Becoming a bestseller is no easy feat — there’s no magic formula for hitting a list, and the criteria or sales volume it takes are subject to change. But with a coordinated strategy, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. We’ve seen several authors successfully hit bestseller lists by promo stacking: running multiple marketing campaigns within a short timeframe to maximize sales volume during a launch or price promotion. Though it’s more challenging for self-published authors to make it onto the USA Today or New York Times bestseller lists these days, promo stacking is also a great way to boost visibility on retailer bestseller lists.
In this post, we’ll share how several authors stacked promotions to hit various bestseller lists using several different strategies:
- Drop a book’s price and promo stack the discount
- Launch a bestseller by promo stacking the preorder
- Launch a bestseller by discounting your previous book and promo stacking
- Boost books in a series by promo stacking a new release or box set discount
Within each strategy, we’ll include examples with links to articles where each author reveals what their marketing campaigns looked like.
We hope this post inspires authors wishing to hit a bestseller list. Our partners also often ask how to supplement their BookBub Featured Deals to get the best results possible, so we hope this post addresses those questions as well!
1. Drop a book’s price and promo stack the discount
Many authors have been able to hit a bestseller list after discounting an already-launched book by pricing it low ($0.99) and heavily advertising the discount.
Example #1: Discounting a self-published book
In her first year of self-publishing her series, Juliette N. Banks ran free BookBub Featured Deals on two later-series books, resulting in tens of thousands of downloads of each promoted book and her permafree first-in-series. Both times, the discounted book hit the top of the charts in its categories and stayed there for weeks! To promo stack the discounts, she:
- Promoted both free books on social media and in her newsletter
- Ad stacked other paid newsletters
- Coordinated newsletter swaps with authors in her genre
- Updated the back matter of each book with the next chapter in the series and links to buy the next book
- Launched preorders for her current works in progress
Lastly, Juliette kept her book free for longer than the Featured Deal promotion. Her rationale:
The longer your book is free, the more sales you will make long after your Featured Deal has ended, because of the big boost in ranking the deal has caused. Truly, when you revert it back to paid, it’s like turning off a money tap. Why would you? Leave it free!
Read more about Juliette’s promo-stacking strategy here.
Example #2: Discounting a traditionally published book
Several months after the debut of his novel Here and Now and Then, Mike Chen’s publisher Mira Books secured a BookBub Featured Deal to reinvigorate sales of the book. Mike stacked promotions to supplement his publisher’s feature, starting two days before it ran, hoping this would give his book’s rankings a good start and a faster path to bestseller status. His book reached #1 in several categories on Amazon, #2 overall at Barnes & Noble, and #1 in two categories on Kobo. Here’s how he promoted the deal:
- Ran BookBub Ads campaigns, starting with a series of tests to find the right audience
- Stacked ads with Bargain Booksy, Early Bird Books, Booksends, and Ereader News Today
- Sent a newsletter promoting both the ebook and a chance sale Amazon had on the hard copy
- Posted about the deal on social media, encouraging followers to share to reach new readers
- Asked friends, family, and other authors in his debut writer groups to help spread the word
Read more about Mike’s promo-stacking strategy here.
Example #3: Discounting a book in international regions
When Teiran Smith’s book What the Heart Wants was selected for an international Featured Deal, she decided to use the opportunity to try to hit bestseller lists in international regions. What the Heart Wants ended up reaching #9 in Canada, #15 in Australia, and #88 in the UK in the new adult romance genre on Amazon. The book also reached #99 in the entire Kindle Store in Canada! It stayed in good ranking for days after the feature, and sales of her other books picked up as well in the following days and weeks. To promote her deal, she:
- Ran BookBub Ads for the duration of the seven-day discount
- Promoted the sale in her newsletter the day it went live
- Stacked four other email promotions
- Ran organic and paid social media promotions, posting daily
- Asked author friends to help spread the word on their social media
Teiran’s reasons for running the international discount:
I had two reasons for wanting the feature. First and foremost, the unprecedented exposure that comes with a BookBub feature. I wanted to get my book into the hands of as many new readers as possible to build my readership and following. Secondly, I had high hopes of it becoming a bestseller. Every author hopes their books will do well and I’m no exception. I knew that a BookBub feature was my best shot at hitting a list.
Read more about Teiran’s promo-stacking strategy here.
