BookBub is the one reader-discovery platform that still gets recommended widely, and the one most authors fail to optimize. The profile-to-follower conversion rate on a well-built BookBub page sits around 8-12%. On a poorly built one, under 2%. The difference isn't audience. It's twelve concrete signals.
The BookBub Author Profile Audit scores your profile against all twelve. Paste your profile URL; it fetches the public page, scrapes the visible signals, and scores.
What the twelve are
- Author photo uploaded (roughly +40% on follow-rate).
- Bio length. At least 200 characters to signal this is a real profile, not abandoned.
- Bio names a genre. Both BookBub's algorithm and AI models use genre keywords for recommendation.
- Two or more books linked.
- Five or more books (series signal).
- Two or more genre / category tags.
- Two or more external social links (your
sameAscoverage). - An external website link.
- Follow button present (sometimes themes hide it).
- Reviews or quoted praise visible on the profile.
- Recent activity. A release or update in the last 90 days.
- Bio scannable at ≤ 800 characters.
Each one either fires or doesn't on your public profile. The tool parses the HTML and tells you which three (or eight) are broken.
What the fix prompt does
The generated LLM prompt takes your current bio, the failed signals, and your genre. And asks Claude to produce a rewrite that fits inside BookBub's 1,000-character bio limit, populates the missing social links, and proposes a three-issue trailing release schedule so you stop looking abandoned.
Why this matters more than it used to
BookBub quietly became the second-largest discovery channel for independent fiction after Amazon, and the largest for readers who've explicitly opted in to book discovery. That opted-in audience is the opposite of a cold social impression. A BookBub follow is worth roughly 10x a Twitter follow for conversion. These are people who already buy books.
Chapter 19 of The $97 Launch. Amazon Kindle Publishing. Is the KDP-side reference. BookBub is the companion author-discovery surface; same reader, different on-ramp. Chapter 20 of the same book. Book Title Strategy for Discoverability. Covers the title discipline that drives both Amazon and BookBub follows.