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Books Butterfly Is Not A Scam

October 4, 2016 by Nathan Beauchamp 18 Comments

Despite what you may have heard, Books Butterfly is NOT a scam.

In my last post, we wrote about how we got rejected by BookBub and still managed to give away 7,600+ copies of Chimera. We owe a big part of our success to Books Butterfly who helped introduce the first book in the Universe Eventual series to thousands of new fans.

However, as I (Nathan) mentioned in the same post, when I shared our positive results on a few indie publishing Facebook groups I belong to, a good number of other authors expressed reservations about Books Butterfly. Some even said they thought Books Butterfly is a scam!

You can find similar comments on Kboards:

Needless to say, all the negativity surprised me. We had a GREAT promotion with Books Butterfly. We gave away a lot of books, and our sales skyrocketed afterwards. So why did so many authors seem to have negative opinions of them?

I did a bunch of Googling, talked to a lot of other authors, read up on Kboards, and reached out to my contact at Books Butterfly. I sent him some questions which summarized the main complaints / concerns authors seemed to have with Books Butterfly, and he got back to me with answers.

And I’m going to share all of that with you.

If you’re looking for the TL;DR version, here it is: Books Butterfly is NOT a scam.

They’re an excellent mailing list that connects readers to books. I’d say that next to BookBub, they’re the best out there. They’ve also managed to tork-off a good number of indie authors.

So what’s the deal with Books Butterfly?

I sent Books Butterfly a bunch of questions that best summarize the author complaints / concerns I found on Facebook, Kboards, and other places indie authors hang out:

Does Books Butterfly use bots to generate downloads?
Does Books Butterfly make good on its guaranteed refunds when necessary?
Why doesn’t Butterfly offer a place for readers to sign up on the webpage like Book Barbarian or BookBub for example?
Books Butterfly has a lengthy list of testimonials, but they all have shortened names. Why don’t they list author’s full names and contact information?

I should mention that I have no relationship with Books Butterfly outside the promo I ran with them in July 2016.

My sole motivation in making this post is to give authors information so they can make good decisions about how to spend their marketing budget.

Here’s my take on Books Butterfly.

First, they have a webpage that turns some people off.

It’s not a beautiful site. Totally functional, but a bit ugly, depending on your aesthetic sensibilities:

Books Butterfy is not a scam — You might not love the aesthetics of the Books Butterfly webpage, but it gets the job done.

Second, the Books Butterfly representative on Kboards doesn’t hold back when talking to authors.

Some might read their responses as rude. I read them as “no nonsense telling it like it is” from a guy sick of having his business damaged by libelous claims.

Third, the guarantee they offer confuses some authors.

It should not be compared to the “guaranteed pages read” places that Amazon nuked months back. Books Butterfly offers a pro-rated refund if your book doesn’t hit the estimated sales / download numbers for a particular tier.

In our case, I selected a higher, more expensive tier, and Books Butterfly recommended that I purchase a less expensive slot because they estimated I’d get fewer downloads than the higher-priced tier. As it turns out, I gave away FAR more copies than the tier I paid for. As in 2.5x times as many!

TO BE EXPLICITLY CLEAR: In hours and hours of digging on Google, I could find NO evidence of any kind that Books Butterfly is anything other than a legitimate mailing list that delivers solid results for most authors (including us).

I found allegations from unhappy customers, and snide comments from those suggesting good results with Books Butterfly were the result of a bot farm, but I couldn’t find a SHRED of actual evidence against them.

Which is why I titled this blog post, “Books Butterfly is NOT a scam.”

I wanted people to (hopefully) find the post so it can offset some of the groundless claims made against Books Butterfly.

That said, the way Books Butterfly communicates on Kboards can be very rough around the edges. They can be abrupt, sometimes rude, but I get why they would get angry when repeatedly being accused of being dishonest.

Books Butterfly’s answers to my questions:

Does book butterfly use bots to generate downloads?

No. We do not. We never have. We never will.

The people who claim that we are using bots are the same ones who claim we don’t get good results. How can both things exist at the same time?

