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## scbarrus (Nov 26, 2013)

I'm loving this post and getting some inspiration as well. Thanks for all the data! I think we all appreciate it very much.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

It's not looking real good, right now. With only an hour before I record my sales (I record every evening at 9:00), Fallen Palm has had 7 sales since yesterday evening and only 5 since the ad came out on Facebook. It's currently ranked at 17,357, having slipped 1228 places. I know it's still early on the left coast, so tomorrow's results will be averaged into today's.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Just recorded my sales for the last 24 hours.

Since 9:00 pm yesterday, Fallen Hunter sold an additional 8 books and is currently ranked at #17,941. That's 9 sales shy of the break ever for the KBoards promo and a decline of 1,812 spots in ranking. It's now at #16 in Sea Adventures, down one spot. Of course the promo was at 8:15 Pacific time and it's still only just after 6:00 there. Tomorrow will tell the tale.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

It's 24 hours since the KBoard Bargain Book promo was placed on the KBoard Facebook page and blog.

Current monthly sales and ranking are 209 and #15,370. It's #12 in Sea Adventures. This is a total of 13 books sold in 24 hours and an increase of 759 places in ranking. It increased 3 spots in Sea Adventures.

The average sales over the last two weeks was 9.57. At $20 for the ad and a royalty of $2.74 per book, I needed 7.3 above average, or 16.87, to break even.

The increase in ranking doesn't mean much, it's bounced from the 17K's to the 10K's throughout any given day over the last two week. When I record the sales tonight at 9:00, I'll know better. Right now there've been only 7 sales since last night.

Could be the day of the week, or the middle of the month. I'll bet the KBoard promo does a lot better with discounted books.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Doesn't look like there were any sales at all from the KB promo. But, Harvey PMed me and gave me some sage advice and we're going to re-run the promo the day after the BookBub ad at $.99.


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## Ronny K (Aug 2, 2011)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> some sage advice


Dare I ask?

Or is it just the discount factor?


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

I tried a kboards ad for a new title once. It didn't seem to do anything. (Also full price, can't remember if it was 2.99 or 3.99.)

Maybe better for discount books?


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

What do you mean by KB ad? On the KB blog or banner? Because I've seen neither or your books as banner/book of the day on top of this page.

I've tried the series feature and the new book feature, both of which gave me a handful of sales, but nothing to write home about.

There is no other effective advertising except Bookbub, and perhaps ENT, and sometimes you strike it lucky with a smaller venue, but your book needs to be free or heavily discounted.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

No; I've had good luck with other sites. ENT's Book of the Day was big stuff for a full-price (3.99) book. Also with Booksends, freebooksy, etc. for free or discounted. I agree of course, Bookbub is the best, or getting featured by Amazon, but that's not something you can make happen. 

Oh, and blog tours were good advertising, often indirectly, especially when I was starting out. 

I can't remember what the kboards ad was, honestly. It was a good year ago.


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## Just Browsing (Sep 26, 2012)

I'm also interested in knowing what the "sage advice" was. 

I tried a Kboards ad once, at .99, and got 0 sales (though it did well on some other sites). I didn't try again after that, though.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Ronny K said:


> Dare I ask?
> 
> Or is it just the discount factor?





Rosalind James said:


> I tried a kboards ad for a new title once. It didn't seem to do anything. (Also full price, can't remember if it was 2.99 or 3.99.)
> 
> Maybe better for discount books?





1001nightspress said:


> I'm also interested in knowing what the "sage advice" was.
> 
> I tried a Kboards ad once, at .99, and got 0 sales (though it did well on some other sites). I didn't try again after that, though.


Yes, he advised that it works better on discounted books. Since it'll be the day after BB, though, there's no way I'll be able to tell its effectiveness.



Patty Jansen said:


> What do you mean by KB ad? On the KB blog or banner? Because I've seen neither or your books as banner/book of the day on top of this page.
> 
> I've tried the series feature and the new book feature, both of which gave me a handful of sales, but nothing to write home about.
> 
> There is no other effective advertising except Bookbub, and perhaps ENT, and sometimes you strike it lucky with a smaller venue, but your book needs to be free or heavily discounted.


