Amazon By Invitation Programs

One benefit of Great On Kindle is Amazon will promote your books
and offer special deals. In this case, they are offering 25 percent off
any other Great On Kindle book when you buy Shot All to Hell. It is
an added incentive for buyers on the hook.

You can bust your ass forever trying to turn your book into a bestseller, but the simplest and quickest way to hit a home run is to wait for Amazon to come knocking.

I have been self-publishing books on Amazon for just over five years now. I have picked up well over $100,000 dollars in royalty payouts. Several of my books have climbed into the top one-thousand books on Amazon, but after my promotions ended they took the inevitable plunge into oblivion.

In November of 2017, I received a quality control notice from Amazon. They had found some issues with my bestselling book, Shot All to Hell. It was an invitation to work with them to make my book the best book it could be. There was no pressure to make changes, just an offer to help.

What the hell! I jumped onboard. They suggested some simple edits and asked me to set up the X-ray feature. After a few weeks of work and some back and forth emails, I resubmitted the book.

Book Review: Mastering Amazon Ads by Brian D. Meeks

Brian Meeks may be the Mark Dawson of Amazon Ads. His new book, Mastering Amazon Ads is an eye opener. 



I've been running Amazon Ads for several months now, and one thing I can tell you is: They work. 

Over time, Amazon Ads will show your books to millions of potential buyers. Some of them will click on your ads. Some will even buy your books. 

The frustrating thing is that it's nearly impossible to scale your ad campaigns so that you can sell more books. And, that's what this book is all about.

Let me warn you up front. The process isn't easy, and it involves math. (I don't know about you, but that scares the bejeezus out of me. I hate math. I go out of my way to avoid it.)

With that said, I think most readers will employ the basic advice Meeks gives to supercharge their ads. I also think most readers will ignore the tracking portion of the book.

That's a shame!

But, it's math. And, like I said earlier. That's some scary stuff! Did I tell you? I don't like math. I don't like to think about it. I don't like to do it.

Enough said.

Here's the gist of the book.

You need to run a boatload of ads, and you need to constantly monitor their progress.

Just when you think you are running all the ads you need, you need to post more.

Amazon Ads have a shelf life. Some ads last for a few hours or a few days. Other ads can run for weeks, or even months.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to determine when your ads are going to stop running, and have new ones ready to take their place.

Hint! 

Amazon Ads revisited. 5 Million impressions later

Bryan Cohen ran an amazing tutorial this week about how to scale up your Amazon Ads campaign. https://bryancohen.lpages.co/2017-amazon-ads-webinar-replay/

If you have ever used Amazon Ads, you know how hard it is to get them to spend your budget. You can set a five hundred dollar budget, and they will spend fifty bucks.

Wtf!

It's an uphill battle. The more money you throw at them, the less they spend.

Don't believe me? Revise your budget to $250 or $500. Most times your impressions won't budge.

Bryan put an interesting spin on things.

First off, he shared his view that half the battle is waiting for Amazon to start spending your money. Too many authors give up after three to five weeks because their ads haven't taken off. 

Cohen thinks that's a big mistake.

He thinks authors should take the long view.

Can't get a BookBub Deal? Have you tried BookBub Ads?

One of the three BookBub Ads I ran for History Bytes.

BookBub has got to be one of the most frustrating book promotion sites to work with. Their turndown notices state they accept fewer than twenty percent of the deals that get submitted.

I'm zero for five. So that should mean my next submission is a sure thing. Right?

I'm not so sure about that.

I'm pretty sure they put my name on the auto turn down list. You know, they don't say no forever. Instead, they ask you to please not contact them for at least thirty days. But, I'm pretty sure they have a secret file of authors they will never accept.

And, my guess is, my name is at the top of that list. At least it sure feels that way.

Now, there's some good news for BookBub's forgotten few.

They've created a workaround where you can still promote your books on their website. The only catch is you are relegated to a display ad at the bottom of the page. One that never opens on my iPhone. (I hope BookBub is working on this.)

