Last year, I shared with you the result of my Call to Arms, on my very popular post, Book Marketing Results 2015. I now have collected enough data to follow up with this year’s results. Like last time, I knew most of the media mentioned, although there a few surprises as well. Indeed; I hadn’t heard of 3 of the top 10 advertisers!
Methodology
For anyone wishing to take a look at the raw data, you can download this Excel spreadsheet. I have only processed data from discounted books, as that formed the vast majority of responses.
To compare the various ad media, I came up with a number that represents the ratio between number of sales and cost of advertising. In other words, if you spent $1 and had one sale, then this number would be one. If you spent $1 and had two sales, the number would be two, etc. Think of it as “books sold per buck.”
Essentially, this represents your value for money. The greater this number, the more effective the campaign. Naturally, websites offering free ads come out pretty well (to avoid dividing by zero, I gave them a nominal value of $1). Ideally, you’d want to use advertisers who offer a ratio of 1 and greater.
The Best Place to Advertise your Discounted Book
The first observation is that, even though it’s not part of the graph, the best place to advertise is through an author newsletter. This is because it is free, yet effective. Besides, a study by McKinsey Consulting revealed that email is 40 times more effective than all social media combined at acquiring new customers. This was lacking from the results because I only had hard data from my personal experience (which indicates it’s a great promotional tool).
The second one concerns Facebook. This was already a hit-and-miss affair for me, but this year I have yet to receive data from anyone who has made it work, although I’ve recently started having some success there myself. As my editor Lorelei Logsdon wrote to say, “I’ve made wonderful returns on my Facebook advertising — and hubby
is making a living off Facebook ads alone.” So, if you have a success story to share, please take the 3-question survey. I’d love to hear from you.The Midlist was mentioned in the results, but the company has since stopped working with Indies, so I haven’t included it here.
Bookbub also makes a conspicuous absence, mainly because no one shared any discounted data with me. I suspect this is because it’s so darn hard to get included nowadays.
Amazon Marketing Service was the greatest surprise to me. Last year, it had a pretty low ratio. This year, after a dozen campaigns, my experience has been very positive. It looks like others thought so too, even though the sample was regrettably small.
Books Butterfly is also worth a mention, as Abhi promises a refund (in the form of a rebate) if you fail to sell the promised amount of books. I always use them and was surprised to see them get a score (slightly) under 1.
I also heard good things about Book Basset, but was unable to come by any hard data. If anyone’s used them, please let me know and I’ll update the graph.
Small Print
As with the previous survey, one problem was the relatively small number of data for each medium.
Another problem concerns genre and price. A book on a 99c sale that belongs to a hot genre and sold originally for $9.99 will do better that one in an obscure genre, selling originally for $1.99. This sort of factor was not measured by this survey but can have a significant effect. Also not measured was seasonality – Christmas promotions may be more effective than August ones.
Speaking of genre, don’t forget that many of these places are better suited to certain genres. Sales of a non-fiction book advertised on Romance Junkies will probably soar like a lead balloon. Whenever possible, try to fit your genre with the advertiser, preferring specialized ones.
Further Resources
Before you go, I suggest you also take a look at this spreadsheet by C. Gockel that lists pretty much every single book advertising medium there is, along with reach and whether they are free or paid. A great resource for anyone wishing to advertise their book!
You may also wish to check out SPR’s 35+ Alternatives to Bookbub, for a nice selection of advertisers, as well as Ruth Nestvold’s list and Indielisters.
Author Ana Spoke has shared her extensive experience in an excellent post.
Also, check out Jackie Weger’s take on the subject here and here!
Most importantly, don’t forget to share your book marketing experience! I plan to update the results periodically, so I’m always on the lookout for further data.
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I have used https://authorsglow.com and other websites before, but get a very little sale and there is a huge list of the website can you suggest me which website should I have to use to get more sales?
Thank you for sharing your experience, Natasha! I’m afraid I need to update my own list, as I haven’t run any promos in the past couple of years and things change remarkably fast in the Indie world.
And FYI, the correct SPR 35+ Alternatives to BookBub link is: https://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2016/06/35-alternatives-to-bookbub/
Many thanks for sharing the updated version! I’ll change it on the post right away 🙂
Thanks so much for putting the time into this – it is just such valuable research for us all.
