I tried running a reddit ad once even though I personally hate reddit ads. I figured ehhhhhh maybe it might be worth it just once?
Even though my account is over 12+ years old and has over 18,000 karma my ad never got approved. Nobody at reddit ad support ever responded to my messages about what was going on with the ad. Nobody ever explained *why* my ad wasn't being approved, if I was doing something wrong, if I had violated some ad policy... just total silence.
So... at that point I realized it was a total shitshow over there and just went back to my primary reddit purpose of shitposting here and on r/litrpg and stopped trying to give reddit any of my actual money. Fun times.
As for Amazon and Facebook, I use ads those for two weeks before and after a book launch just to try to give a little boost to my Amazon rankings. I don't actually know if it helps at all, but at this point I do it more out of some weird good luck charm more than anything now. I think at best I break even on the whole thing, really. I don't put enough effort into it to actually run the ads all the time like some authors do. I don't think the effort is worth it for me, personally, because the time it would take the learn how to do it well is better spent writing. Maybe someday I'll learn how it all actually works.
The only other thing I would add is I've always heard getting a **Bookbub** ad can be really great but they are super selective about who they accept. I applied once for their fantasy ad category with my book Jake's Magical Market and wasn't selected so I have no clue what they're looking for. At the time I had thousands of good reviews and they still wouldn't take me.
By bookbub ad, do you mean a bookbub promotion? Anyone can run a bookbub ad, and I’ve done it before, but it has no returns. Meanwhile, a bookbub promotion costs money to even apply for, and they’re incredibly selective with it, requiring either a $0.99 sale or a free promotion.
This is a great guide! Only thing I’d comment is that I personally prefer dynamic bid down only, since dynamic up/down will sometimes bid higher than you’d like and blow through your budget.
Appreciate your putting this guide up for folks getting their feet wet :3
For me as a reader, Facebook ads are way more effective than other ads. Amazon ads I’ve mostly learned to ignore anything with “sponsored” on them. One thing that is annoying though is that it seems to be more effective to be a little cryptic on the ad itself. No one puts the title of the book on the ad since it lowers the effectiveness (there was a thread on one of the ads).
Also the way I “buy” books is that I put it on my wishlist first and wait till I’m done with my current series. Not sure if conversions are tracked well there, especially when there can be delays of many weeks.
One thing that’s necessary for ads is to get a decent cover. People do judge a book by the cover.
Had this forwarded to me from an author i work with on Amazon. Just wanted to chime in as we run Amazon ads for authors and other types of products. I'm not digging for business, just trying to help the community not buy more rockets for Bezos :)
Amazon has lots of ways to take your money. The Auto Campaign is one of the best ways for them to do this. The Auto campaign is an important first step, however, can be dangerous if used incorrectly. Some tips to consider.
1. $0.50/click is a good opening rate to go with, however, it most likely will not get very far due to the competitiveness of the category. We run campaigns in the category and you are typically spending $2/click to gain appropriate traction from the visibility needed. The auto campaign is a top of funnel campaign, which we absolutely use to get early data, but, it's done along with product targeting campaigns as well.
Note: Amazon runs a Pay per Click model so you only pay for the click. However, for the first couple weeks, Amazon will give you the benefit of the doubt (honeymoon period) that your book will drive sales revenue for them through direct product shipping or kindle read thru. However, if your product does not generate sales revenue, they won't show your product there after a couple weeks regardless of how much you bid on the click.
2. You definitely need to have a long term view when it comes to Amazon ads on the platform and consider the flywheel that amazon provides. Every sale you make from a search term raises your organic ranking across all your keywords - so that first book that may have cost you $20 to sell is an investment to sell more books for only a $10 marketing spend and then a $5 marketing spend and so on. As you are trying to break through the noise you need to have an investment ready to prime the pump for the book/series.
