I'm Exhausted. How About You?

[LilyBLily]

Recently I signed up for yet another marketing course that promised to help me master Amazon, BookBub, and Facebook ads. I'm slogging my way through lots of content reiterating the tricky little ins and outs of each of these venues (stores?), the necessity of finding art for ads, writing copy for ads, making sure the copy for the ads matches the content of the book's actual blurb copy, optimizing all that copy, and more.

I'm getting good value for money, lots of posts of even more advice about how to do all this marketing, and I find I don't even have the energy to open the emails or follow the links. Additionally, the Usual Suspects we consider marketing gurus keep emailing me about their new info and new podcasts and new books. Much of the information is free. All it requires is my time and attention.

I'm exhausted. Maybe it's other things going on in my life. Maybe it's the sneaking suspicion that I could dance a lot faster and still not sell my books in far greater numbers. Maybe it's just the babble of too many people talking about obtuse systems that stubbornly refuse to make sense to the very people who want to pay to use those systems.

I think I've reached information overload. I advertise my books continuously, and they sell continuously in small quantities. Maybe I should forget about trying to up those numbers and just go on a beach vacation.

How about you?

[Anarchist]

I prefer to learn by doing rather than learn by courses.

For example, I've never bought an AMS course or book. Yet I'm among the larger AMS authors (monthly spend well into the five figures).

Content consumption can be exhausting because the content never ends. The worst part is, consuming educational content gives you the feeling of forward progress when no such progress has taken place.

Some people get caught in that loop. They keep "learning," but never actually do anything.

Me? I like to get my hands dirty.

Besides, nothing trumps my own data.

[Maggie Ann]

There's a lot of good advice out there but I'm with both of you. After ten years, I'm too exhausted (Lily) to do (Anarchist).

For now, I'm content to just write my books, design a cover and write a blurb. Then I can start writing another one.

[OfficialEthanJ]

@Lily, you may recall my since-deleted meltdown where I too became overwhelmed with, well, everything self-pub related. I'm better now. Still prawny. 

I agree with Anarchist that there's such a thing as learning addiction. I'm *finally* turning a tiny profit after months of screwing up. I kept chasing shiny objects rather than picking a strategy and going with it. Once the shiny objects were cast aside, my focused approach is literally paying off. Not wildly, but it's nice to finally put a + sign in front of the number that comes after income - expenses.

I'll admit I was tempted to muck around with a certain BookBub ads book of late, but I stopped myself. Shiny object. Stick with the program.

As for becoming less prawny, I think there's no shame in outsourcing that which doesn't involve actual writing. I'll ramp up gradually. I think I've finally learned that even though I have proven I *can* do it all, it's also a short path to burnout.

[RiverRun]

@Lily, you may recall my since-deleted meltdown where I too became overwhelmed with, well, everything self-pub related. I'm better now. Still prawny. 

I agree with Anarchist that there's such a thing as learning addiction. I'm *finally* turning a tiny profit after months of screwing up. I kept chasing shiny objects rather than picking a strategy and going with it. Once the shiny objects were cast aside, my focused approach is literally paying off. Not wildly, but it's nice to finally put a + sign in front of the number that comes after income - expenses.

I'll admit I was tempted to muck around with a certain BookBub ads book of late, but I stopped myself. Shiny object. Stick with the program.

As for becoming less prawny, I think there's no shame in outsourcing that which doesn't involve actual writing. I'll ramp up gradually. I think I've finally learned that even though I have proven I *can* do it all, it's also a short path to burnout.

This reminded me of something I read this morning.

"In fact, it’s often enough to produce good stories regularly and be very good at just one of those ways to reach readers. You are far better off being an Amazon Ads expert and ignoring the other ad platforms than being moderately good at all three of them. You are far better off having a wonderful email game and very little going on at Facebook than flitting between everything.

No one has time to master it all. Focus your limited time and energy (and ad dollars) and play to your strengths. And if you are starting out, don’t try and become good at everything at once. It’s an impossible goal and you’ll drive yourself mad.

Focus on one thing and master it. Then move on to the next."

https://insights.bookbub.com/biggest-book-marketing-mistakes-stop-making/

[Vijaya]

"In fact, it’s often enough to produce good stories regularly and be very good at just one of those ways to reach readers. You are far better off being an Amazon Ads expert and ignoring the other ad platforms than being moderately good at all three of them. You are far better off having a wonderful email game and very little going on at Facebook than flitting between everything.

No one has time to master it all. Focus your limited time and energy (and ad dollars) and play to your strengths. And if you are starting out, don’t try and become good at everything at once. It’s an impossible goal and you’ll drive yourself mad.

Focus on one thing and master it. Then move on to the next."

https://insights.bookbub.com/biggest-book-marketing-mistakes-stop-making/

Thanks for this great advice.

And yes, LilyBily, as a newbie self-publisher, just the thought of marketing is exhausting. I try to do something every week, but if it starts to eat into the writing, I drop it. Of course, I'm not even close to being a prawn. A slug, maybe.

