Amazon Ads vs Facebook Ads

As an Indiewriter, read ‘as a business owner’!, it is important that the investments we make will make us money. We can’t afford to waste our precious money on things that won’t work. It’s difficult though to put a price on things. Sometimes it’s easy, a sale is a sale and has a clear monetary value. But what about things like exposure? See my point?

Now I’m sure there are plenty of methematical formula’s to put a monetary price on that as well, but we’re writers, not mathematicians. So what we have to do is put a price on it ourselves. How much would I be willing to pay per view?

As I’ve written about before, I’ve tried an ad with Facebook ads, (see here if you forgot how that went) as and now have the result so of the Amazon Product page ad as well. (AMS). Time to do a comparison.

The results:

Other things to consider:
– biggest difference: Facebook is very vague about how they spend your budget. Amazon is very clear, and you only pay if people actually click on your ad, instead of having an impression.
– Facebook lets you create your own ad, add as much text as you like, and have whatever picture you like. Amazon automatically takes your cover, and you only have two to three lines of text you can add.
– Amazon allows you to use whatever keywords you like, Facebook is rather limited
– Facebook allows you to search on demographics, like countries or even cities, women, age groups etc. Amazon only uses keywords that people search for in their shop.
– Amazon registers and gives you a lot more info on your ad. Like it keeps track of sales etc. Though the Ad campaign site only said I sold 7 books directly through the ad, My overall sales went up considerably as did my KU borrows. So I have a feeling it didn’t link all sales to the campaign.
– The audience is different. People on Facebook aren’t neccesarily looking to buy, whereas most people browsing on Amazon are there to buy.

Conclusion:
For me I’ll stick with AMS for now. I like how it gives me the free play with keywords, I can have up to a thousand, and still only pay for the ones that actually work. Which in my book gives me more of a feeling I’m not taking a huge financial risk; After all, I’m not paying if my ad doesn’t attract the right people.
Another thing I really liked, especially as a newly published author (I still can’t help but giggle at that term) is that for the same amount of money spend on ads, with Amazon, I reached over 7000(!) people. Whereas with Facebook only 215.
The only major downside to AMS is that it took me (a sucky ad copy writer) a while to create compelling ad copy in such a few characters available. Whereas in Facebook, I could put up my whole blurb, as well as fancy photo’s if I’d wanted.

If you have all the budget in the world, I’d say attack them on all sides with ads. If not, then, depending on what you want, AMS is probably the better option.

The Indiewriter vs Amazon Ads(AMS)

Advertising. My biggest headache. My archnemesis.

I can write. I wrote two, 85K+ novels, am working on a third, yet for the life of me, I struggle to string two or three sentences together that makes people drop everything and run for the store to get a copy of my book. (or click on the link at Amazon.)

I told myself that I don’t have a proper budget (which I really don’t have), or that I would start doing so once I have more books up. But if I’m being truly honest with myself, the ad copy is probably the reason why I kept holding off advertising. (Apart from Facebook posts, where I simply copy and paste my blurb an add a link to my Amazon product page.)

But if you read or follow as many blogs, Facebook groups and ‘How to’ books on self-publishing, you quickly learn that there’s no real way around it. It makes zero sense to publish a book, yet to not let anyone know about it. It’s like opening a shop without putting up a sign.

As part of my research, I read Mark Dawson’s “Learn Amazon ads”. On the first three pages or so, he already mentions at least four times that there really is NO excuse not to use AMS (Amazon Ads). They fit into any budget, are easy to set up, and are not only generating sales (if done right) but also is good for branding; getting your name out there. Long story short, and I realized he was right. There was no excuse. You can set a budget for as little as $1 a day for as short a time as you like. You even pay only for the times people actually click on the ad, the rest is just free publicity.

Keywords are an issue if you want to do them manually (I will get back on that another time, because that deserves a whole post of itself) but Amazon also has a automatic function where they do it for you.

But then the most dreaded part…. The ad copy. Amazon product ads only allow for a certain amount of characters used which amounts to around three sentences. That’s not a whole lot of space to summarise a 85K book!

Then again, maybe that’s not the wisest way to go about it.

So I struggled. Struggled some more. Put it away for a day then struggled some more. In the meantime (remember, us Indiewriters are multitasking geniuses) I continued reading Mark Dawson’s book. And then, right at the end, he saves my soul. How? He states that being successful with AMS, you need to apply ‘trial and error’. Run the same ads but with different keywords, to see which keywords work best. Use the same keywords but with different ad copy, to see which ad copy works best. And we’re talking about a $1 a day risk here. (and according to him, Amazon doesn’t even spend all of this money every day since you only pay when they click on your ad).

