Chuck has over three decades of experience developing software. He's created systems for businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to Mom and Pop stores. His latest project is BundleRabbit.com, a service that allows authors to promote their books in DIY bundles and readers to get more ebooks for less money.

When he's not writing code, Chuck writes quirky short stories, usually with some sort of fantastical element. He's as surprised by this as anyone. Even after dozens of stories published he still stays up too late at night, feverishly working on the next tale.

He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his beautiful wife and their daughters.

Ebook Bundling by Chuck Heintzelman

This book is all about ebook bundling. The hottest, most relevant topic today for every author.

Ebook bundles will expand your inventory, increase your discoverability, and most importantly create additional income streams.

Learn why to bundle, what to bundle, and how to bundle. Discover pitfalls to watch out for.

An entire section of this book covers BundleRabbit, the world's first DIY ebook bundling platform.

CURATOR'S NOTE

Chuck Heintzelman got the idea for BundleRabbit by asking himself the perennial writer question: what if? He usually turns his what-ifs into wacky stories (some published in the anthology series I co-edit, Fiction River), but with BundleRabbit, he had to indulge in some coding, some wheedling, and a whole lot of learning. He shares the wheedling and learning here. Enjoy! – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • This book is an excellent reference guide to the next step in your works being discovered. It is a thorough look and helpful guide into the process of bundling, and various ways to achieve this are outlined. I see this as a next step for authors to make their books discoverable for readers who are looking for them. Highly recommended.

    – Amazon Review

  • A helpful explanation of the whys and hows of combining ebooks into multi-volume bundles. Heintzelman begins by pointing out the financial benefits to the writer of bundling your own work (creating collections of two or more short stories, box sets of longer works). He moves on to the discoverability benefits of bundling your work with ebooks by a group of authors.

    The second half of the guide focuses on using Heintzelman's platform bundlerabbit.com to create multi-author bundles. Chuck Heintzelman writes well-crafted fiction and his talent carries over to nonfiction. I appreciated his thoughtful run-through of how the bundling software he designed works. His confidence is inspiring and he convinced me that I can master DIY bundling on his platform.

    – Amazon Review
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Why Bundle

This chapter explains why ebook bundling is important and why authors should do it.

More Sales

Whether it's having existing readers read more of your books or new readers discovering your books, it all comes down to one thing: more sales.

More sales equals more income.

Every other reason listed in this chapter is subordinate to this one, overarching goal of increasing sales. This theme is repeated many times throughout this book.

From the Author's Perspective

As an author bundling your ebooks together, or bundling your books with others, what are the benefits?

  • More Inventory – By bundling your ebooks together, you create additional inventory. You then have more products to sell.
  • Higher Priced Ebooks – This benefit is often overlooked. Bundles sell at prices higher than individual ebooks, even with the discount. This gives you another price level in your sellable inventory.
  • Additional Income Streams – Bundles allow you to repackage your existing ebooks (products) into new products. Yeah, yeah, that's already listed as More Inventory, but remember, a bundle is a new type of product, reaching new customers. It's a new income stream.
  • Cross Pollination – With multi-author bundles, you're increasing your fan base by exposing your book to the fans of other authors.
  • Better Advertising ROI – When you use paid advertising for your bundles, you get a better bang for your buck. Income from each bundle sale is higher than individual ebook sales.
  • More Marketing Strategies – How about a First in Series bundle, including the first book of each of your series? What about a Sampler Bundle showcasing your work? Anything's possible.
  • Wider Audience – Multi-author bundles, even traditional ones such as anthologies, expand your audience.

From the Reader's Perspective

How about putting yourself in the reader's shoes. Why are bundles a benefit to readers?

  • Bundles are Great Deals – They save customers money. Even higher priced bundles at 30% off of retail give customers a decent savings. Often readers can get bundles with deep discounts. Prices at 60%, 70%, even 80% off are not uncommon.
  • Bundles Allow Binge Reading – We live in the age of Netflix. Consumers are binging on all types of entertainment. Even reading books.
  • Bundles Allow Discovery of New Writers – A bundle reader will often come across a new reader they never would've normally found. This is always an exciting surprise to the dedicated reader.
  • Charities – Many of the bundling services (such as StoryBundle, BundleRabbit, and Humble Bundle) allow a portion of each sale to be donated to charities. This gives the reader a good feeling. They're being socially responsible.
  • Helping Indie Authors – Often with multi-author bundles, readers will recognize they're helping indie authors—another feel-good benefit.
  • Nonfiction Bundles for Research – Each day more and more nonfiction bundles are available, including titles such as The Ultimate Digital Photography Bundle. This allows readers to get a broad array of books on a single topic.

When readers are happy, they come back for more.

So you can see, both readers and authors benefit from bundles.