July 25, 2025 • 34 mins
Ever felt like you're throwing money into the Amazon advertising abyss with nothing to show for it? You're not alone—and the problem might be simpler than you think.
When your Amazon ads aren't performing, it's rarely about bad ad copy or poor bidding strategies. The real culprit is usually genre confusion: putting your book in front of the wrong readers. Think about walking into a bookstore and finding a tax guide shelved between health and fitness books. That's exactly what happens when authors mismatch their marketing to their actual content.
Amazon's algorithm punishes this misalignment ruthlessly. When people click your ads but don't buy your book, the system registers your content as irrelevant or low quality. Your visibility drops while your costs climb—a devastating combination for your marketing budget and your author morale.
The solution starts with brutal honesty about where your book truly belongs. A romantic suspense novel with light tension doesn't belong in the thriller category alongside dark psychological dramas. A business book for seasoned entrepreneurs shouldn't target new startups. As one successful indie author memorably put it, you simply can't "sell a cat to a dog person"—you must identify and target the specific readers who want exactly what you're offering.
Amazon ads remain one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal—the rare strategy that works 24/7 to introduce new readers to your books. But they amplify what's already working rather than fixing what's broken. Take 30 minutes today to ensure you're showing your book to readers who actually want it. Your sales (and your wallet) will thank you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips
and Author Success Podcast.
This is Penny Sansevierie andAmy Cornell, and we hope that
you all have enjoyed some of thesummer shows, the repeat summer
shows that we've been doingbecause, as we said, we're going
to keep doing some of those.
We just have so many.
We have had so many newlisteners in year five that it
(00:25):
made a ton of sense to kind ofpresent those shows again,
because not everybody goes backthrough the arc.
It's like I'm just going tolisten to Amy and Penny from
year one, like I don't know whoreally has time for that.
Much as we'd love you to dothat, I don't really know who
has time for that.
So we're going to definitelykeep doing that.
You know, be on the lookout forthat, as we are, you know,
(00:49):
present Representing is notreally a word, I don't think,
but it is now.
I'm now.
I'm one of those people justmaking up genres, but we are
going to be showcasing some ofthe more popular shows that
we've had.
So definitely be on the lookoutfor that.
This is something.
(01:13):
Today's show idea is somethingthat again happened very much in
the trenches and we have wehave just seen so many authors
that are doing their Amazon adswrong I mean, I don't really
know how else to say it and bywrong I don't necessarily mean
(01:36):
their ad copy or even the bookcover even the book cover
Because if Amazon's notpresenting your book, or if the
ad is not being presented to theright genre, then nothing else
really matters.
(01:57):
It doesn't matter if you spent$3,000 on your book cover and
you have the best bookdescription.
You're literally not going toAmazon's not going to sell your
ads.
And the other part of it,though, too, that I have to
consider is that I understand ifyou all are out there just
kicking it, because I justlaunched the Amazon Author
(02:17):
Formula workbook, which is doinggreat, by the way.
Thank you all so much for yoursupport in that.
But if you're out there andyou're, you know you picked up
the workbook you're like I gotthe first book, I picked up the
workbook, I want to do my ownads, and you're jumping into
this and you're super excited,and I think that's great.
It's the reason I wrote thebook.
But a lot of times we get, Ithink, authors sometimes
(02:43):
overshoot their targets.
I mean, amy, is there a betterway to say that?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, it's definitely.
I mean, we've done how manyshows talking about the
importance of reallyunderstanding who your market is
, who your reader is, connectingwith those readers, and this is
just a very specific example,and I think it's worth focusing
on ads in particular, becausenot only is it marketing time
and money, but then you add inyour ad budget too.
(03:14):
So this isn't just like youwasted your time sending out
some pitches to people that maynot have been the right
influencers for your genre.
It's like, well, that's abummer.
You know what I mean, butAmazon ads are not only costing
you time and money, but then thead budget on top of it.
So this is definitely not anarea where you just want to
assume everything is going right.
(03:34):
And even this week, Penny, wehad an author reach out to us
and in their book description itsaid this book is for everyone,
and I immediately was like isit, though, is for everyone?
And I immediately was like isit, though?
Because the?
And I explained that to her,and she was very receptive, and
I said it doesn't mean that yourbook doesn't have an appeal to
a lot of different kinds ofpeople, but you have to be
(03:55):
really smart about whether youwant to.
You know, dig in on that whenit comes to your marketing and
branding.
You know, oftentimes that'ssomething that needs to be
discovered organically.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Right, well, but the other reason, the other piece of
this too, is that Amazon willpunish you in ways that only.
Amazon can.
If your ads are being targetedto the wrong consumer, right, so
you will get dinged in terms of.
(04:29):
So the trajectory of the ads isso you run an ad, you pick the
wrong genre, amazon will youknow if your bid is strong
enough or whatever.
Your Amazon will present thebook.
Nobody clicks on it.
Amazon's going to.
Or people, worse, even worsepeople do click on it, so now
(04:50):
you're paying for that.
They get to your page.
They don't buy your book.
Both cases can potentially bereally bad because Amazon will
keep pushing your visibilitydown.
It dings your relevancy scoreand it dings your visibility.
So the genre fit is what reallydictates the ad success.
(05:14):
And it's not just the categoryon Amazon, although obviously
that's important.
But when you're thinking aboutfiction or nonfiction important.
But when you're thinking aboutfiction or nonfiction you have
to think about the expectationof the reader, the emotional
payoff.
And you know, if you've writtenfiction, lean into the tropes,
(05:38):
right, because those are thethings, especially for fiction.
Those are the things thatreally sell books.
And you know, an easy exampleof this might be small town
holiday romance, for example.
Those are really specific.
That's a really specific readermarket, right.
(05:59):
That reader market typicallydoesn't dip into the you know
hotsy-totsy erotic romancereader market.
They don't really cross overBecause small-town romance can
have some spice to it, certainly, but a lot of these books are
(06:22):
also sweet romance, so that'skind of.
The other piece of this is thatbeing as crystal clear on your
genre as you are pullingtogether your ads and also, as
we said, you know what what's init when, especially when you're
doing nonfiction, what's in itfor the reader, what are the?
(06:43):
What are the?
What are the payoffs?
What is the audience reallygoing to get?
Get a specific and I know thisdoesn't sound fun, like I
realized that Amy and I love itbecause we love to nerd out on
all things Amazon I realizedthat that's not, that's not
everybody.
You know what I mean.
It, it is a it just it's.
(07:05):
It's a problem and I've seenthis problem whenever I've.
If I, if you know, when I doconsultations only cause we also
run ads for our clients, butwhen I do consultations only for
authors who are kind of workingon their own I see this all the
time, you know um, like aromantic suspense book, and
again, not to lean intocontinually lean into genre
fiction, but like a romanticsuspense book and, again, not to
lean into continually lean intogenre fiction, but like a
(07:27):
romantic suspense novel that youfeel is suspenseful, but that
isn't really suspenseful, I mean, you know, okay.
So maybe there's a little angstand you have to think about so,
as you're putting together yourads and you're, and you know,
think of it like a bookstore.
