I’ve had an interesting summer so far. Here are some of the highlights:
Don’t fight with CreateSpace.
I didn’t have the knowledge to bend CreateSpace to my will.
This doesn’t mean that I never will, but I had to back down on things I wanted in favor of time and simplicity. Does that mean I won’t try again? Nope. I’m tenacious like that. But I may have more patience with a project that hasn’t been staring at me in the face for a year.
I can’t wait to try Amazon Ads!
I’m reading Mastering Amazon Ads by Brian D. Meeks. He’s hilarious and makes trying the ads sound profitable and so much fun. He discusses using them in a way that does not make them sound costly or scary at all. Unfortunately, you cannot use AMS (Amazon Marketing Services) for erotica so I won’t be able to use them for Summer Secrets. But watch out when I release my Tower City Romance trilogy!
I get bored easily.
This may sound blasphemous to writers who are so in love with their characters they never want to let them go. Not me. I’m 7,500 words into the third (and last) Tower City Romance book and I just want it done already. It could be because the first in the trilogy was a NaNoWriMo project I’ve spent two years fixing. So these characters have been with me for a while. Regardless, I’m ready for new characters, new plots, and new adventures.
My #smutchat participants were tired of chatting about the writing craft.
Last Thursday I had the best chat ever. We talked about building your writer’s platform and it was a big hit. It was my most popular chat though I am still having trouble persuading people to enter the drawing for the writing resource. I may need to do a poll and see if an e-reader version would be a better bet. Maybe people don’t value a paperback as much as I do, or maybe people are hesitant to give me their mailing address. Nevertheless, it was a great chat, and I am so grateful everyone had fun.
Summer is 66% over, and I am right where I want to be writing-wise.
I finished Summer Secrets, and I’m on track to publish my Tower City Romance trilogy in the fall. Maybe not all three–but releasing them even a month apart gives me more time than I need to finish the last and start the stand-alone I want to write and release very early next year.
The sun shining outside isn’t the only thing looking bright.
Tell me how your summer’s been going!
Vania Margene Rheault 
You can’t get an impression with an Amazon Ad for less than about $0.40 CPC, and you can’t get a decent number of impressions for less than about $0.50 CPC. If you are making $2.08 on your book, then you need 20-25% of the people who click your ad to buy it. That kind of conversion rate is unheard of. So do tell, what magic formula is in that book that can change this basic math?
Every blog post I’ve read touting how great Amazon ads are fail the basic math test. They spend far more on the ads than they make on the sales. Then they wave their hands and claim “brand building” or “sell-through” or some other nonsense.
Amazon Ads might be great for high-margin products, but they are horrible for books.
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Being he wrote a whole book about it, I’m not going to try to explain why what he says works in a short comment. Every person is going to be different because we make different choices, write different books. I’m fully aware that what he’s doing may not work, or it may work but not to the level of success he has. But he runs a FB group and he’s always answering questions and helping people. I was just saying I can’t wait to try my luck at it. He makes it sound fun and selling books only the bonus. 🙂
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