BookBub: For Authors? For Readers? For Both?
If you’re anything like me and you pretty much live under a rock most of the time, you may have heard of BookBub but you haven’t actually used it. A year or so ago, I clicked on a link to it once because someone mentioned they’d seen in their BookBub update that a few of my books were on sale for $0.99. But when I got to the page and saw that the first thing facing me was a screen that wanted my email address before I could even browse the site to see if I wanted to use it, I clicked right back out.
But I’ve been hearing more and more about it as a great place not only to find deals on ebooks by authors I love, but to find new-to-me authors I might love. So, using the email address I always use for things I might get spammed by (it’s a Gmail address instead of my main addy), I went ahead and signed up. At their suggestion, I started “following” some of my favorite authors.
I was having so much fun, I went through and searched for the books on my Goodreads 2017 TBR list and “bookmarked” them on BookBub so that I’ll get an alert if any of them go on sale.
I also selected specific genre categories for a daily-deals email.
And then I discovered that there was a process through which I could claim my author profile. I’m not sure yet exactly the benefits this might be to me right now, as someone whose books are slowly going out of print. But I think that should I decide to enter the self-publishing arena, this could be a great place to promote my work. I need to familiarize myself with it more, though, to know whether or not it’s going to be a helpful tool for me as an author. (It’s already netted me several free books to read, so it’s already a benefit to me as a reader.)
Do you use BookBub? How do you use it? How have you seen authors use it?
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KayeDacus.com 
If you hang around in self-publishing circles for any length of time, you’ll see plenty of discussions on BookBub. The general agreement is that no matter how expensive the ads are, they always give a positive ROI – even on free books, because authors report a boost in sales and KU pages read on their other titles.
The challenge is actually getting the ad – I’ve heard of authors who’ve been rejected 20+ times. (This is for their main ads in the daily email blast. Their other ads are easier to get, but they are a new offer, and the jury is still out on their effectiveness).
The only author I know who didn’t earn more than she spent on a BookBub ad wrote MG fiction – a group who still prefer paper books, so that makes sense.
Yes, do claim your BookBub author profile and ask people to follow you. It might help in getting that BB ad. Yes, I believe in planning ahead.
P.S. I also have a gmail address dedicated to email newsletters 🙂
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I just got my notification yesterday that they approved my request to “own” my author page, so I’ve already gone in and added a profile picture and bio. Thanks for this insight, Iola. Studying up on self-publishing is one of my goals for this year in preparation for possibly getting a novella out by the beginning of 2018.
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