(07:48):
Right, and many of us haven't.
I love going to bookstores.
I could spend an afternoon in abookstore.
If it has a Starbucks, I'll bethere all day, right.
But think about a bookstorewhere you know, if you were to
walk down, you know a book aisleand there's all these books on,
let's say, health and fitness,whatever, and then in the middle
(08:09):
of those books is a tax bookfor dummies.
You would have paused with thatand you would think, well, who
put this book on this shelf?
And this is kind of crazy.
Authors do this with their adsall the time.
I know this.
I don't mean to likeovergeneralize that, but it
(08:30):
happens.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I mean, amy, you've seen it even outside of the ads,
and sometimes when authors cometo us and they're super
confused on where their bookreally belongs on the shelf,
Well, and it drives me nuts whenI'm doing keyword and category
research, when I see books inthe wrong place, and you know,
if I'm being honest, I almostalways assume it's some sort of
(08:53):
twisted strategy.
It wasn't an accident, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactlyLike somebody is trying to game
the system because they knowthis is getting a lot of eyes
and so they've found a way toget their book somewhere where a
lot of eyes are, but it's notthe right eyes.
So it really fits into whatwe're talking about here.
Yes, you are getting your bookshowing up in perhaps a
(09:16):
currently popular category, butif those are not your people, it
doesn't matter.
You know, if you're justconfusing the reader, the
shopper experience which is abad look too and I'm sure Amazon
in all their you know creepyoversight, pays attention to
that as well and has ways totrack that you know if you're
(09:36):
messing with the shopper'sexperience by putting your book
somewhere where it doesn'tbelong whether it's ads or
categories or keywords they arenot going to be happy, because
unhappy shoppers don't spend asmuch money.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, exactly, and I think that you know it's really
important as an author which,again, I realize this is the not
fun part of being an author butit's really important to
understand what your readerwants.
And the only way that you'rereally going to do that is by
reading in your genre.
And we talk about this all thetime and I know, like I
(10:12):
understand that it takes, youknow it takes a while to.
You know like takes time awayfrom every, from writing other
books if you're reading otherpeople's books.
But I do it all the time.
I think it's really reallyimportant books, but I do it all
the time.
I think it's really reallyimportant.
But you also have to remembertoo that the ads really function
(10:33):
on a couple of key factors.
So obviously there's budget,which we're not really going to
get into today.
The ads, they live and die bythe internal Amazon algorithm
and how they're presented.
Right, that is really the onlything that matters to the ads.
In fact, you know, if you wereto spend a lot of time just
(10:55):
identifying your genre and runan ad without any kind of ad
copy a lot of times, you know,and this is really where yeah,
I'm sorry now, I'm just now I'mjust on my soapbox.
This is where I talk to a lotof authors when I'm doing
consultations.
They're like I spent so muchtime on this, on this ad copy.
I spent an inordinate amount oftime on this ad copy and maybe
(11:19):
they put it on Facebook and theygot people's input and I will
tell you that the ad copymatters so much less than
whether or not you're presentingthe book to the right reader.
Yeah, so I mean it's not thesame.
You know, and you could even Imean it's hard to do A-B testing
on Amazon.
People like oh, you have to doA-B testing with Amazon ads.
(11:40):
I'll be really honest with you.
It's not easy to do A-B testingwith Amazon ads for a variety
of reasons, one of which is thefact that Amazon reporting is
like ugh, like their reportingis delayed and it's all weird
and everything like that.
But I think that what you haveto look, you know, just keep
that, keeping that bookshelf inmind you have to realize that
(12:02):
when there's a genre mismatch inthe ads and it impacts the
reader experience, it impactsthe consumer experience on
Amazon's side.
Your ads are going to cost more.
Amazon's going to stoppresenting your ads in the first
place, you're going to have tospend more just to get
visibility.
I mean, it is a vicious viciouscircle, right, it is a vicious
(12:23):
vicious circle, right, you know,and I think that you know
things.
So, one of the genres well,there's actually several genres
that I find, when I'm doing ads,that authors get confused about
.
Business books are a goodexample of this.
Right, so business.
So when you say business books,it's kind of like saying saying
I wrote a romance, right, it'slike okay, well, what kind?
(12:46):
Right?
I mean, you have the businessbook for, like, okay, is your
business book written forsomebody who's been in business
for 10 years?
Or is this for somebody who,literally, is in their garage
with their desk and just likedoing their business on the side
till they can quit their job?
Like who?
Right, yeah, big difference,it's a big difference.
(13:10):
It's a big difference in all ofthe things that matter, not the
least of which is who you'retargeting for your ads.
I mean, um, cozy mystery isanother one.
I mean, and, amy, throughout,throughout genres that you've
seen, but cozy mystery isanother one.
So, cozy mystery.
(13:31):
So often authors throw thebooks in mystery because mystery
is a popular category.
Like, I get it.
But now you're potentiallycompeting with.
So, first off, cozy mystery iswhimsical, right, it's not good.
There's a little fun element,maybe it's like an elderly
couple solving you know, solvingcrimes and things like that.
(13:52):
And if you put yourself in themystery or mystery or heaven
forbid, mystery slash thriller.
Now you're competing withauthors like I don't know, karen
Slaughter, where there isnothing like Amy's in the middle
of reading one of her booksright now.
I've read a bunch of her books.
There is literally nothingwhimsical about Garrett
Slaughter's books, right?
(14:12):
No, so that's.
I mean Amy, throw out some, notto put you on the spot, but
throw out some genres, yeah, Imean.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I think I definitely see this a lot and I personally
find it challenging not in a badway, but when we're working
with science fiction authors,because there are, you know,
there are sci-fi.
There's so many different waysthat sci-fi can go and I feel
like those, just like there isin romance, are very much a
(14:44):
reader preference thing.
Like you don't see, at least inmy experience, a ton of
crossover between somebody thatlikes straight up sci-fi that is
out in space with aliens andintergalactic stuff versus the
you know just near future earthsci-fi that has some creepy
scientific stuff woven in and,you know, government conspiracy,
(15:08):
like those are two verydifferent readers.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You know, so I think that's a big one to science
fiction and then even fantasytoo, because fantasy can be.
I think there's a little bitmore wiggle room in fantasy, but
there are still very differentways that you can go, and there
are people that you know.
There's some romantic elements,and somebody that's really
looking for romantic fantasyelements is not likely to go for
(15:33):
something that has no romancewhatsoever, and I think we
haven't used this term in awhile, but it still is going to
be one of those that stays in myhead forever.
Trying to sell a cat to a dogperson.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh my gosh, I love we haven't used that analogy in so
long.
I love that.
I know we haven't used thatanalogy in so long.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I know, and so for those of you that have been
listening since the beginning,you may have heard us mention
this.
It came up at, actually, aromance writers conference and
it was a really fantastic panelof very successful indie authors
that kind of just talked to theroom about you know how they
got to where they were.
You know it was very inspiring.
But that was one of the linesthat one of them said.
(16:11):
She said I had to figure.
