Today’s guest blogger is Wendy Raebeck<\/a>, a frequent commenter here who always adds to the conversation with insights and wit. When Wendy commented recently about how she’s mastering Amazon ads so she can sell more books, I asked her to write a guest post about what she’s doing. In addition to being the author of eight books, Wendy<\/em> has written more than 100 newspaper articles as a freelance journalist. A<\/em> former actress and yoga instructor, she says her most formative and spiritual experiences involved living without <\/em>electricity and running water on Spanish and Greek islands.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Creatively, I\u2019m a bit rogue. (Mom\u2019s reply to my childhood questions was always, “Use your imagination.”) I design my own covers, don\u2019t \u201cwrite for the market,\u201d love paperbacks, rarely do giveaways or big discounts, am totally DIY except for the obligatory edits, and price my books higher than most indies.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I seem more determined to cover all the bases than most.<\/p>\n Including \u201cTa Ta for Now \u2013 the Movie<\/a>,\u201d which I’m about to release, I have eight books out, and am here to report that there really can be a point where the head-bashing begins paying off. If you hang in. <\/em><\/p>\n Oh, you\u2019ll still have a line-up of challenges! But if you roll up your sleeves, Amazon ads might possibly lift your spirits.<\/p>\n Familiarizing oneself with the Amazon ad algorithms is pure grit \u2013 feels financially dicey, too \u2013 but for the more motivated among us (ideally, with more than one book out), learning the ABCs can take you higher.<\/p>\n My present focus with mastering Amazon ads is on \u201ctargeting\u201d and \u201crelevance.\u201d Though this terminology is Advertising 101, the practical application demands a mental shift. As Sandra recently pointed out, it feels counterintuitive not to target \u201ceveryone.\u201d Indeed, I always found myself defaulting to, “But how can I be sure Andy, my mechanic, wouldn\u2019t love this book? He\u2019s into all kinds of things.”<\/p>\n Our intuition prompts us to cast a wide net, because you never know. But \u201crelevance\u201d and \u201ctargeting\u201d mean fishing for likely readers, not possible (or unlikely) ones.<\/p>\n Sure, as in dating, we could probably get along with almost anybody if stranded on a remote island\u2026but readers aren\u2019t stranded. They have choices.<\/p>\n So Andy reads about cars and motorcycles, not the high jinks of wily women. And even if every two-legged on the planet might, theoretically, enjoy my book (if forced at gunpoint to read it on a long flight), trying to re-route other-genre readers in hopes they\u2019ll switch over is\u2026less than strategic.<\/p>\n As I wrote in \u201cSurviving Self-Publishing or Why Ernest Hemingway Committed Suicide,\u201d \u201cIf your email list is comprised of 4th-graders from the class you teach and cab-drivers from your summer trip to Egypt, you\u2019re off point. Think quality over quantity.\u201d \u201cTargeting\u201d also acknowledges that \u201cour tribe\u201d isn\u2019t an already-existing group out there, but non-existent until we create it.<\/p>\n So how do we \u201ctarget\u201d? No simple answer, but mostly through trial and error. As we try out different keywords, categories, and titles of other books (similar to our own in some way) in our ads, we study where shoppers are biting and where they\u2019re buying.<\/p>\n And we eventually hone in on which bait or hooks (targets) are enticing card-carrying buyers to place orders.<\/p>\n With my hippie book, for example, I started out with keywords like \u201chitchhiking,\u201d \u201cwild and crazy,\u201d and “free spirit.\u201d But I learned these aren\u2019t terms readers search for on Amazon. I\u2019m better off jumping on the coattails of someone typing in \u201cJohn Lennon,\u201d \u201c60s culture,\u201d or, believe it or not, Prince Harry\u2019s memoir. My buyers read memoirs, they don\u2019t hitchhike.<\/p>\n Get my drift? Mind games. (But\u2026Dad\u2019s reply to my childhood questions was always, “You can figure it out.”)<\/p>\n So\u2026we all know (or are) agoraphobic authors unwilling or unready to hit the ads trenches. But, sadly, in today\u2019s publishing landscape, it\u2019s pay-to-play. Jury\u2019s not only in, it left the courthouse a few years back.<\/p>\n However, those willing to accept this woeful reality, and who possess the gumption\/time\/energy, can<\/em> conceivably experience improved sales through advertising. Not high numbers necessarily, and not right off the bat, but an uptick! Not to mention genuine free exposure from thousands of \u201cimpressions\u201d flashing your ads across Amazon.<\/p>\n [novashare_tweet tweet=”In today\u2019s publishing landscape, it\u2019s pay-to-play. Jury\u2019s not only in, it left the courthouse a few years back. ~ Wendy Raebeck” hide_hashtags=”true”]<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been doing Amazon ads two years now, summoned in by the endearing Bryan Cohen and his free course<\/a> (that I\u2019ve taken four times). I also follow Matthew Holmes<\/a>, another stand-up ads guru proffering excellent tips in a weekly blog. Amazon ads, in my opinion, are impossible to master solo, and I highly recommend Bryan and Matthew (and others, too) as entry portals. (Bryan\u2019s free course starts again April 19. I\u2019ll be there.)