[Simon Haynes]

Facebook ads usually work for me, Bookbub never has and with AMS I just can't seem to spend any money (a common complaint.)  I think it's because I write in a couple of niches, and it's hard to find similar authors to target - especially on Bookbub.

Plus, while my target authors might be doing well, there aren't hundreds of people a day viewing their product pages. I can't scale up.

So, I'm sticking with occasional FB campaigns and I'm writing a three book space opera series. It's not write to market, I really want to try my hand at some ship battles/dogfights/close shaves/etc in an all-out war setting. Really enjoying it so far, and my alpha readers seem to be into it as well.

Once the three books are complete I'll discover whether genre makes a difference with AMS, or whether it's a wide/KU issue, or just that I don't have good enough covers/descriptions/novels.

[Hopscotch]

I agree, LilyBLily, and add that all the courses and advice I've tried did no more than convince me I'm hopeless at book-selling.  But, out of all my failed promos, a couple semi-successes showed me where my audience is, and that's .  Now I have to figure out (on my own) how to get at 'em.

[TinkSaid]

@LilyBLily: I've this vague image of the Amazon Ads' team gathering in some dimly lit conference room and sniggering over the latest blog post on how best to utilise Amazon's ads, and then tweaking the logs to do the exact opposite. Or maybe they put all the keywords in a hat and pick out a dozen or so as that month's golden keywords.

@RiverRun: That makes so much sense. Write a good story and figure out just one good way to get it under the noses of readers.

I've just gone through a phase of reading several 'how to succeed with xyz ads' posts & email courses. All I've picked up is BookBub ads are a no-no for full priced titles. Amazon Ads work, until they stop working.
Facebook remains a closed book to me.

[C. Gockel]

I did borrow a book on Facebook ads from the library, and it was helpful, and I do read free posts by other authors. However, if you're following advice specifically written for authors you risk doing two things:

1. Using the same strategy everyone else is using, and thereby diluting its effectiveness
2. Missing out on a lot of knowledge that is "general" (not targeted to a book buying audience specifically) but can really help your book sales. Things that a lot of that author focused marketing may miss.

A lot of general information about CPC advertising is transferable. A lot of the information is free. And you can read a lot by people who are making a living selling a product unrelated to selling how to make FB ads / AMS ads / BookBub ads. There are a lot of principles that carry over between all three platforms. (I found reading up on successful GoogleAds and banner ads really helped me, though I don't use GoogleAds for my books. )

I *DON'T* do all three platforms at once, but I do use all three platforms to advertise my books. It doesn't take long or a lot of money to figure out differences between them.

Finally, make sure you test your product before you buy a whole lot of CPC ads. CPC are the most expensive advertising out there. Run a few free days (KU or wide) or a 99-cent countdown deal if you're in KU (don't think 99-cents is a good deal if you're wide.) What is your sell-thru? Are you breaking even at least? Making money?

If you're not, you may have issues with product (could be cover/blurb/or actual story) that need to be fixed.

[Rosie Scott]

...with AMS I just can't seem to spend any money (a common complaint.)  I think it's because I write in a couple of niches, and it's hard to find similar authors to target - especially on Bookbub.

Plus, while my target authors might be doing well, there aren't hundreds of people a day viewing their product pages. I can't scale up.

These are my issues with AMS. I have two completed series. One is pretty niche (adult political dystopian thriller) and has few keywords (about 200) because I just can't find many similar books or authors to target. Most dystopian that does well seems to be YA or coming-of-age related, but I can't target those readers since my books are so different. This series sells, but not too well. If people read it, they tend to like it. But not many people pick it up to begin with. I've long since given up on it taking off, but I still set AMS to a budget of $250 per day.

My epic fantasy series does much better and is the reason I can pay my bills. I have tons of keywords, many more authors/series/books targeted, and a budget of $1000 per day. It sells well, but the authors I can afford to target have smaller readerships. Targeting the authors with larger readerships is too expensive. I'm willing to spend a lot of money on advertising as long as I make a profit, but I max my ads at $0.60 CPC. I can't justify paying more than that for one person just to "consider" a purchase. Some keywords never get clicks despite the fact they are highly relevant. Others I'm not sure about get clicks and sales. None of my campaigns ever max out their budgets.

I can't seem to scale up, like you said. The good thing is that I don't feel I need to right away. The most consistent and best method of marketing I've seen is releasing something new, so that's what I'm going with for now. I just released a standalone book that has ties to the fantasy series, and had some of my best sales days ever over the past two weeks. Fans of the series are buying it, and new readers are buying the standalone and moving on to the series. For some reason, my new book is doing fantastic in .de, so I'm getting lots of follow-up sales there of the series. I'm currently 24K words into the first book of a trilogy that will also tie in to the others, and I'm trying to stick to a schedule of four releases per year. Between always having a new release in that 90-day cycle and consistent marketing, I'm hoping to scale up over time.

[lea_owens]

...with AMS I just can't seem to spend any money (a common complaint.)  I think it's because I write in a couple of niches, and it's hard to find similar authors to target - especially on Bookbub.

Plus, while my target authors might be doing well, there aren't hundreds of people a day viewing their product pages. I can't scale up.

