All of us at BookBub love helping authors and publishers learn how to sell more books. One way we do this is by publishing actionable marketing tips and publishing insights on the BookBub Partners Blog each week. We aim to provide data-driven articles with real-life case studies from authors and publishers to inspire our readers and help them achieve their own goals.
In 2017, we published dozens of articles on a variety of book marketing topics — including many by fantastic guest contributors. You can always find our full list of articles here, but we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss any of the most valuable content from this year! Here’s a list of our top 10 book marketing articles from 2017.
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9 Reasons a Book Was Rejected for a BookBub Featured Deal
In this post, we revealed some of the most common reasons why a book was rejected for a BookBub Featured Deal, from unmet minimum requirements to cover design issues and other common pitfalls. We also provided tips on how to make a book more likely to get selected. This post will give you a better sense for why a book wasn’t selected, and how to improve its chances the next time you submit it for a Featured Deal!
8 Book Description A/B Tests You Need to See
We often A/B test the blurbs we write for each deal featured in our daily email, which lets us evaluate the performance of certain words, phrases, punctuation, or other blurb elements. Through this analysis, we can see what our readers engage with — and what turns them away. This post highlighted some recent A/B test results that you might find useful as you write and improve your own book descriptions.
How I Launched a Bestselling Book with a Free Promotion
In this post, author Jules Barnard showed how she launched a new release as a USA Today bestseller by making another one of her titles free. Her primary goal was: “Sell as many copies as possible to introduce the series as widely as I could, particularly to a slightly different readership than my previously-published series.” And the results were even better than expected! She generously broke down her promo-stacking approach step-by-step here.
5 Ways a Book Cover Could Hurt Sales — And How to Fix It
In this guest post, Johnny B. Truant, founder of Sterling & Stone, shared five reasons book sales might suffer thanks to its cover. Johnny says, “We decided to replace all of [our covers] to optimize our back catalog for long-term performance. If we hoped to sell more copies, land promotions with choosy venues like BookBub, or get placement from merchandisers at the booksellers, we needed to be a lot more professional.” Johnny shared several examples of their redesigned covers, including the results!
119 Book Marketing Ideas That Can Help Authors Increase Sales
Whether you’re an author, a marketer at a publishing house, a publicist, or anyone else looking to sell books, there’s a wide array of book marketing tactics you can use to amplify a book’s exposure and reach more readers. To spark inspiration and get those creative juices flowing, we put together 119 book marketing ideas.
9 Book Advertising Tactics I’ve Tried… And Which Ones Worked!
In this guest post, bestselling author Brenda Novak shared nine book advertising strategies she has tried, and her takeaways on each. “Not all marketing endeavors achieve the same goal. They aren’t designed to. Some are strictly tied to conversion and making that sale. Others are more about brand building, which can’t be quantified in the same way. Although in the past I probably leaned too heavily on conversion marketing, after 60 books and nearly 20 years in publishing, I no longer believe that’s the wisest path.”
How I Got 25K More BookBub Followers (and Why I Did)
In this guest post, author Christina Dodd shared how she got 25K more BookBub followers over the course of a year. “Having so many followers helps me regularly reach existing readers and gain exposure to new ones.” In this post, she shared why she decided to focus on getting more BookBub followers, and how she grew her following by more than 1,200%!
How I Became a Bestseller with a Coordinated Marketing Plan
In this guest post, author Kelly McClymer revealed how she hit the USA Today bestseller list thanks to a well-thought-out marketing plan. “I have the epublishing revolution, several smart author friends, and BookBub to thank for making the list. But most importantly, I owe my success to (finally) asking for help to achieve my goal.”
Promoting a Series to Keep Readers Hooked
In this guest post, author Daniel Arenson shared how he publishes and promotes each book in his series to keep readers tearing through them. “I began releasing Earthrise novels eight months ago. Since then, using these techniques, I’ve sold nearly 150,000 copies. In addition, readers have read nearly 50 million Earthrise pages in the Kindle Unlimited library.”
14 Ways Authors Can Cross-Promote Each Other’s Books
Many authors cross-promote each other’s books to gain visibility with a relevant new audience of readers. It’s a mutually beneficial way to inexpensively boost book sales and word-of-mouth buzz — and to make new friends and build relationships in the publishing community! Since we’d seen so much hype about authors teaming up to promote their books, we put together a list of some of the top ways we’ve seen authors working together.
What kinds of posts would you like to see on the BookBub Partners Blog in 2018? Let us know in the comments below!
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