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Stan the Plan

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I'm not really looking for specific results yet, being well aware there are approximately 1.42 zillion variables involved. Just looking for any sort of logic in a beginning strategy. Pick a book to promote. Great! But then, er, Sponsored Ads lets me choose ebook or paperback but not both, as if these were separate products. That seems screwy to me, but I'm willing to be schooled if there's a logic. That's the sort of specific mystery that the guide books don't appear to address. Which also seems screwy.
They are separate products. The content (story) within them is the same, but the price, the packaging, and the delivery are different. Some people will argue that the experience of reading them is also different and will prefer one over the other. Perhaps a bit like drinking coke out of a can or out of glass bottle?
Or you could view it from the technical side, where the two different formats have different product IDs in Amazon's systems.
There is also the product image to consider. If you look at Goblins At The Gates, you'll see that the cover image on the Kindle version is a little darker and crisper than on the paperback version (this is the same for my books too). Advertising the Kindle version will display the image from that product page, while advertising the paperback will show the image from that product page.

Given the dynamics, it almost seems like I would use Ads to promote the website (which has a fair amount of content) or maybe my Author Page--a product that is relatively steady, and use deals or even manual price drops to promote specific books at specific times. As for FB, that's for a later date.
This actually seems like a great idea to me. Rather than promoting the individual books, you focus on promoting Altearth itself. You have a website with content and regular updates where people can find interesting things, and if they enjoy that and want more, they can move on to reading books set in Altearth.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
>Mastering Amazon Ads, written by Brian Meeks
I have to amend my previous statement. I *looked* at the Meeks book and decided it was before the most recent Amazon Ads changes and so never actually bought it. A recommendation from Svrtnsse is not to be sneezed at, however (despite my having a cold), so I took another look.

Bought it, and am reading it.

No, it's not entirely current, but I have to give credit here: the book does actually speak directly to some of the points I've raised; specifically, how to run multiple non-series titles, how exactly to run parallel ads, and so on. It also says, very clearly, that marketing is going to take many hours a week, if a person expects to quit the day job. He's the first one I've read who has not flinched from that.

Thanks for the recommendation.
 
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