T. R. Robinson Publications

No doubt many fellow authors, as well as readers, will have heard of BookBub and how any book included in one of its events appears to, always, do well on the day and after. It therefore seemed appropriate to ask someone who has succeeded in getting a book included in such an event to share their experience. Lucinda E Clarke has kindly agreed to do so. This is a guest post by her.

Guest Post by author Lucinda E Clarke

I am very flattered Tanya has asked me to write about BookBub promotions as I’m not sure I’m the best person as there are several people who have been accepted many times and they have only bestowed the honour on me twice, but I’ll do my best to give you some idea how my promotions went.

I first heard about this particular group by reading other blogs and understood they are the ‘cremé de la cremé’ of all book promotions, the one that all the professionals check out. You get the idea that if you are accepted then your book ‘has arrived.’ One of the FaceBook groups where I frequently lurk reported amazing results from their promotions and so, a year after I published, I sent in Walking over Eggshells which they promptly refused. Following my online friends’ advice I tried again, and again and again always with the same result. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel insulted when they refuse you within 2 hours, leaving you to wonder if they even looked at the book.

Now, their rules and regulations state that you cannot submit again for at least 4 weeks and the answer here is to be persistent. They never tell you why they refuse you so you have no idea if you are wasting both your time and theirs.

I didn’t submit every month, but once I had published the second in my Amie in Africa series, I decided to offer book 1 for free and to my amazement they took it. From the table below* you will see how much it cost me, I went into a mild decline, but I was assured that you never lost on a BookBub promo.

I sat up half the night watching the downloads, refresh, refresh and refresh again on my KDP dashboard and each time the numbers had soared. In all, over the actual day of the promo and the next 3 days I had over 27,000 downloads of my book – which in fact I was giving away for free. I was in a cold sweat it had cost me $800. (Note: the expected download figures were several thousand lower in October 2015).

However, my friends were right, in the following twelve weeks I raked in royalties of over $1,000 each month. And there was further spill over for Amie book 2 and my initial (rejected) memoir. Full of enthusiasm, I waited a few months and then submitted Walking over Eggshells again. By now I had a 5 star Readers’ Favorite and I was sure they would be impressed. No, back came the very prompt refusal. I waited and then Walking over Eggshells got a silver medal award at Readers’ Favorite and I was confident they would take it this time. They were not interested.

Almost on a whim I sent it in again, not for free this time, but @ $/£0.99 with an added quote in the box from an important reviewer, I just knew they were going to say no, but to my amazement this time they said yes – but only for Europe, Canada and Australia. I was disappointed but the cost was much lower so I clicked the buttons on Paypal and was thrilled to get 924 sales and the following month another 150 which were at full price. Now I’m sure this is peanuts to many readers, but before that I averaged sales in only double figures for Eggshells each month.

I did add a few extra promo sites at the same time, as I’d reduced Eggshells from $/£2.99 and BookBub insist all books must be at least half price or less.

So yes, they are expensive but should you be accepted I suggest that you will almost always get your money back, you only have to look at the number of subscribers they have in the table below*. You’ll find lots of helpful hints on their site and its worth taking the time to study it all thoroughly – but if they turn you down, you will never know why. And will I try again? You bet I will as long as I can scrape the pennies together.

My second promo was for the international only and these are the stats they quote for the memoir group** @ $/£0.99. The lower table* also includes the US.

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* Regrettably, the tables Lucinda refers to could not be pasted into this article (as they had been in her original Word document). The following link has therefore been provided in substitution: https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing

** Note: In her last statement Lucinda makes reference to ‘quote for the memoir group’. ’Biographies and Memoirs’ are the fourth item in the table.

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The two books Lucinda mentions have been reviewed in this website. Click on the cover image to read them.

                   

 

 

 

 

Interview

 

 

Further information about Lucinda and her books may be found at:

Website

Blog

Amazon Author Page

BookBub: For those who would like to know more.