Hey,

As you might have noticed, being a writer is… weird.

You need at least some level of self-doubt to improve your work, to hone your craft, to accept feedback from editors (and readers!). Otherwise, you will stay at that initial level forever.

There’s another side to us, though – the side compelled to share our work with the world. The bit that believes in these stupid words of ours. The part of our brain which has grit and gumption and moxie and chutzpah, and is willing to push through all those difficult years when we are learning what order to put the words in.

(Learning the order to put words in? Learning in which order to put words?).

You might note that these two are in opposition, which might explain the gnarly mood swings of the average author. And how we can oscillate between being painfully shy about our work to embarrassing hucksterism. What I’m saying is, there are two wolves inside every writer… and neither one knows how to market a book.

Approaching marketing in a businesslike fashion helps. As does a healthy serving of clarity. Let’s adopt both right away.

You have a product, now you need some promotion… and then you need your platform to turn customers into fans over time to make the promotion part easier.

(Product, promotion, platform – remember? If not, you can catch up on the first two emails in this mini-series over at the Email Archive – click on “How To Sell Books” in the menu.)

Even with that aforementioned clarity, however, things can get hopelessly tangled. The biggest change in self-publishing since I started in 2011 is the explosion in the size of the market: more readers, more money, more books chasing all that moolah, and an endless array of marketing options to try and cut through the noise.

But what works? And what is suitable specifically for where you are in your career right now? The first can be tricky to figure out, and the second is where most of us mess this up if we somehow avoided the first landmine.

As I said in the first email of this mini-series, when it comes to Promotion:

Let’s double dip while we’re at it:

There are two flavors of “hard” here – the giant mess of promotional options is the first challenge you must navigate. But even if you have a reliably chipper chap thinning the horde for you, then there’s still a trickier beast to mount: which of these preferred options is effective for you, particularly, given how many books you have for sale, how much money you can spend, your relative competence with ads, the commerciality of your books, your personality and preferences, and so on.

Or to make it a little simpler, you need to have at least one way of sending readers to your books on Amazon and elsewhere, some source of traffic to your book’s pages. You do not need to master them all – certainly not at the start. And you can totally begin with the low-hanging fruit.

Just remember to keep that clarity front and center because this part gets complicated. All these marketing options are simply potential sources of traffic to your books.

I predominantly focus on advertising and promo sites here simply because they are infinitely more effective than more “traditional” ways of promoting your book (like book signings, blog tours, cons, reviews from critics, and so on). But even restricting our focus leaves enough options to make your head spin.

Remember: you just need to find one or two that work for you.

Amazon Ads

I’ve started with Amazon Ads because most authors seem to these days – no doubt prompted by Amazon’s messaging all over everyone’s KDP account. However, Amazon Ads can be very tricky to master – and is probably unsuitable for beginners anyway. I must declare a bias here: it’s not my favorite – at all – and I simply haven’t put in the time to really master it because of that, which naturally skews my view here.

That said, I think Amazon Ads is best suited for those with a series – the longer the better – and those who are good at identifying comp authors or comp titles, as that will be the basis of your targeting. Amazon Ads is probably easier to make a success of if you are in Kindle Unlimited (and will be zero help for any books you have on other retailers – obviously). You probably also need to be comfortable crunching numbers.

I don’t want to dissuade beginners completely because the initial learning curve with Amazon Ads is friendlier than most; you don’t need things like ad graphics, or some kind of cyber-sherpa to walk you through ad creation. Most authors can figure out how to launch their first ads – something that can be a struggle on Facebook.

Much harder, though, is figuring out why your ad isn’t serving, how a winning ad suddenly stopped being shown to readers, or what the hell is up with all those clicks not turning into sales.

Be cautious with those initial budgets as a result, especially because of increasing click costs.

For me personally, I hate the interface too much to really dedicate the time to crack Amazon Ads. I do run some ads there, but I get cheaper clicks elsewhere. But for those who do want to crack the code, Robert Ryan’s book Amazon Ads Unleashed is the best resource I’ve found.

Let me end with a warning. This advice applies generally but particularly so when it comes to Amazon Ads these days: watch out for bad advice and shady operators. One guy in particular runs an Amazon Ads course, aimed at authors, which I’ve received multiple complaints about – one which is promoted by some of my colleagues in this business who should know better. (Indeed, some of them do know better but I guess the affiliate kickbacks are too sweet to pass up.) The advice being given out in this course isn’t just unhelpful, it could end up costing you a huge amount of money – and you will pay for the privilege too. People tend to get suckered into these things because it starts off as a free webinar or whatever… and then the hard sell starts rolling into your inbox. Just be careful.