At some point I had to come toterms with the fact that I
wasn't going to be able to sella cat to a dog person.
So she really had to getserious about who her different
reader markets were for herdifferent series and she could
not rely on converting one ofher reader markets into a
different series that wasdesigned for a slightly
(16:33):
different reader.
You know what I mean.
She wasn't going to bank onthat crossover.
And she said once I gave up onthat, I actually enjoyed
marketing a lot more Well, andthat's a really good.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
You know, that's a really good point.
And I'll tell you somethingthat if it feels look, look, I
understand that book marketingis not easy.
Amazon ads are you know,confounding to many authors, but
if it's really, it shouldn't,it should not be that difficult.
It shouldn't be that difficult.
And I think that if you are, um, and we're going to talk in a
(17:06):
second about how to figure thisout, Like if you're listening to
this, you're like okay, andyou're nodding, You're like okay
, okay, okay, Tell me, tell me,tell me how to how to figure
this out.
We'll talk about that in just asecond.
But if you have so, if your adshave high clicks but no sales,
right.
Um, if your ads seem to beburning money without any
(17:26):
traction, because I've talked,this is the when I do an Amazon
ads call with an author againfor somebody that we're not
working with, this is the firstthing they'll tell me is they'll
say my ads are just burningmoney without traction.
And then I go in there and thisis another thing.
I mean I know we don't get wantto get too far down the rabbit
hole.
It's like I'll go in there andthen they have like one keyword.
They have a single keyword.
(17:47):
I mean they may have a lot ofkeywords, but one of the
keywords is book or something.
And I actually have my head inmy hands right now because I see
that word book.
I'm like, oh my gosh, you haveto really just stop doing that.
And I think that if you, a lotof times this is and the really
(18:10):
unfortunate big red flag is whenit, when a review appears on
your retail page and says this,somebody says this wasn't what I
expected, which is you knowwhat I mean.
(18:39):
So think about how you can kindof reverse engineer this.
And I think, yes, getting toknow other authors and books in
your genre is really important.
I would say, analyze the top 20books that are in your category
, or the category that you thinkthat you're in I guess is maybe
a better way to put it andreally look for like is there a
(19:02):
cover match right?
Does your cover feel similar?
Are the descriptions similar?
Not similar in that you copiedthem, but I mean they have sort
of the same vibe, right, because, amy, you mentioned like a
sci-fi.
I have sci-fi and sci-fi was areally, really good example.
Like a dystopian description isgoing to be vastly different
(19:27):
from just a straight sci-fi.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You know, so you really have to.
And you know and again, this isyour virtual shelf, so go
through and figure out.
Okay, so I aligned my book withthis Is this really where the
buyer, is this really what thebuyer wants?
(19:54):
Is this really what my readeris expecting?
And then I think, when you havenonfiction in particular, you
really have to dig into readerpsychology, which again, oh my
gosh, I could do like a fivehour show on this and y'all
would be bored and never listento us again.
Freaking love talking aboutreader psychology all day, every
day.
Amy can tell you I'm just like,oh, just, I love it, but you
(20:17):
have to think about the readerpsychology behind this too.
You have to think about again.
Just to go back to, like thebusiness book, somebody who's
been in business for 10 yearsdoes not want to know how.
You know what I mean.
Like there are different, theyhave different incentives for
getting there, for getting theirbooks, and I think this is
across the board.
For anything that you're doing,um, related to non-fiction, you
(20:43):
really have to think of where,where is your reader right now,
and going after that particularsegment in as focused a way as
you can.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And I think to add to that, Penny, it's a really good
point that you're making that Iwant to point out.
You said right now and we oftenforget to talk about the fact
that very little that has to dowith Amazon is a static strategy
that should stay that wayforever.
Yes, yes.
(21:18):
So you know it's like so, so,sorry to add that on to
everybody.
It's like oh, we're just nowtrying to figure out how to do
ads and now you're telling us wehave to figure out how to read.
But once you do this more often, it'll be more second nature
and once you figure out how todo this kind of research and how
to do this kind of assessment,it really will start making a
lot more sense and you canimprove on your traction and
(21:41):
your visibility and even yoursales so much by working on
these things consistently, evena handful of times a year.
And we've done shows on timingand things like that, like
considerations throughout theyear and how you can change up
your marketing.
So we don't have to go intothat now.
But I think ads are the sameway.
This is definitely not a set itand forget it, because you
figured it out once.
It's going to be figured outfor the life of your book.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, exactly, and I think that it's really hard, and
you know you and I have talkedto enough authors that we know
this Sometimes it's hard to getout of our own way, right, when
an author has their heart set ona particular genre and maybe
it's not even something, becausea lot of times this happens
where you get the idea first andthe genre second right, like I
(22:26):
want to write a book about XYZand then I'll just figure out
the genre second, which isreally not a good way to write a
book, but I know that a lot ofauthors subscribe to that.
Like I know that that's so youare.
Then you get, you get thisgenre in your head, because
maybe then you send the book tothe editor and the editor's like
, oh well, this is, this is such, this is such.
(22:48):
And you're like, okay, well,that's my genre.
And so now you're followingthis train to its inevitable and
potentially unsuccessfulconclusion because you've,
foundationally, you started outwith an idea rather than, you
know, researching the genre, anda lot of authors do this.
Like I get it there's still.
(23:08):
Like you can make correctionsto your and Amy can speak to
this too so your bookdescription, correcting any of
the emotional hooks.
Correcting we talked abouttropes, correcting any of the
tropes that maybe weren't thatneed to be included, or maybe
were included and aren't really,you know, changing up your
(23:29):
cover, because once you start toreally say, okay, I need to
take a serious look at my ads,as opposed to just walking away
from Amazon ads saying none ofthis works, amazon hates me, I
don't know what I'm doing.
Like, just download yourkeywords and really get honest
with yourself and say you know,are these, do these really make
(23:49):
sense?
And please don't use keywordslike bestselling book or new
bestseller or so, because youwill just pay so much money.
You'll pay so much money forthese keywords, right?
And then the other piece of it,though, too, is that okay?
So let's go back to the mysteryauthor.
So let's say, yeah, I want torank number one in mystery.
(24:12):
I was running an ad set for anauthor, and I don't know if this
is still the case, but the wordmystery, like was $33 a click,
both.
And I was like first A, firstoff.
There's literally no ROI inthat, right.
And Amazon you know Amazon'skind of sneaky that way, like
(24:34):
they'll throw out these reallybig, broad keywords and,
honestly, it's not.
It's to your detriment as anauthor, because they're just
like oh, authors are going toreally want to be ranked number
one in romance or number one inbusiness, and then you pay.
You pay this money for thiskeyword, for a click, and then
you don't sell a book becauseyour book is not really aligned
correctly.
The other piece of this, too, isthe further that you dig down
(24:56):
into this genre, the lessexpensive your ads are going to
be, not only because of theclick-through like click-through
rates.
Better you're not pulling inand all this random traffic, but
keywords that are more longtail, so they're further down
the rabbit hole a little bit,but more in line with your
(25:17):
audience.
