Promo Calendar

How does Promo Calendar work?

Promo Calendar is a shared calendar for your book promotions. Log BookBub features, newsletter swaps, price drops, and anything else you want on the timeline. You get one view of that activity across your catalog.

Getting started with Promo Calendar

Promo Calendar keeps all your book promotions in one place: what's running, what's coming up, what each one cost and what it earned. Add your first promotion 1. Click Promo Calendar in the left sidebar. 2. Click + Add Promo. 3. Give it a Title, for example "BookBub Featured Deal". 4. Choose the Book from your Book Library. If it isn't there yet, pick + New Book… to add it. 5. Pick a Platform, such as BookBub, Freebooksy, ENT, NetGalley, Amazon Ads or Newsletter. If yours isn't listed, choose Other (custom)… and type its name. 6. Optionally choose a Promo Type: Paid Ad, Newsletter Swap or Other. 7. Set the Status. New promos usually start as Upcoming. 8. Enter the Start Date and, if it has one, the End Date. 9. Enter the Cost, choose the Currency, and paste the Promo Link if there's a page for it. 10. Click Add Promotion. The save button stays greyed out until the promo has a title and a book. Keep statuses up to date Statuses don't change on their own when a start or end date passes. Update them as your promos go live and wrap up: - Click the pencil icon on a row and change Status to Active, Complete, Cancelled or Other. - Or click the check mark on an upcoming or active promo to mark it Complete in one click. Read the summary tiles The tiles at the top add up the promotions you're currently viewing: - Active Campaigns: promos with the status Active. - Total Spend: the cost of every promo. - Total Earned: revenue you've recorded on completed promos. - Overall ROI: what you earned compared with what you spent. - Downloads and Purchases: units you've recorded on completed promos. To fill in earnings and units, see "How do I record a promo's results and see its ROI?" Click How do I use this tool? under the page title for a guided walkthrough with example promos.

How do I record a promo's results and see its ROI?

Once a promotion has finished, add its results so you can see whether it paid for itself. Add the results 1. Open Promo Calendar from the left sidebar. 2. Click the pencil icon on the promotion's row. 3. Set Status to Complete. A Campaign Outcome section appears. 4. Fill in what you know: - Units Sold - Downloads (free), for free promos - Revenue ($) - Outcome Notes, such as rank changes or read-through you noticed 5. Click Save Changes. How ROI is worked out ROI compares revenue with cost: (revenue minus cost) divided by cost, shown as a percentage. - A promo that cost $100 and earned $150 shows an ROI of 50%. - Revenue and ROI are shown in green when the promo earned at least what it cost, and red when it didn't. - Overall ROI at the top uses the total spend and total earnings of all the promos you're viewing. The Revenue and ROI figures come only from what you type in here. They aren't pulled from Sales Tracker. Good to know - Results can only be entered on a Complete promo. If you later change its status to anything else, the results are cleared when you save. Set it back to Complete and re-enter them if that happens by mistake. - Clicking the check mark on a row marks the promo complete but doesn't open the outcome fields. Click the pencil icon afterwards to add results. - A free promo with a cost of zero has no ROI, so its ROI shows a dash.

How do I log a newsletter swap with another author?

Newsletter swaps have their own promo type, so you can record who you swapped with and how big their list is. 1. Open Promo Calendar from the left sidebar. 2. Click + Add Promo. 3. Enter a Title, for example "Swap with J. Rivera", and choose the Book. 4. Set Platform to Newsletter. 5. Set Promo Type to Newsletter Swap. Two extra fields appear. 6. Enter the Partner Author Name and, if you know it, the Partner List Size (the number of subscribers). 7. Set the Start Date for the day their newsletter goes out. Add an End Date if the feature runs longer. 8. Leave Cost at zero for a free swap. 9. Click Add Promotion. In the list, the promo's Platform / Type column shows the partner, for example "w/ J. Rivera (5,000 subs)". When the swap is over, mark it Complete and add any downloads or sales you saw. Because a free swap has no cost, its ROI shows a dash, but its units still count toward the Downloads and Purchases tiles. Your own promo types and statuses If Paid Ad and Newsletter Swap don't describe a promo, choose Other for Promo Type and type a name, such as "Price Drop". The same works for Status. Names you've used before are suggested as you type, and each custom status gets its own filter button above the list.

How do I see my promotions on a timeline?

The Timeline view lays your promotions out as bars across the months, so overlaps and quiet stretches are easy to spot. 1. Open Promo Calendar from the left sidebar. 2. Above the list, click Timeline. Click List to switch back. The view you picked is remembered the next time you open the page. Reading the timeline - Each promo gets its own row, labelled with its title. - The bar runs from its start date to its end date. Promos without an end date are drawn as one week long. - Bar colours show the status: blue for Upcoming, green for Active, grey for Complete, red for Cancelled and purple for Other. A legend sits under the chart. - The timeline always covers at least three months, starting from the month of your earliest promo. - Click a bar to open that promo for editing. Narrowing it down The book, pen name and status filters above the list apply to the timeline too. For example, pick a book and click Upcoming to see only that book's scheduled promos. If no promotions match your filters, you'll see No promotions to display on timeline.

How do I filter promotions by book, pen name or status?

Filters let you focus on part of your promo schedule. They apply to the list, the timeline and the summary tiles at the top. Filter by book Use the book menu above the list to show one book's promotions. Total Spend, Total Earned, Overall ROI and the other tiles then add up just that book. Filter by pen name If you've set up two or more pen names, a Pen name menu appears. Choose a name to see only its promotions, or No pen name for promos that aren't assigned to one. A promo uses its book's pen name automatically. You can pick a different one in the promo's Pen name field when you add or edit it. Filter by status Click All, Active, Upcoming, Complete or Cancelled. If you've created custom statuses, each one gets its own button too. Combining filters Filters stack. For example, choose a book and click Complete to see how that book's finished promos performed. The list is always sorted with the newest start date first.

Why are my Promo Calendar totals, ROI or results missing or wrong?

The Add Promotion button is greyed out A promo needs a Title and a Book. Fill in both and the button becomes active. ROI shows a dash ROI needs both a cost and a revenue figure: - If Cost is zero, there's nothing to compare against, so ROI is left blank. - If you haven't entered Revenue ($) in the Campaign Outcome section, there's no result yet. I can't find where to enter results The Campaign Outcome section only appears when Status is set to Complete. Edit the promo, change the status, and the fields appear. The results I entered have disappeared Results are only kept on completed promos. If you changed the status from Complete to something else and saved, the results were cleared. Set the status back to Complete and enter them again. A promo still says Upcoming after it started Statuses don't update automatically from the dates. Edit the promo and set it to Active, or click the check mark to mark it Complete. My totals look off when I use more than one currency The Currency you choose is saved with each promo, but the list and the summary tiles add up the amounts as entered and display them in US dollars. They aren't converted between currencies. If you pay in several currencies, convert costs to one currency before entering them, or filter by book to compare like with like. The list is empty but I know I have promos Check the filters above the list. Click All for status, set the book menu back to All books, and set Pen name to All pen names. I see "No Access" or the buttons are greyed out If you're a collaborator on someone else's account, your role controls access to Promo Calendar. Without edit access, + Add Promo, the edit icon and the check mark are disabled; without delete access, the trash icon is disabled. Ask the account owner to update your role.