It was promoted on the blog under "Bargain Books" under $4.99, with a link to the blog on the Facebook page.

Tomorrow, will be a promotion through GoodKindles.


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

I did a KB option with no sales too (sorry Harvey!)


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## scbarrus (Nov 26, 2013)

SunshineOnMe said:


> I did a KB option with no sales too (sorry Harvey!)


I never market to groups that host mostly writers. It doesn't make sense to me. Other writers probably aren't going to buy my books, if they're like me they don't have time, and they're jaded when it comes to marketing (even more so than readers). This is why I don't think paying for ads anywhere that hosts mostly writers is ever worth the investment.

KBoards is great for a lot of things, especially for publishing education and sharing of ideas. But when it comes to marketing, I don't think it's the best avenue. When it comes to talking about books, all I see is a bunch of authors sharing their own stuff and nobody talking about other peoples work. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are a lot of readers out there who get book suggestions from Kboards which inform their purchases, but I feel like that's secondary. Kboards primary function is getting authors together.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

scbarrus said:


> I never market to groups that host mostly writers. It doesn't make sense to me. Other writers probably aren't going to buy my books, if they're like me they don't have time, and they're jaded when it comes to marketing (even more so than readers). This is why I don't think paying for ads anywhere that hosts mostly writers is ever worth the investment.
> 
> KBoards is great for a lot of things, especially for publishing education and sharing of ideas. But when it comes to marketing, I don't think it's the best avenue. When it comes to talking about books, all I see is a bunch of authors sharing their own stuff and nobody talking about other peoples work. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are a lot of readers out there who get book suggestions from Kboards which inform their purchases, but I feel like that's secondary. Kboards primary function is getting authors together.


You're confusing "Writers' Cafe" with KBoards. While it is the largest forum on KBoards, by far, thousands of readers visit the other forums, too. Some even drop in here, but I'd bet that most don't.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The GoodKindles promo is running today. The $7.95 ad will need to sell 2.9 books more than the last two weeks average of 14.3 books. The target is 17 to almost break even, 18 to show a profit. The ad was posted at 10:00 am Eastern, but I didn't receive the email until 1:00 pm.

At 10:00 am, Fallen Hunter ranked #12,449 in Paid Kindle. At 1:00, when I got the email, it was ranked at #12,011. If the promo pays for itself, I should see a ranking of about #7500.

Next promo is FussyLibrarian on 5/25. Cost for the FL ad was $6.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

GoodKindles missed the mark, too. I just recorded my sales for today and it was 3 under average, meaning that GoodKindles probably didn't account for a single sale. So far, the only promo that moved my full price ($3.99) book was eBookSoda, with 4 sales in the UK.

FussyLibrarian is usually good for 3 for me, that's on the 25th. After that is FKB&T on the 28th, culminating the month with Book Bub on the 31st.


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## Ancient Lawyer (Jul 1, 2013)

I'm sorry - this is a terrible noob question. I've been reading and re-reading this thread with a lot of interest, though there are many things that I don't understand.

But what if you are starting out (like me) and are still fairly invisible? I haven't tried Bookbub so far because I only have two books out (the third, which is the middle one, being in the pipeline).

But if promotions of freebies or price-reductions push a book up the best-seller list but not necessarily the poplist (most popular?) then will that have any effect on sales in the long term?

I ask because I had a free day with Select in September. I got over 1000 free downloads and about six sales. But since then sales have continued to be tiny, and I have received few reviews.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

SunshineOnMe said:


> I did a KB option with no sales too (sorry Harvey!)


ditto


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

JessieCar said:


> I'm sorry - this is a terrible noob question. I've been reading and re-reading this thread with a lot of interest, though there are many things that I don't understand.
> 
> But what if you are starting out (like me) and are still fairly invisible? I haven't tried Bookbub so far because I only have two books out (the third, which is the middle one, being in the pipeline).
> 
> ...