I was under the impression that Amazon advertising was only for books in Select, I see above a mention of it being opened up to other books, but it’s still not available on my author dashboard. Ironically, the two books I have in Select are also not eligible because of their cover content 🙁
I was also surprised to see Kindle and Tips up there, as I’ve had no luck with them at all, and no longer go there. My most success has always been with ENT, and after that, Book Barbarian.
I’m running a promo right now – how do I share results with you?
Oh, and I’ve reblogged your post.
Thank you so much for sharing!
I suggest you have a look on https://ams.amazon.com and see if you can run an Amazon promo. I have this nagging suspicion that it can be hard to find that through the Dashboard.
You can share your results by filling in the survey on https://nicholasrossis.me/2015/03/02/take-the-3-question-ad-results-survey/ . I’m particularly curious to hear how Book Barbarian does, (especially with full-priced titles, if you ever run such a promo).
Thanks again!
Thanks for the link – I had a look and it says on the first page only for Select titles, so I guess they’ve gone back to that restriction.
I will fill out the form once my promo is over – my Book Barbarian date is 4th December, but it’s not at full price, so can’t help you there this time.
Strange, I thought for sure Amazon had rescinded its Select-only policy. Huh.
Even at discount, all feedback is welcome – and much appreciated 🙂
I’m going to take another look – I think it MAY be the way they order things on the page – asking you to sign your book up to Select first, then telling you how you can advertise it through Select. Under that is an ‘advertise’ section. The page layout implies you must join Select first before you can advertise, but now I’m not so sure – will let you know.
Feedback will be forthcoming soon 😀
Cool! 😀
Yes, I was misled! Have now put in for an ad on Amazon with a non-Select book 😀
I also filled out your results form to dare, and I have a few more dates of promo still to come, ENT today and looking good! Will fill out form again soon with more results 😀
Super – I’m really grateful for your help 😀
It benefits us all – really grateful to you for doing it!
I have an ad coming up with BookBarbarian, and I’ve been happy with their results before, I’ve also taken a big gulp and paid for one with BooksButterfly, the most money I’ve ever invested in an ad, and your results so far don’t look promising, but I reckoned I might as well have a go. Sometimes I’ve noticed individual genres have differing results with different companies. Will keep you posted.
I’ve tried and tried to get a BookBub ad, but not yet succeeded.
Looking forward to hearing how that all went. Don’t forget that Books Butterfly offers a money-back guarantee as a rebate off future orders.
Oh, I didn’t realise the refund was in that form – typical!
I hope there will be no need for that, but even so, I’d have to sell an awful lot of books on a 99c sale with only a 35% royalty to call it a good ROI. Of course there’s always sell through to full price and other books, but it’s hard to gauge where those sales have come from.
Ah well, it’s wait and see time…
After which comes the share time 😉
I’m surprised that AMS did so well, given that the CPC you need to use to get impressions is so insanely high. The people who reported to you must get really great conversion rates. I took a shot at them but was rejected because my book isn’t G-rated. The censorship they apply to who they let advertise is absurd. (You can read all about my experience fighting this battle here: https://alfageeek.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/attempting-amazon-ads/ )
I filled in your survey with my experience with Twitter ads, which has been very positive (although not discounted). I don’t see how doing anything CPC-based could break even when selling discounted books. If you are only making $0.70 (or worse $0.35) per book, and you have to bid $0.20 just to get a click, you’d need to convert a third of the people who click into buyers. That seems impossible.
My CPC on AMS is usually around 35c – lower than my FB one. Even so, I agree completely that it’s impossible to have a positive ROI when advertising discounted works.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
Thanks Nick! I will be having a weekend promotion next weekend. I applied for two different promotional ads. On Saturday, an ad will run through eBookStage and it cost $10, and the second may run Sunday (no guarantee) is with Free99books and is free. I ran a few ads last month but don’t remember the results and my tracking is on the old computer. Still transferring files to the new computer.
I’m also researching Amazon Marketing Services, but don’t know when I’ll try them.
Be sure to check out my posts on the subject 🙂
Ouch, changing machines can be such a pain. Best of luck with the promos! If you find the time, please do share how they went 🙂
Thanks, Nicholas! Sharing on Twitter, FB & Pinterest. 🙂
Yay! Many thanks for sharing, Bette 🙂
Thanks for this help. I have not used any paid adverts and I get bombarded with so many offers of free books (to build author newsletter lists) that it’s clear only quality will make a book sell.