This may not sound like the holy grail of advice, but it changed something for me. He pretty much told me that I was going to fail at some point, but there weren’t any huge risks involved. I would maybe lose a few dollars. (literally, because if your ad copy doesn’t attract people, they won’t click, and I don’t have to pay). Yet I could try over and over again until I have some that do work. Now this might not work for everyone, but for me, it kinda got the pressure off of the whole thing. And it motivated me to actually give it a try. So fingers crossed!

The Indiewriter vs Booksprout part II

Some of you might remember me talking about having an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) up at Booksprout in return for reviews. (if not, go read it HERE) Since I’m not (yet) a multimillionaire best selling author, I opted for the free account. It allowed me to give out 20 ARC’s.

Out of those 20, only 9 actually downloaded the book. Which was a little disappointing, I have to admit. But in all fairness, outside of Booksprout itself and my Facebook account, I didn’t really promote it either, so that might have some influence on it.

However, out of those 9 copies, I got 5 reviews. 5* reviews even! All five of them posted on both Amazon and Goodreads, as I asked them to. The rest were no shows.

But it got me more than that. I also gained one (super)fan as well. Within a day, she added my author’s page on Facebook, is sharing my posts there with hundreds of her friends, signed up for my newsletter, and even send me a PM on facebook asking if the book would be available in KU, and if so, if I would be okay with her sharing and discussing my book there with a book group she’s in.

Was it worth it? Yes, the numbers may not be all too impressive and are on a relatively small scale, BUT it was free and took me like half an hour to set up. And those reviews I did get, probably did wonders for my sales. Not to mention my superfan. You can’t put a price on things like that. (okay, maybe those good in maths and economics actually can figure that out, but I don’t)

So yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat and will do so for sure for my next novel.

I don’t think I will go for a paid account until I’ve reached the point where I have more people wanting ARC’s than I have slots to give.

The Indiewriter vs Juggling

So the first Ebook is out and the paperback version is in the process of being published (Amazon can take up to 72 hours to be active on their website). Time to take a break, sit back and enjoy the labor of my hard work, right?

Or so I thought. I’ve been busier than ever. With the first reviews etc coming in, the request for more is pressing. So, I’m busting my ass to finish the second novel, get it edited etc.

At the same time, I still want to do some more research about going ‘wide’ (have my paperback in more shops than just Amazon), ads, etc. I also need to find out how to connect my Ebook to my paperback on Amazon. It does on my ‘bookshelf’ but not on the actual shop. So I need to get behind that asap.

Also, I need to think of great ways to promote my books at the convention I have planned for the end of September. (more on that later). It seems like a long time ahead still, but if you want things printed (I’m thinking posters, bookmarkers, maybe even customized linen tote bags) I need to make the designs and get it to a printer in time.

And then there is my reader magnet story on Archive of our own (AO3) that I’m writing and where people want regular updates on. Okay, it doesn’t require the same amount of editing etc I do on my novels, but still needs to be written from scratch and checked over. So it takes up time. I set out a deadline of a chapter a week for myself, but already I’m falling behind. (just by a few days but still.)

Then there are newsletters to be written (also took me waaaay longer than I anticipated), ad campaigns to manage, ads to be made, blurs to be written for the second novel and and and….

There are days now where I seriously feel like I’m drowning in things to do. And for now, I’m still into this full time, no other job on the side. It’s a lot. I knew this when I started the process, and I’m still behind it, but sometimes it gets really overwhelming. On ‘good’ days, I tell myself, that since it’s my own ‘business’, I can take my time. It doesn’t have to happen all at once. I can finish and publish the second book whenever I feel like it. And that’s true of course. BUT, pretty much every ‘business model’  for a successful writing career dictates that you need to bring out your books in a reasonable time frame. You don’t want your readers to forget all about you because you took forever to get the next installment out.

So besides being a writer, a publisher, an ad campaign manager, apparently you also need to be a juggler in order to be a successful indie writer.

And the list of skills needed grows…..

The Indiewriter vs FacebookAds

My author page on Facebook does well. Or at least Facebook seems to think so. In fact, they think it does so well, they offered me a €20,= gift coupon for an add to reach even more people! How good am I! lol

Okay okay, this is, of course, a mere marketing trick from Facebook to push you into spending your hard earned money on their adds. But since I’ve been curious about it for a while now, I decided to play around a little with it.

In the Indieworld it seems there is a strong division into the camp that believes in Facebook ads, claiming they do wonders for their business, have a great return rate and are a Godsend to Indie writers. The other camp? Not so much. They believe the opposite. It doesn’t add to anything, is a waste of money, and that there are way better ways to spend your precious money.

Okay, not really helpful. Of course, things are easy when they work for you. You know you did something right. But when things didn’t work, you have to ask yourself, ‘why?’. Is it because Facebook ads really don’t work (for you), is it because your ad simply isn’t enticing enough, or because you used the wrong keywords or target groups?

