Executing a Reader Analytics Campaign

Setting up a campaign

In this section, we will discuss form of reader analytics test that is based on the principle of a virtual focus group. A sample of readers is invited to participate, who receive a free ebook in return for their reading data. They do not receive any compensation beyond the free book.

There are two types of reader analytic campaigns:

Single-title campaigns
Multi-title campaign

In a single-title campaign only one title is on offer to readers. Users can choose to participate in the campaign for this one title or pass. It is a simple yes/no choice.

In a multi-title campaign readers can select from there a choice of several books. If five or fewer titles are on offer, then users are permitted a choice of only one book. If five or more books are on offer, then users are generally permitted to choose two titles from the selection being tested (Jellybooks will record which book is read first and which is the second choice. Books are rarely read in parallel, but where that happens we focus on which book was finished first, as well if a book was started second but finished first, as it gives an important signal.

To set up the campaign page, you need to provide Jellybooks with:

the ebook in ePub3 format in the same way as you would submit to iTunes or similar
a high resolution cover image (those embedded in the ebook file are usually standard resolution)
the “blurb” or description of the book. This does need to be the “official” version. You can create a custom version.

The assets are sent to Jellybooks by Email, FTP or Dropbox, though we are currently constructing a submission portal through which you can upload them yourself. Half the cost of a campaign will be payable up-front and half on conclusion of the campaign. The cost is a few hundred dollars per title.

How to Recruit Test Readers

As publisher, you will need to recruit the test readers for the campaign. Jellybooks will then do everything else. There are couple of ways to this:

Email lists are extremely effective especially, if you already have one for marketing purposes
A blog tour works very well in some case, you promote the campaign on relevant book blogs
Facebook Campaign, you can create one or more posts with a link to the campaign page
Twitter works for some books, but generally yields some of the lowest results
Tie it in with an event like a literary festival, book fair or similar – this has the added advantage that you learn a bit about the kind of people who come to such events

Jellybooks will provide a campaign URL that you can include in your messaging and where participants can register for the campaign and claim their free ebook. We can also track for you how many participants sign up through ach channel.

Basically you can sue any channel for getting out the world where it users will clicks through to the campaign page.

However, it is always important to review what kind of reader you want to invite. Also do you want to test a book against a general audience or against a narrow niche audience. You campaign strategy for getting the work out may depend on this. You should not do a blog tour across fantasy blogs, if you are testing crime novels.

The time-limited offer of a free book generally works very well and the extra twist that people “pay” with their reading data makes people curious but reader also feel like they are contributing, providing feedback and making themselves heard. Thus participation ratios tend to be very good and bloggers Booktubers and similar are usually quite open to participate.

Duration of a Campaign

A typical campaign is open for 30 days during which new users can join, but you are free to make this period shorter, say just one or two weeks, or longer.

Results

It generally takes participants four to six weeks to read their books, because no everybody start reading right away.

All the results can be accessed in real-time through the Candy dashboard including details of sign-up rates, download numbers, user progress and much more.

Languages Supported

Currently we only support English and German as the language for engaging with test readers in a campaign (the books could be in any language – our reader analytics technology is totally language agnostic). However, we have plans on supporting reader analytics campaigns in more languages in the future: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish are high on our priority list.