When I finally was accepted for a BookBub promotion, I was psyched. Right off the bat it was a letdown because it only was accepted to the international market but with the caveat that I could request the US-only market in the future. Also, it was much cheaper than paying for both markets, the US market being costly. Okay, I figured this acceptance was still good. The estimated sales average for one day was 750 books–wow. A giant amount for one day but also far less than thousands averaged for both US and international. But it was a first step. The competitiveness of BookBub is legendary. I had been trying for years with all my books. No luck.
Tales of bestsellers being born from a BookBub promotion have swirled around the internet. I thought I was set and waited in a spell of excitement for the day to arrive. Needless to say (as this headline suggests), my results were extremely poor. On the day the promotion went out, I had less than 100 sales. After one week about 120 in sales. In a positive note, I picked up over 3000 KU page reads. The most in a month I’ve ever had. But the ROI is extremely poor since I had to price my book at 99 cents in order to get the $200 cost of the promotion.
Now I hesitate to pay $600 to try a promotion in the US. I realize the market is different for different genres, but BookBub takes that into consideration in their estimates. If one goes out to the internet and sees the deluge of books and promotion sites, it’s amazing that an unknown like me sells any books, even with hard won reviews that are pretty good. I have to take pleasure in the thought that some folks in the UK, Canada, Australia, and one in India are reading my book.
Alas, my work as a self-published author will never attract a large following, no matter how I try and how much money spent to promote. It is what it is. But, I don’t think I’ll try BookBub again. It is too expensive and not worth it when it bombs, and unfortunately, the promotion can bomb.