It’s the exact same people (a small group of haters) – one day they say ‘I got terrible results’ and the next day they say ‘they’re using bots.’

How can both be true? Are these imaginary bots taking vacation days and sick leave?

Does book butterfly make good on its guarantee / refund (when necessary)?

Yes, Always. Terms of service apply.

Only issue is when authors don’t read terms of service and don’t send us screenshots and make crazy claims.

There is also a tendency for some authors to think they have to exaggerate. Instead of a simple “I got 70 sales instead of 100, please give prorated store credit for missing 30 sales,” which we ALWAYS honor, they do something like this:

First email saying “I got hardly any sales.” Basically, they’re fishing to see if they can get credit for 50 sales instead of 30 sales credit. It’s not intentionally dishonest, it’s a bit of wishful thinking.

Second email with screenshots saying – “I got 70 sales but I think 20 came from friends and family.” So once they get wedded to this notion that perhaps I can get credit for 50 sales instead of 30, they double down on it.

Third they start a PayPal dispute.

Fourth on PayPal they ask for 100% of the money back. This is only a small percentage (of authors who use Books Butterfly). However, generally authors who don’t send screenshots are also the ones who keep escalating and feel it’s justified to go from ’30 sales missing’ to ’50 sales missing’ to ‘no sales at all.’

I truly think it’s a case of wishful thinking. They feel they have the opportunity to say/claim anything so why not ask for 50 missing sales instead of 30. They don’t even think it’s wrong. But they do get upset when we stick to terms of service they had agreed to.

Anyways, (when) all (is) said and done:

Refunds are just 4% on free book slots

Refunds are just 8% on paid book slots

PayPal disputes are 1%.

“So only 1% of authors who have ever done a slot with us have had to do PayPal dispute. 99% get results or get prorated refund in store credit to their liking.”

This 1% want to have their cake and eat it too

So they want to believe something like “I’m the good honest person, and the site is a scam.”

And also at the same time, they want to get back more store credit than is due to them

Instead of doing the honest thing of sending screenshots and following terms of service, they want to accuse us and get back initially a bit more, then a bit more, then all of the money they spent

Why doesn’t butterfly offer a place for readers to sign up on the webpage (Like Book Barbarian or Book Bub for example)?

This is an exceedingly strange question.

The site is an order site for authors. It’s not meant for readers. There’s a How it Works page that lists many of our blogs and sites and twitter accounts. All those pages have sign up links etc. for readers

BooksButterfly.com is FOR AUTHORS so it does not market to readers.

We have 200+ sites and blogs FOR READERS which target readers.

A website should do what it is supposed to do. And stay pure to that.

Sites that focus on readers/users target readers/users:

www.twitter.com

Sites that focus on businesses target businesses:

www.paypal.com

Sites that focus on small businesses or individual creators targets small businesses:

https://squareup.com/global/en/pos

https://gumroad.com/

We have 200+ sites and blogs (www.freebookdeals.com – there are dropdowns at the top showing links to sites and email lists). We are adding a lot of readers.

It makes zero sense to take our book slot ordering site and on that site focus on adding readers.

There are no readers visiting it. There is no list of free books or book deals on that site. It’s only for authors to buy slots.

The www.booksbutterfly.com site is only to sell slots to authors. Books Butterfly is not a scam.

“Some authors seem incapable of understanding that there can be a site meant specifically for authors to buy slots. We already have 200+ sites for readers to find books.”

It’s bad design to mix authors and readers on the same site. Just because some site in the past does it, doesn’t mean anything. You should read Jakob Nielsen if you want to see what real design experts suggest.

You have a lengthy list of testimonials, but they all have shortened names. Why don’t you list author’s full names / contact information?

Nope. Privacy. We don’t collect any private information. We don’t share any private information.

Emails are needed to add to email lists, otherwise we wouldn’t use those either

We don’t violate people’s privacy like most Internet companies do

A follow up Q: I wouldn’t mind you using my name. What if an author gives you specific permission?

