BookBub as a Resource for Readers and Authors

I’ve spoken of BookBub on my blog a few times, but mostly in the context of their Featured Deals. There’s a lot more to BookBub than its massive promotion email, and it’s a resource for readers and authors alike. And in my opinion, too few people know about what it can do, outside of those Featured Deals.

BookBub for Readers

Follow your favorite authors

By making an account and choosing to follow authors whose books you enjoy, you’ll receive email notifications when that author has a new release coming up.

For authors with a bigger following, you’ll also receive notifications when a new book is available for preorder. It’s a great way to keep track of what they’re releasing next!

You can also get emails when one of their books is put on sale. BookBub’s site only tracks ebook and audiobook discounts, however, so if you’re looking for cheap paperbacks, they won’t be able to help you.

I personally love the alerts features (and I read a lot, so it’s worth it!)

Rate/Review books you enjoy

BookBub has an interesting take on reviews. They refer to them as “recommendations,” and by default, a book will only be recommended if the rating is 4 or 5 stars. You can rate a book lower, but it will not list it as a recommendation from your account (the review will still be visible.)

Sales!

And the biggest reason a reader might want to sign up to BookBub is for the Featured Deals mailing list. It goes out once a day, and will list all the books currently on sale as part of a Featured Deal. You can tailor your personal email list (in settings) to send only the genres you’re interested in. What’s not to love about discounted books?

One important note about rating on BookBub: They only allow you to do this if your location is set to US. You can change your location in the settings under “Reading Preferences.”

New releases in your preferred genre

BookBub also has a curated “New Releases for Less” list. While these books aren’t always on sale, it will give you an opportunity to browse new books each week. You can always save a book to your wish list, and BookBub will notify you when it does go on sale.

BookBub for Authors

It’s a great marketing tool

And I don’t mean just with the Featured Deals (although that’s the biggest reason most authors initially sign up to the site.)

If you list your upcoming books on their site as soon as you have preorder links, they’ll add it to a “preorder notification list.” Essentially, they’ll email all of your follows on the day the book releases—for free.

And if your account has enough followers, they’ll send out notifications for the preorder itself. This is also free.

I’m not going to go into the details of the Featured Deals here, since I’ve talked about them before, but if you’d like to know my thoughts, check out:

• BookBub and my recent Featured Deal
• Comparing two BookBub Featured Deals
• My Latest BookBub Featured Deal

Featured Deals and the New Releases for Less promotions are both paid.

Advertising

BookBub has an ad platform too. These show up both on their site and at the end of their featured deal emails, and can be targeted toward a specific reader audience.

As with any ad platform, there’s some trial and error involved. I’ve had mixed success and am still tinkering with mine for better results.

Some authors have had great success with them even selling full-priced books. I found this page to be pretty helpful for tips, but as with anything, you have to adjust suggested tactics to work best for your book: How I Use BookBub Ads to Sell Full Price Books

Recommending books as an author

While I was researching for this post, I came across multiple sources saying that recommending others’ books is also beneficial to an author’s account. BookBub favors those who are active on their site, and will suggest those accounts to readers as “people to follow.”

I’ve been recommending books there as part of my reviewing process for a number of years, and I had no idea their algorithm did this until now. But it does explain why, every couple of months, I’ll get a new spate of followers that I can’t otherwise account for.

Side note: I initially started cross-posting my reviews to BookBub when I joined the FanFiAddict review team. I chose to do it solely to help those books be seen by more people. I figure, if I love a book, there are others out there who will too!

I believe BookBub is a really fantastic tool for authors, and too few (indies especially) aren’t utilizing it.

If you aren’t on BookBub, and would like to be, you can create an account here.

(And if you’d like to follow me on BookBub, you can here.)