A Minor Marketing Funny

[Demesnedenoir]

Those who've been around a while will know I pick on Brandon Sanderson... love the guy, but his books not so much. They aren't bad, in fact better than most, but ever since finding a funny editor error I just can't help it. That, and it's always better to pick on the big dogs rather than the pups.

So, on Amazon ads, which author's books as search terms get me the most sales?!

Brandon Sanderson.

I am officially never going to pick on Brandon again. At least not without feeling a little guilty, heh heh.

As a side note, this may cement a notion in my head of how I need to alter my Amazon ads marketing... but that's for another conversation.

 

[ThinkerX]

so...you and Sanderson use some of the same keywords?

I also note that of all the published authors on this site, you are one of maybe three whose books I actually see on various advertising media (Book Bub, Facebook, Amazon, couple others that escape me right off.) The others I have to go actively searching for. I suppose it's possible I have seen the works of other authors on this site so advertised but didn't recognize it. I was most of the way through 'Eve of Snows' before it dawned on me that 'Rice' and 'Demesnedenior' were one and the same.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Sanderson and his books are my best-selling keywords on Amazon... in particular off the top of my head, Well of Ascension sells books for me. Wheel of Time also does well, which makes some sense, as a healthy % of readers who contact me are big Jordan fans... which I guess by extension, kind of makes them Sanderson fans. Hmm.

I tend to avoid BookBub ads... but Featured Deals are sweet. The ads system has bidding that gets out of hand, although you can also attempt to play it on the cheap. Amazon ads I play light on, and FB is my go-to. Am I tinkering around with an ad for Hulu? Yes, yes I am. Not sure I'll pull the trigger, but the temptation is there, LMAO.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Goes to show, there's some thruth in the saying "You are not your reader". And yes, from what I gather, a lot of Jordan fans moved to Sanderson when he finished the Wheel of Time.

I've dabbled in ads a bit. But I can't get Amazon to spend my money unless I go for ridiculous bids. And I've tried Facebook ads, but stopped after figuring out that it cost me about $9 to sell a book. Yes, that number can be optimized, but even for half that amount I wouldn't be profitable. I'll try again once I get the sequel out, which should (in theory) increase the amount I make per sale and might push me into profitability with a bit of optimizing.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Sequels are key, of course, to making money and it makes the bidding insane, because someone with 20+ books out can bid much higher per click than someone with 3. This is in part why I don't like BB and Amazon (let alone google ads) although both of them can be bargain shopped. It is hard as hell to sustain profit on 1 or 2 books without some sort of good luck or awesome PR. You also want a little money to burn. $10/day seems to be a nice round figure for Amazon or FB to "learn" marketing your book, although FB will seem to do okay with $5, it's just slower learning. And of course, it's just as much you who must learn Amazon ads and what's working, unless you set it on auto. FB is better at getting ads in front of people over and over, which fits the old advertising mantra of 8 appearances of an item before someone buys.

If it's any indicator, I only have 1 low-budget ad running on Amazon, and yesterday I logged in to find that I needed to update my payment info, so the ad hadn't been running for a week and I didn't notice the difference in sales, LOL. Probably missed a couple of sales, but a $2/day ad isn't driving much. My other Amazon ad I had sitting at $10/day I turned off because most of the damned clicks and sales were already people searching my name or the name of my books.

Goes to show, there's some truth in the saying "You are not your reader". And yes, from what I gather, a lot of Jordan fans moved to Sanderson when he finished the Wheel of Time.

I've dabbled in ads a bit. But I can't get Amazon to spend my money unless I go for ridiculous bids. And I've tried Facebook ads, but stopped after figuring out that it cost me about $9 to sell a book. Yes, that number can be optimized, but even for half that amount I wouldn't be profitable. I'll try again once I get the sequel out, which should (in theory) increase the amount I make per sale and might push me into profitability with a bit of optimizing.

 

[ThinkerX]

I'm not at all sure, but you might be benefitting from a sort of Amazon marketing freebee.

What happens is I'll check on Amazon for a book that interests me. Beneath the blurb for that book is a row of others, four or five or six across on the screen - 'books like this one,' or 'books you might like' or something similar. Now, what I'll do, after checking out the main entry, is swipe on that row, which extends, well, indefinitely, as best I can tell. Sometimes, four or five or six swipes in, I'll see 'Eve of Snows' or one of your other titles. Most of these titles have multiple reviews, usually well into the double-digit range. I'm not sure if that is advertising you are paying for, or if the Amazon machine is simply plucking the 'best' titles from a list for this.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Ah! The old also bought section went to 99 books. Best I can tell, the "related to" section are books associated with those by advertising. For instance, A.E. Rayne's Winter's Fury will show up A LOT as an ad on the Eve of Snows page and at the head of the "related" section. As I recall, there is a theory that you will reach the head of this line if you have the highest bid on an Amazon Ad, but I have not tested this in any way.

 

[Prince of Spires]

There definitely is a learning curve involved. And I do plan on going back to adds and seeing if I can improve them. But with just 3 stand-alones out getting to profitability is hard even when optimizing. Which is why I've paused playing around with ads for a bit. I don't mind spending money on them, but there should be a clear path to profitability. Which is why getting the next book out before trying more ads is the plan.

As for the rows on amazon, they're both paid and free spots. Also boughts are free. They're simply other books buyers of your book have also bought. The others tend to be paid for spots. From what I gather, the ranking of those is influenced by 2 things, which is your bid and the conversion of the book. The more clicks (and subsequent buys) your ad generates, the lower the bid can be. After all, Amazon is all about making the customer happy. And if they're buying then they're happy.