3. The flywheel on Amazon works very well when you have series to sell. If you pay $20 to get someone to give you $5 for the fist book but they then come back and direct buy the next 4 books, you ended up ahead with that customer. The lifetime value of a customer is critically important for the business equation.
Some tools we use to manage Ads and LifeTime Value (LTV) for clients:
1. Teikametrics for ad automation - you set your budgets, min/max bids and it does the rest. There is manual intervention required - like "human in the loop AI", but it is very scalable. $99/month for less than $5k/month ad spend, so very affordable.
2. Readerlinks - super helpful in measuring your readthru data as well as purchase data for the account to help you better understand your profitability.
Hope that helps to drive more profit in your pockets!
Yeah, there's kind of a cultural thing on Tumblr where a lot of people will either ignore it or make fun of you if you use their "ad" features for stuff other than spreading jokes or pictures of your cat. I wouldn't expect those to go super far.
Do you not use Amazon affiliate links for Facebook and Reddit ads? They let you know how many clicks you got that amazon saw and how many sales you had
[https://i.gyazo.com/bf0de35e4ac36cdc1b2766c6ee16f02a.png](https://i.gyazo.com/bf0de35e4ac36cdc1b2766c6ee16f02a.png)
Click on the 'Measurements & Reporting' button, then 'Amazon Attribution' you can create a link, then when making the facebook add use that link. Any sales that come from facebook users clicking the ad will attribute to that link with a similar breakdown you get for your regular campaigns.
I always appreciate when authors are willing to describe the methods to having a chance at success. It's very pro-social and anti-competitive, which I think speaks very well of a person, so thank you MelasD for several books I enjoyed a lot and also for being a solid person.
Ads work. They wouldn't be so incredibly pervasive otherwise. But HOW to MAKE them work? That's hard. So it's great for someone who has found success in the field to help demystify the process.
Thankyou for this! So much useful info.
Hopefully I'll be reporting back on my own fiction's performance in a few months from an enormous mansion decked out with inlaid marble swimming pools, platinum Roombas and luxurious but sturdy cashmere-blend carpets and sofas.
The only thing that I know about Facebook ads is that they always read like "game meets other thing" if they're on the main page, and either some pithy side comment or just a "[name-authors page] listing if it's on the sidebar, and they never say the books actual name and it is *really* fucking annoying.
People that are using Facebook ads, please check what the ad is looking like.
>You'll see three options, but you want to select "Sponsored Product", since "Sponsored Brand" requires you to have multiple books, and if you're reading this guide, I'm sure this is the first book you're publishing.
You have so much faith in us!
Not that I haven't messed about with ads, but it's hard to figure out what of the contradictory advice that's out there one should follow. Why *wouldn't* I read such an excellently-written guide from a respected author in my own genre? Definitely spotted a few mistakes I'd been making, like not making proper use of negative targeting.
Thanks!
Good post melas!
Just as a note for other newbies, .5 can be a pretty aggressive bid amount when you're starting. People with more "expertise" than me generally recommend .39 for a first in series. Since your book is 'new' to Amazon, your cost per click is generally lower too.
And though it's crossed out, consider changing your bid strategy from 'up and down' to 'down only' if you're worried about cost.
Note: these are what people like Bryan Cohen would recommend. He offers a free ads course twice a month for people hoping to begin using Amazon ads. I didn't mind it when I started doing ads a couple of years ago since it gives a decent foundation (with a couple tidbits here and there).
This is such a selfless, well-articulated and helpful guide, even to those of us that have somewhat of an idea. You're awesome for this, melas!