A free promotion won't do anything for your rating on the Paid Kindle ranks for the book being given away. What it can do is increase your visibility, especially for a series. Many have run a free book on BookBub and had a ten fold increase on other books in the series the same day. To move 10,000 downloads of a free book with BB is normal. If only 1% of those buy the second book, that's a hundred sales. It might be spread over several days or weeks, but likely more than book 1 would have sold on that one free day.

A reduced price book on BookBub, at $.99 can sell up to 1000 copies. My last one sold 1550 in three days. Unfortunately, it wasn''t on a Kindle Countdown Deal and I only got 35%, instead of 70% with the Deal. But still, that was over $500 in three days on the one book, where I was only making about $25 to $30 a day on it before. It paid for the ad twice over.

If I get 1000 sales on the 31st at 70%, I'll earn $700 for the $260 ad, not counting sales of other books in the series, which last time increased from about 10 a day each, to 35 a day each, for over a week. The sales of the second two books is still well above sales before the BB ad and it was a month ago yesterday.

Then there's ranking. The book in the BB ad hit #1 in four genres and #63 on Paid Kindle. That exposure was worth the cost of admission all by itself. The ad was two weeks after the launch of book three. Both #2 and #3 made the top 5000 in Paid Kindle and book #3 hit #3 ranking in two genres. It only slipped out of the #3 spot this week.


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## Ancient Lawyer (Jul 1, 2013)

Thank you very much, Wayne - that is really helpful! I've been wary of using Bookbub because of the cost. It helps enormously to have the figures set out clearly and concisely.

I probably won't attempt to use them before I have three books out. And then I will see if they'll take it.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

JessieCar said:


> Thank you very much, Wayne - that is really helpful! I've been wary of using Bookbub because of the cost.


I'm pretty much a noob, too. I've only been on here for about five months and only published my first book last October. So far, I've yet to hear of anyone on here that didn't make at least a 50% return on their BookBub investment. Most are 100% ROI or better.


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## Ancient Lawyer (Jul 1, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I'm pretty much a noob, too. I've only been on here for about five months and only published my first book last October. So far, I've yet to hear of anyone on here that didn't make at least a 50% return on their BookBub investment. Most are 100% ROI or better.


You've done really well! I self-pubbed on 1 May last year and since then, I've sold 37 copies (on Amazon). Ironically, my first two books were traditionally published in 2001 and 2002. It seems to make no difference. I still don't know what I've done wrong.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

JessieCar said:


> You've done really well! I self-pubbed on 1 May last year and since then, I've sold 37 copies (on Amazon). Ironically, my first two books were traditionally published in 2001 and 2002. It seems to make no difference. I still don't know what I've done wrong.


Since I'm still at a total loss as to why my books are so popular, I really can't offer any advice about that. I've noticed that on here there seems to be a lot of writers in your genre that have the same problem and there seems to be a lot of people who write in fantasy type genres. I write in a small niche, Caribbean action/adventures. I think I'm the only one on here that does and there are few writers that are that specialized, even though the demand is high. One of the reasons I started writing in the first place is because I've read everything by all my favorite Caribbean action/adventure writers, many of them more than once.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Hi Wayne

Thanks for a very informative thread. I am glad to see your reports and I am sure it will help others out when they are choosing to use advertising sites.

I was just on your site and blog and I want to help you out. I know walking away from your job was a tough decision to make. Being this is Memorial day weekend and you served in the Marines (Thank You) I am going to offer you a free featured ad on my site Awesomegang.com

Go and fill out our book submission form but click No on the featured ad section as I will process it manually. http://awesomegang.com/submit-your-book/

Once again thanks for your service.

Vinny


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Wow, Vinny, that's really nice of you. Thanks. I'll do it right now.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Thank you! I will be waiting for it to come in.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I submitted it for 6/4/14. It'll be $1.99 on that day. Thanks, again.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Wayne you are all set up. Once again thanks for your service! I scheduled out a few tweets for it also. Enjoy your weekend.