It's going to be a cheaper wayto run your ads too, you know.
So what have we?
What have we missed, amy?
What did we not?
What did we not cover?
Because I know I've been sortof rambling.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
No, I think also, too , it's worth mentioning for
anybody that's feeling becauseyou already mentioned like okay,
don't give up on this, becausewe talk about this a lot
internally, and it's anotherthing that I feel like we could
say more.
You know, amazon ads are reallyone of the only marketing
strategies that can be workingfor you 24-7.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you mentioned that yes.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
You know we mentioned this a lot internally because
it's kind of it is a veryfrustrating concept because it
is.
It takes time and effort toreally figure these out.
I mean, penny's been doing itfor literally years.
So when authors are like, justtell me how to do it, it's like
I swear it's not that simple,like if we had that secret sauce
we would sell it, you know.
(26:16):
But a lot of it really is kindof getting in the trenches and
just experiencing what happensback there and doing the
research and kind of getting inthe right frame of mind.
But it's totally worth itbecause literally there is no
other form of marketing that canbe working for you behind the
scenes.
When you're busy writing, whenyou're busy with your regular
life, when you're busy with yourday job, all those or when your
(26:39):
marketing budget feels prettytapped on, all the other big
ideas that you had, you know forthe quarter, smart Amazon ads
can keep that train moving foryou and it's quite literally the
only way new people everysingle day can get introduced to
your book.
So it really is a fantastictool.
But to Penny's point with allthese tips she shared, you want
(27:03):
to do it the right way,obviously because it could also
just be a big dumpster fire ofcash.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I know it, I know it and you know I mean spend 30
minutes, just.
You know, spend 30 minutes juststudy the top 10 books in your
genre, right?
Um?
Relook at your ads.
Make sure that you're puttingthe reader first.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Um, make sure your retail page is saying what you
need it to say.
Yes, that's another one, penny,when you mentioned we get too
close to our own work sometimes.
Get a second opinion, thirdopinion, professional opinion on
your retail page and what youmight be able to do differently,
because it's really hard toexplain your book in a really
fun, dynamic, exciting way whenyou know all the secrets, you
(27:57):
know all the plot twists, youknow all, you know what I mean,
you know how it all goes.
But to put yourself in the mindand shoes of somebody that
knows nothing and trying torecreate that first impression
experience for somebody else,that's really challenging to do.
When you know all the ins andouts, you know.
Yeah, and I think that's a hugepart of this too is that that
(28:18):
first impression these adsreally have to align with the
first impression shoppers needto experience in order to
potentially click that buybutton?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Right, exactly, and I'm really glad that you
mentioned that about the ads,because the ads are.
They are a great way to do, tobe.
You know if you're, if you'redoing all the right things to
get 24-7 in front of your reader, you know you just really want
to make sure that you are.
You know, to Amy's point, adscan't.
They won't fix a bad book,right, they won't fix a mismatch
(28:53):
, they'll really only amplifywhat isn't working.
So that's the thing that youwrote that you want and you know
this isn't about.
You know there's a lot of booksout there about the tricks and
oh, the low budget.
And start your ads with like adollar or not, even not a dollar
, a penny.
You know what I mean Like ornot, even not a dollar a penny.
(29:15):
You know what I mean Like, like, just underbid.
And trust me when we say and Ithink I can speak with it to Amy
on this that there's no,there's really no tricking the
Amazon system, there's really notricking the Amazon system.
And just to be fully like, fulldisclosure, I mean.
So when the workbook went up,when the workbook first went up,
um, the, when the workbookfirst went up, amy looked at the
(29:35):
book description and cause.
Of course I don't write my ownbook descriptions in a vacuum.
She steps in and helps me withthat because we're all too close
to our own stuff, even me andshe looked at that book
description and she's like well,the workbook has, you know, all
of like you have access to.
Like all the four, all the backend stuff, all the forms, all
(29:57):
the good, all the cool stuff inthe books.
You don't have to like writeall over your book if you don't
want to.
Or if you bought an ebook likeyou can click the qr code and
she's like you need to mentionthat in the book description.
Head slapper right.
I'm like oh my gosh, I totallymissed the opportunity to
mention that the book gives youaccess to all these forms.
Everybody's too close to theirown work, even somebody who does
(30:20):
this for a living.
We're close to our too tooclose to our own work.
So, um, just keep an eye onthose amazon ads.
I want you to be successfulwithout spending all of your
money and being reallydiscouraged, cause that's that's
not, that's not a fun way tomarket a book.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Right, and Penny, just real quick.
For somebody that is startingoff with this or maybe wants to
do like a reset, would you sayit's reasonable to start small
and build from there, versustrying to cover all the things
with your ads?
Yes, yeah, you know, likereally narrow down one thing you
want to achieve one you knowkind of niche buyer market that
(30:57):
you want to connect with and dothose right before you start
creating ads for all the things,and then you have eight balls
flying in the air that you'retrying to control.
Right, and you know what I'm soglad.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Oh, my gosh, this is why she's my co-host, because or
we're each other's co-hosts, Iguess, is a better way to say it
Because she always comes upwith these great ideas.
I will tell you that when Italk to authors and they say,
well, my book is this and mybook is this, and my book is
this and my book is this, okay,your book's not allowed to be
eight things, right, but a lotof times this is when an author
(31:31):
gets really confused on theirgenre, right, and where we start
to see genre mismatch and thatkind of thing.
To Amy's point Okay, so maybeyour book has like okay, but my
book has first responders in itand my, those people that will
be interesting to firstresponders my book also has.
My book was also set in theeighties, so I want to pull in
(31:53):
that nostalgia people and my,you know all this other stuff.
Start with one thing, start with.
Start with one particular,start with the biggest, the
low-hanging fruit, I guess, forlack of a better way to put it
right.
Start with that and then buildfrom there as you start to get
your feet wet, because it'll bea much, much better experience
(32:14):
for you in these ads to get themto where you need to be, and
also it's also a lot lessoverwhelming, right, if you
start out with focusing on oneparticular area, you know.
So the Amazon ads are reallynot I.
Yes, they take a little bit ofwork, but they're totally worth
(32:35):
it.
As Amy said, it's a 24-7 way tomarket and there's very few
things that are that right.
And I think you know, when Italk to authors because I talked
to an author this morning he'slike can you run my Facebook ads
?
I'm like no, and it's notbecause I don't like Facebook,
because I'm on Facebook, but theFacebook ad platform has become
(32:56):
.
They've really made setting upads so efficient, right, whereas
with Amazon, it's you have to,you have to put in all the
things, you have to figure outall it's.
Amazon very much mirrors GoogleAdWords in this.
In this way, the problem withrunning ads on different
platforms like even running onInstagram or TikTok or whatever
(33:17):
every time that you ask somebodyto click, you lose 20% of your
audience.
So there are a number of flawsin the system when you're trying
to advertise on other platforms, which is why we always love
and favor um, amazon ads.
And with that, amy did we covereverything we did this time?
(33:37):
Okay, good, okay, good, allright, well, listen, we will see
you next time.