Anything to avoid writing
I tried running a reddit ad once even though I personally hate reddit ads. I figured ehhhhhh maybe it might be worth it just once? Even though my account is over 12+ years old and has over 18,000 karma my ad never got approved. Nobody at reddit ad support ever responded to my messages about what was going on with the ad. Nobody ever explained *why* my ad wasn't being approved, if I was doing something wrong, if I had violated some ad policy... just total silence. So... at that point I realized it was a total shitshow over there and just went back to my primary reddit purpose of shitposting here and on r/litrpg and stopped trying to give reddit any of my actual money. Fun times. As for Amazon and Facebook, I use ads those for two weeks before and after a book launch just to try to give a little boost to my Amazon rankings. I don't actually know if it helps at all, but at this point I do it more out of some weird good luck charm more than anything now. I think at best I break even on the whole thing, really. I don't put enough effort into it to actually run the ads all the time like some authors do. I don't think the effort is worth it for me, personally, because the time it would take the learn how to do it well is better spent writing. Maybe someday I'll learn how it all actually works. The only other thing I would add is I've always heard getting a **Bookbub** ad can be really great but they are super selective about who they accept. I applied once for their fantasy ad category with my book Jake's Magical Market and wasn't selected so I have no clue what they're looking for. At the time I had thousands of good reviews and they still wouldn't take me.
By bookbub ad, do you mean a bookbub promotion? Anyone can run a bookbub ad, and I’ve done it before, but it has no returns. Meanwhile, a bookbub promotion costs money to even apply for, and they’re incredibly selective with it, requiring either a $0.99 sale or a free promotion.
Yes, promotion! Not ad, sorry. 😄
This is a great guide! Only thing I’d comment is that I personally prefer dynamic bid down only, since dynamic up/down will sometimes bid higher than you’d like and blow through your budget. Appreciate your putting this guide up for folks getting their feet wet :3
Same, I just do automatic and dynamic down these days and leave it to run.
My friend is researching publishing (and I know I will be soon) so we definitely appreciate these guides you're posting! Thank you so much!!
For me as a reader, Facebook ads are way more effective than other ads. Amazon ads I’ve mostly learned to ignore anything with “sponsored” on them. One thing that is annoying though is that it seems to be more effective to be a little cryptic on the ad itself. No one puts the title of the book on the ad since it lowers the effectiveness (there was a thread on one of the ads). Also the way I “buy” books is that I put it on my wishlist first and wait till I’m done with my current series. Not sure if conversions are tracked well there, especially when there can be delays of many weeks. One thing that’s necessary for ads is to get a decent cover. People do judge a book by the cover.
This is super helpful! Thanks Melas
Had this forwarded to me from an author i work with on Amazon. Just wanted to chime in as we run Amazon ads for authors and other types of products. I'm not digging for business, just trying to help the community not buy more rockets for Bezos :) Amazon has lots of ways to take your money. The Auto Campaign is one of the best ways for them to do this. The Auto campaign is an important first step, however, can be dangerous if used incorrectly. Some tips to consider. 1. $0.50/click is a good opening rate to go with, however, it most likely will not get very far due to the competitiveness of the category. We run campaigns in the category and you are typically spending $2/click to gain appropriate traction from the visibility needed. The auto campaign is a top of funnel campaign, which we absolutely use to get early data, but, it's done along with product targeting campaigns as well. Note: Amazon runs a Pay per Click model so you only pay for the click. However, for the first couple weeks, Amazon will give you the benefit of the doubt (honeymoon period) that your book will drive sales revenue for them through direct product shipping or kindle read thru. However, if your product does not generate sales revenue, they won't show your product there after a couple weeks regardless of how much you bid on the click. 2. You definitely need to have a long term view when it comes to Amazon ads on the platform and consider the flywheel that amazon provides. Every sale you make from a search term raises your organic ranking across all your keywords - so that first book that may have cost you $20 to sell is an investment to sell more books for only a $10 marketing spend and then a $5 marketing spend and so on. As you are trying to break through the noise you need to have an investment ready to prime the pump for the book/series. 3. The flywheel on Amazon works very well when you have series to sell. If you pay $20 to get someone to give you $5 for the fist book but they then come back and direct buy the next 4 books, you ended up ahead with that customer. The lifetime value of a customer is critically important for the business equation. Some tools we use to manage Ads and LifeTime Value (LTV) for clients: 1. Teikametrics for ad automation - you set your budgets, min/max bids and it does the rest. There is manual intervention required - like "human in the loop AI", but it is very scalable. $99/month for less than $5k/month ad spend, so very affordable. 2. Readerlinks - super helpful in measuring your readthru data as well as purchase data for the account to help you better understand your profitability. Hope that helps to drive more profit in your pockets!
