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Steve Weber
top-sellers/-/books
Some publishers have tried pairing two of their own titles for BXGY,
figuring it would boost sales of both books, but it doesn’t. The main
value of BXGY is sending readers to your book’s detail page who might
not find it otherwise. You can pair your title with only one other title at
a time.
Publishers can participate in BXGY under Amazon’s “small vendor”
program if they have less than $1 million in annual sales on Amazon by
applying at:
small-vendor-faq.html
Weaknesses of BXGY
Amazon doesn’t provide any figures on the success rates of BXGY
promotions. Anecdotally, many publishers complain that while the
program increases sales a bit, the revenue from those increased sales
rarely covers the fees. However, BXGY is a tool some publishers use to
spark initial word of mouth for a book, and in that sense it can be
considered an investment. As discussed previously, increasing your sales
on Amazon often leads to more success, bringing years of steady sales.
Often BXGY offers aren’t compelling for buyers. Customers don’t
qualify for the program’s 5 percent discount unless they purchase both
the books new from Amazon; purchases of used copies don’t count. For
this reason, pairing your title with an older classic isn’t effective if there’s
a plentiful supply of used or discounted copies. Buyers don’t have much
incentive to buy both books at full retail when they can get one deeply
discounted.
Amazon offers more paid placement programs to large publishers,
who can buy spots on Amazon’s home page, category pages, and in
specialized stores and seasonal lists such as “Back to School” or “Top
Cookbooks of 2007.” However, these placements aren’t available under
Amazon’s Small Vendor program.
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