Um, thank you all so much forlistening and thank you for the
reviews.
We love, uh, we love reviewsWe've had.
We just had a recent one in, um, uh, I think in June.
We got a couple more in Juneactually, and it's just, it's a.
It's a really awesome thingwhen we pop open and we see
(34:00):
those reviews.
So we love if it's.
If, if it's a little bit toosquirrely I know that, um,
sometimes, uh, itunes can be alittle squirrely, or, uh, apple
podcast, rather, can be a littlebit squirrely.
To leave reviews, you'rewelcome to send them to us and
we'll put them up on our website.
Thank you so much and we'll seeyou next time.
Bye-bye.
Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips
and Author Success Podcast.
This is Penny Sansevierie andAmy Cornell, and we hope that
you all have enjoyed some of thesummer shows, the repeat summer
shows that we've been doingbecause, as we said, we're going
to keep doing some of those.
We just have so many.
We have had so many newlisteners in year five that it
(00:25):
made a ton of sense to kind ofpresent those shows again,
because not everybody goes backthrough the arc.
It's like I'm just going tolisten to Amy and Penny from
year one, like I don't know whoreally has time for that.
Much as we'd love you to dothat, I don't really know who
has time for that.
So we're going to definitelykeep doing that.
You know, be on the lookout forthat, as we are, you know,
(00:49):
present Representing is notreally a word, I don't think,
but it is now.
I'm now.
I'm one of those people justmaking up genres, but we are
going to be showcasing some ofthe more popular shows that
we've had.
So definitely be on the lookoutfor that.
This is something.
(01:13):
Today's show idea is somethingthat again happened very much in
the trenches and we have wehave just seen so many authors
that are doing their Amazon adswrong I mean, I don't really
know how else to say it and bywrong I don't necessarily mean
(01:36):
their ad copy or even the bookcover even the book cover
Because if Amazon's notpresenting your book, or if the
ad is not being presented to theright genre, then nothing else
really matters.
(01:57):
It doesn't matter if you spent$3,000 on your book cover and
you have the best bookdescription.
You're literally not going toAmazon's not going to sell your
ads.
And the other part of it,though, too, that I have to
consider is that I understand ifyou all are out there just
kicking it, because I justlaunched the Amazon Author
(02:17):
Formula workbook, which is doinggreat, by the way.
Thank you all so much for yoursupport in that.
But if you're out there andyou're, you know you picked up
the workbook you're like I gotthe first book, I picked up the
workbook, I want to do my ownads, and you're jumping into
this and you're super excited,and I think that's great.
It's the reason I wrote thebook.
But a lot of times we get, Ithink, authors sometimes
(02:43):
overshoot their targets.
I mean, amy, is there a betterway to say that?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
No, it's definitely.
I mean, we've done how manyshows talking about the
importance of reallyunderstanding who your market is
, who your reader is, connectingwith those readers, and this is
just a very specific example,and I think it's worth focusing
on ads in particular, becausenot only is it marketing time
and money, but then you add inyour ad budget too.
(03:14):
So this isn't just like youwasted your time sending out
some pitches to people that maynot have been the right
influencers for your genre.
It's like, well, that's abummer.
You know what I mean, butAmazon ads are not only costing
you time and money, but then thead budget on top of it.
So this is definitely not anarea where you just want to
assume everything is going right.
(03:34):
And even this week, Penny, wehad an author reach out to us
and in their book description itsaid this book is for everyone,
and I immediately was like isit, though, is for everyone?
And I immediately was like isit, though?
Because the?
And I explained that to her,and she was very receptive, and
I said it doesn't mean that yourbook doesn't have an appeal to
a lot of different kinds ofpeople, but you have to be
(03:55):
really smart about whether youwant to.
You know, dig in on that whenit comes to your marketing and
branding.
You know, oftentimes that'ssomething that needs to be
discovered organically.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Right, well, but the other reason, the other piece of
this too, is that Amazon willpunish you in ways that only.
Amazon can.
If your ads are being targetedto the wrong consumer, right, so
you will get dinged in terms of.
(04:29):
So the trajectory of the ads isso you run an ad, you pick the
wrong genre, amazon will youknow if your bid is strong
enough or whatever.
Your Amazon will present thebook.
Nobody clicks on it.
Amazon's going to.
Or people, worse, even worsepeople do click on it, so now
(04:50):
you're paying for that.
They get to your page.
They don't buy your book.
Both cases can potentially bereally bad because Amazon will
keep pushing your visibilitydown.
It dings your relevancy scoreand it dings your visibility.
So the genre fit is what reallydictates the ad success.
(05:14):
And it's not just the categoryon Amazon, although obviously
that's important.
But when you're thinking aboutfiction or nonfiction important.
But when you're thinking aboutfiction or nonfiction you have
to think about the expectationof the reader, the emotional
payoff.
And you know, if you've writtenfiction, lean into the tropes,
(05:38):
right, because those are thethings, especially for fiction.
Those are the things thatreally sell books.
And you know, an easy exampleof this might be small town
holiday romance, for example.
Those are really specific.
That's a really specific readermarket, right.
(05:59):
That reader market typicallydoesn't dip into the you know
hotsy-totsy erotic romancereader market.
They don't really cross overBecause small-town romance can
have some spice to it, certainly, but a lot of these books are
(06:22):
also sweet romance, so that'skind of.
The other piece of this is thatbeing as crystal clear on your
genre as you are pullingtogether your ads and also, as
we said, you know what what's init when, especially when you're
doing nonfiction, what's in itfor the reader, what are the?
(06:43):
What are the?
What are the payoffs?
What is the audience reallygoing to get?
Get a specific and I know thisdoesn't sound fun, like I
realized that Amy and I love itbecause we love to nerd out on
all things Amazon I realizedthat that's not, that's not
everybody.
You know what I mean.
It, it is a it just it's.
(07:05):
It's a problem and I've seenthis problem whenever I've.
If I, if you know, when I doconsultations only cause we also
run ads for our clients, butwhen I do consultations only for
authors who are kind of workingon their own I see this all the
time, you know um, like aromantic suspense book, and
again, not to lean intocontinually lean into genre
fiction, but like a romanticsuspense book and, again, not to
lean into continually lean intogenre fiction, but like a
(07:27):
romantic suspense novel that youfeel is suspenseful, but that
isn't really suspenseful, I mean, you know, okay.
So maybe there's a little angstand you have to think about so,
as you're putting together yourads and you're, and you know,
think of it like a bookstore.
(07:48):
Right, and many of us haven't.
I love going to bookstores.
I could spend an afternoon in abookstore.
If it has a Starbucks, I'll bethere all day, right.
But think about a bookstorewhere you know, if you were to
walk down, you know a book aisleand there's all these books on,
let's say, health and fitness,whatever, and then in the middle
(08:09):
of those books is a tax bookfor dummies.
You would have paused with thatand you would think, well, who
put this book on this shelf?
And this is kind of crazy.
Authors do this with their adsall the time.
I know this.
