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BookBub by the Numbers in 2014

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BookBub Trends: Family Secrets

Every family has its secrets — sometimes small ones, like which sibling broke the living room lamp, and sometimes ones that conceal entire years of history. The discovery of these hidden truths can change not only a person’s perception of the past, but their very sense of self.

Identity

Everyone struggles with their identity: who they are, where they came from, and what type of person they want to be.

In many of these books, a person must search for their sense of self after discovering a shocking fact about themselves or their family. You’re supposed to know family better than you know anyone else, and when that turns out to be untrue, identity falls on uneasy ground.

This is a popular plot point in several BookBub books: In Coming to Rosemont, a woman discovers her husband led a double life, while in Thought I Knew You, a husband disappears only to leave his wife scrambling to decipher his secrets. A Family Affair follows a woman who learns the shocking truth that her father had a second family she never knew about. And the list goes on.

Generations

Our survey data shows that the majority of BookBub subscribers are married with children out of the house — in other words, they’re readers used to dealing with generations both older and younger than themselves. And many of these books focus on long-held secrets that span decades. Sometimes they’re revealed in person, while in other cases they’re delivered by an old artifact, like a journal. Whatever the situation, the old generation is linked to the new — a connection that stands the test of time.

We’ve seen these generational threads in some of our bestselling books, like The Girl Who Came Home, where a woman who sailed on the Titanic shares a secret with her great-granddaughter. In The Hidden Child, the protagonist discovers a Nazi medal among her late mother’s possessions, and in The Winter Lodge, a woman finds a treasure that once belonged to her grandfather.

Not only do these stories span generations, but they also touch on memorable moments in the past, and likely hit home with BookBub readers who have family members that have experienced similar situations.

Family and Going Home

Stories of familial connections have always struck a strong chord with BookBub’s audience, whether in the kinship between cousins or in a parent-child relationship. When wound together and complicated by secrets, these links often become even more difficult to navigate, lending extra intensity to the narrative. Many times the rapport between characters is already developed, and the outing of a new secret forces this relationship to be reexamined.

BookBub readers have responded particularly well to these themes of connection. Some notable examples include The Wishing Thread, where three sisters with secrets of their own inherit a magical yarn shop, and Maine, in which three generations of family gather at a summer home while being forced to face their pasts.

Not all secrets are the same, either in these books or in the many others that share this theme. But in all cases, the stories pull people in: Readers want to discover the truth and how it’s shared, what its fallout is, and how people move on from there. After all, BookBub readers consistently show a strong affinity to mysteries, and what's a more intriguing enigma than the secrets of your own family?

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Free vs. Discounted: How BookBub’s Selection Rates Vary

The short answer is that while the difference isn’t overwhelming, our editors are able to select a higher percentage of free books than discounted ones. Over the last six weeks, the selection rate for a free book was around 24 percent, while our editors could only choose around 18 percent of non-free ones. This means that, on average, the odds of a book being selected went up by around a third if you submitted it for a free promotion.

A number of factors explain why free titles are more likely to be accepted by our editors.

For one, we receive far fewer submissions for free books. While we generally feature more discounted titles in our email each day, the volume of requests for those deals means that we need to turn away even more great books that we would otherwise love to feature. Our editors always avoid picking titles that they don’t think would be good fits for BookBub readers, but the lower number of free submissions means they’re often able to take a chance on books with smaller platforms in those spots.

However, this breakdown also varies significantly by category. For example, because we receive relatively few free Historical Fiction submissions, the selection rate is significantly higher for free Historical titles than the average across all our lists. On the other end of the spectrum, it’s much harder to get a spot in a category like Fantasy, where we receive multiple submissions for free books every day.

And since we have to be careful not to overwhelm our readers with too many deals, subscriber demand in each category also influences these numbers. For instance, there are some lists where we can only feature a book or two per week, forcing our editors to be much more selective than they would otherwise want to be.

As a result, deal price is only one factor among many that can influence selection rates, and submitting for a free or discounted promotion doesn’t make or break your chances of getting a BookBub spot. But because it is something our editors consider, we always recommend submitting at the most competitive price that aligns with your marketing goals. And if you haven’t been selected for a discounted promotion, it could be worth trying for a free one if you’re open to it!

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Announcing BookBub Author Follows

In a letter to our partners earlier this year, our co-founder Josh Schanker outlined some of the initiatives our new funding would allow us to pursue. One of these was to “test new offerings for our readers that will in turn provide new ways to reach BookBub’s growing audience.”

Today we’re excited to announce one of these new offerings, called author follows. This feature, which has been requested by many of our members, lets readers tell us who their favorite authors are so we can keep them updated on what’s new with those authors on BookBub.

