Amazon and Bookbub offer great marketing tools. And they’re free!
by Ruth Harris
Yeah, we know…
A BookBub feature will rocket your book skyward.
Stacked promos can help you tickle the algos and ride the tsunami.
A great launch strategy well executed can get your book a bestseller badge.
But all these options are pricey—especially a BookBub feature if you can even get one.
And they don’t all necessarily work or don’t work as well as you hoped.
Then what?
What if your Book is a Dud?
What can you do if the book you’ve worked on had professionally edited, bought a great cover for, hired a pro blurb writer—is a wall flower? The lonely, overlooked guy or girl all primped and ready for the prom, but who just doesn’t get the love?
What if you keep submitting and your book just doesn’t click with BookBub?
What if you can’t afford a BookBub feature even if you could get one?
Or what if your book just isn’t a hot seller in a hot genre?
Do you give up?
Do you weep, wail, gnash your teeth and curse the fates?
Of course you do.
Who doesn’t?
Or, after a bout of weepy, whiny self-indulgence, do you pull yourself together and search for other ways to get where you want to go?
Did You Know that Amazon Wants you to be Successful?
It does?
You’re kidding. Right?
No. Definitely not kidding. In fact, you’re wrong.
Of course Amazon wants your book to sell, because the more money you make, the more money they make.
But how do they do that? And how do you get in on the goodies?
Amazon provides every author with access to an exclusive book page whose content you control.
Yes, you probably have a website, but think of your Amazon author page as a website on steroids with two huge advantages.
The first advantage is that every one of your book pages on Amazon contains a clickable link that takes a reader directly to your Amazon author page. The more books, the more clickable links.
That clickable link takes a reader or a prospective buyer one click to find out more about you and all your books. One click ease leads directly to your author page where you can post photographs, videos, and blog posts, where they can view your complete catalog, come-hither covers, yummy blurbs, alluring bio, and reviews, the good, the bad and the not terrible but not-so-hot either.
The second significant advantage to your Amazon author page is that the author page has a big, clickable follow button when readers can sign up to received news about your new releases and pre-orders. Make the most of that follow button by using your email lists and social media to encourage your fans to follow you on Amazon.
Why?
The reason is that Amazon will send an announcement to everyone on your “follow” list whenever you have a new release.
Amazon with its powerful marketing muscle and tons of buyer data will send out an alert to each of your followers telling them you have a new book for sale for FREE.
So be sure to claim each new release on your Amazon Author Page and take the time to polish your author page to a high sparkle.
Here is Amazon’s own guide to what your Author Page can do for you.
Besides Amazon’s powerful Author Page and clear guidelines, they provide the responsive and helpful Author Central for any issues or glitches you might encounter along the way.
An email or call to Author Central can help:
- *Fix and update metadata
- *Clean up boo-boos
- *Untangle issues with the Series Manager
- *Remove scammy reviews because Amazon hates misuse of its review system as much as you do
- *Remove early, outdated editions of your ebooks (but not print editions)
This detailed, easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide by Dave Chesson will guide you through the process of setting up your Author Page in Author Central. There are pointers about how to make the most of your Author Page.
Tip: I have found that if your first attempt to resolve a glitch fizzles, giving Author Central a second chance can result in a different outcome—so don’t give up if the issue persists. Just try, try again.
BookBub is On Your Side, Too
BookBub, with 20 million followers, will also put its powerful marketing muscle to work for you and your books. At the BookBub subscriber sign up, readers indicate which genres they prefer and where they purchase their eBooks—at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Google.
Like Amazon, BookBub provides several tools for authors to get the word out about themselves and their books, and get their books in front of that large audience of readers. According to BookBub many of their subscribers are reading a couple of books every month. Some are reading a book a week, or even a book a day!
Bottom line: BookBub subscribers are avid readers and are always looking for new books.
FREE Bookbub Features
Along with its powerful, pricey, and hard-to-get Features, BookBub also provides authors with FREE ways to reach prospective readers whether or not you’re able to score a Feature.
Analogous to Amazon’s Author Page, BookBub offers an Author Profile Page with many of the same customizable features. Go to BookBub’s home page to find the Author Profile tab, and follow the instructions to set up your own Profile page. Any author — trad pubbed or self pubbed — can claim a BookBub Author Profile.
BookBub, like Amazon, will send out new book alerts to your followers and will help drive interest to your pre-orders.