Vinny


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## Ancient Lawyer (Jul 1, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Since I'm still at a total loss as to why my books are so popular, I really can't offer any advice about that. I've noticed that on here there seems to be a lot of writers in your genre that have the same problem and there seems to be a lot of people who write in fantasy type genres. I write in a small niche, Caribbean action/adventures. I think I'm the only one on here that does and there are few writers that are that specialized, even though the demand is high. One of the reasons I started writing in the first place is because I've read everything by all my favorite Caribbean action/adventure writers, many of them more than once.


Thank you Wayne - that's a really kind thing to say.


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## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Then there's ranking. The book in the BB ad hit #1 in four genres and #63 on Paid Kindle. That exposure was worth the cost of admission all by itself. The ad was two weeks after the launch of book three. Both #2 and #3 made the top 5000 in Paid Kindle and book #3 hit #3 ranking in two genres. It only slipped out of the #3 spot this week.


Hi Wayne, thanks for a really interesting thread. I was wondering with your last BB ad (quoted above), was it book 3 you promoted, and if so, how did you get it on BB after only 2 weeks?
Thanks


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

AJStewart said:


> Hi Wayne, thanks for a really interesting thread. I was wondering with your last BB ad (quoted above), was it book 3 you promoted, and if so, how did you get it on BB after only 2 weeks?
> Thanks


No, it was the current first book in the series, Fallen Palm. BookBub will take new releases, I understand. But, from what I've learned it would have to be a new release in a popular series. I intend to submit my current WIP, a prequel, as soon as it gets a handful of reviews and see what happens.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The FussyLibrarian promo for Fallen Hunter is running today. 

The email went out at 0916 EDT. 
Ranking before the ad came out was #11,357 in Paid Kindle. 
Average sales over the last 14 days is 12.6 ebooks per day, with a high of 16 (twice) and a low of 8 (twice). 
Cost of the ad was $6 and the royalty on the full price book is $2.73. 
Sales during the promo have to reach 15 for today to break even.

I'm pretty sure it will. FL has always been good for at least 3 extra sales for me, but this is the first time I've submitted book #2 to them.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Just wanted to say that I find this to be a fantastic, informative thread.  Everyone needs to bear in mind that YMMV, but it's great to learn about other promotional platforms and the amount of success authors are having with them.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

KevinH said:


> Just wanted to say that I find this to be a fantastic, informative thread. Everyone needs to bear in mind that YMMV, but it's great to learn about other promotional platforms and the amount of success authors are having with them.


Thanks, Kevin. So far few promo sites have shown to be able to move a book at $3.99.

Fussy Librarian is looking good. Fallen Hunter has already equaled the average daily sales and has moved up the ranking slightly.

I'm nearly finished with my WIP, Fallen Out and will send it my two proofreaders on Tuesday and probably beta readers on Thursday. If I cram, I can probably have Fallen Out ready to publish at the same time as the BookBub promotion on Fallen Hunter on the 31st.

I'm running a Kindle Countdown Deal on Fallen Palm at the same time as the BB ad and KCD on Fallen Hunter, on 5/31. The KCD for both runs to 6/2. I have several post BB ads running on both Palm and Hunter, to try to lengthen the tail, including KB, ENT, Fiverr, and BookSends, all at $.99.

I'm hoping for a huge sales day on both the 31st and 1st.


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## jackiegp (May 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I have a BookBub ad scheduled for 5/31 for Fallen Hunter. My first ad with BB went great, but I'd like to see this one do even better. I've already set up a KBoards promo and FussyLibrarian promo to run prior to the BB ad.
> 
> For the money spent, what other promo sites work best with action/adventure, for full priced books at $3.99? I don't mind spending the money if the ROI is there.


What? Wait, are you running a BookBub ad at full price? Can you do that? I thought they always had to be discounted?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

jackiegp said:


> What? Wait, are you running a BookBub ad at full price? Can you do that? I thought they always had to be discounted?