I don't mean to likeovergeneralize that, but it
(08:30):
happens.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I mean, amy, you've seen it even outside of the ads,
and sometimes when authors cometo us and they're super
confused on where their bookreally belongs on the shelf,
Well, and it drives me nuts whenI'm doing keyword and category
research, when I see books inthe wrong place, and you know,
if I'm being honest, I almostalways assume it's some sort of
(08:53):
twisted strategy.
It wasn't an accident, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactlyLike somebody is trying to game
the system because they knowthis is getting a lot of eyes
and so they've found a way toget their book somewhere where a
lot of eyes are, but it's notthe right eyes.
So it really fits into whatwe're talking about here.
Yes, you are getting your bookshowing up in perhaps a
(09:16):
currently popular category, butif those are not your people, it
doesn't matter.
You know, if you're justconfusing the reader, the
shopper experience which is abad look too and I'm sure Amazon
in all their you know creepyoversight, pays attention to
that as well and has ways totrack that you know if you're
(09:36):
messing with the shopper'sexperience by putting your book
somewhere where it doesn'tbelong whether it's ads or
categories or keywords they arenot going to be happy, because
unhappy shoppers don't spend asmuch money.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Yeah, exactly, and I think that you know it's really
important as an author which,again, I realize this is the not
fun part of being an author butit's really important to
understand what your readerwants.
And the only way that you'rereally going to do that is by
reading in your genre.
And we talk about this all thetime and I know, like I
(10:12):
understand that it takes, youknow it takes a while to.
You know like takes time awayfrom every, from writing other
books if you're reading otherpeople's books.
But I do it all the time.
I think it's really reallyimportant books, but I do it all
the time.
I think it's really reallyimportant.
But you also have to remembertoo that the ads really function
(10:33):
on a couple of key factors.
So obviously there's budget,which we're not really going to
get into today.
The ads, they live and die bythe internal Amazon algorithm
and how they're presented.
Right, that is really the onlything that matters to the ads.
In fact, you know, if you wereto spend a lot of time just
(10:55):
identifying your genre and runan ad without any kind of ad
copy a lot of times, you know,and this is really where yeah,
I'm sorry now, I'm just now I'mjust on my soapbox.
This is where I talk to a lotof authors when I'm doing
consultations.
They're like I spent so muchtime on this, on this ad copy.
I spent an inordinate amount oftime on this ad copy and maybe
(11:19):
they put it on Facebook and theygot people's input and I will
tell you that the ad copymatters so much less than
whether or not you're presentingthe book to the right reader.
Yeah, so I mean it's not thesame.
You know, and you could even Imean it's hard to do A-B testing
on Amazon.
People like oh, you have to doA-B testing with Amazon ads.
(11:40):
I'll be really honest with you.
It's not easy to do A-B testingwith Amazon ads for a variety
of reasons, one of which is thefact that Amazon reporting is
like ugh, like their reportingis delayed and it's all weird
and everything like that.
But I think that what you haveto look, you know, just keep
that, keeping that bookshelf inmind you have to realize that
(12:02):
when there's a genre mismatch inthe ads and it impacts the
reader experience, it impactsthe consumer experience on
Amazon's side.
Your ads are going to cost more.
Amazon's going to stoppresenting your ads in the first
place, you're going to have tospend more just to get
visibility.
I mean, it is a vicious viciouscircle, right, it is a vicious
(12:23):
vicious circle, right, you know,and I think that you know
things.
So, one of the genres well,there's actually several genres
that I find, when I'm doing ads,that authors get confused about
.
Business books are a goodexample of this.
Right, so business.
So when you say business books,it's kind of like saying saying
I wrote a romance, right, it'slike okay, well, what kind?
(12:46):
Right?
I mean, you have the businessbook for, like, okay, is your
business book written forsomebody who's been in business
for 10 years?
Or is this for somebody who,literally, is in their garage
with their desk and just likedoing their business on the side
till they can quit their job?
Like who?
Right, yeah, big difference,it's a big difference.
(13:10):
It's a big difference in all ofthe things that matter, not the
least of which is who you'retargeting for your ads.
I mean, um, cozy mystery isanother one.
I mean, and, amy, throughout,throughout genres that you've
seen, but cozy mystery isanother one.
So, cozy mystery.
(13:31):
So often authors throw thebooks in mystery because mystery
is a popular category.
Like, I get it.
But now you're potentiallycompeting with.
So, first off, cozy mystery iswhimsical, right, it's not good.
There's a little fun element,maybe it's like an elderly
couple solving you know, solvingcrimes and things like that.
(13:52):
And if you put yourself in themystery or mystery or heaven
forbid, mystery slash thriller.
Now you're competing withauthors like I don't know, karen
Slaughter, where there isnothing like Amy's in the middle
of reading one of her booksright now.
I've read a bunch of her books.
There is literally nothingwhimsical about Garrett
Slaughter's books, right?
(14:12):
No, so that's.
I mean Amy, throw out some, notto put you on the spot, but
throw out some genres, yeah, Imean.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I think I definitely see this a lot and I personally
find it challenging not in a badway, but when we're working
with science fiction authors,because there are, you know,
there are sci-fi.
There's so many different waysthat sci-fi can go and I feel
like those, just like there isin romance, are very much a
(14:44):
reader preference thing.
Like you don't see, at least inmy experience, a ton of
crossover between somebody thatlikes straight up sci-fi that is
out in space with aliens andintergalactic stuff versus the
you know just near future earthsci-fi that has some creepy
scientific stuff woven in and,you know, government conspiracy,
(15:08):
like those are two verydifferent readers.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
You know, so I think that's a big one to science
fiction and then even fantasytoo, because fantasy can be.
I think there's a little bitmore wiggle room in fantasy, but
there are still very differentways that you can go, and there
are people that you know.
There's some romantic elements,and somebody that's really
looking for romantic fantasyelements is not likely to go for
(15:33):
something that has no romancewhatsoever, and I think we
haven't used this term in awhile, but it still is going to
be one of those that stays in myhead forever.
Trying to sell a cat to a dogperson.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh my gosh, I love we haven't used that analogy in so
long.
I love that.
I know we haven't used thatanalogy in so long.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I know, and so for those of you that have been
listening since the beginning,you may have heard us mention
this.
It came up at, actually, aromance writers conference and
it was a really fantastic panelof very successful indie authors
that kind of just talked to theroom about you know how they
got to where they were.
You know it was very inspiring.
But that was one of the linesthat one of them said.
(16:11):
She said I had to figure.
At some point I had to come toterms with the fact that I
wasn't going to be able to sella cat to a dog person.
So she really had to getserious about who her different
reader markets were for herdifferent series and she could
not rely on converting one ofher reader markets into a
different series that wasdesigned for a slightly
(16:33):
different reader.
You know what I mean.
She wasn't going to bank onthat crossover.
And she said once I gave up onthat, I actually enjoyed
marketing a lot more Well, andthat's a really good.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
You know, that's a really good point.
And I'll tell you somethingthat if it feels look, look, I
understand that book marketingis not easy.
Amazon ads are you know,confounding to many authors, but
if it's really, it shouldn't,it should not be that difficult.
