First of all, for those of you who are curious about the benefits of BookBub, here are some figures for a book that released over a year ago. Every Step She Takes released in July of 2015. in July of 2016, it was featured on BookBub for .99 cents. I actually made it into the top 100 overall on Amazon for one day during that period. Total sales of this book for the 3rd Quarter were 3,541 copies. By contrast, total sales for this book the 4th Quarter were 468. I think the value of BookBub speaks for itself. I don't know of any other site that can produce those types of numbers.
So, in the 4th Quarter, my pub put several of my books on sale, trying to stir up interest. The thing with sale books is you don't make a whole lot off of them because Amazon gives the publisher 35% of the total for a .99 cent book vs. 70% for a book priced at $2.99 or higher. The author share of a .99 cent book with a publisher taking their standard 60% is about .14 cents. My ex-agent gets her 15%, so I make .12 cents. Those who are self published would make .34 cents. On a $2.99 book, I make .71 cents, so 6 times as much on a non-sale book. You might ask yourself why anyone would ever sell their book for .99 cents at those prices. Good question. Answer to follow so keep reading!
Remember those two brand new releases in my Born to Be Wilde series? In 2016, neither of them were on sale, and both sold for 3.99. The results were pretty pathetic... 270 sales for Wilde One, and 222 sales for Wilde Side. During this same time, my oldest book with Kensington, Every Move She Makes was on sale for over a month. The result...it sold 662 copies. This book released in March of 2015 and has been on a ton of sales including BookBub, yet it still outsold the brand new releases by 300%! As for actual profits, royalties for every one of my five books were within a $30 differential despite a huge swing in total sales. But, those sale books have an intrinsic value as a promotional device. I estimate that at least 1 in every 3 people who buy the sale book will pay full price for the other books in the series. Those would have been lost sales without the .99 cent book.
You're probably sick of the math lesson by now, but my conclusion is sale price books do help boost your overall sales, both in numbers and $$. So, even if you think you're making pennies off each one (which you are), in the long run, it pays off.
I hope you found all this helpful if you're considering putting your own books on sale. As for my books, right now all three Wilde books are on sale. WILDE ONE and WILDE THING are 99 cents, and WILDE SIDE is $1.99. The sale on Wilde One is supposed to end today, so grab it while you can. I'll be very interested to see what these sales do for my 1st Quarter 2017 figures. I'll report back in a few months! Just click on the titles to go to the Amazon buy links. Happy reading!
18 comments:
Very interesting info, Jannine. Although my numbers are nowhere near yours, I found the same thing happened with one of my books that's at 99 cents. I've seen a rise in the number of sales for the other 2 books in the series. I paid for one day at Free Kindle Books & Tips (they include 99 cent books, too) and had my biggest day of sales for that book.
I think stores call it a loss leader when an item is sold below cost to get people into the store where they'll buy more. BookBub sounds like the way to go, but it is expensive. I'm glad you've seen such success.
Diane, if you're self-pubbed, you would definitely earn back your investment on BookBub. People who have a publisher (that won't pay for it) might break even, but sales on other books in the series (provided it's part of a series) would still make it worth the cost. Sounds like Free Kindle Books & Tips is also a good resource if they take .99 cent books. Good to know!
I tried to put an anthology a group of authors, including me, self-published on Bookbub. It would have cost us $700. I'm glad my publishers always paid for my entry fees. I remember the day I got an email from my editor in London--HarperImpulse--who told me I'd sold over 2000 copies of a book they'd put on Bookbub. "That was only one day's sales. I'm just gobsmacked." Well, I was gobsmacked, too, because I'd never been told so I couldn't push it on my end. I was thrilled until I got my statements (HI pays monthly) and saw the pittance that was left over after the publisher and ex-agent got their cuts. Can a person be double-gobsmacked? It did help the sales of the other 3 books of the series. That was a slower gobsmacking. LOL
Very helpful information, Jannine. Thanks for doing the math. Looks like you'd suggest a $.99 cent sale on the first of a series. I wonder if that's better than permafree. I resist making books free. Your sales are looking good...keep up the good work!
