Advertise or Not? An Experiment.
Advertising. For me, as an author, that may as well be a four-letter word. I have been down the rabbit hole of many advertising courses. Some free, some paid. I’ve tried A.M.M.O for Facebook and Instagram, Ads For Authors by Mark Dawson, Kindlepreneur by Dave Chesson, Ecommerce Alley by Josh Coffy, KDP - Kindle Digital Publishing’s free classes on KDP.com, and several more courses on Udemy.com and Teachable.com. I’ll go over the big three paid ones and give you my opinion, plus touch on the free ones. As far as I’m concerned, you can't go wrong with education of any kind. I will also share with you an experiment I’ve done for the past few months that involved zero advertising.
A.M.M.O.
A.M.M.O. stands for Author Marketing Mastery through Optimization, created by Steve Pieper, one heck of a nice guy and quite the amazing teacher. I feel A.M.M.O. is a solid program that can really help you with the Facebook algorithm. It’s not for everyone, so if you’re books are signed up in Kindle Select for authors, that means your eBooks are exclusive to Amazon/Kindle platform and you are not published wide.
You can still use the course for your paperback and hardcover books, but it has some drawbacks. Cost is one. It’s not a cheap course. As of today, the cost for the course alone is about two thousand dollars for a lifetime membership. If that was the only expense, it would be worth it, but unfortunately, you will also need to pay for some software, which can add up. Most software has monthly fees and can quickly become expensive if you run many tests. Testing is the key to that course. You participate in a course activity called “Click Testing.” It’s too detailed to include in this blog post, but I saw good traffic and sales. The problem was I had to leave Kindle Select to be able to sell bundles of eBooks. Overall, I think it’s a valuable course, but you have to give it 100% and be prepared for it to be very intense and time-consuming. They also include twice-weekly live training, which is extremely helpful.
As I mentioned, the costs don’t just stop with the course fee. You also have to pay for monthly subscriptions to Bookfunnel, Canva, Cloudflare, Klaviyo, Mouseflow, Shopify, and Unbounce. Unbounce alone can be very expensive depending on your number of clicks. Does it work? Some authors have seen impressive return on investment. One author claims to be making $180,000 a month selling children’s books. I can’t verify it, but he seems legit. I’ve personally spoken to him a few times. All the expenses from the apps were my downfall. I just don't have deep enough pockets to make everything work, and losing my royalties from leaving Kindle Select (KU—Kindle Unlimited for readers) was devastating to my income. Last time I checked, KU royalties accounted for 68% of my income. Imagine losing 68% of your income overnight to try to sell more eBooks through your website.
I tried it for an entire summer, and I couldn’t ever get back to the income I had when I was enrolled in Kindle Select. So, I contacted chat support and added all my eBooks back into the KDP exclusive agreement. Overnight, my income increased significantly. I will admit I only had eight books then; I now have seventeen, with eighteen on the way, so my results may vary.
I want to say I really like A.M.M.O. and I still use what I learned from the course, but I’m not running a full A.M.M.O. program right now. It’s more of a hybrid. If you have the funds and enough time to set it all up, it’s worth trying. I do plan to use a version of it soon on my new website and for off-paperbacks through it. But for now, leaving Kindle Select just to sell paperbacks is a no-go. Check it out at: A.M.M.O.
Ads For Authors
I was introduced to Ads For Authors by a friend named Dan Mason, who writes under the pen name Cap Daniels. He praised Ads For Authors highly, and I agree with him. It is updated often, and you don’t need expensive apps or software to access most of the courses. There is a lot of value from Mark Dawson’s expertise. At the time of this blog post, the entire package costs $697 or three payments of $199. It’s worth every penny! It seems like every time I log in to my course dashboard, there’s a new course he’s added. For example, today, while I was writing this, I noticed Ads For Tik-Tok there for the first time.
Whether you're just interested in the Facebook or Amazon course or want to dive into the entire program, you can’t go wrong. Like A.M.M.O., I still use the knowledge I gained from Ads for Authors, even when I’m creating organic posts and not using paid ads. One thing I like about Ads For Authors is that it covers most major ad platforms with individual courses, teaching how to tweak your ads for Facebook/Instagram, Amazon, Tik-Tok, YouTube, Pinterest, BookBub, and many more. Additionally, they offer short courses on topics such as using Vellum, Book Cover Design, Making Better Launches, and many others. Do yourself a favor and take a look: Ads For Authors
Kindlepreneur
What can I say about Dave Chesson that hasn’t already been said? The guy is a dynamo. He created Kindlepreneur after becoming an author himself and wanting to spend more time at home with his family. So, he decided the only way was to become a pro at it. Being an author is a great way to stay close to your loved ones because you set your own schedule. One thing I love about Kindlepreneur is that there is so much free stuff on his site. Sure, he has a paid membership, courses, and software for sale, but he gives so much away for free; I was honestly blown away. I have purchased some of his apps. One I use often is Publisher Rocket. It’s a program that helps find targeting for long and short-tailed keywords, and it can really help with ranking on Amazon.
