A BookBub Featured Deal used to be a one-day event. As of September 22, it can reappear the next day for readers who did not open the first email, and BookBub now tells authors to keep the discount live for at least two days after the promotion date. If your price goes back up the morning after, you are sending some of the readers you paid for to a full-price page.
What BookBub changed
On the promotion date, nothing is different. Your deal goes out to every subscriber in your category, in that day’s email. The change is what happens next. Readers who did not open that email get the deal again in the following day’s email, alongside the new deals.
The re-send is personalized. BookBub decides which of the previous day’s deals each reader sees, and in what order, from their category subscriptions and how they have opened and clicked on past deals. So your book will not reappear for everyone, and where it sits in the email will vary from reader to reader.
BookBub says it tested this before rolling it out and saw more readers clicking deals each day and more deal clicks overall. It has not published the percentages. Every Featured Deal is included automatically, and the price of the promotion has not changed.
Why the discount window matters now
Before this change, most of the clicks from a Featured Deal came on the day, with a tail into the next morning as readers caught up on their email. The re-send turns that tail into a second send. A reader who ignores Tuesday’s email and opens Wednesday’s is looking at your deal a full day after your promotion date, and they will click through expecting the discount.
If the price has already gone back up, you lose that sale, and you lose it at the point where a reader has already chosen your book. BookBub’s own guidance is to hold the discounted price for at least two days after the promotion date. I would treat two days as the floor.
How I would set the price now
Start early. Drop the price two days before the promotion date, as I already recommend for any promo, because stores can take a day or more to show a new price everywhere.
End late. Hold the discount through at least the second day after the promotion. With a Tuesday feature, the price stays down until the end of Thursday at the earliest. I would leave it until the end of the week if you are stacking other promo sites around it.
Kindle Countdown Deals. If your book is in KDP Select and you are using a Countdown Deal for the discount, set the deal to cover the promotion date and at least the two days after. Countdown Deals are set in advance and cannot be extended once they start, so build the extra days in before you schedule it.
Wide books. Check the price on every retailer on the promotion date and again on the second day after. Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Google Play all update at different speeds, and a store that reverts early breaks the deal for its readers.
Mark the date you put the price back up. Forget, and a 99c book keeps earning about 35 cents a copy until you notice. Put it in your calendar when you book the deal, for the day after the window closes.
I would not stretch the discount into weeks. BookBub looks at your pricing history when you submit future deals, and a book that has sat on sale for a month reads as already discounted. Two to five days past the feature covers the re-send without making the discount look permanent.
What it changes about stacking and tracking
If you stack promo sites around a Featured Deal, the day after BookBub used to be the place for a second-tier site to keep the rank climbing. BookBub now covers some of that day itself. I would move the next placements to the third and fourth days, so each one adds new readers to a rank that is already holding instead of overlapping with the re-send. The full stacking approach is in how to run a 99c sale without BookBub, and the day-by-day order still works around a Featured Deal.
Tracking shifts as well. Sales on the day after a feature now come partly from BookBub, so if you credit all of them to another site you booked that day, you will overvalue that site and rebook it for the wrong reason. Compare day-two sales with what you saw on past features before you judge anything else in the stack.
None of this changes how hard a Featured Deal is to get. The acceptance side (cover, reviews, discount, distribution) is in what a BookBub Featured Deal takes. It does make each accepted deal worth a little more, as long as the price is still there when the second wave of readers arrives. Setting the pricing window, the Countdown Deal and the stack around the date is part of how I plan a promotion in a book marketing strategy.
If a deal is already booked for October or November, open the price schedule or the Countdown Deal settings today and look at the last day. Anything that ends before the second day after the feature needs moving.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a BookBub Featured Deal run now?
Since September 22, 2026, a Featured Deal goes out on its promotion date and can be re-sent the next day to readers who did not open the first email. Which deals each reader sees again depends on their past engagement.
How long should I keep my price discounted for a BookBub Featured Deal?
BookBub recommends keeping the discount for at least two days after the promotion date. I start it about two days before, so every store shows the new price in time.
Does the BookBub re-send cost extra?
No. BookBub says every Featured Deal is automatically eligible and the re-send is included in the cost of the promotion.
Can I extend a Kindle Countdown Deal to cover the extra BookBub days?
Not once it has started. Set the Countdown Deal to cover the promotion date and at least the two days after before you schedule it.