I stumbled upon something interesting on Threads the other day. Someone was asking for tips and tricks on how to make Amazon ads work for her. Of course, I looked at the book she was trying to sell, noted a few things, and told her what I thought. That never works well in the land of the public, and there were a couple of people who commented on my comment. It’s interesting to me how people can tell you their opinions without looking at what you’re trying to sell or just spew stuff based on their own poor experiences. I’m not going to call this author out, but you can apply what I’m going to say to almost any debut author.
One of the things you should do when wanting to run ads is look at your product. We think we’re pretty wonderful we’ve managed to write a book and publish it, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to want to read it. In fact, there are so many books out there it’s actually a miracle if you can find anyone who wants to pay for what you’ve written. Thinking that you’re going to set the world on fire will only set you up for disappointment. You have to be realistic when it comes to your book and by that I mean you have to look at your book and your author career as a whole.
What did I see when I saw her book?
It was only the first in a duology and the second book wasn’t on preorder. This is a Catch-22, and we know it is. People won’t buy the first book in a series without the others available because they don’t want to wait or won’t take a chance the author will finish. Authors who don’t sell enough of their first book think there’s no interest, lose motivation, and may not want to finish. I get it, but we also need to look at it from a reader’s point of view. Not being able to start and finish a series on their timetable is unsatisfying. Bingeing is a way of life now and when we are kept from it, we hear about it. No one wants to wait for the next season of Bridgerton or The House of the Dragon. No one knows where they’re going to be in 2026. This author doesn’t have the second book even on preorder, so God only knows when it will be out. She may not have even started writing it yet. It’s a sad fact that if she’s selling a duology, the first would sell better if readers had access to the second, even if only in preorder form.
She’s wide.
Amazon ads can be used if you’re wide, but to me, it makes more sense to use Facebook ads so that you can capture readers on all devices (by targeting them in your audience list). I told her that, and someone said she uses Amazon ads to great effect even though she’s wide. I just scoffed. Okay, Karen. The person who said that has been publishing for years, has over 30 books in her backlist, and, I would imagine, a very large newsletter list. She started way back in the Kindle gold rush where it was possible to make a lot of money simply publishing books and buying ads to fuel the flames. Publishing isn’t like that today, and only running ads won’t get you very far, especially as a debut author. I wasn’t impressed with her answer since it was clear she didn’t look at this author’s book or lack of backlist to provide any real, personalized direction. There’s no reason why you can’t run Amazon ads if you’re wide, but Amazon ads are known to be spendy, can’t get any traction for less than 30 cents a click, and you’re only reaching one audience. Facebook ads can reach more than only Kindle readers, can be cheaper (there are ads where I’ve gotten my clicks down to 9 cents a piece), and just seems all around a better investment. For her.
She’s not in KU, and her book is priced at $5.99.
This goes along with the “wide” part of the case study. I’m not saying Amazon readers are cheap, I’m sure there are people on Amazon who buy books at full price. But, we’re also talking about a debut author who has one book and the other book doesn’t look to be forthcoming. I’m not sure how many readers will really take a chance on a book that’s $5.99. I’m not arguing for or against being in Kindle Unlimited, that’s a business choice and being wide can be beneficial, but you are choosing your audience and that audience has disposable cash to buy entertainment. I don’t think it’s easier or harder to reach those people, you just have to know how. She may have her book in the Kobo Plus program (Kobo’s KU) but running Amazon ads won’t help her find those readers. So, she’s using Amazon ads to find readers who are willing to pay $5.99 for a debut author who is more than likely still writing the next book. If she’s getting a lot of clicks and no sales, her price could be part of the reason.
She has few reviews.
We like to think that reviews don’t matter, but they do. My duet won’t move no matter what I do and I attribute that to not putting them on Booksprout for reviews. The first book is only at twelve, and the second book is only at ten. I didn’t look to see if those are text reviews or only star ratings, but it doesn’t really matter. I don’t know the statistics on the number of readers who read reviews or just glance at the stars, but it does stand to reason the more star ratings you have, the better your book looks. Even if you have a good cover and solid blurb, a reader could nope right out of there if you don’t have enough social proof.
The book is old.
She published a while back, about eight months ago, well past the ninety-day grace period Amazon gives you. Running ads to a book that is old and already not selling well is like pushing a boulder up a mountain. Amazon is all about relevancy, and if your book isn’t relevant, meaning, people aren’t buying it, Amazon doesn’t care about it. They may still show your ad, and you get evidence of that when you see your impressions, but who knows if Amazon is pushing down your ad when it could be doing better. She’d do better to put her second book on preorder and then create an ad that targets both of them. That may be her plan once her book is closer to completion, I don’t know, but trying to drum up buzz for an old book takes a lot of time and money. Being that I have no idea how many ads or what kind she’s running, it’s hard to say if creating more and different kinds of ads (category vs. auto placement vs. keywords for example) with a higher budget would work.
So that’s what I saw when I looked at her Amazon page. Marketing is more than just figuring out an ad platform or posting social media graphics. It’s the genre you’re writing in, what your publishing schedule is like, if you offer a newsletter. She’s just getting started, so it’s no surprise her marketing tactics will be slow to take off.
I mentioned a little bit about the ad platforms, but let’s just take a shallow dive into them (I don’t have the expertise to go deep). Amazon’s ad platform isn’t complicated, though you do have to invest in clicks if you want any traction. I can’t get anywhere if I’m not bidding 40 cents or more, and that’s for contemporary romance/billionaires/rockstars. The ad itself only consists of your book cover, a tagline if you live in a country where that’s offered, and the number of reviews your book has. You need a strong cover, and if you get clicks, your cover is doing its job. It’s after you get the click and it doesn’t convert into a sale that you need to look at your product page. If your price doesn’t attract readers or if they’re looking for KU books and your book is wide, or your blurb is confusing, or they decide you don’t have enough reviews. Those can affect other ad platforms too, but if we’re just talking clicks, having your book in solid categories so they show up in the right spots on Amazon and having a fabulous cover will go a long way.
