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Writing Process: Marketing (part 1)

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Goofy AI pic of the week. Tip: don’t try using a sign like this to sell your books…

My Writing Process Series

Howdy freeholders!

It’s time for another edition of my series of blog posts on my writing process. Today I want to talk about—I can say that because I’m dictating this entry—marketing. This is the final step in the writing process and it’s a doozy, so I’m splitting it into 2 parts.

In previous posts we talked about publishing (and also here) and how it varies from platform to platform and which ones are my favorites, but now that the book is out there, you’ve got to direct attention to your words. The easiest way to do that is with marketing.

Marketing, or…buy my book.

There’s a couple ways people do this. Some, rely on the shotgun approach. That is, they will set up email campaigns with every email marketer under the sun. Little ones, big ones, and the top tier big boys, like BookBub. What’s that? You didn’t know there was more than one level of email marketing? Well, grab a beverage of your choice and pull up a chair, Freeholders, because I’m about to pull back the curtain and show you how the sausage is made.

Tier 1

BookBub

At the top of the pile, one name stands alone for sheer volume and profitability. BookBub. It’s an odd name, I’ll grant you that, but if someone were to give me the choice of having only one marketing company to run my ads, BookBub would be first, last, and everything in between. Nobody else has the sheer volume of email subscribers, and nobody else can drive sales as long as BookBub can. And that’s saying a lot, because back in the day (about 5-6 years ago) they were absolute monsters. Now a lot of other companies have clawed their way up toward BookBub’s rarified air—and they’re taking their own little slice out of the pie—but for a while, if you got an ad selected by BookBub, you are golden. For months.[1]

What do I mean by that? Well it’s all about tail. Authors are constantly chasing tails. Get your mind out of the gutter, that’s not what I’m talking about. An income tail is the residual income generated by an ad, after the ad itself runs.

For example, back in 2017, when I was selected for my first BookBub, I ran a campaign for Apache Dawn. That ad ran on a specific set of days—I think it was three or four days just after Thanksgiving or just before Thanksgiving, 2017. The ad itself was directed to email subscribers for one specific day but would remain on their website for a day or two after.

On that one day, though, I generated a huge number of downloads (for me). For the record, Apache Dawn is my free gateway book into the Wildfire Saga. The number of downloads I harvested that glorious day was something like several tens of thousands. However, on any given day before the ad, I was only averaging 100 or so downloads.

Here’s the catch: after the ad, I was still averaging several thousand downloads a day for almost a month. Let that sink in for a moment. Several thousand downloads a day…for a month. Granted by the time that month was up, we were down to several hundred downloads a day, but that still made minced-meat out of the 100 or less I normally picked up each day.

Finally, almost 2.5 months after the ad ran, my book downloads returned to “normal.” That initial, massive spike in downloads was the direct result of the BookBub ad reaching well over a million readers in one shot. The long gradual decline in orders all the way back to normal a couple months later is what’s called the tail. I like to think of it more as a comet: a big, bright start on the day of the ad, and then a long tapering tail which eventually fades back into nothing.

You can see why BookBub is fantastic—when you get selected. They’re pretty exclusive, and as more and more people—and publishing houses like The Big 5—throw applications their way to get books advertised with BookBub, the selection process becomes even more exclusive In fact, I’ve only ever been selected for two BookBub ads in the last six years, but I have applied dozens upon dozens of times—you’re allowed to apply once every 30 or so days per book.

Trust me, it’s worth it!

BookBub is also fairly expensive (between $500-$700 per ad depending on if you’re going US or International, or both), but they’re the only marketing firm I’ve used in the last decade that has let me immediately recoup my return on investment within a day or two of the ad running. Keep in mind, this is with a free book, meaning the sales I get are from people going and buying the next book in the series after starting to read the first free book.

With most second and third tier marketers[2] I usually either only make my money back after a week or so, or I never make my money back (in a time frame that I track, like less than six months). If it costs me $500-$700 for a BookBub ad, depending on if you go domestic, international, or both, I usually make at least $500 in the first 48 hours.

How you ask? Well, it’s called sell through. People get the first book for free, and they’re hooked, so they buy the next book at full price. I enjoy a good 90% sell through on Book 1, and a 86% sell through on book 2, and so on, through the now 7 book series. Meaning I have practically a guaranteed success if my book is selected, so that’s why I consistently apply with them month after month, despite all the rejections. All it takes is one time to make all the heart-ache worth it.

Next time, I’ll get into the rest of the advertisers I use and have used with great success and how they play a role just as pivotal as BookBub! Perhaps even more so, since I am regularly accepted at the other advertisers.

Until then, keep your heads down and your powder dry my friends, for we live in interesting times.

Notes

[1]: At least in my experience. Your mileage may vary.

[2]: Freebooksy, Fussy Librarian, etc.—we’ll get to these workhorses in the next post.

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