No, the BB ad is discounted to $.99. All the ads from 5/12, leading up to it are at the full price of $3.99. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

I can easily call FussyLibrarian a winner, even though it's still early. Sales for the day are already over the target of 15, to pay for the ad. Ranking is at #11,096 now, but peaked 3 hours ago at #9681. It should go a little higher than that before the day's over.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The Fussy Librarian did it again. Even at full price of $3.99, I sold 18 copies of Fallen Hunter today, the best day of sales in over two weeks. That's three sales more than average, peaking 1676 ranks higher at #9681. 

Well worth the $6.

Kindle Books & Tips promo will be Wednesday.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> The Fussy Librarian did it again. Even at full price of $3.99, I sold 18 copies of Fallen Hunter today, the best day of sales in over two weeks. That's three sales more than average, peaking 1676 ranks higher at #9681.
> 
> Well worth the $6.
> 
> Kindle Books & Tips promo will be Wednesday.


By pure fate or what ever my Fussy add hit today also and it took me to:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,362 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military > Space Fleet
#9 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera
#9 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Galactic Empire


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## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

Nice results Wayne. Good job on your sales.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

I thought FussyLibrarian charged $6? Oh, I see, different categories charge different rates. I had a very good Fussy Librarian, EbookSoda, Awesomegang advertising blitzkrieg last weekend for my permafree. Usually I see a jump in sales a week later, but this weekend is Memorial Day here in the States. I think if sales stay relatively stable I'll call it a win.  I wonder if there will be a spike in a day or so as people head back to work and load up their Kindles for the commute?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

VydorScope said:


> By pure fate or what ever my Fussy add hit today also and it took me to:
> 
> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,362 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
> #4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military > Space Fleet
> ...


Great results! Fussy has come a long way just in the last few months.



C. Gockel said:


> I thought FussyLibrarian charged $6? Oh, I see, different categories charge different rates. I had a very good Fussy Librarian, EbookSoda, Awesomegang advertising blitzkrieg last weekend for my permafree. Usually I see a jump in sales a week later, but this weekend is Memorial Day here in the States. I think if sales stay relatively stable I'll call it a win.  I wonder if there will be a spike in a day or so as people head back to work and load up their Kindles for the commute?


Yes, it was $6 and as I said, well worth it.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

I've been just lurking here for a while, wanting to hear what your results are, and I really appreciate your sharing what worked and what didn't!


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## Maia Sepp Ross (May 10, 2013)

Wayne, my sincere thanks for starting this epic thread!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Not sure what time it was posted, but Fallen Hunter is on the Kindle Books and Tips blog today and is doing well. 

Average sold over the last 14 days: 12.85
Cost of ad: $50
Target to break even: (50/2.74)+12.85 = 31.1 sales

It's off to a great start, already sold 16. Normal for this time of day is about 9. Half way there.

Remember, this is for a full price book, at $3.99. FKBT says, "....anything at $3.99 or higher has quite a bit of risk to it unless it is a collection of books in a box set."

We'll see if the risk was worth it.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Wayne,
They usually charge $25. Did you do a different kind of ad with them?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

PamelaKelley said:


> Wayne,
> They usually charge $25. Did you do a different kind of ad with them?


The $25 ad is for under $1. Anything over $1 is $50.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> The $25 ad is for under $1. Anything over $1 is $50.


No kidding? I had no idea! Probably because I've always done the .99 ads.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

thanks for sharing all the info Wayne


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Fantastic thread this, Wayne!

Hopefully, you'll be able to produce some kind of 'executive summary' of the research results when the experiment has run its course.


Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> Fantastic thread this, Wayne!
> 
> Hopefully, you'll be able to produce some kind of 'executive summary' of the research results when the experiment has run its course.
> 
> Philip


I plan to, Philip. I've been keeping excellent notes on the results of each promo and will continue with the post BB promos as well, then post a compilation of the results.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Wayne

Just wanted to give you an update. Your book will go on our site around a little after midnight actually at 00:55 PST the url will be http://awesomegang.com/fallen-hunter/ it will be a 404 page until that time. Our newsletter goes out at 8am PST.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, Vinny. Midnight's the perfect time. I record my sales at 9 Eastern. I won't be able to tell very well how many sales result from it, it'll be 4 days after a BB ad. Last time, I was still 400% above the average before BB, four days after the ad. Is it possible to track click throughs from your end?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The KB&T email was sent out at 3:00 EDT and the listing was posted on their blog early this morning. So far I've had 24 sales generated today, which is double my average. But, at 7:00 this morning, Fallen Hunter was around the 10K mark and it's now around the 12K mark. This tells me that sales of all books are good today, if I can sell double my average and slip 2000 places in rank. Interesting, though. Maybe the ranking is lagging today.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Wayne, 

Thanks for your informative thread. There are so many lessons to learn here!


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## Micah Ackerman (Feb 16, 2014)

Can't wait to hear your results Wayne. I have a KB&T scheduled for 6/14 on my novel


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Marian said:


> Wayne,
> 
> Thanks for your informative thread. There are so many lessons to learn here!


I think the biggest take away so far is that unless the book is discounted, even the low dollar promotions aren't much of an ROI. Looking forward to the Friday BookBub ad.



Micah Ackerman said:


> Can't wait to hear your results Wayne. I have a KB&T scheduled for 6/14 on my novel


Is it discounted?


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## Micah Ackerman (Feb 16, 2014)

No, because it's a new release I'm doing their Saturday new release feature. The book will be priced 3.99, I'm thinking of discounting it a dollar, but I'm not sure what that would help with


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Micah Ackerman said:


> No, because it's a new release I'm doing their Saturday new release feature. The book will be priced 3.99, I'm thinking of discounting it a dollar, but I'm not sure what that would help with


How much is the Saturday new release feature? I didn't see that. Fallen Out is launching this weekend.


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## Jamie Maltman (Nov 1, 2013)

I'll add my thanks to the pool for you Wayne, and wishing you the best with the big one on BB.  Watching all of this with interest as I edit book 2 in my series, and mull over all these options for what to do on the promo side, and when.


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## Micah Ackerman (Feb 16, 2014)

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's new or not and it's a great idea letting people with new releases do a special promo because they have few if any reviews. It was 50$

Micah


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The Kindle Books and Tips promo almost paid for itself, boosting sales by about 100%. At $50, it's a risky shot for a $3.99 book submission. As Micah pointed out, they do take new releases, though.

I estimate they sold 18 books and that's generous. Ranking finally caught up and it moved from about #10K to #8825. 
At $2.73 royalty per book, that's a $49.14 ROI.  I will be using them again, but primarily for a discounted book.

All that's left on this three week promo odyssey now is BookBub on Saturday. 

I'm releasing my latest book, Fallen Out on Friday and it'll be priced at $.99. I'm also doing a Kindle Countdown Deal on both Fallen Palm and Fallen Hunter, starting Saturday, with Hunter being in the BB ad. Palm is being featured in a Fussy Librarian promo on Saturday, as well.

After the BB ad, I have several more promos lined up. Fallen Palm will be featured in both ENT and BookSends on Sunday, 6/1 and Fallen Hunter will be featured in a KindleBoards promo that day as well, both at $.99. 

After that, Hunter will be featured in ENT on 6/2, Fiverr on 6/3 and Awesomegang on 6/4. I won't be able to tell the results of these being on the tail of BB, though.

With the new release of Fallen Out, and the KCD on Palm and Hunter, readers will be able to pick up all four books for less than $7. I expect big numbers across all four titles, launching Fallen Out up in the rankings on day one. As always, half the profits on Fallen Pride go to the Wounded Warrior Project.

It's gonna be an exciting weekend.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

That will be an exciting weekend! Lots of data to sift through after. Nice thing about ENT is that you will know exactly how those spots did once they send you your invoice, thx to the affiliate tracking. Probably harder to measure the others maybe?


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Wayne I am curious about your Fiverr gig. Do they give you a list of places they submit your book to?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Vinny OHare said:


> Wayne I am curious about your Fiverr gig. Do they give you a list of places they submit your book to?