But this dedicated deal alert is just the beginning for author follows. In the future, we hope to expand upon this feature so that our partners can announce other news and promotions to fans that discover them through BookBub. Down the road, for example, you may be able to communicate with a group of BookBub readers who love your work, or follow up with members who downloaded your freebie to tell them about a new release. We’ve heard from many readers that they’d love to receive this type of update from their favorite authors.

There’s nothing our publisher and author partners need to do at the moment, and we’ll continue to keep you all informed as we improve upon this new feature, but in the meantime, we’d love to hear your feedback!

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Meet the Team: Sasha Wolfanger

  1) Describe your role at BookBub in one sentence.

My job is to find readers across the web and make sure they know that BookBub is the absolute best way to discover new books and authors they will love at a fantastic price.

  2) What's one thing people don't know about your job?

It requires a lot of math! Something I wish I had known when I got into online marketing...

  3) What's something you do every day that's unique to your position?

Every day I keep track of the number of potential readers we reached across all forms of advertising and how many of them became subscribers. Then, I use that data to drive various tests to make sure we are always converting a higher number of readers into BookBubbers!

  4) What's the most exciting thing about working for a startup?

The ability to move fast! We can set up tests within a few hours and often get results within a day or two. Moving up the learning curve quickly allows us to learn more about our subscribers and tailor our offering to meet their needs/wants.

  5) Why did you join BookBub? What do you love about working here?

I joined BookBub because it addresses a pain point in the reading world no one else seems to have solved quite yet. I love how the product is innovative yet simple at the same time. Plus, decisions here are made based on data so at the end of the day, the subscribers fuel the decisions behind the product. There are so many directions we can go as a company and it's exciting to see where we will end up!

  6) What's your fondest book-related memory?

In high school I wrote a killer AP essay on Hamlet. I never minded Shakespeare, but he wasn't exactly my favorite. There was something about Hamlet that clicked with me though! I still have that paper somewhere… (Yes, it was a pen and paper essay! Laptops and tablets weren't yet common in the classroom... I'm dating myself here.)

  7) What's your favorite book?

I have a terrible book memory. The first one that comes to mind is Flowers for Algernon. I think it’s the first book that ever tore at my soul! I'm not usually into science fiction but this one really tugged at my heart strings.

  8) Pick one: flying or teleportation. Why?

Teleportation, because I sit in a lot of traffic. Every day. Twice a day.

  9) Where would you go if you could fly anywhere in the world right now (for free), and why?

Hawai'i! Because I grew up there and my family is still there and it's a really expensive plane ticket!

  10) Why did you choose the book you're currently reading?

I'm currently reading Opium Fiend by Steven Martin, which was a book we ran last week. I love the show Locked Up Abroad on NatGeo and this sounded like an episode right out of the show!

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Who's Buying Your Books: Mysteries

But BookBub also has an entire team dedicated to the latter — our members — and they interact with hundreds of readers a day. In our new Who's Buying Your Books series, we aim to share some of these conversations with our partners. Data can of course speak volumes about overall trends and general interests. But we love hearing stories from individual readers as well, and we think these anecdotes will add some color to the numbers you read about on Unbound. Plus, learning more about your audience is never a bad idea when it comes to selling books!

As one of our most popular categories, we thought Mysteries would be a fitting place to start. Meet Marianne, a 36-year-old living just outside of Philadelphia in Washington Township, New Jersey. Marianne has been a BookBub member for several months, downloading at least a book a week from the daily email. An avid mystery reader, Marianne was eager to talk with BookBub about her favorite authors in the genre, her motivations for buying certain books, and the keys to a perfect story:

  1) What is the first thing you notice when choosing a book to read?

When the cover is creepy or dark, it always looks appealing to me. Sometimes I want to pass over a book because of the cover, but I will read the title and if it sounds interesting, I will read the synopsis and reviews… Sometimes a book with a bad cover could be a gem.

The title is also an attention grabber... If it's written to stand out, then I will usually read the synopsis. Some covers can be cheesy, but if the title looks good, I will read the synopsis.

2) How does price factor into your decision to try a new book or author? Do you have any "dealbreakers" when looking for a new title?

Because I am addicted to downloading books, price definitely plays a factor, especially if it's someone new. ... If a book has an unappealing cover but a good title and/or synopsis, I will usually still download it if it is free. I feel free books are a great way to get to know authors. If I love the book, I am more inclined to buy another book written by them.

3) What makes mysteries so appealing to you as a reader?

I like trying to guess who did it. I like books that keep me on the edge of my seat.

4) Who are your favorite mystery authors and why?

I really enjoy reading Liliana Hart, Dana Stabenow, and Odette C. Bell. I love their writing styles. Especially Liliana Hart — she is my favorite. Although they are mysteries, she makes her characters funny and relatable.

5) Who is your favorite mystery sleuth?

J.J. Graves [featured in Liliana Hart's J.J. Graves series] is definitely my favorite mystery sleuth. The character is so witty, honest, and smart. I just love her.

6) Who is your favorite mystery villain?