BookBub’s own articles will step you through the process of setting up your author profile and offers tips about how to polish your bio with examples, and explanations of exactly what makes an author bio great. Plus a checklist to help keep you on track.
BookBub’s information-packed articles, like Amazon’s guidelines, offer specific help to step you through every part of the user process from setting up your account to the specifics of launching a new book.
BookBub’s savvy book marketing team also goes into the details of their New Releases For Less program, tips on pricing and discounting strategies, and tutorials on how to target readers via BookBub ads. You will find all this — and more!, as the pitchmen say — on the BookBub blog.
Dave Chesson lays out — in step-by-step detail — how to sign up for BookBub and how to use their book selling tools. https://kindlepreneur.com/
BookBub’s Support Team
If you run into trouble, BookBub’s support team is there to help with issues concerning adding books or data, the partner dashboard, pre-order alerts and more. Like Amazon’s Author Central, BookBub’s support team is efficient, responsive and always willing to help.
There’s an FAQ that will answer many questions, and, if you need more help, you will find their email form under the “Contact Us” tab.
Tip: I’ve found that to build your list of followers at BookBub, contribute brief but thoughtful reviews. It’s a slow build but, if you keep at it, over time you will add followers.
Amazon and BookBub: the strategic differences
Amazon knows who bought your book at full price and at a discoount.
BookBub, which focuses on discounted books, knows who bought your books at a discount.
Amazon knows who bought your books via Amazon.
BookBub knows who bought your books at Amazon, Kobo, Nook, iBooks, and Google Play.
Setting up your author page at Amazon and your author profile at BookBub will provide valuable platform-building FREE access to both sets of buyers.
All About Ads
Amazon and Bookbub also offer advertising possibilities.
Advertising gurus have spent time and money drilling down into the advertising specific nitty-gritty so you don’t have to. Courses from 101 beginner to Einstein-level, are available. A Google search will find what’s available so you can contrast and compare and make your decision.
For reliable ad savvy, here’s marketing ace, David Gaughram, with BookBub tips.
Nathan Bransford hosts David G for a discussion of marketing possibilities via Amazon and BookBub with a detour to FaceBook for those so inclined.
by Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) July 25, 2021
What about you, scriveners? Have you taken advantage of Amazon and Bookbub? Are you aware of their helpful marketing tools? Do you update your Amazon author page regularly? For more on Bookbub’s free services for authors, see Anne’s post on Bookbub Reviews:
BOOK OF THE WEEK
The Big Six-Oh by Ruth Harris
“Loved it! One ex-cop who doesn’t want help solving a murder. One current wife whose help he needs to catch the killer. One couple meant for each other who fall in love all over again after decades of marriage. Funny, exciting and very romantic.” —Reader Review
Blake Weston, is a smart, savvy, no BS former fashion editor. Her handsome, sexy husband, Ralph Marino, is a très James Bond ex-cop and head of security for an international media company.
When Blake buys a faux Chanel bag from a sidewalk vendor, the danger starts—but doesn’t end—with a scary mugging in broad daylight. From there, it escalates to face-to-face encounters with a gun-toting jailbird, a lovelorn Afghan war lord, and a celeb chef in a red balconette bra.
Meanwhile, Ralph is about to hit the Big Six Oh! and he’s not happy about it. Not that Blake is exactly thrilled. Especially now that she suspects Ralph might be cheating on her. Again.
Right when Blake and Ralph are forced to work together by his über-neurotic boss to bring down a deadly global counterfeiting ring—and save Ralph’s job.
“Funny and charming and a delight to read! Really yummy. It is a rare author who can bring to the page such vivid and believable characters with so much sly wit and style.” —Reader Review
“Perfect for those of us not looking for bubble gum chick lit. The relationship between savvy Blake Weston and her ex-cop husband Ralph Marino is realistic and down to earth. And yet the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in kept me flipping the pages well past my allotted reading time. If you’re looking for a wonderfully fast-paced read that will take your mind off whatever you’re stressing about, Harris’s The Big Six-Oh! will fit the bill.” —Reader Review
Find the Big Six-Oh at these retailers
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My publisher did a BookBub ad for one of my books years ago but they say it’s too pricey now.
I do have an author page on both platforms but thanks for the reminder that I need to add my next book!
Alex—Glad to hear the reminder helped. Keeping your author pages updated and polished is worth it!
Great stuff, Ruth. And what a great message that there are more poplin our court than we might imagine.
Oy. Spellcheck be damned! poplin = people in
Thanks, CS. We need all the poplin we can get! 😉
Great reminders! We can use all the free help we can get!!
