Amazon ads in UK have way lower bid prices than the US. Why?

[lgtwriter]

Hi all,

This is my first post to this forum. I am a first time Author who published my standalone literary fiction book on November 8 (yeah I know lol....but I had worked on it for 3 years and needed to get it out of my system) I have sold around 350 copies in the seven weeks since the book came out and have about 15k KENP so far.

I am a refugee from 20booksto50k on fb. I had a post rejected by an admin after having it sit in limbo for two days and I realized that having any live interaction in that group would be impossible. I am going to use it as a reference site only, but I still want to be in a group where there is interaction.

So...after a longish intro here is my question. I have a KU promo (.99 pound for the book) in the UK going on right now as part of my included KU promos. I wanted to advertise along with the reduced price, so I set up my advertising on amazon.uk which is a completely separate console from the US. 

To my delight, the bid prices for the titles I wanted to target and the genres I wanted to target were MUCH less than in the US.

Is the readership much less? Are less people using Amazon Ads in the UK? I am curious. My ads are working (a click every 500 impressions or so and a buy every 4 or 5 clicks) I may start shifting my ad budget there, past the promo but I would love to hear opinions.

Thanks in advance!

[idontknowyet]

Less competition. A lot of authors don't know to or just don't bother to advertise in the uk.

Welcome!

I will agree 20books is much better to watch a read than to try to comment or ask questions.

[jaxonreed]

The UK is a smaller market. These stats are kind of old but make the point:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/288746/global-book-market-by-region/

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-are-the-biggest-publishing-markets-in-the-world.html

With around 3000 publishing houses and 25 billion Euros of publishing revenue in 2015, the United States of America ranks first as the biggest publishing market in the world. The American publishing market contributes an unmatched amount of revenue that is almost equal to the revenue that is generated combined by the rest of the nine of the top ten publishing markets in the world.

That last point is salient, and helps explain why KU can be so lucrative for authors in the US. There are lots of "whale" genre readers in the US and they're practically all in KU.

[lgtwriter]

@jaxonreed thanks so much for the data. I am a data geek in my day job and loved the links and quote. I still think that putting some of my advertising budget into the UK amazon ads makes sense if the ad continues to do well past the promo. We'll see....

I know my numbers sound so small to everyone, but for me, selling any copies at all to anyone that isn't my friends or family has me feeling like I am making progress. 

[jaxonreed]

@jaxonreed thanks so much for the data. I am a data geek in my day job and loved the links and quote. I still think that putting some of my advertising budget into the UK amazon ads makes sense if the ad continues to do well past the promo. We'll see....

I agree. I love the UK market and advertise there myself. Hope I didn't give the wrong impression.

[alhawke]

This is my first post to this forum. I am a first time Author who published my standalone literary fiction book on November 8

Welcome to Writer Sanctum and congrats on your new book!
I definitely target my ads outside the US. But remember, less competition comes hand in hand with less sales. You'll have to experiment to see what works for your books. I encourage you to advertise internationally, but the majority of your revenue from Amazon will probably be the US market (If you sold wide with Kobo, they'd be Canada).

[LilyBLily]

Welcome and congratulations--and good job on selling so many books. The UK can be a solid market although the US is indeed the bigger one.

[lgtwriter]

Thanks @LilyBLily! I have tried literally EVERY promotion on the planet in my first month of release. I had a bookbub "new releases for less" on Nov 23 that did pretty well (I made a very small profit but literary fiction doesn't cost as much as other genres) My book is priced at 2.99

I am learning the Amazon stuff and I find that using specific asins is how I can keep my ctr around where I need it to be in the US. But in the UK, the bid cost is so low that I can afford to use categories and have a lower ctr.

I hope I don't sound like the newbie that I am, slinging around lingo lol 

[Jeff Tanyard]

Welcome to the site.   

[lgtwriter]

Thanks @Jeff Tanyard!     I only get a couple of sales a day (literary fiction, first novel, standalone novel, blah blah  ) But I am getting about the same amount of sales in the Uk that I am getting in the US so my sales have effectively doubled, but my advertising spend is only up 20% since Amazon ads in the UK have much lower bid rates. My KENP is higher as well.

I don't know if this will last, but right now I feel like I finally found something that is working. And after trying ALL the email newsletters that would accept me (Bookbub new releases for less was the only one that worked for me frankly) It is nice to feel like I can influence someone somewhere to buy my book lol.

[Crystal]

I miss the days before AMS opened everywhere. Back when you had to sign up for a special account, AMS was so much less competitive in non US regions. The UK bids were even lower back then!

The UK market is harder to penetrate, for whatever reason. It is genre dependent of course, but if you look at the top 100 in the US vs UK, or you check the relative ranks in the genre top 100, you'll see way fewer indies. Even highly successful indies.

Look at the top 20 in contemporary romance right now. Those books aren't in the top 20 in the UK and are often ranked much, much lower (they might be #17 in the US and #450 in the UK).

The UK market has a much lower ceiling than the US and it doesn't seem as KU centric.

I've had some books do especially well in the UK and they often had more upscale packaging, but I don't think the stories were necessarily better written or more upscale. Some were pretty dirty.

[Crystal]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/288746/global-book-market-by-region/

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-are-the-biggest-publishing-markets-in-the-world.html

With around 3000 publishing houses and 25 billion Euros of publishing revenue in 2015, the United States of America ranks first as the biggest publishing market in the world. The American publishing market contributes an unmatched amount of revenue that is almost equal to the revenue that is generated combined by the rest of the nine of the top ten publishing markets in the world.

I don't think this is necessarily reflective of indie success. I've done very well in France--five of six books hung out at #1--so I'm pretty confident in my observation that France is a significantly smaller market than the UK for indie authors. With six books sub 1500 on .fr, I make $50-75/day. There's a decent ceiling in France, but once you slip past the top 10-20, you fall fast.