I don't have a favorite villain. But I like the villains who you didn't want to see become the villain… then they are, but you still can't help but love them. I also like a villain that you just love to hate.

7) What do your favorite mysteries have in common?

I have noticed that my favorite mysteries all have a leading lady as the main character. I think that is because I like to picture myself as the main character when reading a book.

I also like mysteries that have a paranormal feel to them, as well as mysteries that are written about specific places that I live near — Philadelphia, for example. I like knowing exactly what to picture in my head, and I enjoy thinking that the mystery could be going on in my own neighborhood.

I have come across some mysteries that include dogs, which I also love since I'm a huge animal lover. For example, Unleashed by Emily Kimelman… I loved every aspect of the book.

8) What makes a great mystery?

I think what makes a great mystery is a twist, nothing too far out of the box. Something that can really happen, and a character that isn't some random character. I like to get to know the character and being completely caught off guard when I find out they are the bad guy/girl. I also don't like when it's too obvious who the character could be. I like having options and thinking, “Well, it could be him because...or her because…”

The interview above was edited for length.

Interested in partnering with BookBub on your next price promotion? You can submit your title for consideration here.

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How BookBub's Selection Process Works

We often get questions from our partners about how the BookBub curation process works: Why are some titles selected and not others? Do we have a minimum review requirement? What can you do to guarantee your book will be featured in the BookBub email?

It’s important to know before reviewing the graphic that BookBub has always limited the number of titles we feature in order to avoid overwhelming our subscribers and to ensure all our partners’ listings have an equal chance of performing well. So while every book that gets submitted to us goes through this process, only about 10%-15% of them will be chosen for a feature. We hope this graphic reveals just how tough those decisions can be for our editors!

Have a question about a particular step in the process? Ask us in the comments section below. We'd be happy to write additional posts about our editorial process in the future!

Lastly, please note that parts of this process can vary on a case-by-case basis, and the examples used here may not be representative of the submissions we receive in every category.

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11 Things You Don't Know About Bargain Ebook Buyers

  The Bargain Ebook Buyer from BookBub

1) They’re Power Readers

  Almost 60 percent of the bargain ebook readers we surveyed consume at least a book a week, and about 1 in 10 said they read a book or more a day. On the other hand, only 5 percent of the general American public reads a book a week.

  2) They Read Everywhere

  Virtually all those we surveyed said they read in their down time — before bed, while traveling, and at home during the day. But perhaps most surprisingly, 45 percent said they read while at work, suggesting that the most voracious readers don’t let anything get in the way of their latest book.

  3) They Primarily Read On Tablets

  While over half the readers we surveyed said they primarily use a Kindle or Nook device, many also read on Apple or Android mobile platforms. And around 60 percent said they prefer tablets — a number that includes devices like the Kindle Fire and Nook HD.

  4) They Don’t Just Read Ebooks

  While we found that most bargain readers consume fewer print books than they once did, they don’t exclusively read ebooks. Over 60 percent of those we surveyed said they also read hardcovers, and almost three quarters said they still read paperbacks.

  5) They Are Genre Readers

  Most bargain readers said they primarily consume genre fiction. And while their tastes vary across a wide spectrum, the majority indicated that they prefer either mysteries, thrillers, or romance.

  6) Their Median Income Is Above Average

  The majority of the bargain readers we surveyed earn more than the US median household income of $51,017. Readers in general tend to be more affluent than the average American, and our data suggests that bargain readers are no different in this respect. What sets them apart is the number of books they read — an expensive habit no matter your income.

  7) They Buy Full-Priced Ebooks

  While bargain readers are price sensitive, most don’t exclusively download discounted books. Over three quarters said they also buy full-price titles, supporting the idea that many of them have disposable income and are willing to spend it on books they love.

  8) They Try New Authors

  The vast majority of the readers we surveyed said they’ve discovered a new author through an ebook price promotion. Anecdotally, we’ve found that BookBub readers use discounts as a discovery tool, trying new authors that they otherwise might not have read.

  9) They Read the Books They Download

  Bargain readers don’t just hoard ebooks and let them lie dormant on their devices. Most of those we surveyed said they read the discounted titles they download, suggesting that not only do they experiment with new authors, but that they value and absorb this content.

  10) They Become Loyal Fans

  Over 60 percent of the readers we surveyed said they’ve purchased other books by an author they discovered through an ebook price promotion. So once you hook a reader with a discount, they’re often in it for the long haul.

  11) They Recommend Books They Like

  Almost two thirds of those we surveyed said they’ve recommended a bargain book to a friend. This suggests that not only do bargain readers become long-term fans of the authors they love, but that they help build even larger audiences by spreading the word to their communities. They’re influencers.

  *Note: BookBub collected data on thousands of readers across multiple randomized surveys. While the responses come from our own subscribers, we believe that they are representative of the typical bargain ebook reader.

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