On their blog and Facebook page.


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## Kessie Carroll (Jan 15, 2014)

This thread is fascinating! I'm really curious to see how your sales do at .99 vs 3.99. I hadn't even heard of some of these places before.


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## Guest (May 29, 2014)

Hi Wayne, thanks for the info. One Fiverr who had results on par with KBnights for me was http://www.fiverr.com/ringstwo/promote-your-ebook-in-30-private-facebook-groups-reaching-200000-members

I used him 2 times (begin month, end month) and both times I had record sales. The first time was 3 times average. second time 2 times average.

Pay $5 (no extra's) and mention KBoards special.

My book is part of a series, sells for 0.99 cents, genre is mystery, words 20K

Let me kow how he works out for you


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I think the biggest take away so far is that unless the book is discounted, even the low dollar promotions aren't much of an ROI. Looking forward to the Friday BookBub ad.


Your take away has been my experience. People look for bargains. I think it's one of the reasons for BookBub's success, as well as ENT's. It seems that .99 cents is the new free. I've been toying with reducing the price of one of my books from $4.99 to $1.99 for a promotion, but no one seems to like $1.99. I won't have the benefit of a Countdown for this promotion. I no longer have any books in Select, but I think the trade-off is more than worth it because I have the opportunity to get readers on B & N, Apple, and Kobo.

Good luck on your promo!


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

drno said:


> Hi Wayne, thanks for the info. One Fiverr who had results on par with KBnights for me was http://www.fiverr.com/ringstwo/promote-your-ebook-in-30-private-facebook-groups-reaching-200000-members
> 
> I used him 2 times (begin month, end month) and both times I had record sales. The first time was 3 times average. second time 2 times average.
> 
> ...


What is the KBoards special for this guy? BKNights has one... but are you saying this other guy does too?


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## Guest (May 30, 2014)

VydorScope said:


> What is the KBoards special for this guy? BKNights has one... but are you saying this other guy does too?


The KBspecial means you get to watch him work. Watching this guy work is like watching Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction. It's hard to tell what he does exactly, but you'll see your sales go up.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

drno said:


> The KBspecial means you get to watch him work. Watching this guy work is like watching Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction. It's hard to tell what he does exactly, but you'll see your sales go up.


Watch him work? Err... no thanks.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

Although we've talked about various ad sites in other threads, this is the first I can recall that analyzed results from a whole series of sites over a relatively short period of time. Thank you, Wayne, for sharing your experiences. I know results can vary by genre and time of year, but I am looking forward to your final recap. This is valuable information.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

drno said:


> Hi Wayne, thanks for the info. One Fiverr who had results on par with KBnights for me was http://www.fiverr.com/ringstwo/promote-your-ebook-in-30-private-facebook-groups-reaching-200000-members
> 
> I used him 2 times (begin month, end month) and both times I had record sales. The first time was 3 times average. second time 2 times average.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the tip. I'm using him for my new book, Fallen Out, tomorrow. Also running a Facebook promo and advertised in 7 open book reader Facebook pages, with over 20,000 followers on each one.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

drno said:


> Hi Wayne, thanks for the info. One Fiverr who had results on par with KBnights for me was http://www.fiverr.com/ringstwo/promote-your-ebook-in-30-private-facebook-groups-reaching-200000-members
> 
> I used him 2 times (begin month, end month) and both times I had record sales. The first time was 3 times average. second time 2 times average.
> 
> ...


So SHE did not work out at all. I paid for the promotion and she marked it delivered today. I did not get a single extra download. Not one. I would think that if she really put it before the 700k eyeballs that she said I would get a few at least.

Right now I am still watching, but I am starting to think I was scammed out of $5. At least it was only $5


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## pajones (Apr 21, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Thanks for the tip. I'm using him for my new book, Fallen Out, tomorrow. Also running a Facebook promo and advertised in 7 open book reader Facebook pages, with over 20,000 followers on each one.


Let us know how it went.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

pajones said:


> Let us know how it went.


No way to tell with a new book. It had no average to compare to.


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