It’s not a good idea. We avoid as much as possible. I’ll say this to every author – the less you talk about how well you are doing the better. The less you mention which channels work for you, the better. The people who control books are always watching. Always manipulating. So if you find a great channel, then keep it to yourself or at most share with a very small number of people.

Can you explain how exactly your refund process works?

For refunds, the process is simple:

Read Terms of Service email.

Send email stating TOTAL results. Actual total results, not what you would like to think. Total is attributable to us.

Don’t be an idiot and claim ZERO sales if your dashboard is showing 70 sales.

Refrain from threatening us or claiming we are a scam.

“If your book under-performed it’s on your book.”

We do prorated refund because we charge only for results. However, let’s not be in doubt – if your book was one of the 4% of free books or one of the 8% of paid books that did not perform – that’s on you. You have to improve your book. We’re not magicians. We can only put the book in front of readers. Don’t be a carpenter blaming your tools. Take your store credit and move on. Your book is not going to sell more by blaming us for your book being a low seller. 92% of paid books don’t require refund. If your book requires refund, then you need to improve your book and your cover and get better reviews and find the right genres that work for it. We are not magicians.

As you can see, the folks at Books Butterfly don’t mince words.

Maybe I have thicker skin than some authors, but nothing Books Butterfly had to say bothered me. And at this point, I’m 100% convinced that Books Butterfly is not a scam. Not even close. They’re a solid marketing tool that any author should consider. They work better for some than others, but that can be said of virtually any marketing avenue.

So don’t let the naysayers convince you otherwise. Books Butterfly is not a scam.

(Thanks to Books Butterfly for taking the time to answer my questions with the understanding that I would post them to this blog).

Tell us about your experience with Books Butterfly in the comments.

Interview with Austin Rogers

September 8, 2016 by Nathan Beauchamp Leave a Comment

An Interview with Austin Rogers, author of the new space opera, SACRED PLANET

Austin Rogers and I (Nathan) attended the MFA program at Western State Colorado University where we earned our stripes as fiction writers. I’m excited to feature Austin–he’s a talented guy and a good friend. His first novel, SACRED PLANET is available now on Amazon!

“An ambitious, ardent launch that sets a stellar precedent for installments to follow.”

–Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio:

After earning his bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Media Arts from Biola University and his master of fine arts from Western State Colorado University, Austin bounced between jobs in California, Missouri, and Texas. He has worked as a talent agent’s assistant, a bookseller, a summer camp staffer, a newspaper writer, and most recently a real estate agent. He takes every chance he can get to sneak away from the real world and drift among spaceships and faraway planets.

Interview:

Religious and philosophical themes play a prominent role in Sacred Planet. Did you always intend to invest heavily in those topics from the outset, or did it happen more organically during the writing process?

A little of both. I started with the kernel of an idea that I thought would be interesting to explore in a space opera setting. For a long time, there have been thinkers who believe religion and belief in the supernatural is on the verge of dying off (think Nietzsche’s famous line, “God is dead,” circa 1882), and yet it never has. Religions and religious beliefs evolve but rarely die off. Yet much of science fiction, especially space opera, doesn’t take this into account. Their future worlds tend to be void of religion.

“I wanted to explore a space opera world in which humanity has spread thousands of lightyears into the universe, and yet religion persists in certain groups.”

Not new religions—the same religions that have been with us for thousands of years, but in their evolved forms.

One of these future religions is called “Abramism” and is an amalgamation of the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. One aspect of the Abrahamic religions that carries over into Abramism is the attachment to and protective urge toward certain holy sites. In a universe where millions of people still travel from across the galaxy to visit these holy sites and will fight to keep (or gain) control of them, we are bound to see the same sort of conflicts over the same pieces of land as we do today, the same conflict that flared during the era of the crusades. Hence the title, “Sacred Planet.”

Are you a “Plotter” or “Pantser”? How much pre-writing / planning did you do for Sacred Planet?

