BookBub Ad Results

There’s been a bit of controversy over BookBub among self-published writers this last week, so I thought I would share the results of my most recent BookBub ad. BookBub, if you are unfamiliar with it, offers a daily newsletter of books targeted by genre.  You sign up based on genre (fantasy, romance, whatever) and BookBub sends you emails with recommendations in that genre. Naturally, this presents an advertising opportunity for writers, and  BookBub charges a fee for writers based on the popularity of the genre (if the ad is accepted – BookBub reserves the right to decline the ad).

I had a BookBub ad for my free book CHILD OF THE GHOSTS (the first in a series of eight books, with the ninth coming in January 2014) on November 28th. 11/28, you might recall, was Thanksgiving Day in the United States. I was quite pleased by this, as family togetherness is a wonderful thing, but eventually people get sick of togetherness and go check their email on their phones. An additional idea came to me when I saw that fantasy writer Lindsay Buroker had a BookBub ad on her book THE EMPEROR’S EDGE earlier in November, and lowered the price of EDGE’S two immediate sequels to $0.99 for a limited time.

I thought that a good idea, so I followed suit.  I decided to call it the “Black Friday & Cyber Monday special sale”, and so from Thanksgiving to Monday, December 2nd, I lowered the price of GHOST IN THE FLAMES and GHOST IN THE BLOOD (the 2nd and 3rd books in the series) to $0.99.

Now, on to the results. Note that all these figures are for Amazon US, since I didn’t have a way to track free downloads on Barnes & Noble, and BookBub’s subscriber base seems to be mostly American.

The first day, CHILD OF THE GHOSTS was downloaded 8,372 times, GHOST IN THE FLAMES sold 47 copies, and GHOST IN THE BLOOD sold 46. This was enough to put both GHOST IN THE FLAMES and GHOST IN THE BLOOD in the top 100 books for Epic Fantasy on Amazon US, which has been a goal of mine for years.

By the end of the sale on December 2nd, CHILD OF THE GHOSTS had been downloaded 11,341 times, GHOST IN THE FLAMES had sold 134 copies, and GHOST IN THE BLOOD had sold 120. By comparison, in the entire month of October on Amazon US, CHILD OF THE GHOSTS had been downloaded 1,803 times, GHOST IN THE FLAMES had sold 118 copies, and GHOST IN THE BLOOD had sold 112.

The entirety of THE GHOSTS series has stayed higher in the sales rankings than it did in October. Netflix recently argued that binge-watching is the new normal for TV viewing, and the same rule applies to series of books. Sales for the remaining five books in THE GHOSTS series have been higher in December than they were in October and November. Additionally, I received nearly 50 additional subscribers for my new release newsletter.

To sum up, I have been entirely satisfied with BookBub, and hope to advertise with it again at some point in the future. Though given that GHOST IN THE FLAMES, a former top 100 Epic Fantasy bestseller on Amazon US, was rejected by something like 30 different agents before BookBub and the Kindle even existed, the source of my satisfaction may be apparent.

-JM