5 Tips: Securing a BookBub Featured Deal
In recent years, Featured Deals have become harder and harder for indie authors to bag. Some say that BookBub ’ s editorial teams favor deals from traditional publishers — though this has been formally denied by the company. Regardless, one thing is for certain : BookBub bases its decisions on reserve performance data .
After years of serving deals to millions of readers, and watching their reactions, BookBub ’ mho editors have a reasonably adept idea of what appeals to their audience ( and what doesn ’ thymine ). With that in mind, let ’ s look at how you can boost your chances of getting that coveted Featured Deal .
Tip #1: Have an appropriate number of reviews
Reader reviews are a crucial component in the BookBub choice process, helping their editors get a sense of how readers have responded to a detail book .
To understand what the column team is looking for, browse through the books in your choose writing style and look for the median number of user reviews. There ’ second no sense in applying for a Featured Deal until you can compete with this issue. If you ’ ra light on write-ups, don ’ thyroxine despair ! Check out our guide on how to get script reviews, dispatch with advice from top Reedsy publicists .
It ’ s highly unrealistic ( read : a waste of clock time ) to apply for a BookBub Featured Deal for a fresh release, as you won ’ t have any reviews to show for it. If you want your reserve plunge to go off with a sleep together, you could submit your book to Reedsy ’ randomness reviewers and profit vulnerability to thousands of new readers, or you could try another one of their products : Featured New Releases .
Tip #2: Polish your product pages on all retailers
What else do BookBub ’ s curators look at when evaluating a title ? The same thing that readers do : the book ’ south product pages. Their goal is the like as yours : to sell as many books as potential. So they want to make sure that the titles they feature are optimized to drive sales. In finical, this means :
- The book description is written in a way that will hook and convert readers
- The sales page features editorial reviews or accolades, ideally from well-known publications or influencers
- The book cover design is professional and matches genre expectations
Genre expectations regarding covers can change quite drastically, so if you can ’ metric ton get a Featured Deal for a koran published 3 or 4 years ago, consider rebranding. not only will a new professional cover boost your chances of getting a Deal, it ’ ll besides snag you more clicks and electric potential sales .
Tip #3: Keep submitting
even if you get everything justly, and BookBub ’ s editors think your book would make for a great batch, they may end up declining it in favor of early, more attractive deals submitted at the same clock time .
In early words, your chances of snagging that covet Deal besides depend on the rival. And the level of competition depends on timing .
What ’ s the solution ? Keep put in ! BookBub allows you to re-submit a script every 30 days. so if you have a long list of books, you can maximize your chances of landing a consider by endlessly submitting your books on a 30-day roll basis .
now, if a Deal is accepted, BookBub wo n’t feature the like indie author for another 30 days, or the lapp book for another 6 months. so keeping track of when you can and can not submit each ledger can promptly become a headache. But don ’ t worry ! You can download our free BookBub submission calendar — primitively created by indie writer Nick Thacker — to help you get all your ducks in a row. ? ? ?
Enter your email address to download our free BookBub submissions calendar!
You ‘ll get it in your e-mail inbox correct subsequently .
Tip #4: Be flexible with your re-submissions
You know what they say about “ doing things the same way and expecting different results ”. To hedge your bets a little, switch up your re-submissions .
The beginning thing to try is changing the price point. BookBub ’ second goal is to offer the best possible deals to their consultation. So the lower you can go in terms of price, the higher your chances of being accepted. If you ’ ve been trying to get a $ 0.99 Deal for months without success, try applying for a free conduct .
Indicating your tractability with your chosen discount dates besides increases your chances of landing that share. Do note, however, that BookBub alone schedules Featured Deals up to 30 days in advance. so name sure you ’ re fix to drop your price if you ’ ra accepted .
ultimately, if all your attempts at landing a US deal fail, try for an international one. Although they ’ ra less potent in terms of sales and ranking boosts, they are much easier to get and can be capital for boosting your international reach and presence on non-Amazon retailers .
Going for exempt, international deals is a way to get your foot in the doorway. And once that door is afford, it might lead to paid, US-only deals.
Tip #5: Go wide
If your book is on Kindle Unlimited ( KU ), we have some bad news program : it ’ ll be a lot, much hard to land a Featured Deal. This is because BookBub members opt into the retailers they want to see deals for. so if a book is available on all major retailers — quite than precisely KU — more readers will be able to snatch it up, which makes the book more appeal to the editors .
At Reedsy, we know authors who submitted KU books to BookBub over 50 times, without ever getting accepted. One of them, Craig Martelle, took one of his books wide, and last managed to land a Featured Deal ( albeit an international matchless ). You can read his floor on the 20Booksto50k Facebook group ( well worth joining ! ) .
Making the most of a BookBub Featured Deal
Failing to plan is planning to fail, as they say. With that in beware, you need to know what to do should you manage — with the help oneself of our tips — to land a Featured Deal .
First off, take a consequence to celebrate — it ’ s no small feat. But then, start planning your promo period to make the most of the deal .
Don’t discount the other books in the series
This is a mistake that lots of first-timers make. You want to encourage readers who find your book through the Deal to buy your other books, so you discount those as well…
immediately, BookBub readers are deal seekers. So they see that the other books in the series are $ 0.99 equally well, and they go ahead and buy them all. Great, right ?
well, not truly. While you might be making an moment profit, you ’ re efficaciously losing all the full-price sales you would have made when readers finished your discounted book and decided to buy the others. And yes, BookBub readers do buy books full-price — check the stats if you don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate believe us .
Run the promo over a longer period
about everyone who has run a Featured Deal agrees : you ’ ll get better results if you run your discount for longer than the minimum days required. The reason being that Amazon ’ s algorithm largely reward tableland over spikes .
If you raise your monetary value right after your BookBub Deal, your sales will abruptly stop. If you keep the rebate, they ’ ll still take a dim, but it won ’ triiodothyronine be as bad. This will help you maintain a high ranking on best seller lists, and Amazon will take over your selling for you .
If you ’ re on Kindle Unlimited and do to get a Featured Deal ( congrats, you ’ re a unicorn ? ), then running the discount rate for longer is all the more crucial to make certain you climb the popularity list and trigger a subsequent wave of page reads. You can learn how that works in this Reedsy Live with David Gaughran .
To stack or not to stack?
The practice of “ stacking ” ads is that of buying several placements on other book forwarding newsletters on top of your BookBub Feature. The finish hera is the lapp : achieving a tableland preferably than a spike .
There has been a distribute of discussion on ad stacking about Featured Deals in the writer community, and the consensus seems to be that while Ad stacking can work for pay up Deals, it is a consume of money for exempt Deals .
This is because readers on the search for unblock books will much sign up to as many promo sites as potential. so by advertising your free book on several newsletters, you ’ re effectively paying more to reach the same audience .
Run other ads on the side
While stacking newsletter ads might be a thriftlessness of money, this doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate beggarly you shouldn ’ thyroxine sample to run ads on your own. Both Facebook and Amazon ads will earn you a set more sales/downloads if your ledger is discounted/free.
You can learn how to create your first gear ads on Facebook and Amazon through our unblock Reedsy Learning courses :
But there ’ s a third self-serve advertise platform that can work evening better to move copies of your book. And surprise, surprise… it ’ s BookBub ’ randomness !
To learn more about it, drumhead on to the adjacent article in this guide for our top tips on how to create a killer whale BookBub ad .