2. Launch a bestseller by promo stacking the preorder
You can stack promotions for a book as early as its preorder period to boost its chances of launching as a bestselling book. If your goal is to hit a list during launch week, driving preorder sales can help since many retailers count all preorders as launch day sales. You might also try to build early buzz and momentum to help you hit a list a month or two later, depending on your goals and strategy.
Example #1: A low-priced preorder
Six months before its release, Nick Sullivan launched a $2.99 preorder for Deep Devil, book four in a series, to take advantage of a Kindle Deal on book one, Deep Shadow. He wanted any Kindle Deal shoppers looking at the entire series to see that Deep Devil was already ranking well. So, in time for the Kindle Deal, Nick updated his covers and promotional materials for book one and the new release, and once the preorder was live he:
- Updated the backmatter of book three with a link to buy Deep Devil
- Asked Amazon to add more categories to both the paperback and the Kindle editions
- Updated his social media headers to include Deep Devil
- Shared a newsletter and several social media posts about the new book
- Ran a BookBub Featured Deal on Deep Shadow
- Ran a Facebook ad campaign promoting Deep Shadow’s $0.99 price
By continuing to run promotions on previous books in his series (a strategy we’ll explore next in this post!), and keeping Deep Devil at $2.99 throughout the preorder period to draw a steady stream of purchases and keep its rank high, Nick saw his new book hit bestseller status several times during that six-month period.
Read more about Nick’s preorder promo-stacking strategy here.
Example #2: A full-priced preorder
Cheryl Bradshaw aimed for her book Gone Daddy Gone to hit the USA Today list a couple of months after launch, but started building its platform during the preorder period. While the book was on preorder, she kept it at full price at $5.99 and stacked promotions pre-release. Two months after launch, she felt she had enough reviews (thanks to this early promotion) to apply for a BookBub Featured Deal. After her Featured Deal ran, she hit the USA Today bestseller list. During the book’s three-month preorder period, she:
- Updated the back matter of the previous book in the series to link to Gone Daddy Gone
- Distributed ARCs
- Updated her website with a cover reveal, banner, and excerpt of the first two chapters
- Ran a giveaway for people who preordered
- Promoted the giveaway to her newsletter subscribers
- Promoted the preorder to her social media followers
- Ran Facebook ads
- Sent a BookBub Preorder Alert one month before launch
The USA Today list no longer represents as many self-published titles as it used to, but we think Cheryl’s strategy is still a good one for boosting sales! One tactic that was particularly effective for her was the Preorder Alert reaching her BookBub followers:
Approximately one month before the book released, I ran a BookBub Preorder Alert. They sent an email notification to my US BookBub followers, informing them I had a new book that was about to be released. The email alert was a success, had an excellent ROI, and it added an additional few hundred sales on top of those I already had, bringing my preorder total close to 1,000 sales for a full-priced book.
Read more about Cheryl’s preorder promo-stacking strategy here.
3. Launch a bestseller by discounting your previous book and promo stacking
Another strategy for launching a book as a bestseller is to drop the price of a different book (to as low as you can), such as a previous book in a series, a connected standalone, or a prequel, to drive a high volume of follow-on sales to the preorder or new release.
Example #1: A traditionally published first-in-series book
Mia Mansala traditionally published her Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series with Berkley, who ran a Featured Deal on book one starting three weeks before the launch of the latest book in the series, Murder and Mamon. Mia boosted visibility for the deal with her own promotions, helping the book rank #1 in Amazon’s Asian American Literature list. Murder and Mamon also launched as an Amazon bestseller, thanks to Mia’s efforts to promote the new book in addition to the book one discount. She:
- Updated her social media headers to highlight Murder and Mamon’s release date
- Commissioned art as an incentive for readers to preorder the new book
- Asked fans on social media to follow her on BookBub for New Release Alerts
- Shared early reviews, reader quotes, and work-in-progress updates
- Spread the word about the Featured Deal for book one on social media
- Promoted giveaways of her new release
- Shared an unboxing video as a final push for preorders
Read more about Mia’s promo-stacking strategy here.
