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[Publisher] Bookouture

WriterBN

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Aruna, I'm considering Bookouture after a recommendation from another of their authors (Renita D'Silva).

For your previously published book, do you feel it was worthwhile, since they did very little promotion? Mine has decent visibility on Amazon in its categories, and slow but steady sales. I'm trying to decide if they can provide anything more, given the reduced royalties.
 

aruna

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Absolutely.
Within one week I was on the "Also Bought" list of The Forgotten Daughter, another Bookouture book (by Renita D'Silva), a book which got the complete promotion treatment, and was number one in its category in the UK within two weeks of publication (Women's Literary Fiction). My book has been in that Top 20 list ever since, bouncing between number 5 and number 10 (it really bounces up and down on a daily, almost hourly basis!) and on several "Also Bought" lists of top sellers. To date it has sold almost 5000 copies (today is actually the 3 month anniversary).

My experience is that once you get on a good Also Bought list and a Top 20 category list the book sells itself, promotes itself. I'm not doing anything, and it's selling.

I'm signing a new 2-book contract this week; press release coming out next week.

Bookouture also has a new Publishing Director: Claire Bord, who used to be editorial director at HarperCollins/Avon. She is my editor for the next two books -- both are new books, my precious Guyana books that were considered too foreign for the likes of HarperCollins.

I'm going to get the full promotion programme for these new books. The publisher might be new and small, but the effort behind each author is enormous, and highly successful.


Claire Bord, formerly editorial director at Avon, has joined digital publisher Bookouture as publishing director and has already made her first acquisition.
Oliver Rhodes, managing director of Bookouture, said: “I’m ambitious to grow the business, but also focused on maintaining the high quality and success rate of our publishing. We need smart, experienced and digitally savvy publishers to do that and Claire fits the bill perfectly.”
Bord, who acquired and developed digitally-successful authors Stella Newman, Jacqui Rose and Scott Mariani at Avon, will be responsible for acquiring commercial fiction authors for digital publication, with a focus on global rights.
She commented: “Bookouture already has a great stable of talented authors who I’m very much looking forward to working with. I’m keen to develop and expand the list with a focus on strong commercial novels and series, including women’s fiction, saga, crime and thrillers.”
 
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WriterBN

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My experience is that once you get on a good Also Bought list and a Top 20 category list the book sells itself, promotes itself. I'm not doing anything, and it's selling.

Yes, I've had the same experience.

Thanks for the update. I will definitely consider Bookouture for future work.
 

aruna

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Update: It's Bookouture's second birthday, and they have just announced that they are now open to Crime and Thrillers, and have now employed a new Senior Commissioning Editor.

This last year has seen them take on several new books, among them second and third novels from their original authors. Most of these books do extremely well, with several entering Amazon's overall Top 100. At the time of writing, a Bookouture novel, Jenny Hale's Coming Home for Christmas, is at number 6 in the overall Top 100, thanks to a BookBub campaign.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h266/arunadasi/ScreenShot2014-10-25at091854_zps0e706e53.png


They often do BookBub campaigns, and I'm getting one when my next book comes out in January (we had to postpone the publication; it's a long book and editing took longer than planned, and we wanted to avoid the Christmas best-sellers). The strategy seems to be to do the campaign when a new book comes out (as in Jenny's case -- that was LAST year's Christmas book, and she just published THIS year's Christmas book) so that the new book also gets piggy-back promoted.
 
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aruna

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Numbers!!!!!! With Infographic!!!!


Bookouture has revealed its 2014 numbers.

To sum it up, we grew A LOT (347% more copies sold). But the really pleasing thing for me is that we kept an exceptionally high hit rate — 37.5% of the books we launched in the UK hit the Amazon Kindle top 100 and our average sales per book in 2014 was over 10,000.
(from an email sent to all authors).

I'm really happy about being a part of this team. I am earning good royalties , paid punctually, and Oliver gives me regular email updates on sales (now sold over 16000 copies since last May). They are enthusiastic about EVERY BOOK, as you can see on their Facebook page. They produce graphics authors can use on FB and Twitter, and go all-out spreading the word through social media. I am getting a Bookbub promotion for Of Marriageable Age early Feb, which will help promote my new book (coming Friday!!!!)

They experiment with prices a lot. My new book will be launched as a discount for a short period of time, just to get early visibility. First time this has been done. Another new book (Silent Scream) has been priced low in pre-release, and is already in the Kindle Top 100 in the UK -- in pre-orders alone! This is pretty amazing for such a small publisher.

For me, it's a new begin after ten years in the desert. VERY satisfied.
 
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Undercover

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Congrats, Aruna. It is definitely wonderful news. It's definitely a publisher to consider.
 

triceretops

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Sounds like this publisher knows how to get the word out and garner media attention. I hadn't even read this thread, when three days ago, I subbed my YA fantasy to them. It's wait and see from now on.