I start as a “plotter” and become a “pantser” during the writing. During the pre-writing or plotting phase, the story is one thing, but then during the writing it becomes another. Something strange happens in the writing process that is impossible to predict. The story takes on its own momentum. The characters take on their own voices. Subplots surface that I hadn’t foreseen. Themes emerge. Certain characters that I thought had large parts to play in the story fade to the background. Other characters that I hadn’t pictured during the plotting appear and play a dramatic role in the story.

“Plotting is essential to establish the basic conflict(s) and goal(s) that will drive the story, as well as the character journeys, but the actual writing is when the story comes alive and becomes its own creature.”

Can you talk a little bit about why you went the indie route? Do you have any plans to try traditional publishing in the future?

There are basically two ways to get the attention of the big publishing houses in New York. One is the traditional way: send your manuscript to a literary agent, whose assistant will read maybe a few chapters and maybe, if it’s really good, pass it on to the agent, who will maybe read a few chapters and consider representing you, then send your manuscript to someone’s assistant at a publishing house, who will maybe read a few chapters and maybe pass it on to their boss. Getting through the traditional publishing machine, even with a really great book, takes about as much luck as winning the lottery.

. . . that is, unless you have an established platform. Celebrities or anyone with an existing audience or fanbase can get a book published without even being a good writer. So the other route authors can go to get the attention of a publisher these days is to use indie publishing to build an audience. It’s true that an unsuccessful book published the indie route can stymie a writer’s chances in New York. But a well-written and decently successful indie-published book can be a gateway to traditional publishing. That is my strategy and hope for Sacred Planet.

Austin Rogers Interview — Concept art for Sacred Planet by www.tomedwardsdesign.com

What’s your favorite Space Opera? Why?

Right now, I’m just finishing Pierce Brown’s excellent Red Rising trilogy, which I would say is my favorite recent space opera series. Joe Haldeman’s Worlds series is one of my favorite older ones. And, of course, the Ender universe is up there, too, especially Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead.

Coffee, Tea, or “other”?

You left out an option: both. Coffee has, alas, sunk its addictive tendrils into me, but I also love green tea. Both are essential fuel for writing.

Can you tell us a little bit about your next book?

Currently, I’m writing the second book in the Dominion series (the sequel to Sacred Planet). It’s called Horns of the Ram and picks up where Sacred Planet ends. It will feature a few new characters, including a strong female lead named Cristiana, and a lot of familiar ones.

Who is your ideal reader?

This may sound like a cop-out answer, but my ideal reader is whoever enjoys a good yarn set in a science fictional universe. Seriously. My first and most important goal is to entertain readers and keep them turning pages to find out what happens next.

But I would also think that my ideal reader would be a thoughtful person who is, like me, a “big picture” kind of thinker, someone who wants to understand the machinery that makes the world crank. That “big picture” element is definitely present in Sacred Planet.

Are you a lover or a fighter?

I’m a lover who is captivated by fighters. Sacred Planet centers around fighters and has lots of action, but at its core it’s about the struggle between lovers and fighters—between those who are trying to keep the peace in the galaxy and those who see war as the only way to preserve justice. That’s a struggle that will always be with us, I think.

Tell us about your antagonist(s). What characteristics are important to you when writing the bad guy or gal?

Every story needs a good villain, the kind that you either secretly root for or hate so much that you can’t stand watching him/her succeed. I think there are basically two kinds of villains: the menacing, scary, mysterious kind (think Darth Vader, Sauron, or Hannibal Lecter), and then the all-too-familiar kind who is driven by some cause or belief that we as the audience can almost get behind . . . if only it didn’t have that one dark element. Think President Snow from Hunger Games. The guy is just trying to keep order in Panem and prevent another devastating war from destroying them all, but he’s doing so in a way that oppresses his people to the benefit of the Capital.

Sacred Planet has two of these President Snow-type antagonists on both sides of the two major opposing forces in the galaxy, leaving the protagonists trapped somewhere in the middle. On one side, you have Zantorian, the iron-fisted leader of the Sagittarian Regnum, an empire built upon a feudal division between the noble class and commoner class. On the other side, you have Ulrich Morvan, Minister of Arms for the Republic of Carina, who has his own plans to reshape the balance of power in the galaxy.