You do not include Fresh Fiction.com which will give free reviews and carry paid ads.
I should mention that on my PC the pictures over the names of correspondents here are overlaid on the words, so I can’t read all the posts.
Thanks for letting me know and welcome to my blog! If you have any experience with Fresh Fiction, please share on my survey, and I’ll include them in the next update 🙂
Excellent post as always Nicholas. I was surprised to find Amazon at the top of your list. I have used facebook ads to varying degrees of success, free and 0.99 seem to work for me. After this post I’m now considering Amazon ads.
Thanks again for your informative posts, I always look forward to them.
Thank you so much, Dougie! Check out my posts for tips on using AMS (found under the Marketing top menu button)
I built a post sharing this with my readers at https://www.lilacreviews.com/toolbox/sharing-marketing-gold/ I hope to have my mystery novel out early next year and I will certainly share my results with you. This type of information is so – so helpful for new authors who are learning about marketing and running their publishing business! Thank you so much.
That is so kind of you; many thanks for helping spread the word!!
Excellent post, Nick. Thanks for your timely advice on using AMS.
Yay! I’m glad you found it useful 🙂
When AMS first started, it made no financial sense. In the year since, it’s become a very economical way of promoting your titles.
Thanks a million always Nicholas,for sharing your insights with us. This is a treasure trove of info that is now filed in my book promo folder on Evernote. Thanks! 🙂
Yay! I’m so glad you found it useful 🙂
Always! 🙂
Really useful info Nicholas thank you. will re-blog as well.
Thank you, Lucinda! Much appreciated 😀
Nicholas, thank you so much for this.
A pleasure! I hope you find it useful 🙂
Most interesting. I’ll have to referback to this So much info. ?
Hope you find it useful , Kev:)
Wonderful post, Nick. I concur with your list…but I have been revising my list this year because some sites are not delivering as they have in the past…and working to grow my newsletter subscribers…Yep. Bookbub slots are getting harder to snag. I’m beta testing a promotion right now sans a Bookbub to see how far I can take a free unit with just my newsletter and a few smaller promoters.Here’s stats on the unit as of noon, Nov 04, 2016:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Classics > Romance
#10 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Contemporary.
The test is always: How long does it take a Bookbub promo to knock it off a rank. The unit is holding its own for 3 days now. I see 169 hard sales on crossover/priced books in 3 days, too. I already show a net ROI of $300. The promo will not see that lovely long tail we get with a Bookbub, but I’m selling books. My Author Rank popped from 4415 up to 454. New and nicely starred organic reviews are arriving. So, if the promo died today, it is a success.
I’m also keen to co-promote and coordinate delivery dates with other authors with smart newsletters. So any indies reading this thread, do get in touch. The reason I say ‘smart’ is I see many poorly constructed newsletters. Those are not effective. Not wasting my time.
So happy to see this post. If we want to market our books smart, we have to up our game and work with one another.
And thanks for the mention of eNovel Authors at Work. Appreciate it. ~ Jackie
Thank you for sharing, Jackie!
The new hot thing is newsletters and shared giveaways. In fact, I recently posted a promo for Amy’s authorsxp site 🙂
Thank you for this information, Nicholas! Your post is full of excellent data that I’m sure took a lot of time to compile. Your generous sharing is much appreciated.
Another site you may find interesting is Indielisters https://www.jasonbladd.com/indielisters/#indielist. It contains promo results from many indie authors. I’ve uploaded data to it myself.
Thank you for the kind words – and the link! I’ll add it to the post 🙂
Wonderful research, Nicholas. I haven’t heard of a few of these top preformers too. Good news on Amazon Marketing Services – I’m going to have to give them a try. Thanks so much for the info!
So glad you found it useful, D 🙂
I Luv AMS. The sponsored campaigns. One has to have patience, and allow the ads to run to see an ROI. I keep three or four going all the time, Pennies a day. I sometimes terminate a campaign only to compose a better slug. Start it up again.
Thanks for the added tip, Jackie. I’m going to give it a go and see what happens 😀
That has been my experience, too. Thanks for the visit and comment, Jackie 🙂
Jackie, I’d love to know what you set for your budget and for a click. I tried FB ads – spent a lot of money in a short time and got no results, so I’d like to try this.
