For many authors and publishers, one of the primary reasons to discount a book is to generate additional revenue and exposure from follow-on sales. A Chirp Deal is a fantastic way to drive hundreds or even thousands of sales of a discounted audiobook, but it can also boost sales across an entire audiobook series.
35% of follow-on Chirp sales occur on the same day that a member purchases a Chirp Deal audiobook, so you should take steps to drive additional sales while your Chirp Deal is live. The best way to do this is by discounting other titles during a Chirp Deal, which increases the chance that members will see and purchase additional audiobooks — discounted books get the most visibility on the Chirp website!
Here are steps you can take to maximize your series sell-through during a Chirp Deal, and all the ways Chirp helps listeners discover your other audiobooks.
1. Submit the first audiobook in a series for a Chirp Deal
Many of the tactics we recommend on this blog for driving follow-on sales after ebook discounts apply to audiobook deals, too, and the first step is picking the right book to discount. We’ve shared before how running a deal on the first ebook in a series is the best way to hook new readers and boost sales of the entire series — on average, our BookBub Featured Deal partners have seen a 5x higher increase in sales of the other books in a series when the first book is discounted vs. any other book in the series. The same principle applies to audiobooks, and we’ve seen strong follow-on sales of other books in series after Chirp Deals.
2. Discount other audiobooks in the series
One of the best ways to increase follow-on sales during your Chirp Deal is by giving Chirp members an extra incentive to purchase the other audiobooks in the series by offering deals on those titles too. These deals don’t need to be as low as your Chirp Deal price, but the more dramatic the discount, the higher you can expect the conversion rates to be. For example, if an author’s other audiobooks are priced below $5 during a Chirp Deal, they see an average of 4x more sales than other audiobooks priced above $5.
Some partners use tiered pricing to encourage follow-on sales. Author Toni Anderson discounted every audiobook in her Cold Justice series during a $1.99 Chirp Deal on the first audiobook, A Cold Dark Place. These audiobooks are normally priced between $15-$20, but she offered limited-time deals ranging from $1.99 to $9.99 to maximize sell-through during the deal on book 1.
If you distribute your audiobooks to Chirp via Findaway Voices, you can set up your own limited-time discounts at any time with Findaway Voices’ promotional pricing tool. These discounts will not be featured in our daily emails to Chirp members, but can be highlighted elsewhere on the Chirp website. If you work with another distributor to sell your books on Chirp, please reach out to them for more information on how to set up your own limited-time discounts.
As a reminder, this tool should not be used for the audiobook that has been selected for a Chirp Deal — we’ll arrange that discount for you!
If you are a publisher, you can contact your Chirp rep to request assistance discounting other audiobooks by an author with an upcoming Chirp Deal.
3. Get organic exposure on the Chirp website
There are several ways Chirp helps members discover other audiobooks by the authors they’ve shown interest in. Here are all the places Chirp currently surfaces an author’s other audiobooks to members and boosts the visibility of other audiobooks in a series:
On the audiobook page
Below the publisher’s description on an audiobook page, we’ll highlight up to three limited-time deals in the same series or by the same author.
After a member adds an audiobook to their shopping cart
When a Chirp member adds an audiobook to their cart, the confirmation pop-up includes other audiobooks in the same series or by the same author. This pop-up prioritizes audiobooks with a “Limited-Time Offer” banner (50%+ discount), so members will see if other audiobooks in the same series are discounted.
In carousels throughout Chirp’s website
A “Deals You May Like” carousel, which appears on various Chirp website pages, surfaces limited-time deals by authors whose other audiobooks are on the member’s Wish List or in their Shopping Cart or Library.
On the Checkout page
When a Chirp member reaches the Checkout page — where they review their cart and enter their payment information — we’ll display up to two related deals by the same author or in the same series as the audiobooks the member is purchasing. Audiobooks must be 50% off or more to appear here.
In emails about Chirp titles
We highlight related audiobooks and audiobook deals in emails Chirp members receive about particular titles. These include purchase confirmation emails and email reminders to leave a review after members finish listening to a Chirp audiobook. At the bottom of these emails, we display up to three audiobooks in the same series or by the same author, prioritizing those with a limited-time discount.
4. Run BookBub Ads to further boost sales
You can get even more eyes on your discounted audiobooks by running BookBub Ads campaigns targeting Chirp members. Author K. Patrick Donoghue drove over 2K sales of the audiobooks in his Rorschach Explorer Missions series in one month using a combination of a Chirp Deal on book 1, strategic discounts of the other audiobooks in the series, and BookBub Ads campaigns. Over 30% of those sales came directly from Chirp members who clicked on one of his ads. Read more about his strategy here.
We hope this gives you some ideas for how to make the most of your next Chirp Deal and help Chirp members discover your other audiobooks! Submit an audiobook for a Chirp Deal here to start promoting your own series.
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Click to tweet: How to drive follow-on audiobook series sales on Chirp:
1. Submit the first audiobook for a Chirp Deal
2. Discount other audiobooks in the series
3. Get organic exposure on Chirp
4. Run BookBub Ads
More tips here: https://bit.ly/2Hh8vqk
Click to tweet: Authors! If you’ve published an audiobook series, you need to check this out! https://bit.ly/2Hh8vqk