Deciding I wanted to try it out for myself, I decided to set one up. Nothing too fancy, I took my blurb, added a few 5* reviews I had gotten, and a link (including cover image) directly to my book on Amazon. Then I had to fill in my target audience. Facebook tries to help you by making suggestions. Now I have no clue as to where they get them from, but trust me, IGNORE them! Or at the very least double check if that is what you want. In my case, Facebook advised me to run the ad in only one province in the Netherlands, among men and woman from 10 to 85 years old. This was for my book Dinner at Dawn, an m/m paranormal romance, with a sex scene in it, targeted at women and written in English…. See my problem here? I would be downright surprised or shocked if a 10-year-old Dutch speaking boy would consider buying my book. Okay, so I caught it and changed it into at least the English speaking part of the world, in particular, the countries where Amazon claims my books are most popular in. I also adjusted my targeting audience.

Next were the keywords. Thanks to KWFinder I had a nice list of keywords that should attract the right kind of people. Only to run into a slight glitch. You see, Facebook had a lot of keywords, but not always the ones you’re looking for. For instance, it does have ‘GAY PRIDE’ but not the word ‘GAY’ alone. Sigh.

After toying around with it, (read me typing in random words in hopes of finding some useful ones) I got a list that I was pretty happy with.

Setting my budget of max € 20,=, spread over 3 days (the amount of my free coupon), Facebook estimates I should be able to reach around 9.000 people… That wouldn’t be a bad thing. If only 1 percent actually clicks on the Amazon link and would buy it….

At the end of my promotion, I have reached 251people (meaning they saw my ad), with an involvement of 121 people (meaning they reacted to it, either by comments, likes, clicks or shares). Only 1 person actually clicked on the Amazon link.

Success? Failure? Hmm hard to say.

The promised 9000 people reached? >> I think it’s safe to say that was an epic failure.

But for the rest. I still got 1 sell through this free ad. And like I said, I didn’t really put much effort in the ad itself. Coincidently though, and I have no clue if this is related to the ad, but in the 2 days after my ad stopped running, I sold almost the same as I did in the whole first week… Coincidence?

Would I do it again? Not any time soon, unless of course, Facebook thinks me so good to give me a free coupon again. I think I’ll wait a bit until the next book is out (hopefully soon).

The Indie writer vs The Newsletter

Newsletters, our mailboxes are filled with them. Most of them hardly get read, and disappear into some folder for later reading, if at all. Yet, every self-respecting blog, self-publishing group, etc keeps insisting on the importance of having a mailing list.

I see the pro’s; building a fanbase, staying in touch with your readers, informing them of updates so they can buy, building an ARC team, getting beta-readers etc.

I also see the con’s; It takes a lot of time and effort, how effective are they really, and my biggest issue; what to write about.

But why would people want to sign up for a newsletter in the first place?

So I got thinking and opened the folder in my inbox where I save the newsletters I actually read and valued enough to save them. I started reading through them. Among them, newsletters of Nalini Singh (amazing writer, check out her books!), Bryn Donovan (I swear her newsletters on tools for writers helped me so much) and even the newsletters of Randy Ingermanson (the developer of the ‘snowflake method’). I looked through them all to find the reason why I keep them/signed up for them; the common component? They all give away freebies. And I don’t mean freebies as in free gift cards or copies of their books or whatever, no, they give away free EXCLUSIVE content. And that’s what tickles my fancy.
You see I’m one of those people who either LOVE a series or go mwah and drop it. If I love it, I want to read everything about that writer. I want more. More chapters, more character bio’s, more sneak peeks etc. Little things that the general public has no access to. I guess it’s the same with the DVD boxes that now have the extended versions and other bonus materials on them. People are willing to spend money on just a few scenes that didn’t even make it to the screen.

So I added my website to have a page with this Exclusive menu, only to block the visitor from entering. (mean I know) They have to sign up to the newsletter in order to gain access to this exclusive bonus material.

In all honesty, I hadn’t written it yet, and as no people had signed up yet, I wasn’t in a hurry to do so either. However, now that the book is published, and people are actually reading it, I have several people per day signing up for the newsletter. (yes, backmatter matters!) So now I’m busting my ass to get a newsletter out, including the bonus material.

Luckily I had already planned on the kind of things I wanted to offer up:

  • scenes from the books that were edited out at a later stage.
  • character bios’ > For my first newsletter I plan an interview with my two main characters
  • sneak-previews of covers
  • maybe even a poll for covers or names of characters > get readers involved in the decision-making process!
  • sneak-previews of new novels
  • maybe even short side stories

Will a successful and large mailing list prove profitable in the future? We’ll see. But first I need to build one and keep them entertained.

The Indie writer on a convention…

Conventions. Chances are you’ve been to one before. Huge gatherings of like-minded people, looking to spend some time together, discovering new things in their fandom, and generally looking for things to spend their hard earned money on. Whether it be model train conventions, Star Wars conventions, book fairs or anime conventions, they attract thousands of people. People who are–if you’re in the right place, of course–, your target audience.