Example #2: A book in Kindle Unlimited
Each time USA Today bestselling author Nicholas Harvey launches a new book in Kindle Unlimited, he runs a promo stack on book one in his series. He starts the promo two days before launch, hoping the early start gets his ranking up before launch day to appeal to new readers looking for the beginning of the series. His recent release, Anchor Point, reached number one in his categories on Amazon following the promo stack on book one. As part of his stack, he:
- Sets up a Kindle Countdown deal at $0.99
- Applies for a BookBub Featured Deal, mentioning his new release date in the comments. He submits at $0.99 and reapplies for free if the first submission isn’t selected. (If he lands a free deal, he adjusts the Countdown dates and aligns the other promo sites in his stack.)
- Runs a New Releases for Less promotion on the new book
- Runs display ads on Facebook and BookBub for the discounted book
Nicholas just broke even on the cost of the promotion for Anchor Point, but he said:
I landed three times the number of new readers, who’ll hopefully go on to buy more of my books, plus the increased sales kept me towards the top in my categories for longer.
Read more about Nicholas’s promo-stacking strategy here.
4. Boost books in a series by promo stacking a new release or box set discount
If you’re publishing a series, you can try launching books at a discount or bundling earlier-series books into a discounted box set to hit a bestseller list. And because box sets generate high purchase rates (since it’s so appealing to readers to get multiple books at a low cost), you can consider discounting them at a higher price point ($1.99 or $2.99) to drive high revenue and ROI, even before follow-on sales start rolling in.
Example #1: Discounting a box set to $1.99
When Mari Carr and Lila Dubois were launching book 8 of their co-written Trinity Masters series, their sales were stagnant. So they decided to bundle the first four books in the series to try to draw more readers. While the box set launched at $6.99, they discounted it to $1.99 and ran a promo-stacking campaign over a 10-day period that let them hit multiple retailer bestseller lists:
- Updated the back matter of the box set with retailer links to the other books in the series
- Ran a BookBub Featured Deal on the box set
- Sent a newsletter to both of their mailing lists five days after the Featured Deal
- Ran Facebook ads
- Ran organic social media promotions
- Asked fans in their Facebook group to help spread the word
Mari’s experience on choosing a price point for the discount:
On April 10, we promoted the box set with a BookBub Featured Deal, pricing it at $1.99. Lila and I were a bit anxious on the day of the promotion, suffering the usual author concerns about earning back the promotion cost. That anxiety was quickly put to rest as we earned back the cost by noon on promotion day, and sold 2,500 copies during the promotion. Since then we’ve more than tripled the earnings! We were very pleased with the results.
Read more about Mari and Lila’s box set promo-stacking strategy here.
Example #2: Discounting a multi-author series
When bestselling authors Lucy Score, Claire Kingsley, Kathryn Nolan, and Pippa Grant set out to write a joint world series, they didn’t have high expectations — they just wanted to show their support for strong heroines in the romance genre! The result was four back-to-back launches that landed at the top of the Amazon charts. After carefully planning the series, they decided to release the books one by one within a six-week window at a special lower price of $3.99. To promote the entire series, each author:
- Added their book to their BookBub Author Profile once it was available for preorder, so that a New Release Alert would go out to their followers
- Updated their back matter to encourage readers to follow them on BookBub and to cross-promote each other’s books
- Recommended each other’s books on BookBub to boost visibility
- Sent newsletters promoting each other’s books on a schedule continuing beyond the initial release day
- Leveraged blog tours and their Facebook reader groups to encourage organic promotion from readers
- Ran Facebook ads with their own budgets
A year after launch, they celebrated by putting each book in the series on sale for $0.99 for a week, and saw continued success. Pippa said:
Not only did the books launch well, but they held steady with regular readership, and every time one of us launched another solo, unrelated title, we all continued to see new people funneling into the series and discovering each of us as well.
Read more about Pippa’s series promo-stacking strategy here.
As you can see, there’s no single formula for hitting a bestseller list. However, there is a lot of overlap between the promo-stacking strategies, whether the author was promoting a preorder, a new release, a backlist book, or a series. So if your goal is to hit a bestseller list, prepare your marketing plan well in advance to find the right channels, copy, and creative for your unique audience. Then you can coordinate multiple campaigns to have the most effective promotion week possible!
What other promo-stacking strategies would you have added to these authors’ checklists? We’d love to hear your thoughts — share and comment on your favorite social channel!
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This post was originally published on December 13, 2017 and has been updated with new examples.