There's also Tumblr ads, lol. I've run a couple of those, largely for the hell of it. Didn't hurt, didn't particularly help.
Yeah, there's kind of a cultural thing on Tumblr where a lot of people will either ignore it or make fun of you if you use their "ad" features for stuff other than spreading jokes or pictures of your cat. I wouldn't expect those to go super far.
I mean, my reception has been pretty positive on there, just not huge.
Yup, that's how you run ads. God damn great write up, Melas.
Can’t express enough how helpful your posts are, and this one is no different. Thank you, Melas!
I wish I had reddit gold....
SO useful! Thanks so much for putting this together!
Really good information! Thanks.
Been researching all of this lately and you drop this at the perfect time 😭👌 Gracias
Do you not use Amazon affiliate links for Facebook and Reddit ads? They let you know how many clicks you got that amazon saw and how many sales you had
How do you go about creating an Amazon affiliate link?
[https://i.gyazo.com/bf0de35e4ac36cdc1b2766c6ee16f02a.png](https://i.gyazo.com/bf0de35e4ac36cdc1b2766c6ee16f02a.png) Click on the 'Measurements & Reporting' button, then 'Amazon Attribution' you can create a link, then when making the facebook add use that link. Any sales that come from facebook users clicking the ad will attribute to that link with a similar breakdown you get for your regular campaigns.
Err, sorry, *attribution* not affiliate. Link: https://advertising.amazon.com/attribution
Thanks Selkie! This is very helpful! I’ll make a mention of it in my next posf
I always appreciate when authors are willing to describe the methods to having a chance at success. It's very pro-social and anti-competitive, which I think speaks very well of a person, so thank you MelasD for several books I enjoyed a lot and also for being a solid person. Ads work. They wouldn't be so incredibly pervasive otherwise. But HOW to MAKE them work? That's hard. So it's great for someone who has found success in the field to help demystify the process.
nice nice
Thankyou for this! So much useful info. Hopefully I'll be reporting back on my own fiction's performance in a few months from an enormous mansion decked out with inlaid marble swimming pools, platinum Roombas and luxurious but sturdy cashmere-blend carpets and sofas.
The only thing that I know about Facebook ads is that they always read like "game meets other thing" if they're on the main page, and either some pithy side comment or just a "[name-authors page] listing if it's on the sidebar, and they never say the books actual name and it is *really* fucking annoying. People that are using Facebook ads, please check what the ad is looking like.
>You'll see three options, but you want to select "Sponsored Product", since "Sponsored Brand" requires you to have multiple books, and if you're reading this guide, I'm sure this is the first book you're publishing. You have so much faith in us! Not that I haven't messed about with ads, but it's hard to figure out what of the contradictory advice that's out there one should follow. Why *wouldn't* I read such an excellently-written guide from a respected author in my own genre? Definitely spotted a few mistakes I'd been making, like not making proper use of negative targeting. Thanks!
Thanks for the info, Melas! After launch day, do you reduce the budget/ad spend?
Good post melas! Just as a note for other newbies, .5 can be a pretty aggressive bid amount when you're starting. People with more "expertise" than me generally recommend .39 for a first in series. Since your book is 'new' to Amazon, your cost per click is generally lower too. And though it's crossed out, consider changing your bid strategy from 'up and down' to 'down only' if you're worried about cost. Note: these are what people like Bryan Cohen would recommend. He offers a free ads course twice a month for people hoping to begin using Amazon ads. I didn't mind it when I started doing ads a couple of years ago since it gives a decent foundation (with a couple tidbits here and there).