Operation Be Read is an ongoing series showcasing this particular self-publishing author’s efforts to, well, be read. In OBR posts, I share results from promos, thoughts on strategies, and other musings about marketing. Please note that I’m not trying to grow a business and my efforts are that of a hobbyist, not a hustler. I like low-effort things that move the needle. I last posted about Low Cost $0.99 Promo Sites Results.

For the release of Tangled Roots, I put my marketing efforts, and dollars, into two promos. Two weeks before the September 1st release date, I used Written Word Media’s “3-Day Cozy Mystery Promo Stack” for Driftless Spirits, hoping to create a runway for Tangled Roots. That is, readers might be finishing Book 1 right around when Book 2 was released. I mention this as it may or may not have bearing on the Tangled Roots sales I’ll report below. I credit WWM’s campaign for 47 sales of Driftless Spirits, centered around August 18-20. (The split was 41 sales on Amazon KDP and 6 sales reported on Draft2Digital covering other retailers.)

Tangled Roots was accepted for Bookbub’s “New Releases for Less” promo to run on its release day, September 1st. As most know, Bookbub is a gorilla when it comes to book communities, with millions of subscribers. Its “Featured Deals” are highly competitive, and I don’t think my books have the following yet to even try for a spot. Featured Deals also requires a discounted book, which means I’d have to bump up the price of Driftless Spirits from $0.99 to something higher for at least a month (possibly three months, I’m not sure), in order to submit it as a discounted deal.

New Releases for Less is different. The pricing requirement isn’t specific that I can find, but the general advice online is an ebook under $6 will qualify. You have to submit an upcoming, full-length book to a desired category and be of a quality that the editors accept. Bookbub editors may also suggest a different category after reviewing your book. The categories have different subscriber lists and different pricing.

I mentioned in my last blog post that while I consider Tangled Roots a cozy mystery, it also has a foot in supernatural suspense and the climax is a bit intense. I submitted Tangled Roots at $2.99 to the Supernatural Suspense category, US only, to keep costs down on my first experience with New Releases for Less. The cost was $300, which is less than half the cost of a cozy mystery submission.

Results

One nice thing about Bookbub is they actually self-report estimated total clicks on your promo, an aggregate number for email clicks and website. They reported 275 clicks for Tangled Roots during the promo, on a subscriber list of 490,000 (again, the US only number).

As for sales, here is my Amazon KDP chart for the last 30 days:

You can see the WWM promo stack results in mid-August. The six sales on August 31st were pre-release sales registering. After that, I credit Bookbub for 66 sales directly driven by New Releases for Less. They are about equally split between Book 1 and Book 2, and so might be readers picking up both books since Driftless Spirits is only $0.99.

Since I’m not exclusive to KDP, I also had Bookbub-driven sales on Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, which Draft2Digital aggregates in their bar chart reporting:

I’d call it another 20 sales credited to Bookbub.

Together, that’s 86 books. Even if we split that in half for “new readers” since there were a lot of Book 1 sales in the total, 43 new readers on 275 clicks is over a 15% conversion rate. That’s not bad, in my opinion, and is the worst case interpretation of the results.

In the end, neither WWM’s promo stack nor Bookbub’s New Releases for Less were cost-effective, but that really isn’t the point for an early author with only two books. This is Operation Be Read, not Operation Make Money. I think it’s notable that 23% of the sales results are for non-Amazon retailers with Bookbub. For WWM, their non-Amazon reach was less than 13%.

I would submit to New Releases for Less with each new book. The only qualifier is whether the closest category pricing is within my budget. Submitting “US Only” knocks a little off the price tag, but popular categories are still expensive. Here is their pricelist page for reference.