There’s a lot that goes into Facebook ads, and the potential to get one part wrong is huge. It’s probably the reason why the guy who said my Facebook ads recommendation was garbage. He had a bad experience, didn’t know how to put the ad together and maybe lost some money, but not everyone is going to have that experience. You need a good description, a good hook (headline), a good stock photo (creative) that will draw readers in enough to click. They can take a lot of trial and error and it can be costly, but I know it can be worth it once you figure out the secret sauce. Again, though, clicks can be a waste of money if readers don’t like what they see after they click on your ad. Facebook ads allow you to target more than just one kind of reader (versus Amazon ads whose readers only read on Kindles). You can target Google Play readers, Apple readers, Nook readers, Kobo, hoping to draw in those Kobo Plus subscription holders. Facebook will spend your money faster than Amazon does, but I found overall the clicks can be cheaper which allows for a little wiggle room. The dashboard is hella complicated, and I hate clicking around in it, but like any platform, once you get used it it, it’s not so bad. She could start small and boost a post off her author page and see how it goes. She would still need to create an audience, but you’d want to do that anyway. Every author needs comps.
I saw someone who was having bad luck with BookBub ads (not the featured deal you have to approved for) saying she was getting impressions but no clicks. It’s really important to understand what kind of platform you’re using. Amazon ads can cater to regular-priced books as does Facebook, but BookBub’s audience are freebie seekers and if she was trying to sell a book at full price, she wasn’t going to get any clicks. I asked her if she was trying to sell a full-priced book and if she had the price on her creative like they encourage you to do, but she didn’t answer me. Whether she didn’t see my response or she resented me telling her a full-priced book wouldn’t sell there, I have no idea, but I’ve heard of other authors trying to sell full-priced books on BookBub and it just won’t work. They have built their entire readership on readers who want free and cheap books. Trying to go against years of that will be futile. You can use them if you put your book on sale, though I have noticed that not a lot of authors want to do that. The author who is trying to sell the first in a duology might do that when her second book comes out, but without knowing her, I would guess the chances are slim.
When you decide to run ads, you have to take a look at your product and your company, which is you. Backlist, number of reviews, how long you’ve been publishing (there’s a reason why companies love to say they were established in XXXX–it creates trust in the person who’s looking at the advertisement), and how often you publish can all influence a reader’s potential to buy. Being a debut author isn’t a bad thing–we all have to start somewhere–but you have to keep your expectations in check. When she does release the second book in her duology, how long will it take her to write another book? Will she be marketing two books for the next two years? Will she release another first in series and expect readers to wait while she writes the next? Building a backlist can take years and she may not get ads to work for her for just as long.
There’s a reason why they say writing the next book is your best marketing tool. I understand the want to push your book out into the world, and I applaud her for trying, but she seemed to think the ads were what was going wrong, and well, I think in this case, it’s the operator and not the machine.
I’m certainly not an expert and I’ve killed ads that were costing me money, not making it. Like I said, I stopped trying to run ads to my duet, and now when I get someone reading them, I just figure they found out about them some other way. I’m running Amazon ads to my King’s Crossing series, and I had to kill a very productive ad. No one was preordering and the clicks were adding up. I may turn it back on once more books are available to purchase or read in KU. I knew from the start I would be paying for exposure, and I left three of the slower-moving ads on. I created two for my rockstars but they are very slow moving right now but maybe rockstars aren’t in and the books are a year old already (relevancy).
Once I write a blurb for the whole series I’ll set up a Facebook ad for it. I need a blurb that explains what the series is about, but I’ve been busy doing other things (which isn’t great since marketing this series should be on the top of my list) and well, I hate writing blurbs.
Anyway, ads are a great marketing too, just be sure you’re in a place in your career where you can benefit from them and always make more than you spend.
I found this in my email from James Blatch–Is your book advertising ready? Could be a fun webinar to listen in on. It’s free, and you can click here to sign up:
Quick Links:
Bryan Cohen’s free five day Amazon Ads course: https://www.bestpageforward.net/getting-ready-for-the-5-day-amazon-ad-challenge/
The link at the bottom directs you to his Facebook page. Join his group to stay up to date on all the webinars he offers. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2230194167089012
Dave Chesson’s Free Amazon Ad course: https://kindlepreneur.com/free-amazon-ads-course/
Matthew J. Holmes offers a newsletter and classes on Amazon and Facebook ads: https://www.matthewjholmes.com/
David Gaughran has free tools on his YouTube channel that includes using Canva to make Facebook ads graphics: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidGaughran
There are a lot more resources out there when it comes to learning ads. Robert Ryan’s books are great, and if you want to learn BookBub ads, David Gaughran has one that will read outdated because the platform has surely changed, but the tactics described to find your audience are probably still on target. Ricardo Fayet of Reedsy also wrote one that is really informative.
As with Facebook ads, free ways to learn the platform are scarce. To be clear, Bookbub ads are not the same as being approved for a featured deal. Those are expensive and you have to submit and be approved. Bookbub ads are what they sound like — ads you make yourself using Canva or BookBrush that are placed at the bottom of their newsletters they send out to their subscribers. The only authority I know of is David Gaughran. 
Vania Margene Rheault 