A few months ago we detailed successful strategies for promoting your series, and we highlighted the new and improved Freebooksy Series Promotion. In this article we share the results of all the Series Promotions that were run on Freebooksy in late April and May since we made the change. The results show how much more effective it is to send readers to an Amazon Series page (vs. a single book product page) and provide valuable insight for authors on how best to promote your series.
The Freebooksy Series Promo: How it Works
The Freebooksy Series Promotion drives readers directly to the Amazon Series Page. It is a highly efficient and effective way to drive readership of Book 1 AND to drive read-through of other books in the series. If your series is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, a Series Promotion will also drive KENP reads. Book 1 of the series must be free to qualify for a Freebooksy Series promo.
You can book a Series Promo here. To learn more about Series Pages and how to get a Series Page on Amazon please read our post here.
Series Promo Results
The following data reflects 61 series features that were run in April and May 2020 on Freebooksy. The Series Feature is currently available for the following genres: Romance, Mystery, Thriller, Cozy Mystery, Fantasy and Science Fiction.
As you can see from the aggregated data below, the Series feature produced pretty amazing results for authors who tried it out. The ROI listed is based solely on direct sales that we were able to track.
The ROI is understated as it excludes 1) the free ranking boost and follow-on sales from the free book and 2) KENP reads for any titles enrolled in KDP Select.
Author Revenue
The graph above shows that authors received hundreds of dollars, and in some cases, thousands of dollars in sales from the books in their series that were not free. The more books in a series, the more sales were generated.
Here are the definitions of each column and how to interpret the data:
N=
“N=” reflects how many series promos are included in each data set. The Cozy Mystery data is based on 9 promos, the Romance data is based on 18 promos etc.
Average Author Sales Revenue
The Average Author Sales Revenue reflects sales of subsequent books in the series on Amazon within 24 hours of the promo being run on Freebooksy. No sales are attributed to book 1 as book 1 is free. The results show that readers download Book 1 for free and in many cases, go on to purchase other books in the series. On average, cozy mystery authors saw $1,686 in revenue in the 24 hours following the promo, while Science Fiction authors saw an average of $261 in sales revenue.
Average Number of Books in the Series
The Average Number of Books in a series reflects how many books are in each genre series on average. The number of books in a series drive the potential for sales.
Average ROI
The Average ROI for each series promo reflects the revenue generated in comparison to the cost of the promo. The ROI does not include the sales rank boost that Book 1 received from the free promo, KENP reads and any follow on sales in the days following the promo.
KENP Reads
In the cases where Book 1 is enrolled in KDP Select, a series promotion will also spur KENP reads. We do not have visibility into the KENP Reads driven by a Series Promotion, but below is an example of what a cozy mystery author saw in her KDP dashboard after running Series Promo on a 3-book series:
Copies Returned
When testing the Series Promo we had noticed that authors saw more copies returned from a series promotion than a regular feature. Below we show the Copies Returned for each series promo by genre.
The data shows that the average number of Copies Returned is significantly higher than Copies Returned on a regular promo. But that is because readers are purchasing the entire series. When we control for that by dividing the copies returned by the number of books in a series (less one to exclude the book), we get the # of Customers Returning Copies.
At the high end, an average of 12 customers returned a full cozy mystery series, while between one and 4 customers returned the full series in other genres. The benefits of running a series promo far outweigh the disappointment of receiving a few returned copies after the fact.
Genre Breakdown
Below we have highlighted key aspects of the data within each genre.
Cozy Mystery
The data above reflects 9 cozy mystery promos. All the promos were ROI positive. The minimum revenue generated by a cozy mystery promo was $715, while the maximum revenue generated by a promo was $3,838. Five of the nine books were enrolled in KU. The top two performing books were not enrolled in KU.
Mystery
The aggregated Mystery promo data is based on 11 promos. All the Mystery promos were ROI positive. The minimum revenue generated by a mystery series promo was $176, while the maximum revenue generated by a promo was $3,437. The series that generated $176 in revenue was enrolled in KU and had 4 books in the series. The series that generated $3,437 in revenue had 15 books in the series and was not enrolled in KU. Five of the 11 promos generated over $1,000 in revenue.
