Paying to Advertise Your Indie Novel with BookBub or KBoards

I don't actually have a whole lot to say about this topic, because I haven't done it a lot...yet. Several months ago I think I mentioned that I had paid twenty bucks to KBoards and sold about 20+ copies of my book. The mistake I made was that it was being offered for sale at .99, and therefore I barely broke even when comparing what I made to what I spent. Live and learn.

This Friday I've paid KBoards another twenty to advertise my book at is regular price. I'm really excited to see what happens.

I've recently been rubbing shoulders with some really wise and experienced Indie authors, and they keep talking about this amazing place...BookBub...where they see amazing returns on their investment.

I finally checked it out today, and I was a little dumbfounded. If I wanted to put 97 up for a free giveaway, I would need to spend $140. Gasp! If I wanted to sell my book at a nice discount, say for .99 again, then I would need to pay...$280! Up to $1.99 would cost me $400+.

I guess I just didn't know how much good advertising cost, but now I do.

The good news about these numbers is that they show the average amount of sales, and the very least amount of books I could sell in the 1.99 range was 260. It could go much higher too, which would be super awesome.

One guy who uses BookBub mentioned that he puts his earnings from writing in a pot, and uses that money to put back into advertising. Not a bad idea at all. Except that for me, last month's royalties were .34. So I guess I'm eating the advertising budget for the time being. Once I finish 98 and put it on the market, I am going to try advertising with BookBub and see what happens. But I have to start saving my money now, or selling more books!