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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by Jeff Tanyard on Today at 06:44:23 AM »
Quote from: Bill Hiatt on April 21, 2025, 10:31:17 PM
I'm also spending more ad money than I should be (given the returns). Perhaps Amazon needs to tweak its algorithms so that it keeps follower emails flowing for those who feed the advertising beast and have a positive review history.


As long as Amazon's getting your money, they don't have an incentive to tweak anything.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by LilyBLily on Today at 04:45:18 AM »
Anyway, I do think that sending repeated emails about a book is doing the heavy lifting.

The irony is that I placed a pre-order on this book the moment I finished the prior book in the series. I did not need any of these notifications.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by TimothyEllis on April 21, 2025, 11:58:41 PM »
Quote from: Bill Hiatt on April 21, 2025, 10:31:17 PM
I have a surprisingly large number of followers, but Amazon never sends out emails related to my books.

Followers don't convert into sales. I'm guessing, but about 10% of mine buy/full read in the first week.

Maybe not emails, but Amazon is pushing notifications through the Kindle app. I get notifications for just about all the authors I've previously bought.
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Publisher's Office [Public] / Re: More folks need to go indie - Tradpub in Poland
« Last post by Bill Hiatt on April 21, 2025, 10:38:15 PM »
Yes, that seems to be an accurate assessment. When I first started, there were a fair number of success stories about people who began publishing and really took off. (Of course, Amazon made a point of publicizing the ones involving self published authors.) I hardly hear any of those now, though there are a couple people on Substack who justifiably blow their own horns. I've also seen a video interview with one author who did several things people advising said were impossible. (Cue stirring background rendition of "Defying Gravity.") But I would have to say those examples are indeed outliers.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by Bill Hiatt on April 21, 2025, 10:31:17 PM »
I have a surprisingly large number of followers, but Amazon never sends out emails related to my books.

I'm not breaking any sales records, but I'm certainly doing better than average, if only because of the long tail of authors who sell almost nothing.

I'm also spending more ad money than I should be (given the returns). Perhaps Amazon needs to tweak its algorithms so that it keeps follower emails flowing for those who feed the advertising beast and have a positive review history.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by LilyBLily on April 21, 2025, 04:50:26 AM »
But in this case, the Amazon email specifically said, "Coming soon from ____"

I don't believe the bots were confused about that email, even if they were confused about the one yesterday that was "Featured in Kindle Unlimited, recommended for you, and more" and apparently all the other books had already been released. (Now I'll have to track them all down and check.) No, the others were all already published, some for years, actually.

Two different kinds of emails. A good thing for authors who have followers.
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Quill and Feather Pub [Public] / Re: Writing humour
« Last post by Jan Hurst-Nicholson on April 21, 2025, 03:01:32 AM »
How many 'final' drafts do you have?  :icon_rolleyes:
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Publisher's Office [Public] / Re: More folks need to go indie - Tradpub in Poland
« Last post by PJ Post on April 21, 2025, 01:13:59 AM »
While there are always outliers (and legacy Creatives), the days of being discovered for your Art and getting rich are long gone - music, writing, whatever. Now, it's just about eeking out a living without the 'day' job.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by TimothyEllis on April 20, 2025, 11:36:39 PM »
Quote from: LilyBLily on April 20, 2025, 10:26:30 PM
I just received an email from Amazon touting the next book in a series by an author I follow. The interesting thing to me is that this book isn't out yet. This is a separate "Coming soon from an author you follow" email, and in fact Amazon has also shown this book to me in its other KU email, "Featured in Kindle Unlimited"--that I received yesterday. The book, which I had pre-ordered weeks ago, doesn't release until May 2.

So...I think Amazon is doing some very heavy lifting indeed for this author, who writes in a rather unusual subgenre, the genuinely "clean" humorous Regency romance.

Actually, the bots can't tell time.

Anything new on pre-order gets tagged as 'New Release', even when the pre-order date is months away.

All the bot does is pick up the new release tag, and send that out as if it had been released already.

I get plenty of emails for authors I DON'T follow, and very few for those I do.

And they still send me emails for Romance books, and I've never bought one in my life.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Amazon no longer does the "heavy lifting"?
« Last post by LilyBLily on April 20, 2025, 10:26:30 PM »
I just received an email from Amazon touting the next book in a series by an author I follow. The interesting thing to me is that this book isn't out yet. This is a separate "Coming soon from an author you follow" email, and in fact Amazon has also shown this book to me in its other KU email, "Featured in Kindle Unlimited"--that I received yesterday. The book, which I had pre-ordered weeks ago, doesn't release until May 2.

So...I think Amazon is doing some very heavy lifting indeed for this author, who writes in a rather unusual subgenre, the genuinely "clean" humorous Regency romance.
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