Tag Archives: book bargains

Two Months Out: Laser-Focused on the Plan

Two months? Have I messed up the countdown? In November, you may recall, I was Four Months Out.

Coming Soon: Waterspell Book 4 

The fact is, things are going so well, I’ve moved up the release date by a full month. Waterspell Book 4 will be available for pre-orders not later than January 18, with the book to be officially released on February 18. Hallelujah!

Amazon bestseller: Waterspell Book 1

One reason for the accelerated plan is that Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock has hit the Amazon bestseller lists! All of my promotional efforts have paid off. My inexpensive promotions at Bookraid, ManyBooks, and especially The Fussy Librarian have produced the following results:

Amazon sales chart

The short little lines at the bottom of the above graph were the products of my ongoing advertising via BookBub, before I wised up and quit wasting my promotional dollars there. I have found BookBub to be overrated and WAY overpriced. Clicks there were costing me about 60 cents, whereas the cost-per-click ranges from under a penny to about 3 cents, max, at the other sites.

Ranked in order of their cost-effectiveness, based on my results:

  1. BookRaid
  2. The Fussy Librarian
  3. ManyBooks

BookBub is totally off my list now. I won’t bother with them again. Nor will I continue with Story Origin, which has also proven to be ineffective, for me anyway. Some people may have the time and interest to work through the complexities of Story Origin’s interface, but I think my time is better spent elsewhere. I’ll fulfill my obligation to support the December 2021 “Passing Through Portals” promotion sponsored by Story Origin, but I won’t continue with a $10 monthly account there.

Passing Through Portals

That’s my monthly promotional report, shared for the benefit of any authors who might profit from my personal experiences with paid book advertising. Ads in selected (and selective) newsletters are working for me.

Social media? Not so much. My friends give me wonderful support at my personal Facebook profile, but my efforts to “go viral” via my public accounts (Bookstagram and Facebook author page) are generating only modest interest. As is this blog. But I have things to say, so I’ll keep posting!

Many thanks to all of the readers who have downloaded Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock, vaulting it onto the Amazon bestsellers lists! I am deeply grateful to you. ♥

 

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Free Book #1 featured at ManyBooks

The ManyBooks library is featuring Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock today. In anticipation of the 2022 release of Book 4, the series-starter remains free in all ebook formats. If you’ve been planning to pick up a copy, all of the quick-links to all of the booksellers are here:
https://deals.manybooks.net/ebooks/the-warlock-waterspell-book-1

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Book Giveaway at Reader Views

Reader Views November 2021 Book Giveaway

Happy November (and early Christmas shopping)! The book people at Reader Views are giving away more than 30 books this month, including 3 print copies of my Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock. (Pictured dead center, under the word “Give.”) To win, enter at https://www.readerviews.com/book-giveaway/ (scroll down to the bottom of that page, to the red banner where it says “Enter the Book Giveaway”).

If you win one, kindly leave a review for that book on Amazon, Goodreads, Google Books, Barnes & Noble, BookBub, Indigo, etc. – Wherever you find yourself looking for your next great read!

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Burrowing Into BookBub

The Plan calls for investigating the usefulness of BookBub, a book discovery service that features free and discounted ebooks. Quickly I learned that it’s great for readers. In Week 1 of getting their daily emails featuring ebook bargains, I bought six new books or series (pictured, Refraction through Book of Dragons). None of these cost me more than $3. Such a deal!

Nook library

 

Waterspell by Deborah J Lightfoot

BookBub ad 1

I’ve also tentatively begun advertising on BookBub. My first ad served up 1,600 impressions but garnered only eight clicks. Being inexperienced with this ad platform, I paid for impressions rather than clicks. So far, I can’t see the logic in spending money on “impressions,” which are nothing more than opened emails. There’s no guarantee that people will even scroll all the way to the end of the email, where the ads appear. As I see it, “impressions” mean little or nothing. It’s clicks that should matter.

Waterspell by Deborah J Lightfoot

BookBub ad 2

For Ad No. 2, I changed the tagline and bid on clicks, not impressions. This ad has been running for three days now, serving up fewer impressions but not burning through the test budget like my first ad did.

Waterspell by Deborah J Lightfoot

BookBub ad 3

I’ll give Ad No. 2 a week, then change the text again, to test a question rather than a statement. My Facebook focus group likes Ad No. 3 the best of all the examples I offered for their scrutiny.

All things considered, I believe there’s more reason to invest time and money in reaching the “power readers” at BookBub, rather than work at growing an audience for my Facebook author page. Facebook users are a distractible bunch, their interests running the gamut. BookBub (every time I start to type that, it comes out Boobbub!) is laser-focused on people who buy books.

And clearly, those readers don’t want to spend much money. I can’t blame them. I myself scarfed up the dollar bargains as quickly as they came my way.

Therefore, after testing Ads 1, 2, and 3, my next step will be to drop the price of Waterspell Book 1 to 99 cents (or free, if Amazon will let me) and see what the response is.

If at first you don’t succeed …

 

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