Do you mind sharing a little bit about your budget? What did you spend to get Sacred Planet ready for release? What advice would you give another first-time indie author?

I did not have a well-defined budget going into the prep for Sacred Planet, which was a mistake. I ended up spending a lot more than I should have. Then again, I learned some valuable (and expensive) lessons for the future.

“In total, I’ve spent a little over $4,000 getting the book ready for publication.”

The largest expenses were (from highest to lowest): editing, book cover art, promotional art, book cover design, a map of the galaxy, and interior formatting. I’m very happy with how all of these turned out, but I do wish I had spent more time finding less expensive providers of a few of these services.

Also, while I LOVE the promo art for the book, I should have set a much lower budget for it.

“My advice for those considering the indie publishing route: First, have others (preferably readers of your chosen genre) read your book and give you feedback before you invest a dime in it.”

The most important element to succeed at any kind of publishing is a really good book. If you don’t have that, keep honing your craft and put off publishing.

“Second, don’t try too hard to cut costs on editing, interior formatting, or the book cover.”

Those are essential, and if they aren’t professional, your book’s chances of success will be severely hindered. But DO try to cut costs as much as possible everywhere else, and think hard about what you need and don’t need.

When can we expect the next book?

Early Spring of 2017!

SACRED PLANET is available now on Amazon in paperback and eBook formats.

You can connect with Austin through his author page and on Goodreads.

A huge thanks to Austin Rogers for stopping by for an interview.

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Rejected by BookBub? Don’t Despair!

August 27, 2016 by Nathan Beauchamp 1 Comment

We Got Rejected By BookBub And Still Gave Away 7300+ Copies of CHIMERA in 5 Days

(From time to time, we’ll post articles written for other indie authors rather than our readers. This is one of those posts. Feel free to skip this one if you don’t want to read about how we got rejected by BookBub)

BookBub is unquestionably the biggest and best book marketing list out there. They command a huge number readers, and drive book sales like no other e-mail marketing list. Every author (not just indie authors) wants to get a Bookbub promotional spot. Including us!

We submitted CHIMERA, the first book in the Universe Eventual series, for consideration back in July 2016.

And BookBub turned us down.

Despite 200+ reviews, 72% of them 5-stars, BookBub still said no

Which they do. A lot in fact. They turn down 90% of the books submitted to them. They’re choosy, and they can afford to be.

While getting rejected by BookBub hurt, we decided to look at alternative marketing lists. In the past we used Book Barbarian, as well as The Fussy Librarian, and a few other smaller lists. Of all the smaller lists, Book Barbarian performed the best for us. During our last $0.99 sale on Chimera, we sold 74 books through Book Barbarian, which was great at the time.

After signing up for another promotion with Book Barbarian, they recommended another list, one I’d never heard of: Books Butterfly. We didn’t know at the time that Butterfly has a bit of a spotty reputation in the Indie marketplace (more on that to come). We just liked and trusted Book Barbarian and took their endorsement of Butterfly as “good enough” to get us to pull the trigger.

The Deal

Title: CHIMERA, Universe Eventual Book I

Normal price: $3.99

Promotional Price: FREE!

Dates: August 21-25, 2016

Marketing Lists:

Book Barbarian (30,000 SF Subscribers) for $54.00
The Fussy Librarian (103,000 SF Subscribers) for $17.00
Books Butterfly (“Top 100 Push” with 3,000 guaranteed downloads) for $240

Total budget: $311.00

BookBub Charges $300 to market to their Science Fiction List

We also did some “grass roots” marketing by asking FB friends to post the link, getting a few others to tweet about it, including one of our writing heroes, Susan Kaye Quinn.

We weren’t sure what to expect–after all, none of the lists we paid for command the number of readers that Bookbub does.

Would getting rejected by Bookbub ruin our chances of having an epic free promotion?

No.

