If you’ve published a series or have an extensive backlist, bundling some of these books into a box set can be an effective way to drive sales and reach new readers. Box sets are usually priced to let readers spend less than if they had purchased each book in the set individually. This is a great way to entice new readers to purchase your books, and when they recommend your book to their friends (as 65% of bargain readers do), those people may purchase each book individually, increasing your revenue over the long term.
Box sets are something you should experiment with to find a strategy that works best for your books within their genre, but we wanted to share some tips that will help you publish more effective box sets. Note that this post focuses on single-author box sets, not multi-author box sets (which BookBub does not feature).
Tip #1: Drive series sales with different bundling strategies
When you’re creating a single-author box set, there are several bundling strategies you can choose. If you want to promote a series or multiple series, the combination of books you include in the set will depend on your marketing goals. Here are a few popular ways authors and publishers bundle series books:
Option 1: Bundle all of the books in a single series. Including the complete series in a box set is a great way to drive exposure and volume of sales. Readers love to take advantage of great deals, so you’ll get their attention by making the cost of the series box set less than the individual books combined, especially if you run a limited-time promotion at an even lower price. While including an entire series will often cannibalize sales for the individual books in a series, the volume of sales may drive more revenue overall. Fantasy author Edward Robertson successfully packaged his complete The Cycle of Arawn trilogy into a box set with exceptional results:
I thought a finished trilogy might have more appeal, especially in a subgenre like epic fantasy, where there’s understandable reader discontent about having to wait years (or even decades!) for some long-running series to finish the story. Offering the complete story all at once felt like something readers might value.
The results were insane. After its price promotion in October last year, the box set hit #96 on USA Today and went on to do pretty dang well in the UK and Germany to boot. I just wrapped up a second price promotion at the end of July, and it’s about to notch its 100,000th sale. The ebook’s success also prompted my audiobook publishers to pick it up on audio. That came out this June and has since been outselling most of the Game of Thrones titles, which is the sort of thing you dream about at night and then find surreal when it’s actually happening.
Option 2: Bundle the first two or three books of a series. Instead of including a complete series in your set, consider including the first two or three books of a series in a box set to promote a full-price book later in the series. This is similar to making the first book in a series permafree — if you offer the first few books of a series at a discounted price and have subsequent books in the series at full price, readers will be invested in the characters and want to know how their tale ends. At the end of your box set, promote the next book in the series in the back matter (see tip #4 below).
Option 3: Bundle the first books of several series. If you want to get more eyeballs on multiple series at once, bundling the first book from each series into one box set could be an effective strategy. This will help you drive full-price sales of more than one follow-up book, though realistically readers may choose which series they’d rather pursue. With this strategy, you should include back matter after each book in the box set in order to promote the next book in the series, so it’s obvious to readers what comes next. Be sure to make it clear in your retailer page description that the books in your box set are not from the same series, so there’s no confusion or disappointment when the reader proceeds to the second book in the set.
Tip #2: Bundle a collection of standalone titles to drive revenue
Bundling standalones can be an effective way to gain loyal fans or promote a new release if you launch your box set when your new release is published. You can strategically choose standalones to package together that include similar themes, whether by sub-genre, location, point in time, similar protagonists, holiday setting, etc.
According to publisher Christopher Chater, who published the Elizabeth Chater Regency Romance collections, bundling standalones can be highly lucrative:
There are three good reasons to put standalones into a box set.
- Readers love bargains. 99¢ books are very popular, especially with Regency Romance titles. By pricing my standalone books at 99¢, I’ve been able to enjoy good sales and stay competitive. By putting those same books into box sets of four, and pricing them at $2.99, readers save one dollar, and (because of the 70/30 royalty split on Amazon), my profit for those same books increases (approximately) $1.00. It’s a win-win.
- It creates “another book,” therefore I get more space on the digital shelf.
- It exposes readers to a book that might not be as popular as the other books by the same author. If a standalone isn’t selling very well, and that’s not a reflection of the book’s quality, then readers may be more willing to give it a try if it’s in a box set.
Creating box sets did cannibalize sales of some of the standalone books, but in most cases overall profits were higher, and people were reading and being exposed to books that weren’t selling as well before.
We did analysis on several different ways BookBub Partners combined books for their box sets for which they ran Featured Deals, including comparing series box sets versus standalone box sets, and we didn’t find any significant difference in results for doing one type of box set versus another. So again, you’ll want to experiment to see what kind of box set would work best for you.
Tip #3: Format your box set correctly
Box sets are great for the ebook format because instead of taking up an entire shelf on your reader’s bookcase, it’s easy to download and add a single file to their ereader. However, this makes formatting all the more important because they’ll often be dealing with a file with over a million words.
Create a table of contents that lists each book in the box set, hyperlinking each book name to the correct spot in the file. Include this table of contents after each book’s title page and before any chapter-by-chapter table of contents so readers can easily navigate between books.