Thriller
The Thriller data reflects 8 series promos run in that genre. The average ROI was 126% with three promos seeing a negative ROI excluding KENP reads and free downloads. Five of the eight series were enrolled in KU. In Thriller series promos, more so than other genres, the number of books in a series was highly correlated with returns. The more books in a series, the more sales generated by the series promo. The top-performing promo generated $646 in direct sales on a series that included 14 titles.
Romance
The Romance data is based on 18 series promotions. The average ROI for a romance promo was 201%. 89% of promos (16 out of the 18 promos) were ROI positive. The minimum revenue generated by a romance promo was $148, while the maximum revenue generated by a promo was $1,633. If we exclude the two ROI negative promos, the minimum revenue generated by a romance promo was $242. 60% of the promos were wide (not enrolled in KU).
Fantasy/Paranormal
The aggregated Fantasy / Paranormal promo data is based on 12 promos. 83% (10 out of 12) Fantasy promos were ROI positive. The minimum revenue generated by a mystery series promo was $144, while the maximum revenue generated by a promo was $804. The average ROI for the set was 165%. Seven of the 12 promos were for series that were enrolled in KU. The series that generated $804 in revenue was enrolled in KU and had 12 books in the series. Half of the Fantasy series promos generated over $400 in direct sales.
Science Fiction
The Science Fiction data set is based on three promos run. Two of the three promos were ROI positive. The best performing promo generated $445 in revenue and included 6 books in the series. The worst performing promo generated $84 in revenue and was a 3-book series.
How To Book a Freebooksy Series Promo
Running a Series Promotion is quick and easy.
- Schedule a free promo day for Book 1 in your series (you can skip this step if you already have a perma-free first in series)
- Pick the date and genre for your series promotion within the Written Word Media Author and Publisher Portal
- Enter the information for Book 1 of your series at checkout
- Click the “add book to this series” button at the bottom of the page, and enter the information for the next book in your series. Repeat this step until you have added all the books in your series. Our team will change this link to the Series Page once your feature is approved.
Questions? Let us know in the comments below.
How abt a series promo for Literary Fiction or Young Adults. I’ll go first.
Hey Bill, thanks for the idea. I’ve passed this request along to our product team, and we’ll let you know if we add it!
I am curious I need to talk with some of you. My only goal is to spread my thoughts and create some reaction from readers
Hey Piero, Great! Shoot us a message with any questions you have!
I just finished my own series promo with you (not sure if it was included in this data), but in general, I was disappointed. It earned out, but the impact of the series promo was negligible on all vendors other than Amazon–which is entirely unsurprising as you ONLY link to the series page there. This is short sighted and irritating as we expect a series promo to boost the series on ALL VENDORS, otherwise it’s no different than a single book promo. The day my series listing came out, I didn’t even recognize it AS a series listing right off because it only showed Book 1, exactly as it would for a single book promo. A series promo should show ALL the books in a series. Google Play has a series page listing. While the other vendors do not, there should still be links to the other books and covers. Or at the very least there should be the option for us to offer up a universal link to each book that will redirect people to the vendor of their choice. I realize this is a PITA to set up, but God knows we would all like help to keep Amazon from getting too big for its britches, and if you’re only doing one series feature in a day, that shouldn’t be that big a deal. Please consider revising the format to actually promote series across vendors instead of glorifying Amazon just because it’s easy.
Hi Kait – We’re so glad to hear that your promo was ROI positive. Thanks for the feedback on the retail mix. You are correct that the series post currently generates the most sales on Amazon due to the availability of their Series landing page and the personalized “Buy the Series” button. As you note, most other retailers do not yet have a Series landing page so it’s trickier to drive the same consumer behavior. But we agree that driving sales across all retailers would be ideal. We’ll take a look at how we can further improve the format to this end; your ideas above are very helpful. Please keep them coming.
Do you find it advantageous for the author doing the series promotion (with the first book free) to discount other books in the series? Or haven’t you noticed it making a difference?
Hey Cindy, We don’t have data on that at this time, but it’s certainly an interesting thought. I wonder if reducing the price of other books would decrease returns as well.
This is great for KU series… unfortunately I don’t see the benefits of a series that is wide. I’d be interested to see the data on that as well. 🙂
Hey Wanita, unfortunately it’s more difficult for us to access the data for wide sales, but this is something we’re working on figuring out and hope to share results!