Jemi—Thanks for the lovely feedback! You’re soooo right! 🙂
Good day, Ruth and Anne. I always chuckle when I get an email from Amazon recommending I buy my own books. But it’s a pleasant chuckle because I know if they’re emailing me they’re also emailing others with the same message and I hope they’re mailing a lot of people.
As for David Gaughran, I think marketing rays shine out of that crazy Irishman’s a**. IMO, Dave Gaughran is 100% credible, and I’ll read his emails any time. Enjoy your days!
Agreed. Gaughran is my go-to for book marketing. He never disappoints.
Garry—So you’ve noticed? A pleasant chuckle beats a kick in the a** every day of the week! 🙂
Agree with you and Sue about DGaughran. He knows what he’s talking about and is generous in sharing his knowhow.
I absolutely agree. David Gaughran rocks.
Marvelous and surprising, Ruth. Frankly, I thought BookBub existed only to make me jealous. Knowing they offer an Author Page is certainly interesting and I will check out one of those excellent articles you linked to.
Will
Will—Thank you. 🙂
BB’s Author Page is well worth it. Doesn’t take much time to set up and from there, you’re good to go. Good luck!
Excellent advice as usual, Ruth. For faster results in building a BookBub following, try BookSweeps. Their BB follower giveaways work wonders. Highly recommend.
Hope you and Anne are enjoying your weekend!
Sue—Thanks for the flattery—and for the BookSweeps tip. As always, much appreciated. You’re a treasure! 🙂
Ruth, This was timely advice, thank you. We are just getting into more marketing action and were looking at BookBub and Goodreads. Working on our website too. We have an Amazon Author page but need to update it. Lots of work to be done! Thank you for writing that article and sharing your knowledge with us.
Elfriede and Mike—so glad to hear the post landed at an opportune moment for you. Once you get your pages set up, maintainance will not take much time.
Best of luck with your marketing!
Thank you so much for this timely advice. I have my next book in the works and I will forward all this good stuff to my VA. This is great!
Patricia—thanks! happy to learn the post landed at a good time for your new book. Wishing you all the best of luck!
Ruth, what a superbly timely post. My third thriller is scheduled for publication next March and I’m in the process of looking into all the marketing possibilities. I’ve become aware of Amazon Author Central and BookBub and I’m trying to come to grips with both. So, your links to the step-by-step guides have come at just the right time — just like the blogging advice in The Author Blog when I was setting up my website a few years ago. Thank you.
Joanna—Thank you for the kind words & bigly pleased to learn the post landed at just the right time for you!
Wishing you all the best for your new thriller. Long may it thrill! 🙂
Thank you, Anne, for your generous tips. Hope your book sales are going well.
Also Ruth. Didn’t mean to overlook your generosity. 🙂
Thanks, Diana. Anne and I appreciate your kind words. So glad to learn the tips resonated with you! Hope they help.
Apparently Alexa is one of the tools Amazon is using! A friend emailed to say that Alexa told him about my latest release. It sure is a brave new world.
Carmen—Wow! Thanks for the heads up. 🙂
Thanks Ruth for such great information. I will spend some time tomorrow checking out the links. And for sure will include in my next month’s edition of Writer’s Tips. 🙂
DG—Glad to learn you found the info helpful and hope the links will provide even more clarification. Thank you for spreading the word. Appreciated! 🙂
My pleasure 🙂
Thanks for the tips. I had no idea about bookbub’s author page.
V.M.—bookbub is author friendly. They do a great job for us!
Great article! Debby sent me. 🙂
It appears to me, again, that most of these features are only beneficial if you (plan to) publish more than one book or a series. I wrote a compelling and insightful travel memoir, which took me five years to create. I’m a nomad and full-time traveler, so don’t feel like spending this much time again (away from “life”) to write a sequel.
My bottom line is, with only one book on the market, I wonder if building out all these profiles “everywhere” and creating content “everywhere” (blogs, social media, Amazon Central…) is worth my precious time, as building a following (with only one book) doesn’t necessarily leads to sales.
Liesbet—Since most writers do write series or at least more than one book, most advice is geared to them and not to those who have written only one book. I agree that in your case spending time on building profiles & platforms most likely won’t be worth it.
However, IMO there are still helpful things you can do. Finding relevant key words and choosing appropriate categories will help get your book in front of readers who might be interested. A google search will turn up tips for choosing them wisely.