While waiting for Jackie’s response, let me just say that it has a *lot* to do with the actual ad, Darlene. I had designed a Facebook ad that I thought was great, and it bombed. Then I redesigned it with help from a friend who’s had a lot of success with FB ads, and it did a whole lot better. It’s amazing how specific the ad needs to be.
Appreciate your legwork and this share, Nicolas. Excellent information. 🙂
Thanks! I just wish more people would share their data. Then, I could do it more often 🙂
How many are as well-versed in this information?
Indeed. That’s why we need to pull together and share, share, share 🙂
*nods* like a dashboard dummy. 😀
Excellent article, Nicholas. Thank you for including some valuable links as well. BookBub is the best, and I used to use them for every promotion, but this year I have found it impossible to get a spot there. One thing I’ve noticed is that well-known authors with national best-sellers are taking many of the spots, making it harder for folks like us to get in. Has that been your experience too?
I’m afraid so. Which is great news for Bookbub; less so for us 🙂
Great summary, Nicholas! I reblogged. 🙂
Thank you so much, Ruth! Much appreciated 😀
Interesting. I don’t do discounted books very often these days because they rarely bounced back after going back to full price. I wonder if Facebook depends a lot on how interactive you are and the amount of friends you have that will help out. Not really sure how paid ads work, but I might try one with my new book around Christmas time. That FB algorithm that seems to heavily restrict where your posts go keeps coming to mind.
It’s funny that Amazon and ENT are 2 of the top 3 and I’ve had horrible luck with them. Then again, I didn’t try a discounted one with Amazon, so maybe it’s a Kindle Countdown that would be more effective than a regularly priced book.
Yes, it’s important to remember that this listing only refers to discounted titles!
I’ve actually been wondering if I should make my two book bundles discounted for all of December. Kind of like a Kindle Countdown that changes every week. Feels like that would be too long a stretch though. Maybe just the week of Christmas to help promote the new book too. As long as I can get that out in time.
This is amazing, Nick! Thank you for sharing this information. Marketing is such a complicated world, and you’ve helped clarify it.
Yay! So glad to hear that – thank you, Gwen 🙂
Surprising results, Nicholas! I’ve done okay with FB ads, with the exception of summer months. No one brings e-readers to the beach. 😉 Haven’t got them going again since the paperbacks came out. When you say Amazon marketing, are you referring to giveaways? I can’t run ads on Amazon, unfortunately. Hey, what about Goodreads? Anyone do any giveaways or advertising there? I’m in the process of waiting for approval, so if not, I’ll be the guinea pig. LOL
When I mention Amazon, I mean AMS – Amazon marketing services. I’ve posted a few posts on my experience there, and detailed instructions on how to advertise. I suggest you start with this post: https://wp.me/p6TDSX-1Ux
I’d love to hear about your experience with Facebook. As I said, I had a lack of hard data but keep hearing anecdotal evidence of great successes.
Thank you for sharing your FB experience 😀
Nicholas, the spreadsheet by C. Gockel is empty – what am I doing wrong?
It should include the following address: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RuBvSzJuy5jFg4-58EkkQ0G1OIuXzjN54CW-_CavdCA/edit#gid=0
I’ll update the link – thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Much better Nicholas – Thank You 😀
Looks as if Amazon are continuing on their quest to control the world, and doing very well at it too.
Best wishes, Pete.
Lol – Facebook isn’t doing too bad, either, even if that’s not reflected here.
Amazon opened their advertising to non select people yesterday so I’ve done a very low budget campaign for them and I’ll see how it goes. It’s next week though, and the Americans will be busy electing Donald Trump (lord help us) so I may have to wait until the dust settles and have a couple of goes.
Cheers
MTM
A wise choice. Everyone I talk to says sales have slumped these past few days, as election day looms closer.
Yeh, if I could work out how to edit a campaign I’d change it to the week after when everyone will be burying themselves in a fantasy world to escape reality, whoever wins.
Ha, now there’s a thought!
I’ve scheduled a post for the 18th, with ideas and dates for holiday promos. Stay tuned 🙂
Great post, Nick! You are so very generous to share all this information ? thank you
Thank you, Helen 😀
You’re very welcome, Nick – this post is very timely for a number of reasons. Hope all is well with you and your lovely family x
The wee one’s already learning how to walk, so it’s a restless time for all of us 😀
Oh yes, I remember that time well! ?? Once they start there’s no stopping them.