BookBub Ads

This is where I’m supposed to rave about the unique strengths of BookBub Ads, and then artfully push my own book on the topic.

Real talk: I spend far less money on BookBub Ads than I did last year. And the year before that. In fact, the percentage of my marketing spend on BookBub Ads is dropping every year – falling from a high point of being broadly similar to what I was spending on Facebook Ads to sometimes being a negligible part of a campaign these days.

What happened?

To explain that I must veer into guesswork because I have no special knowledge as to the inner workings of BookBub – I can only glean what I can from the outside, running ads and comparing notes with my peers, especially those who have also been heavy BookBub Ads users for several years.

What we are all seeing – everyone I’ve spoken to, at least – is that results with BookBub Ads have become incredibly inconsistent over the last 2 years. It hasn’t tanked completely – I’m not saying that at all – but I am experiencing a huge variation in results on targets that were always reliable.

I still spend a minor amount on BookBub Ads – testing the waters, ready to turn up the juice if I hit a rich seam of readers. But often the initial ads will inexplicably tank, and I move my money elsewhere.

Even when I was consistently getting stellar results with BookBub Ads – across a range of genres BTW – I had some worries about the future viability. There has never been much relevance baked into BookBub Ads. That problem could have been solved in a few ways, but it appears – from the outside, I stress – that BookBub decided to solve the issue of rising click costs by just… sending more emails to readers.

Putting on my reader hat for a second, I have no interest in these extra emails – Featured New Releases (which are generally higher priced books from large publishers), The Short List (which seems to be moderate discounts on higher priced books from large publishers), and then all sorts of emails which I care about even less – like recommendations from authors I don’t even follow.

Of course, our ads appear in all these emails too, emails which presumably get far less engagement from readers, but ones where we get charged the exact same amount for impressions – and BookBub has no placement options, meaning if all your ads get served in these emails, well, tough.

My favorite thing about BookBub Ads – the consistency in a world gone mad – has become its biggest weakness. I’m usually optimistic about such things, but it feels like other changes BookBub has been making has only made this problem worse. Will this be addressed? I fear the nettle has become too painful to grasp at this point.

I watched a webinar from BookBub this week which claimed that clickthru rates are down 35% since last September - when Apple made those privacy changes, which I spent a lot of time talking about last year. They said this depression in clickthru rates is artificial and total clicks has remained consistent, but I am highly skeptical of this claim (simply presenting it for balance here). My view is that the Apple stuff - which is real - is masking a deeper problem that they aren’t seeing or acknowledging. At least publicly.

A bigger worry, of course, is that BookBub users using Apple Mail - which appears to be a significant portion of their readership going by the above numbers - can show as opened regardless of whether they opened the email. Which means your ad can be “served” even if no one sees it. Which in turn means you will be charged for that impression, presuming you use CPM bidding as many BookBub advertisers do... even though it’s entirely possible the email was never opened, and no one ever saw your ad.

All BookBub is saying officially is that it has “taken measures to protect CPM advertisers” where they don’t charge us if they detect an email wasn’t actually opened. No further details are provided. BookBub feels it has been reasonably effective in doing so, but even taking BookBub at its word here, it concedes that it “can’t fully eliminate the impact.”

In other words, you are being charged for at least some impressions which are shown to nobody. That’s not good.

BookBub claims it has reached out to advertisers using CPM bidding and they haven’t noticed any deterioration in performance over the last year. That’s one claim I find it very difficult to believe. YMMV.

Drawing back from the brink, I should say that there are positives. If you’re hot-handed enough, you can try and force your serving to only go out around 9am EST/1pm GMT when the Featured Deals emails go out to readers. (Really, this should be a placement option.) Unfortunately, BookBub Ads has also become less responsive, with slower reporting too, making this workaround far trickier than it would have been a couple of years ago.

But here’s one unqualified boon to end on: I still get a lot of value with wide books – there’s still no better way to reach Barnes & Noble readers, or those using Apple Books, or Google Play, or Kobo. And I also get stellar results in Canada and Australia, which makes me wonder if the Canucks and Aussies have been spared the uptick in un-asked-for emails (do let me know!).

All that said, he says while reluctantly putting on his pimp suit, your go-to resource is… eh… me. My guide is here. Although if you know of someone getting consistent results with BookBub Ads on Amazon USA in 2022, then perhaps listen to them instead? Sorry for the hard sell 🤣.

