Ads for Wide (Full-Priced) Books?

[SBibb]

I'm looking into using ads for my books (YA Science Fiction and Fantasy), and I'm debating the best starting route to go for wide (full-priced) books on a small budget. (Think around $150 or less)

I'm trying to decide where best to invest advertising money, with the goal of increasing sales (and not taking too much time from writing).

I thought about picking up a K-Lytics report, because their reports sound fascinating and I had originally planned on trying to determine better keywords for my books, rather than ads, but it sounds as if K-Lytics might be a better investment for writers deciding on the next book to write, and not for books that are already written.

I then considered KDP Rocket or KD Spy, since it sounds like either could be good for returning large number of keywords. (Though I'm especially interested in seeing how often those keywords are searched for).

However, unless I'm mistaken, these are pretty much exclusive to using AMS/Amazon Advertising. Also, it appears that by searching through Also-Boughts or the Also-Boughts of similar books, one might be able to come up with a reasonable list of keywords for ads to test from. (But not keywords directly for the book?)

(Side note... has anyone purchased KDP Rocket, decided it wasn't worth the money, and then asked for a refund? I thought about testing it to see if it worked well for me, but I wasn't sure how easy it would be to refund if, in the long run, I didn't find it useful).

In the event of going the Amazon Ads route, I've heard that Brian Meeks has a good book for understanding those ads. If you've read it, did you find it useful?

But I've also heard that Amazon Ads aren't always the most reliable in terms of reporting, and since I would eventually like to boost wide sales, and not just Amazon, I wonder if I should put my attention on a different strategy for the time being.

Instead of focusing on Amazon ads, would it be better to use Facebook ads instead? Something else?

Do you have any resources you would suggest in terms of deciding which one to start with?

I realize it's different for everyone, but I'm just trying to do a bit of research before diving into understanding one strategy or another. :-)

[Sailor Stone]

Consider Book Bub ads if you are wide. They can be targeted to Kobo, Ibooks, Google, Amazon, and B&N both in the U.S. and internationally as well.

[WasAnn]

I'm going to ditto the BookBub ads, but add a caveat to it. BB ads do tend to return better results for discounted books. That's reasonable, because people sign up for BB to get book deals. So, it might work better as a place to give away a book to sign up for your mailing list or something of that nature.

I'm trying to follow Patty's advice now that I'm trying wide in a tentative way. The only thing you can control is how hard you work on your own mailing list, and if you can get it to be platform wide, then you can do better wide.

[SBibb]

I'd forgotten about BookBub ads. I'll look into those.

Out of curiosity, are you suggesting using them to offer a free reader magnet in return for signing up to a mailing list, rather than a direct purchase?

Any suggested resources for reading about BookBub strategies?

For Patty's advice, are you referring to Patty Jansen? She has a book for on publishing wide, right? I may need to look into that as well.

Thanks for the suggestions. :-)

[WasAnn]

I'd forgotten about BookBub ads. I'll look into those.

Out of curiosity, are you suggesting using them to offer a free reader magnet in return for signing up to a mailing list, rather than a direct purchase?

Any suggested resources for reading about BookBub strategies?

For Patty's advice, are you referring to Patty Jansen? She has a book for on publishing wide, right? I may need to look into that as well.

Thanks for the suggestions. :-)

Yes, she does have a book for that.

We have a thread for BB creative feedback, but strategies tend to be closely held by those who do well with them. I'm no pro with them since I just started throwing money at them. I'd hazard a guess that a lot of us are basically throwing money at them.

And yes, I'd try it for a reader magnet hosted at BF or IF(PW) or for a freebie you've got wide.

[guest14]

eBookBetty has just widened it's reach to include all the major platforms PLUS they're doing a special deal on audiobooks if you have them.

My only concern is their reach may not have changed and therefore might be predominantly kindle users.

Still, their price is unchanged $25 so definitely worth a look.

[SBibb]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look into them. :-)

[LilyBLily]

I'd do some low-daily budget AMS ads. Literally, $2 a day. And I'd target the author names closest to the kind of book I'd written--unless it's Stephen King or Nora Roberts, or the like. Subject matter names work in nonfiction but I've rarely seen them work in fiction ads. KDP Rocket is a fine product, no doubt, but with so little to invest in ads, you'd be better off coming up with some keywords yourself and spending all the money directly on the ads. Try Yasiv.com. It's free and it might help you pick some strong connection keywords.

If you do a BB CPC/CPM ad, use only one author name per ad target and don't use one with thousands of followers because the ad will cost you too much. Another thing mentioned elsewhere here (by ?) is to put your price on your BB ad, so people who don't want to pay your price don't click and you don't get charged. Instead of "Read Now" put "$2.99" or whatever.

[DavidM]

I'm going to ditto the BookBub ads, but add a caveat to it. BB ads do tend to return better results for discounted books. That's reasonable, because people sign up for BB to get book deals. So, it might work better as a place to give away a book to sign up for your mailing list or something of that nature.

I'm trying to follow Patty's advice now that I'm trying wide in a tentative way. The only thing you can control is how hard you work on your own mailing list, and if you can get it to be platform wide, then you can do better wide.

Just a quick note to point out that you can't use Bookbub for lead generation (email signups). Sez so right in their ad policies (Google Bookbub ad policies to see.). I know, I got smacked when I tried it. They shut down the ad almost instantly and sent me a nasty email.

As an alternative (though on a smaller scale) The Fussy Librarian will let you point to a landing page for a free book with an email sign up and it works pretty well. Hundreds of engaged genre-targeted subscribers for a few bucks. LitRing does list building sign ups as well though it was a little more expensive. (Straight ad for your email landing page, not the whole author swap thing.) Their list seems a little more primed for romance, I think.

[SBibb]

Thanks for the suggestions. Very helpful. :-)

I've decided to go ahead and start testing AMS ads on a small scale as a starting point, and then branch out to other options like BookBub once I understand the general concept of advertising better.

*

Thanks for the heads up on no lead generation in BookBub ads. I don't know why I didn't think to check that. (Even after spending a bunch of time trying to figure out what keywords were allowed for Amazon advertising). For anyone else looking into BookBub ads, here's the link to their policy page: https://insights.bookbub.com/bookbub-ads-advertising-policies/

I hadn't thought about Fussy Library for lead generation. I'll definitely look into that with the targeted genre options being a nice bonus.