Hi Bear Mountain,
Exactly. It's the same with Kindle Select, etc -- only the successful speak up because everyone else is embarrassed by "their" failure rather than asking critical questions about the service. That's why it's important both to crunch the numbers and hear from both sides.
The thing with all sites like Bookbub is that interest always seems to fade in favour of the next flavour of the month. Remember Kindle Nation Daily? It was all the rage, everyone was fighting for a spot, and now? Not so much.
Part of the issue, too, is that the consumer zones out when they get the same email in their box every day. And I had heard several consumers complain that Bookbub is sending them books in genres the user did not ask for.
Maybe they have reached critical mass and are waning. If so, they should lower their prices and look for new ways to reach their audience.
Your comments about pressuring authors to advertise more freebies and 99 cents is interesting. I started this post by mentioning that the pricing structure itself is a form of pressure to lower one's price. What is more interesting is that, once I got the info from Bookbub about their averages, and did the math, I discovered that the author may actually be better off selling fewer books for $2.99 than more at 99 cents. But of course that is not good for Bookbub who want more click-throughs and the higher affiliate income that those click-throughs generate. So if they are rejecting more and more $2.99 books, that tells you the author-generated income is perhaps falling and/or more emphasis is now being placed on the affiliate income.
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I don't see anything in what you (eggheadbooks1) have presented so far that suggests Bookbub are taking unfair advantage of authors (or, at least, no more than the many other commercial enterprises offering such services).
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GMW: I was not suggesting Bookbub are taking advantage of authors; I posed the question because I think there is a lot more hype than information out there. (And I think Bear Mountain hits it squarely on the head.)
As for my "simplistic averages," Bookbub themselves rely on them as a marketing tool: you will find much mention of this in the indie marketing forums, how Bookbub publish their data when no one else does. So it is only fair to ask how the data stacks up.