It shouldn't be that difficult.
And I think that if you are, um, and we're going to talk in a
(17:06):
second about how to figure thisout, Like if you're listening to
this, you're like okay, andyou're nodding, You're like okay
, okay, okay, Tell me, tell me,tell me how to how to figure
this out.
We'll talk about that in just asecond.
But if you have so, if your adshave high clicks but no sales,
right.
Um, if your ads seem to beburning money without any
(17:26):
traction, because I've talked,this is the when I do an Amazon
ads call with an author againfor somebody that we're not
working with, this is the firstthing they'll tell me is they'll
say my ads are just burningmoney without traction.
And then I go in there and thisis another thing.
I mean I know we don't get wantto get too far down the rabbit
hole.
It's like I'll go in there andthen they have like one keyword.
They have a single keyword.
(17:47):
I mean they may have a lot ofkeywords, but one of the
keywords is book or something.
And I actually have my head inmy hands right now because I see
that word book.
I'm like, oh my gosh, you haveto really just stop doing that.
And I think that if you, a lotof times this is and the really
(18:10):
unfortunate big red flag is whenit, when a review appears on
your retail page and says this,somebody says this wasn't what I
expected, which is you knowwhat I mean.
(18:39):
So think about how you can kindof reverse engineer this.
And I think, yes, getting toknow other authors and books in
your genre is really important.
I would say, analyze the top 20books that are in your category
, or the category that you thinkthat you're in I guess is maybe
a better way to put it andreally look for like is there a
(19:02):
cover match right?
Does your cover feel similar?
Are the descriptions similar?
Not similar in that you copiedthem, but I mean they have sort
of the same vibe, right, because, amy, you mentioned like a
sci-fi.
I have sci-fi and sci-fi was areally, really good example.
Like a dystopian description isgoing to be vastly different
(19:27):
from just a straight sci-fi.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You know, so you really have to.
And you know and again, this isyour virtual shelf, so go
through and figure out.
Okay, so I aligned my book withthis Is this really where the
buyer, is this really what thebuyer wants?
(19:54):
Is this really what my readeris expecting?
And then I think, when you havenonfiction in particular, you
really have to dig into readerpsychology, which again, oh my
gosh, I could do like a fivehour show on this and y'all
would be bored and never listento us again.
Freaking love talking aboutreader psychology all day, every
day.
Amy can tell you I'm just like,oh, just, I love it, but you
(20:17):
have to think about the readerpsychology behind this too.
You have to think about again.
Just to go back to, like thebusiness book, somebody who's
been in business for 10 yearsdoes not want to know how.
You know what I mean.
Like there are different, theyhave different incentives for
getting there, for getting theirbooks, and I think this is
across the board.
For anything that you're doing,um, related to non-fiction, you
(20:43):
really have to think of where,where is your reader right now,
and going after that particularsegment in as focused a way as
you can.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
And I think to add to that, Penny, it's a really good
point that you're making that Iwant to point out.
You said right now and we oftenforget to talk about the fact
that very little that has to dowith Amazon is a static strategy
that should stay that wayforever.
Yes, yes.
(21:18):
So you know it's like so, so,sorry to add that on to
everybody.
It's like oh, we're just nowtrying to figure out how to do
ads and now you're telling us wehave to figure out how to read.
But once you do this more often, it'll be more second nature
and once you figure out how todo this kind of research and how
to do this kind of assessment,it really will start making a
lot more sense and you canimprove on your traction and
(21:41):
your visibility and even yoursales so much by working on
these things consistently, evena handful of times a year.
And we've done shows on timingand things like that, like
considerations throughout theyear and how you can change up
your marketing.
So we don't have to go intothat now.
But I think ads are the sameway.
This is definitely not a set itand forget it, because you
figured it out once.
It's going to be figured outfor the life of your book.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, exactly, and I think that it's really hard, and
you know you and I have talkedto enough authors that we know
this Sometimes it's hard to getout of our own way, right, when
an author has their heart set ona particular genre and maybe
it's not even something, becausea lot of times this happens
where you get the idea first andthe genre second right, like I
(22:26):
want to write a book about XYZand then I'll just figure out
the genre second, which isreally not a good way to write a
book, but I know that a lot ofauthors subscribe to that.
Like I know that that's so youare.
Then you get, you get thisgenre in your head, because
maybe then you send the book tothe editor and the editor's like
, oh well, this is, this is such, this is such.
(22:48):
And you're like, okay, well,that's my genre.
And so now you're followingthis train to its inevitable and
potentially unsuccessfulconclusion because you've,
foundationally, you started outwith an idea rather than, you
know, researching the genre, anda lot of authors do this.
Like I get it there's still.
(23:08):
Like you can make correctionsto your and Amy can speak to
this too so your bookdescription, correcting any of
the emotional hooks.
Correcting we talked abouttropes, correcting any of the
tropes that maybe weren't thatneed to be included, or maybe
were included and aren't really,you know, changing up your
(23:29):
cover, because once you start toreally say, okay, I need to
take a serious look at my ads,as opposed to just walking away
from Amazon ads saying none ofthis works, amazon hates me, I
don't know what I'm doing.
Like, just download yourkeywords and really get honest
with yourself and say you know,are these, do these really make
(23:49):
sense?
And please don't use keywordslike bestselling book or new
bestseller or so, because youwill just pay so much money.
You'll pay so much money forthese keywords, right?
And then the other piece of it,though, too, is that okay?
So let's go back to the mysteryauthor.
So let's say, yeah, I want torank number one in mystery.
(24:12):
I was running an ad set for anauthor, and I don't know if this
is still the case, but the wordmystery, like was $33 a click,
both.
And I was like first A, firstoff.
There's literally no ROI inthat, right.
And Amazon you know Amazon'skind of sneaky that way, like
(24:34):
they'll throw out these reallybig, broad keywords and,
honestly, it's not.
It's to your detriment as anauthor, because they're just
like oh, authors are going toreally want to be ranked number
one in romance or number one inbusiness, and then you pay.
You pay this money for thiskeyword, for a click, and then
you don't sell a book becauseyour book is not really aligned
correctly.
The other piece of this, too, isthe further that you dig down
(24:56):
into this genre, the lessexpensive your ads are going to
be, not only because of theclick-through like click-through
rates.
Better you're not pulling inand all this random traffic, but
keywords that are more longtail, so they're further down
the rabbit hole a little bit,but more in line with your
(25:17):
audience.
It's going to be a cheaper wayto run your ads too, you know.
So what have we?
What have we missed, amy?
What did we not?
What did we not cover?
Because I know I've been sortof rambling.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
No, I think also, too , it's worth mentioning for
anybody that's feeling becauseyou already mentioned like okay,
don't give up on this, becausewe talk about this a lot
internally, and it's anotherthing that I feel like we could
say more.
You know, amazon ads are reallyone of the only marketing
strategies that can be workingfor you 24-7.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you mentioned that yes.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
You know we mentioned this a lot internally because
it's kind of it is a veryfrustrating concept because it
is.
It takes time and effort toreally figure these out.