One of the coolest parts of the site is the Learn tab. It’s basically the blog section of the website, designed so you can explore various aspects of writing, publishing, and marketing. That’s where a lot of the free resources are. Here is the link: https://kindlepreneur.com/blog/.
Dave constantly adds new apps, software, and blogs to the site. He also started a podcast. I am currently listening to episode 64, ‘Marketers & Coffee: Publishing Companies and Deals’ with Anna David. I have listened to every single one. I have flirted with starting a podcast. I love them so much. It’s how I get most of my news these days. I live in a motorhome and have a busy writing schedule, along with still performing live music, so a podcast sounds like fun. But I know from what I’ve read that they can be time-consuming and often more of a hobby than anything else. Although, I believe they could be helpful in building brand awareness as a writer. Time will tell if I try it out.
Back to Kindlepreneur, if you utilize all the free software, lessons, and tips on the site, I truly believe you could have a successful book launch. Running ads is a never-ending learning curve, and algorithms change, and new tricks come out, so be prepared to keep your thinking cap on throughout your author career.
Ecommerce Alley
Ecommerce Alley by Josh Coffy is a family-run business based in Ohio. I’ve gotten to know several of the brothers via Facebook and on chats. They are all super cool, friendly, and accommodating. They are not like the others I mentioned. They don’t focus on books. They cater to all types of businesses and provide marketing assistance. They use a format that they created called the Ad Labs Method. It covers making subtle changes to Headlines, Creative, and Primary Text. You set a spending limit with a rule on Facebook Ad Manager. Each test can run anywhere from $75 to $200. You can control it by using rules. I tried it again recently and used their custom template that keeps track of each click and more. I found the perfect Creative (fancy name for photo or video), Headline, and Primary Text. I ended up spending around $100, but I got a great ad that I plan to run in August.
By setting spending and click rules in Facebook Ads Manager, there’s virtually no way to overspend. You still need to monitor it, as unusual things can happen. I would almost say it’s a set-it-and-forget-it deal, but I’ve seen Facebook go over your budget because of an error on your end or theirs. They rarely admit it. LOL.
Josh also has an awesome podcast for entrepreneurs. Like I said, it’s not just for authors. I use several of their techniques to sell more music and T-shirts as well. Just listening to Josh’s podcast will give you a ton of useful info. Here’s the link to that: EA Podcast. Check it out and check out the Ecommerce Alley Main Website. The course I took was a mere $27 and was amazing. As of today it’s even on sale for $17. https://ecommercealley.com/course-1
KDP - Kindle Digital Publishing
KDP is where you self-publish your books on Amazon. It’s the best place to start. Whenever someone asks me where to find basic info on [publishing], I always send them there first. It has everything you’d ever need to know to get your books published. It’s step-by-step online directions. I read the whole thing before I ever started. Like I said, it’s the basic info. There’s much more to learn, especially about marketing, but they do have basic marketing tips and guest podcasts. Lot of cool info, honestly. It’s just a little boring. Kind of like going to school. It’s all there, but you have to push through it. Here’s where you start: KDP Help Center Home
My Big Experiment
A few months ago, I had this crazy idea to stop all advertising for two months and observe how my rank and sales changed in a different way. You might say I worked harder to get the same results, but in reality, there’s a much bigger long-term benefit. I noticed that every time I launched a new novel, sales of my back catalog increased. Not just sometimes, but every time. I know it has a little to do with the algorithm and that people who have bought some of your books in the past realize you have more they haven’t read. So, it’s a win/win. What exactly did I do? I wrote and released a new book each month for four months straight. In the first two months, I kept my ads running, then in June, I stopped all ads. I saw no drop in revenue and actually had more money once I received my payment from Amazon, because I didn’t have to pay for any ads at the end of the month. I loved that part.
Will I do it forever? Nope, no way. Just two months. In July and August, I will also release a book, and in August, I will focus on the AD Lab ad I created using Ecommerce Alley. So far this month (July), I’m on schedule to make the same as I did in May and June, with no ads in June. I will keep you posted in an upcoming blog on how it all turned out.
So, what’s the bottom line? Do you need to advertise or not? You do. Absolutely. You can mix it up and stop ads and try to write a book a month if you have it in you. It ain’t easy, I can attest to that. My books average 62-65,000 words. That’s a lot of writing and rewriting. I try to average 3000 words a day. It’s doable. I wrote Zombie Waters in 13 days. That’s NASCAR speed. Maybe F1. As always, if you have any questions drop me an email.
Thanks, and Happy Writing,
Eric Chance Stone