Anyway, BookBub began testing author ads in May of 2016. Right now, authors need to submit a request to join the program. I think it took four to six weeks for them to determine my money was the right color of green.

Buck Flogging on Book Marketing and Buck Books. How Badly Do You Want to Succeed?

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Buck Flogging. We took a deep a deep-dive into book marketing, Buck Books, and what it takes to be a successful author today. Hint: Some of the answers aren't what you think.

It's been awhile since I talked with Buck Flogging. During that time, you created Buck Books, a major promotional website for authors. Can you tell us a little about how it came about?

Rob Archangel (of www.ArchangelInk.com) and I [Matt Stone] had just started Archangel Ink, and we really wanted to have a marketing solution to help our authors get a guaranteed 100+ paid downloads at launch. I had seen Bryan Cohen put together a group 99-cent flash sale in March of 2014, where dozens of authors dropped the price of their books at the same time and then drove traffic to the same page. I took that concept and beefed it up a bit, and we launched our first event just two months later. We sent three books to the top 100 of the entire Kindle store and scooped up our first 1,750 subscribers. The rest is history.

What kind of books do best on Buck Books?

Nonfiction outperforms fiction by a long shot. Our best-performing categories are typically health and fitness and self-help. Most of our subscribers like books that have the potential to help them improve their lives in some way. This differs a lot from other book promotion sites, where the subscribers want to read stories and biographies of interesting people and stuff about politics and the like. 

What if everything I know about self-publishing is wrong?

Here’s the tough part.

What if everything I have written in this blog is a bunch of bullshit and none of it is going to do you any good?

Does it piss you off that I saved this until now?

I know it would get my goat. And, believe me, I’m feeling it right now. I discovered a book that could change the way I approach book marketing. Because, maybe, free isn't the best solution. And, perhaps ad-stacking 99 cent deals isn’t going to grow my readership the way I expect.

What would you say if I told you a free-giveaway messes with Amazon's algorithms? Yes, your book takes off at first, but after the initial burst in sales - it sputters out. 

What do you do then?

Chris Fox thinks he has the answer. You can read more about it in his Six-Figure Author: Using Data to Sell Books.

What it comes down to is that you don't need a massive launch. You need to get the right people to download your book when you first release it. 

Here's the deal. 

Amazon algorithms are data driven. They look for connections between your book and other books in your genre.

How to use Amazon Ads to increase your book sales

I love Amazon ads.

I’ve been running them for a little over three months now. The one thing I can tell you is they work. More importantly, Amazon Ads work the way all book promo sites should—you pay for results.

To date, I’ve spent $394 on Amazon Ads. Amazon says those ads resulted in $1714 in sales.

Not bad!

If you figure I made a 70 percent profit on each sale. That’s a gross profit of $1200. Deduct the cost of the Amazon ads, and I made $806. Try to make that profit from a KDP free run or a Kindle Countdown Deal. 

You can’t.

One of the terms you’re going to hear when you talk about Amazon Ads is your ACOS—short for Amazon Cost of Sales. To find the ACOS, you divide your sales ($1714) by the ad cost ($394). That number is your ACOS.

So, in this case, my Amazon Cost of Sales was 23 percent. Or, to put it in simpler terms, for every quarter I spend, I make a dollar.

It’s like playing the slots. Only you’re a guaranteed winner. I like those odds.

In theory, if I want to be a 5-figure author, I would need to run $2,500 in ads every month. That would give me $10,500 in sales with a $7,619 gross profit.

It sounds good, doesn’t it?

The thing is, it’s hard to get Amazon to spend your money. I can tell it to spend $25 a day, and it spends $1.25.

WTF!

Mark Dawson is an expert on Amazon ads, and he says the same thing. To get the spend thru he wants and needs, Mark, runs over 200 ads at a time. 200 ads are not going to happen.

I run ten ads, and to me, it’s a lot of work.

If you haven’t tried Amazon Ads yet, here’s how to get started.