BookBub has several Featured Deals categories that fall under the speculative fiction umbrella. You may find yourself wondering not only which category is the best fit for your book, but also how to maximize your chances of getting selected for a Featured Deal based on what our editors and readers are currently looking for. As BookBub editors, we’re here to help by taking a deep dive into four of our speculative fiction categories: Horror, Supernatural Suspense, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. We’ll highlight what our editors are looking for right now in each category, with lists of popular trop ..read more

Last year, I sold almost $60,000 of books across 40+ live events. In other words, I sacrificed most of my weekends to drive around the Midwest (primarily), haul several hundred pounds of books and equipment, set up a beautiful but massive booth display, and sell books to strangers at pop-up comic cons, gaming conventions, and other events. Was it worth it? To me, it was. It might sound crazy, especially if you’re already selling plenty of books online. But if you’re interested in diversifying your income streams, and you’ve got an established fan base or happen to be a rare extroverted author ..read more

Although it might seem counterintuitive, making one of your books permanently free can be a savvy marketing move. If you’ve written a series or a large backlist of books and you publish your books wide, a permafree book is a great way to entice new readers, increase your exposure, and drive sales for your other books. Here, we’ll discuss how to make your ebooks permafree and how to use them to achieve your marketing goals. If you already have a permafree book and just want to know how to promote it, jump to the next section! How to make your ebook permafree Most major retailers — Barnes & ..read more

Over the past few years, direct sales — selling books to readers without using a major retailer as an intermediary — has become an increasingly popular sales strategy for independent authors. Selling direct can enable authors to collect more robust reader data, generate higher revenue per sale, and safeguard against unpredictability from major retailers. The challenge: Readers typically stick to their preferred retailers, and it can be difficult to redirect them to an alternative store. Author Ariele Sieling (whose book you may recognize from our list of best BookBub Ads from 2023 ..read more

If you’ve submitted a book for a BookBub Featured Deal, you’ll know that the submission form includes a field for your comments beyond the standard category, pricing, and availability information you provide about your deal. The comments field is optional, but our editors gladly welcome any additional information that can help them make the best decisions about your submission. No one knows your book and your circumstances better than you do, so you can feel free to use the comments field to let us in on your plans, help us find a spot that will work for you, and more. But many authors wonder ..read more

BookBub Ads is a powerful tool for promoting books with a flexible budget to targeted audiences of BookBub readers. While many authors choose to design custom ad images, the BookBub Ads set-up form includes an ad creative builder, which offers a quick and easy way to design simple ad images that feature the advertised book’s cover and a short blurb. One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make with their ad designs is cramming in too many design elements, so using a simple template can ensure the important parts stand out. Today, we’re sharing examples of engaging images made using the BookBub ..read more

As 2023 has come and gone, we wanted to take a moment to celebrate some of the successes our self-published partners saw throughout last year with their Featured Deals. These books were some of the highest performers in their respective categories, and with polished covers, perfect content fits, and enticing tropes, it’s easy to see why the deals so excited our audience! Dive into the list below to learn more about what’s working well for our readers these days — and remember, our categories vary in size, so sales numbers do, too! Note: Sales numbers are estimates only, based on a mix of retai ..read more

Here at BookBub, we love helping authors and publishers sell more books. Our Partners Blog is home to the actionable tips and insights our partners need to navigate industry trends, inspire their book marketing, and make the most out of BookBub’s marketing tools. This year we published dozens of articles, including many by wonderful guest contributors, on a variety of topics to help our readers achieve their promotional goals. You can always find all of our best book marketing articles here, but we wanted to make sure you don’t miss any of the most popular content from this year. This list of ..read more

As we approach the end of 2023, it’s time for our annual roundup of the best Bookbub Ads campaigns of the year! There are many ways to run successful campaigns on BookBub, and many ways to define what success looks like, so these campaigns represent a wide mix of advertising strategies, book prices, genres, and formats. We hope you find inspiration here to kick off your book promotion in 2024! Daniel Gibbs, Courage, Commitment, Faith This advertiser kicked off the new year with the release of a new multi-author anthology and over 20 BookBub Ads campaigns to promote it! These campaigns tested ..read more

The idea of working to generate publicity for your book may seem a little old-fashioned, maybe even irrelevant. After all, publicity isn’t an exact science, and doesn’t come with a tracking link or the concrete numbers offered by digital advertising. But what can’t be easily measured can still make an impact, as long as it’s attempted with creativity and care. In this post, I’ll discuss how publicity can benefit your author platform, then walk you through how to research relevant media outlets and craft pitches that illuminate the most interesting aspects of your work. Is book publicity worth ..read more