Aruna, since we're the exact same age and had very similar publishing experiences in the distant past, I've been watching you. Suffice to say, a job well done and worth waiting for.

tri
 
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Pisco Sour

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Bookouture--non responders?

Has anybody ever contacted them via their on-line form and received a response? I have a question about their submissions guidelines and I have written to them three times. They've never answered. I have them down as 'non-responders', but I'm wondering if it's just me. Or, indeed, if anybody knows what their minimum word count is? No point in submitting a novella later on in the year if their minimum is 90K! Or sending them a proposal query if they don't take those. I tried again a few days ago, and fingers, toes and even the ends of my hair are plaited. LOL.

ETA: I received a polite response from Bookouture! Perseverence paid off. :) No minimum word count, and emphasis on the story being fabulous.
 
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Undercover

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This publisher uses NetGalley too which is great to hear. My other publisher uses this and I truly believe it gave my one book a big boost in readership. There's book professionals in the industry that all use that site, like librarians, book bloggers and such. That alone is a big plus. Plus I think their covers are done well too.
 

RoseColoredSkies

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I just submitted a novel that I recently got the rights back to (see Musa thread for more details). I am intrigued by their sales figures and their covers and it seems like they have a lot of success.

Aruna, that 16,000 number you mentioned, is that on just one of your titles or both? Do they pay royalties on time?
 

aruna

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Aruna, that 16,000 number you mentioned, is that on just one of your titles or both? Do they pay royalties on time?

It was for one title, published in May last year, so it is virtually half-year figures. Yes, they pay royalties on time, and unlike other publishers I've been with, don't wait till the last possible date to pay. I used to be so annoyed with my French publisher who would wait 3 months to the end of the quarter to pay, thus earning interest on MY money.
With Bookouture I earned high 4 figures (in GBP, before tax!) for last year's sales.
This publisher uses NetGalley too which is great to hear. My other publisher uses this and I truly believe it gave my one book a big boost in readership. There's book professionals in the industry that all use that site, like librarians, book bloggers and such. That alone is a big plus. Plus I think their covers are done well too.
They also use BookBub. I just had a promotion which got me 2000 sales, as well as catapulted OMA into the Amazon.com Kindle Top 100 for one day!

Bookouture now has the number one Kindle title on amazon UK, Silent Scream, their first thriller. It was already making Top 100 sales in the UK in preorders, and just a few days after going on sale it was number 1. It's in the amazon US top 100.
 
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aruna

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Aruna, since we're the exact same age and had very similar publishing experiences in the distant past, I've been watching you. Suffice to say, a job well done and worth waiting for.

tri

Hi Tri! Yes, seems we've been intertwined forever -- with fond memories of Crack of Death! -- and for me the waiting has definitely paid off. I spent 10 years in a publishing desert, always writing but never finding an agent or a publisher, in spite of every effort. At last things are moving -- I have another book coming out this year, and all the never-published books are ready to go. I also have two more to write... now that I have a day-job not so easy!
 
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aruna

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Sounds like this publisher knows how to get the word out and garner media attention. I hadn't even read this thread, when three days ago, I subbed my YA fantasy to them. It's wait and see from now on.


Aruna, since we're the exact same age and had very similar publishing experiences in the distant past, I've been watching you. Suffice to say, a job well done and worth waiting for.

tri

Has anybody ever contacted them via their on-line form and received a response? I have a question about their submissions guidelines and I have written to them three times. They've never answered. I have them down as 'non-responders', but I'm wondering if it's just me. Or, indeed, if anybody knows what their minimum word count is? No point in submitting a novella later on in the year if their minimum is 90K! Or sending them a proposal query if they don't take those. I tried again a few days ago, and fingers, toes and even the ends of my hair are plaited. LOL.

Just wanted to say that in my experience they are anything BUT non-responders -- I get not only prompt replies to me mails, but frequent spontaneous mails from Oliver: "Hey! You made Canada Top 100!" "Almost x-thousand sales!" "Here's another great review!" etc. If the website form doesn't get a reply right away I'd just be patient.
 
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RoseColoredSkies

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Aruna, thanks for the response. I really hope I get a response from them for the women's fiction I sent them. They seem like an amazing publisher to work.
 

aruna

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Bookouture has put out a call for crime, thriller, suspense mss, on their Facebook page right now. https://www.facebook.com/Bookouture

Silent Scream is in the 3rd week at number one UK Kindle, in the Top 100 US Kindle, and Top 10 Australia Kindle, so I guess they want to put that to good use...

In my experience, their often books get into mutual Also Bought lists; for instance, my Dorothea Quint is on the Amazon UK Also Bought for Silent Scream, even though it isn't a crime novel.
 
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