Last time I wrote an article about the necessity of needing patience when marketing books. If you’re writing a series (which I strongly recommend), then often sales don’t begin to pick up until you reach Book 4. It can be very hard to wait until then.
The effectiveness of marketing also diminishes over time as once people have been exposed to your book (or read it) they don’t buy/download it again.
I thought it would be helpful to illustrate this with my BookBub statistics.
BookBub case study
I waited somewhat impatiently to have my first BookBub featured deal on my 6-book series. The first deal (very deliberately) was 99c for international only (June 2021) although I also made sure the price was available for US readers in case they stumbled upon it. I later did a 99c deal for US + International before switching the first book to permafree (permanently free) and promoting only it as a free book. By this time my six-book series was complete.
I have run three free promotions on Grace in Strange Disguise with each decreasing in numbers of downloads and effectiveness. This is completely expected but is why I recommend you hold off doing the first promotion. You only ever get one ‘first’ and you want it to be as big a splash as possible.
For comparison:
May 2023
Amazon – 12000 downloads.
Kobo – 619 in 26 countries. Note the wide distribution on this channel – another reason to not be Amazon exclusive.
GP – 470
Apple — 1617 DL
B and N – 691 DL
January 2024
6000 DL on Amazon and in the end sold at least 53 complete sets but with almost no crossover to my other series which is a different genre.
Kobo 203
GP – 223 in a week
Apple — over 600 in a week
B and N – over 300 in a week
NOTE from 1st to 2nd free BBFD the downloads decreased between 40-60%!
April 2025
Interestingly the BookBub prices have dropped more than USD50. I think this is an acknowledgment that even BB has a smaller impact than in the past.
It took nine days to pay off the cost (two days longer than last time even at the cheaper cost).
Amazon 4000 downloads.
Kobo 176
Google Play 190
Apple 328 downloads
B and N 213 downloads
Again quite a dramatic decrease from fifteen months previously.
Conclusions:
- Delay that first promotion as long as possible.
- Have realistic expectations.
- Carefully space out your promotions. I have only found about 5 companies that work for my books. I can now only do each one each year and I space them well out.
Again, thank you so much for the useful knowledge you share with the rest of us, Christine.
It is most appreciated.
You are most welcome. The same principle of rapidly declining returns has also happened with ENT promotions. I don’t think they are earning out anymore. I plan to start promoting my second series soon (waiting to get at least the 5th book out and hopefully the 6th) and will then alternate them on ENT.
Thank you!