I mean, penny's been doing itfor literally years.
So when authors are like, justtell me how to do it, it's like
I swear it's not that simple,like if we had that secret sauce
we would sell it, you know.
(26:16):
But a lot of it really is kindof getting in the trenches and
just experiencing what happensback there and doing the
research and kind of getting inthe right frame of mind.
But it's totally worth itbecause literally there is no
other form of marketing that canbe working for you behind the
scenes.
When you're busy writing, whenyou're busy with your regular
life, when you're busy with yourday job, all those or when your
(26:39):
marketing budget feels prettytapped on, all the other big
ideas that you had, you know forthe quarter, smart Amazon ads
can keep that train moving foryou and it's quite literally the
only way new people everysingle day can get introduced to
your book.
So it really is a fantastictool.
But to Penny's point with allthese tips she shared, you want
(27:03):
to do it the right way,obviously because it could also
just be a big dumpster fire ofcash.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I know it, I know it and you know I mean spend 30
minutes, just.
You know, spend 30 minutes juststudy the top 10 books in your
genre, right?
Um?
Relook at your ads.
Make sure that you're puttingthe reader first.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Um, make sure your retail page is saying what you
need it to say.
Yes, that's another one, penny,when you mentioned we get too
close to our own work sometimes.
Get a second opinion, thirdopinion, professional opinion on
your retail page and what youmight be able to do differently,
because it's really hard toexplain your book in a really
fun, dynamic, exciting way whenyou know all the secrets, you
(27:57):
know all the plot twists, youknow all, you know what I mean,
you know how it all goes.
But to put yourself in the mindand shoes of somebody that
knows nothing and trying torecreate that first impression
experience for somebody else,that's really challenging to do.
When you know all the ins andouts, you know.
Yeah, and I think that's a hugepart of this too is that that
(28:18):
first impression these adsreally have to align with the
first impression shoppers needto experience in order to
potentially click that buybutton?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Right, exactly, and I'm really glad that you
mentioned that about the ads,because the ads are.
They are a great way to do, tobe.
You know if you're, if you'redoing all the right things to
get 24-7 in front of your reader, you know you just really want
to make sure that you are.
You know, to Amy's point, adscan't.
They won't fix a bad book,right, they won't fix a mismatch
(28:53):
, they'll really only amplifywhat isn't working.
So that's the thing that youwrote that you want and you know
this isn't about.
You know there's a lot of booksout there about the tricks and
oh, the low budget.
And start your ads with like adollar or not, even not a dollar
, a penny.
You know what I mean Like ornot, even not a dollar a penny.
(29:15):
You know what I mean Like, like, just underbid.
And trust me when we say and Ithink I can speak with it to Amy
on this that there's no,there's really no tricking the
Amazon system, there's really notricking the Amazon system.
And just to be fully like, fulldisclosure, I mean.
So when the workbook went up,when the workbook first went up,
um, the, when the workbookfirst went up, amy looked at the
(29:35):
book description and cause.
Of course I don't write my ownbook descriptions in a vacuum.
She steps in and helps me withthat because we're all too close
to our own stuff, even me andshe looked at that book
description and she's like well,the workbook has, you know, all
of like you have access to.
Like all the four, all the backend stuff, all the forms, all
(29:57):
the good, all the cool stuff inthe books.
You don't have to like writeall over your book if you don't
want to.
Or if you bought an ebook likeyou can click the qr code and
she's like you need to mentionthat in the book description.
Head slapper right.
I'm like oh my gosh, I totallymissed the opportunity to
mention that the book gives youaccess to all these forms.
Everybody's too close to theirown work, even somebody who does
(30:20):
this for a living.
We're close to our too tooclose to our own work.
So, um, just keep an eye onthose amazon ads.
I want you to be successfulwithout spending all of your
money and being reallydiscouraged, cause that's that's
not, that's not a fun way tomarket a book.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Right, and Penny, just real quick.
For somebody that is startingoff with this or maybe wants to
do like a reset, would you sayit's reasonable to start small
and build from there, versustrying to cover all the things
with your ads?
Yes, yeah, you know, likereally narrow down one thing you
want to achieve one you knowkind of niche buyer market that
(30:57):
you want to connect with and dothose right before you start
creating ads for all the things,and then you have eight balls
flying in the air that you'retrying to control.
Right, and you know what I'm soglad.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Oh, my gosh, this is why she's my co-host, because or
we're each other's co-hosts, Iguess, is a better way to say it
Because she always comes upwith these great ideas.
I will tell you that when Italk to authors and they say,
well, my book is this and mybook is this, and my book is
this and my book is this, okay,your book's not allowed to be
eight things, right, but a lotof times this is when an author
(31:31):
gets really confused on theirgenre, right, and where we start
to see genre mismatch and thatkind of thing.
To Amy's point Okay, so maybeyour book has like okay, but my
book has first responders in itand my, those people that will
be interesting to firstresponders my book also has.
My book was also set in theeighties, so I want to pull in
(31:53):
that nostalgia people and my,you know all this other stuff.
Start with one thing, start with.
Start with one particular,start with the biggest, the
low-hanging fruit, I guess, forlack of a better way to put it
right.
Start with that and then buildfrom there as you start to get
your feet wet, because it'll bea much, much better experience
(32:14):
for you in these ads to get themto where you need to be, and
also it's also a lot lessoverwhelming, right, if you
start out with focusing on oneparticular area, you know.
So the Amazon ads are reallynot I.
Yes, they take a little bit ofwork, but they're totally worth
(32:35):
it.
As Amy said, it's a 24-7 way tomarket and there's very few
things that are that right.
And I think you know, when Italk to authors because I talked
to an author this morning he'slike can you run my Facebook ads
?
I'm like no, and it's notbecause I don't like Facebook,
because I'm on Facebook, but theFacebook ad platform has become
(32:56):
.
They've really made setting upads so efficient, right, whereas
with Amazon, it's you have to,you have to put in all the
things, you have to figure outall it's.
Amazon very much mirrors GoogleAdWords in this.
In this way, the problem withrunning ads on different
platforms like even running onInstagram or TikTok or whatever
(33:17):
every time that you ask somebodyto click, you lose 20% of your
audience.
So there are a number of flawsin the system when you're trying
to advertise on other platforms, which is why we always love
and favor um, amazon ads.
And with that, amy did we covereverything we did this time?
(33:37):
Okay, good, okay, good, allright, well, listen, we will see
you next time.
Um, thank you all so much forlistening and thank you for the
reviews.
We love, uh, we love reviewsWe've had.
We just had a recent one in, um, uh, I think in June.
We got a couple more in Juneactually, and it's just, it's a.
It's a really awesome thingwhen we pop open and we see
(34:00):
those reviews.
So we love if it's.
If, if it's a little bit toosquirrely I know that, um,
sometimes, uh, itunes can be alittle squirrely, or, uh, apple
podcast, rather, can be a littlebit squirrely.
To leave reviews, you'rewelcome to send them to us and
we'll put them up on our website.
Thank you so much and we'll seeyou next time.
Bye-bye.
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