I don't know how effective an anthology would be on BookBub, Vonnie. Yes, you'd get a lot of sales on the anthology (and probably make a nickle off of each) but there would be no follow-up series to benefit from those sales. I definitely saw a jump for my entire back list after each BookBub sale, but nowhere near as big for the books not in the series featured. Yes, the pittance we make for that sale book after everyone takes their cut is pretty staggering. Gobsmacked does tend to describe it! LOL
Free used to work really well, Rolynn. But I honestly don't know if people trolling for free books buy the rest of the series at the same rate as the .99 cent readers. Plus the majority of people who download free books have thousands of them on their readers and never get around to reading most of those books. When you pay something, even .99 cents, I think more people read it. So while you might not get as many downloads, you might actually have more reads. The key is to get that .99 cent book noticed, and that isn't easy!
Interesting info, Jannine. There's recently been a lot of discussion as to whether Book Bub works so this is very timely. And certainly worth considering.
My gut tells me you're correct about free books, Jannine. There might be a few who would pay, but free-trollers are just that. I want to do some such promo when book 5, the final in my series releases, hopefully by the end of the year. But I have an obstacle. The first in the series was picked up by Amazon Prime so I have no control. What to do? Put the second one on for $.99? Or the last one, even though new?
I'm glad I could provide a little useful info, Andrea!
Brenda, your series would work very well with a big .99 cent push. Actually, Every Step She Takes, the book I used in my example, is the second book in my first series. Granted, my pub pushed the first book harder with sales, but the second one worked just as well when they used it. Especially if your books don't have to be read in order, I'd try using the second book for promo. Also, try to make a deal with TWRP to pay some of the cost of BookBub if you can get a spot. It's in their best interest, and they get the majority of the profits. I bet they'd work with you if you could get accepted.
Good idea, Jannine. Thanks.
Thanks so much for the numbers, Jannine. I should have known you'd be a fellow data geek! As a self-publisher, I'm always fascinated to learn more about what works. I keep trying, and failing, to get a BookBub ad, but maybe one of these days... As it is, I'm running another Amazon ads experiment and will report in on the 15th.
Yea, Alison. I always like to get the specifics of any promo effort so I look forward to the 15th! Actually, you would be better off waiting until your third book in the series is out to try for BookBub. More residual sales that way. Also, I found my out of series books that were also romantic suspense profited from the sale. The historicals and westerns didn't get more than a couple sales each, so the benefits don't seem to cross sub-genre.
Thanks, Jannine, for crunching the numbers and sharing. I have a friend who paid for a $200 ad on Amazon, got a friend who's a marketing expert to create the ad, and she sold two books. She was obviously not satisfied.
I have a couple free chapters of a novella on Instafreebie, and I've actually sold a few books from that. The catch is that to get customization (e.g., collect email addresses), the fee is $20/month, so not cost effective in terms of sales. I need to get all my books up there (chapters only). I'm not keen on giving books away either.
I'd never heard of Instafreebie, Leah. Yeah, there always seems to be a catch to these sites that costs money! As for the $200 ad, I'd want someone to sign something in blood promising it would produce sales! Yikes!
As usual good information we all can use. Since, as you know, I have a series coming out - book one this summer, book two next summer, etc. etc., I'm going to push to use the 99 cent magical formula. Maybe even BookBub if publisher and I can come to an agreement. Per your advice to Brenda. Seems the tide has changed from the idea that one book for free would benefit the others. My only claim to fame in that department, thus far, is one title that was downloaded over 12,000
times. Oh to have those numbers in sales, huh? Some day, maybe. That situation boosted the second book somewhat, but not much. Though I did get a ton of reviews. That was something.
Putting a book out there for free for a brief period just to get the reviews might be worth it! Margo, the .99 cent formula will work best for you once you have two or three books out in the series. I'm not sure how useful it is with just one.
Thank you so much for being so forthcoming about your results. I agree, 99 cents for a first in series is a good idea. Impressive sales!
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