<\/p>\n Once you\u2019re a vassal in Jeff Bezos\u2019 fiefdom \u2013 and have decoded your ads charts and created some campaigns \u2013 your biggest challenge will be juggling the dreaded \u201cspend\u201d vs. your bona fide sales.<\/p>\n Here, attentiveness and diligence are musts.<\/p>\n But this vigilance has kept me profitable from the start. Hey, don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m by no means killin\u2019 it, plus, I\u2019m super careful, <\/em>but my author aim has always been to just continue scaling profit while adding fun new books. I\u2019ve met this goal since my first release in 2012 \u2013 assisted lately by the ads.<\/p>\n What sold me on mastering Amazon ads was when I let them lapse in September 2022 because I was too busy elsewhere. Guess what. My sales dropped off completely \u2013 not just Amazon e-book sales, but all my e-book and paperback sales from all venues! (The chart below reflects just e-book sales and just Amazon \u2013 but I sell more paperbacks than e-books, and my whole train<\/em> stopped when I ceased my ads!)<\/p>\n [novashare_tweet tweet=”What sold me on mastering Amazon ads was when I let them lapse in September 2022 because I was too busy elsewhere. Guess what. My sales dropped off completely. ~ Wendy Raebeck” hide_hashtags=”true”]<\/p>\n After that, tracking and tweaking ad performance became a top priority, despite the tedium. Point is, if one can develop a patience variant heretofore unimagined, some know-how will follow, and things might percolate.<\/p>\n I\u2019m writing this because I believe authors (especially multi-title ones) must<\/em> grasp the pay-to-play paradigm self-publishing has morphed into. Despite the overwhelm, old hat to you anyway, I don\u2019t see any other avenues through today\u2019s crowded marketplace. (Except Facebook \u2013 where your servitude is to Zuck instead.)<\/p>\n C\u2019est la guerre<\/a>. Our best approach, I think, is to make marketing fun. And, though the advance team has long advised precisely that, it still takes ages to embrace it \u2013 “Oh-h-h, like actually enjoy<\/em> myself? Hmm.”<\/p>\n Yep, jump in the pool.<\/p>\n And jump into my tribe; check out the escapist literature at WendyRaebeck.com<\/a> and sign onto my email list there (get two free stories). If you\u2019re an appropriate<\/em> reader, that is. Oh, okay, Andy, if you insist.<\/p>\n Do you have questions for Wendy about her experiences with Amazon ads? Please ask them in a comment.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Creatively, I\u2019m a bit rogue. (Mom\u2019s reply to my childhood questions was always, “Use your imagination.”) I design my own covers, don\u2019t \u201cwrite for the market,\u201d love paperbacks, rarely do giveaways or big discounts, am totally DIY except for the obligatory edits, and price my books higher than most indies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,49,11,12],"tags":[1384,1144,1145,1147,1569],"class_list":["post-16401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-guest-columns","category-tactics","category-tools","tag-advertising","tag-amazon-ads","tag-amazon-advertising","tag-book-advertising","tag-wendy-raebeck"],"yoast_head":"\nMastering Amazon ads one tweak at a time: One author’s success story<\/h2>\n
By Wendy Raebeck<\/h3>\n
![\"Mastering](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Mastering-Amazon-ads-one-tweak-at-a-time.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMastering Amazon ads requires knowing your readers<\/h2>\n
![\"mastering](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/mastering-Amazon-ads-chart-1.png\")
<\/a>Target with trial and error<\/h2>\n
![\"mastering](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/sample-ad.png\")
<\/a>Amazon ads help sell more books<\/h2>\n
![\"Mastering](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/ads-Jan-Mar-23-1-300x132.png\")
<\/a>Mastering Amazon ads means paying attention<\/h2>\n
![\"mastering](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Amazon-ads-bar-chart-300x137.png\")
<\/a>![\"Mastering](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Print-sales.png\")
<\/a>It\u2019s a pay-to-play publishing world<\/h2>\n
![\"Ta](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Ta-Ta-for-Now-the-Movie-205x300.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Wendy](\"https:\/\/buildbookbuzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/W.M.-Raebeck-214x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Today’s guest blogger is Wendy Raebeck<\/a>, a frequent commenter here who always adds to the conversation with insights and wit. When Wendy commented recently about how she’s mastering Amazon ads so she can sell more books, I asked her to write a guest post about what she’s doing. In addition to being the author of eight books, Wendy<\/em> has written more than 100 newspaper articles as a freelance journalist. A<\/em> former actress and yoga instructor, she says her most\u00a0formative and spiritual experiences involved living without <\/em>electricity and running water on Spanish and Greek islands.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nMastering Amazon ads one tweak at a time: One author’s success story<\/h2>\n
By Wendy Raebeck<\/h3>\n