bookbub | Suzanne Rogerson Author

Last week I had a BookBub deal for The Lost Sentinel. Sales were not as high as I expected, but still more than I could ever have reached alone.

If you’re thinking of BookBub as a viable marketing strategy, here are my results. Please note – this is book 1 in a completed trilogy. I reduced books 1 and 2 down to 99p each and left book 3 at full price.

I’ve sold over 500 books in April. This is a BIG deal to me! That equates to 349 new readers for The Lost Sentinel, 96 picked up book 2 at the discounted rate and 55 bought book 3 at full price. Plus a couple of other books were sold not relating to the Silent Sea Chronicles series. 11 Audiobooks were also purchased, which is a nice little bonus that I forgot about.

My pages read figure in KENP is higher than its been in a long time, and is rising every day. I hope these readers find book 1 compelling enough to move straight onto later books in the series.

I have only gained 3 new ratings on GR and no new reviews. That is a disappointment but maybe more will trickle in over time. It did only run last week so I can’t expect too much too soon.

I was excited to reach number #7 in the kindle chart in Canada, though it would have been great to reach the No. 1 bestseller slot as I did with the previous BookBub deal.

My final thoughts;

I would recommend Bookbub deals to authors if they can afford to run them, and are lucky enough to be selected (which is very hard!). I will try again when I release a new series, but only once I have several books that the readers can pick up to really make the most of the promo. Other email subscription sites like Book Barbarian seem to have run their course for The Lost Sentinel – I think the readers have all seen it before, or these email ad sites are just not as effective as they used to be.

What are your experiences with running ads like Book Barbarian and Book Cave? Do you still buy books this way? Have you run the email subscription ads and seen good results, or no real change in your sales?

Please share you thoughts on reaching new readers. Or if you’re a reader rather than an author how do you discover new books?

Until next time…

Yesterday I was lucky enough to bag a BookBub deal for the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

The link to the ad will still be live for a few days, and you can follow me on bookbub too. The Lost Sentinel bookbub deal. They ran with the hook line;

“On an island where those with magic are exiled, a tailor’s daughter must hide her abilities — and find the one who will help save their home. This spellbinding novel kicks off an action-packed fantasy trilogy!”

At my last check this morning I’ve sold in the US, UK, Canada and Australia

The Lost Sentinel sold 244 KENP 450

The Sentinel’s Reign Sold 73

The Sentinel’s Alliance Sold 44

Book rankings 7 in CA store for Sword and Sorcery

45 in US store for Action and Adventure fantasy.

And in the top 100 in the UK ,US and Canada.

I’ll keep you posted on the stats at the end of the month. It’s good to have a written record of how these ads perform as a way to judge whether they still have an impact. And maybe my data will help you decide if it’s worth paying the big money for ads in the future. It all depends on your goals – mine is to re-spark an interest in an older series and show off the new cover and blurb.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wait to see what has happened by the end of April.

If you’d like to help, the book will be on sale until 28th April. Any shares of my posts and sales will help give the rankings a boost.

The Lost Sentinel universal link

And with book 2 also at 99p, the complete series is available for under £6.00.

Thanks for reading and following my author journey. If you have any advice or wisdom to share please do. Or if you are just starting out and want to talk things through, don’t be shy in asking for help.