Your box set’s hierarchy might look something like this:
- Box Set Front Matter
- Table of Contents (Book-Level)
- Book #1
- Book Front Matter
- Table of Contents (Chapter-Level)
- Content
- Optional: Back Matter
- Table of Contents (Book-Level)
- Book #2
- Book Front Matter
- Table of Contents (Chapter-Level)
- Content
- Optional: Back Matter
- Table of Contents (Book-Level)
- Book #3
- Book Front Matter
- Table of Contents (Chapter-Level)
- Content
- Optional: Back Matter
- Box Set Back Matter
Tip #4: Promote books outside the set in the back matter
Use the back matter of your box set to promote books outside of the box set. Author Sharon Kay found great success funneling her Solsti Prophecy series box set readers to her newest release, which was not part of her series.
I did see good sales for one book that was not in the set, which was my new release, Tainted Kiss. I hoped to funnel readers to that book after they finish the box set. At the end of the box set, I included an excerpt from Tainted Kiss and a buy link in the Amazon edition.
Author Claire Delacroix packaged a box set Highland Heroes including books from multiple series. After each book in the box set, she included an excerpt and link to the next book in the series:
When I discount my box set for a promotion, the halo is totally predictable — it’s always for the book excerpted in the back matter. The excerpt is for the first book in the next series, either linked to the series in the bundle or the one I wrote next. Those increased sales during the halo often put that book on a genre bestseller list and give it more visibility.
Learn how to add links to your back matter and optimize them for each retailer here.
Tip #5: Create a 3D image for your box set
Creating a 3D image for your box set makes it obvious to readers that they will receive multiple full-length books instead of just one book in their purchase.
A polished, professional cover design can make a huge difference in your box set’s success. Consider hiring a designer who has experience designing covers and box sets in your genre. We’ve listed a few of our favorite design resources here.
If you prefer a DIY approach and have experience with Photoshop, here are a few resources for templates or PSD actions you can use to make designing a 3D cover easier:
Tip #6: Include exclusive content
Adding a novella or short story to your box set could entice readers to buy the box set instead of just purchasing the first book in the set, thinking they’ll give you a try before committing to the full series. This may also help convince your existing loyal readers to purchase the box set in addition to the individual titles they’ve already purchased.
For example, independent author Sharon Kay included the short story “Don’t Count Your Demons” exclusively in her Solsti Prophecy box set so readers would get a new part of the story they wouldn’t have been able to see had they bought each individual book in the series.
Tip #7: Run a price promotion for your box set
While it’s a good strategy to make the price of your box set less than the combined price of the individual books in the bundle, consider dropping the price for a limited-time price promotion. BookBub regularly accepts single-author box sets for Featured Deals, and these promotions often yield fantastic results for partners.
Once author Sharon Kay secured a BookBub Featured Deal promotion date for her box set for Solsti Prophecy, she discounted her box set to $0.99. According to Sharon:
I sold more books that month than I ever have, even with my previous single-title BookBub promos. My sales that month showed a 1,200% increase over my next-best month of 2015. I would heartily advise other authors to try it, because readers love a deal. They also love to discover new authors. I would advise authors to set the regular price at a good deal (at least 30% off whatever full price would be if all titles were purchased individually) and do a discount to 99 cents. I would advise them to time the release of the set so that it’s not too close to a release of one of the included volumes (to not cannibalize sales). Also, time it to funnel readers to another product (a new release, another series, etc).
Tip #8: Time your box set wisely, or make it a limited-time offering
If each of your individual books is already selling well at full price, you might not want pursue creating a box set. Box sets can help increase sales for books that have hit a lull, or for books in which you’re okay with losing some of the full-price sales for the sake of generating reader reviews and building buzz. But if your books are already selling well and garnering reviews, it may not make sense to cannibalize those sales for the sake of a box set. You also may not want to include a book that’s been recently released and is still benefiting from its new release buzz. So make sure you time your box set correctly, and choose to include books that need a boost.
You may also want to consider creating a box set for the sake of a price promotion. BookBub partners sometimes create a box set that’s only offered for a limited time as a way to run a price promotion on multiple books at once. They’ll bundle the first few books in the series and make them available for the price of one book for a limited time. Once the campaign is completed, they’ll unpublish the box set so it doesn’t continue to cannibalize sales of the individual books long term.
Creating box sets is something you should experiment with to see what works best for you and your books in your genre. Like most other book marketing tactics, there is no single formula for success — it depends on your marketing and revenue goals, as well as your target audience and what they respond to. But from what we’ve seen, creating box sets has been an effective marketing tactic for many of our partners!
Thanks to authors and publishers Edward Robertson, Sharon Kay, Claire Delacroix, and Chris Chater for providing quotes and valuable insights for this post.
What other tips do you have for creating and marketing ebook box sets? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to share this post? Here’s a ready-made tweet:
Click to tweet: #PubTip: Bundling series or standalone books into a box set at a low price can help drive sales & reach new readers. http://bit.ly/1NY8Dob