Facebook Ads

Newer subscribers should note that I’ve been covering Facebook Ads in great detail all year – for free. Catch up with that ongoing series over at the Email Archive.

The reason I’m doing that is simple. Facebook is the most powerful sales accelerant going, in my occasionally humble opinion. Cheapest clicks, best conversion, biggest scale – it wins on every key metric right now, and that’s a big change over the last few years, for me at least.

Amazon provides better data (but far from perfect). BookBub edges it for reaching wide readers or smaller international markets (but Facebook can do that too).

However, Facebook has the biggest audience, the most diverse targeting options, and can do a lot more than selling books too, such as build your mailing list, boost your website traffic (especially important for certain kinds of non-fiction), and create engagement with your fans too.

One unique aspect of Facebook Ads is that each ad is essentially a post on Facebook, which can be liked, commented upon, and shared. And once you know what you are doing with Facebook Ads, you can stimulate those conversations – and nothing is more convincing than a bunch of readers raving about your books under your ads. No other ad platform can do that, and that’s just the beginning with Facebook Ads (and something I’ll be covering soon).

Not only that, advertising on Facebook spills over into Likes on your Facebook Page, which in turn becomes a boost for your ads or your list or your website over time as well – something will delve into next time.

​Follow my ongoing Facebook Ads series for tips on how to create your first ads, tutorials on building killer ad images, video guides to the Facebook interface, and lots more too – for free.

Worth noting in a world filled with pricey Facebook education…

All Other Ad Platforms

Don’t bother.

Who Should Advertise?

Not everyone! For example, non-fiction can be tricky on Facebook depending on your category – indeed, some categories can be tricky everywhere for different reasons. But all those types hawking $1000 courses lean heavily on Facebook Ads in particular, and they can be happy to pay $2 or more for a click, which isn’t going to work for cheap ebooks, obviously.

If you’re faced with that logjam in your niche, just go around them. Explore other platforms, but also try totally different approaches too – like content marketing (more on that next time).

Beginners should also think twice – that’s those with only a book or two out, or anyone who thinks they haven’t nailed their product/presentation, as well as those who are struggling with the more technical aspects of digital publishing and authorship in the 21st century.

Or anyone on a limited budget, for that matter. Even if you dodge the course sellers, ads costs money to run, and you’ll burn through even more while learning the ropes.

If any of that describes you, then look at easier-to-use options like promo sites. They are also more cost-effective – the cheapest clicks going… if you know which sites to use.

Promo Sites

Whether you call them promo sites, deal sites, discount sites, reader sites, or even ad sites, it doesn’t matter because the basic premise is the same: authors pay a small fee to have their discounted book listed, readers get emailed a selection of daily deals in their favorite genres.

Sometimes more experienced authors skip promo sites altogether, especially if they have developed some skill with Facebook Ads or Amazon Ads. This, I respectfully suggest, is a mistake.

Promo sites are generally the cheapest clicks around – if you stick to the very best sites – and your book will get exposure to an exclusively bookish crowd with a high proportion of power readers.

A good selection of recommended promo sites could and should be the foundation for any launch plan or backlist push.

Indeed, even when I’m drawing up a launch plan with a five-figure budget, I still make promo sites the foundation of everything else I’m doing. As regular readers will know, I have a list of recommended promo sites on my site, which I keep updated regularly and which is broken down into the best sites for freebies, discounts, and various genres. Check it out here.

Building A Campaign

Want to see me put it all together? I made an hour-long screen-sharing tutorial for my Starting From Zero peeps which shows you exactly that.

Even if you are an experienced author or confident book marketer, I recommend checking out the course and jumping right to that video. It’s Module 5.4 – Building A Monster Promo. It's free, so you can just enroll and jump right to that video if you like.

You’ll see how a more basic launch plan can be scaled up to cover multiple books and large budgets – using the same framework. It gets into all sorts of advanced aspects too, like series sellthrough and how to arrange your promotions to get maximum benefit from Amazon’s ever-tricky algorithms.

And if that topic intrigues further, I have a whole book on that too.

For My Next Trick

Getting readers is difficult and can be expensive too. Turning them into fans over time can be hard work, but keeping readers is easier and cheaper than getting new ones, and the more you can build your author platform, the more sustainable your author business.

Next time we’ll look at how to turn readers into fans, which will help make every launch bigger than the last.

Dave

P.S. Writing music this week is Graham Nash with Better Days.