My epic fantasy series does much better and is the reason I can pay my bills. I have tons of keywords, many more authors/series/books targeted, and a budget of $1000 per day. It sells well, but the authors I can afford to target have smaller readerships. Targeting the authors with larger readerships is too expensive. I'm willing to spend a lot of money on advertising as long as I make a profit, but I max my ads at $0.60 CPC. I can't justify paying more than that for one person just to "consider" a purchase. Some keywords never get clicks despite the fact they are highly relevant. Others I'm not sure about get clicks and sales. None of my campaigns ever max out their budgets.

$1,000 a day budget? Good lord, you must make a lot from writing to cover that if your campaigns ever maxed out their budgets! I put mine out to $8 a day on a couple of promotions, and hated it when the $8 was spent in what seemed like fake clicks, so reined them back to $3 and $5 a day. Maybe I need to think big and see how that goes. Mind you, my books rarely get more popular than 20,000, and sometimes drift out to 100,000 or more. I might need to rethink AMS budgets.

[OfficialEthanJ]

$1,000 a day budget? Good lord, you must make a lot from writing to cover that if your campaigns ever maxed out their budgets! I put mine out to $8 a day on a couple of promotions, and hated it when the $8 was spent in what seemed like fake clicks, so reined them back to $3 and $5 a day. Maybe I need to think big and see how that goes. Mind you, my books rarely get more popular than 20,000, and sometimes drift out to 100,000 or more. I might need to rethink AMS budgets.

Hear hear. My ongoing AMS CPC campaign for Dead Shot is $3/day, $4 when it's experiencing some action. I think $1000/day for any of my books is a) grounds for divorce, and b) things that make Jeff Bezos say "burp."

YMMV, IANAL, IMHO, etc.

[Lorri Moulton]

Recently I signed up for yet another marketing course that promised to help me master Amazon, BookBub, and Facebook ads. I'm slogging my way through lots of content reiterating the tricky little ins and outs of each of these venues (stores?), the necessity of finding art for ads, writing copy for ads, making sure the copy for the ads matches the content of the book's actual blurb copy, optimizing all that copy, and more.

I'm getting good value for money, lots of posts of even more advice about how to do all this marketing, and I find I don't even have the energy to open the emails or follow the links. Additionally, the Usual Suspects we consider marketing gurus keep emailing me about their new info and new podcasts and new books. Much of the information is free. All it requires is my time and attention.

I'm exhausted. Maybe it's other things going on in my life. Maybe it's the sneaking suspicion that I could dance a lot faster and still not sell my books in far greater numbers. Maybe it's just the babble of too many people talking about obtuse systems that stubbornly refuse to make sense to the very people who want to pay to use those systems.

I think I've reached information overload. I advertise my books continuously, and they sell continuously in small quantities. Maybe I should forget about trying to up those numbers and just go on a beach vacation.

How about you?

Yes. LOL
I think the best thing I can do right now is keep writing books. 

[DrewMcGunn]

Hear hear. My ongoing AMS CPC campaign for Dead Shot is $3/day, $4 when it's experiencing some action. I think $1000/day for any of my books is a) grounds for divorce, and b) things that make Jeff Bezos say "burp."

YMMV, IANAL, IMHO, etc.

My ads have scaled horribly. And as of late, they've really tanked. But the ad budget for my active ads is around $250 a day. And it spends $1 to $3 daily. I'd love to spend more if my conversion rate remained consistent.

[DougM]

I've decided to go into even lower energy mode. I'll continue improving my writing, my editing, and my covers, but as long as I'm not hitting audiences, I can't justify going big. I've missed the boat. I'll only dare as much as my last book has barely earned. (Hint: not much.)  Last year's loss just wasn't sustainable.

[Maggie Ann]

I've decided to go into even lower energy mode. I'll continue improving my writing, my editing, and my covers, but as long as I'm not hitting audiences, I can't justify going big. I've missed the boat. I'll only dare as much as my last book has barely earned. (Hint: not much.)  Last year's loss just wasn't sustainable.

I earn enough each month to keep up with the ad spend and a bit more. So, I'm slightly ahead of the game. I spent a lot of money doing audio books. Yes, way too much money. but the audios are keeping me ahead.

When this plan tanks, as it inevitably will, I'll try to come up with another one.

[Simon Haynes]

I just scored a worldwide bookbub on the first novel in my fantasy series and so I've gone from low energy mode to frantic in 24 hours.

I have under 30 days to organise as many promos as I can leading into the BB.

Fun times!

[Gerri Attrick]

Lol, good luck with that, Simon.

Low energy mode is my default state.  But then I do have COPD 

[notthatamanda]

I just scored a worldwide bookbub on the first novel in my fantasy series and so I've gone from low energy mode to frantic in 24 hours.

I have under 30 days to organise as many promos as I can leading into the BB.

Fun times!

Awesome, congratulations!   

[Maggie Ann]

I just scored a worldwide bookbub on the first novel in my fantasy series and so I've gone from low energy mode to frantic in 24 hours.

I have under 30 days to organise as many promos as I can leading into the BB.

Fun times!

That is outstanding!!!