We got a STELLAR result from our three lists that looked like this:

In the first two days of the free promotion, we gave away over 5,600 books!

We gave away a total of 7,300 over the full 5 promotional days. CHIMERA hit the #1 spot in all three of its categories (YA Dystopian, Dystopian, and Space Opera). All of those are hard-contested categories, with Space Opera being the toughest of all.

For comparison, a writer friend of mine landed roughly 14,000 downloads of one of her novels using BookBub. She also writes YA, though hers are listed in the Cyberpunk and Dsystopian genres, while Chimera is Space Opera and Dystopian.

7,300 downloads is roughly half as many downloads as 14,000 (Yay, math!). Which means that at the same price point, we got 50% of what we might expect from BookBub. Would we rather have landed a BookBub deal? Of course. But we didn’t let them saying no prevent us from pursuing other lists.

Despite getting rejected by Bookbub, we launched a successful promotion

We didn’t run ANY free promotions until this year, some 18 months after the release of Book I in our series (heeding Susan K Quinn’s advice in her book, FOR LOVE OR MONEY). We waited because we wanted maximum recapture on sales in the rest of the series, and felt that getting at least 2 books out after the first book would be ideal. We released Book III, CERES, in July 2016, and planned this promo for August 2016 for that reason.

After our free promotion, our KU (Kindle Unlimited) pages read went way up:

We, love, love, love readers who can get a book for free but borrow it from KU anyway! I wish I could give every one of them a thank you note.

After posting these results to several author FB groups we belong to, we heard a lot of negative things about Books Butterfly

I (Nathan) had several exchanges with other writers on Facebook and Kboards. Books Butterfly has a spotty reputation with indie authors. Many writers reported bad experiences with them.

The main complaints were that Books Butterfly doesn’t make good on their guarantee to pay authors back if certain download thresholds aren’t hit, that Books Butterfly has scammy business practices (such as pestering authors on Facebook), and even that Books Butterfly may use bots (bots!) to generate their downloads/ KU Pages read.

In fairness to Books Butterfly, we had a GREAT experience with them. Good communication, and an excellent result on the promotion. Books Butterfly has an entire page titled “trust” where they list all the reasons they’re a legitimate company. Books Butterfly also has a LONG list of testimonials, though none of the names are full names, and they don’t have contact information to double-check them.

On Kboards, some authors had great experiences with BooksButterfly just like we did, while others say they’d never use them again (or wouldn’t use them in the first place).

So what’s the deal with Books Butterfly? Stay tuned for a follow up blog post where I’ll let you know everything I learn in the coming weeks. I’ve also reached out to my contact at Books Butterfly, as I’d love to get their perspective on their reputation with the indie community. I feel they have a great service, but probably could do a better job of promoting their brand.

Getting rejected by BookBub doesn’t have to cripple your promotional efforts

Here’s everything we’ve learned from running our free promotion:

Smaller lists don’t have the same power as BookBub, but can be used together to get good results
Because we used three different lists / grassroots marketing, we don’t know exactly what list generated what result. It would be great to be able to parse which downloads came from Books Butterfly, Book Barbarian, The Fussy Librarian, and from other sources, but that’s not an option because Books Butterfly doesn’t track click-throughs or conversions.
We recaptured a lot of business on our second and third books, which made it worthwhile. If you only have 1 or even 2 books out, a free promotion is a lot less attractive.
We gained a lot of e-mail list signups by having an invite in our back matter. This is a MUST, not just for promotions, but in general.
Books Butterfly has a less-than-stellar reputation among other indie authors, but we had no problems with them and ran an excellent promotion.
Getting rejected by BookBub isn’t the end of the world!

We’ll try again with BookBub in the future

We would still LOVE to land a BookBub promotion, and perhaps with persistence, we will.

Amazon only lets you run a promotion on a book twice a year, so we’ll target BookBub again in the spring of 2107. Hopefully next time we won’t get rejected by Bookbub!

What’s your experience been running Amazon promotions? How about using BooksButterfly? Let us know in the comments.