I’m a huge anime/manga/comic fan. I’ve visited many ComicCon’s Animecons etc. And almost eighty percent of the people I meet there, like the same genre’s, same type of books as I do. I’m a woman, liking m/m romance. In fact, it was through these kinds of conventions that I came into contact with the genre, (it’s a really popular genre among anime/manga fans, especially women).

Coincidentally I write in that same genre; M/M Paranormal Romance. In all honesty, though it’s gaining in popularity these days, it’s a pretty small niche market to write in. It’s also not a genre that people usually advertise they love to read as it’s not as ‘cool’ or ‘sophisticated’ as some of the other genres. Yet at these type of conventions, it’s a gathering of niche markets like this. Thousands of people who are interested in things that are not for everyone. Where they can finally come out and proudly say they love Star Wars, model trains, anime, m/m paranormal romance etc. What better place for an Indie writer/publisher to get your niche target audience together in one huge room?

Granted the brave Indies before me who have already tried this road, warn me that they’re not selling that many books, BUT they all claim the same thing; It’s done miracles for their branding and spreading the word in the community. They also say that they see a significant increase in sales the weeks following the convention.

So guess what? I just reserved a table at Tomofair (in the Netherlands) I’ll be attending, signing, and hopefully selling my books there. (I say books, because I fully intend to have my second novel in the series, Breakfast at Dusk, also finished by then.)

A good, promising thing to look forward to, and my creative mind is racing; I’m thinking bookmarkers instead of business cards, customized tote bags, wall scrolls, booktrailer on a large screen. And in my darkest fantasies, I see a line going around the corner with people standing in line for my autograph… (but that’s just between you and me 😉 )


When you finally hold your baby in your hands…

It finally happened. After months of hard work, pain, stress, and tears, it’s finally here; The mailman smiles unknowingly as he hands me the package that holds the fruit of my labor. “Please sign here,” he says. And I couldn’t be happier as I sign.

Once in my living room, a sudden fear strikes me. What if it came out all wrong? For an hour or so I simply stare at it as I do my chores. My eye never too far away from the package resting on the table.


Finally I gather the courage to open it. My baby, Dinner at Dawn. It smiles up at me as I unwrap the packaging material and I can’t help but tear up. Is this what becoming a mother feels like? I couldn’t be more proud when I gently stroke its cover, its spine. Admiring the feel of it. As I open it, my fingers stroke the never before touched pages. My normally pragmatic mind tells me to stop being so dramatic and emotional. “It’s a book, one you’ve seen and worked on for ages. You’ve stared at the cover and content thousands of times, what’s so special now?”

I don’t know. All I know is that it is. Very special. I’m tearing up and I can’t stop it. It’s like all the stress and hard work suddenly pours out and grips me, but in a good way. A relieved way.


After I gathered myself (it took a while) I pick it up again. Taking a closer, more pragmatic look. Okay, the cover is a bit on the dark side. (POD apparently comes out darker than your screen does) and there are a few minor mistakes here and there. But that was to be expected. And can still be edited.

Overall though, it’s one hell of a magical experience to hold your book for the first time. This feeling will probably fade the more books you have published, but for now, I feel like I’m high as a kite, and I can’t wipe the stupid grin off my face.

I’m not a very confident person. I don’t do great things, broke no records of any kind, never won a contest in my life. Mediocre is what I would describe myself at. But now, seeing my book for the first time, with MY name on the cover…. I think for the first time in my life I feel truly proud of myself. Proud of what I accomplished. Loads of people say “Oh, I want to write a book one day.” But I actually did it. Even if it won’t become a bestseller, even if I only sell a handful of copies… No one can take this away from me.

Another illusion shattered, building a fanbase.

We all heard of writers who seemingly came out of nowhere and become best selling authors overnight *kuch*E.L. James*kuch*. Not that I ever imagined myself becoming one of those lucky few, but still. To me, they were the stars of our trade, the authors to live up to. Of course, I was aware that it wasn’t just their writing skills that got them there, but still. That was until I watched a presentation from a self-published author herself who explained a bit more about the stories behind success stories like that. The things that aren’t always publicly known, or at least not widely known. It rattled me.

Read on, only if you don’t mind risking having your illusions shattered as it did with me.

You see, there is a reason behind their ‘sudden’ success. And that is, that it’s not sudden. The world at large may never have heard of them before, but they already had a huge fanbase. E.L. James had thousands of followers on sites where her fanfiction story (yes, fifty shades of Grey was based on a fanfiction story she wrote) was posted. Even if not all her followers there bought the book once she published it, it was still a huge boost in sales. It’s safe to say, that without it she probably wouldn’t have made it to the bestseller list. And this is not just for her, many of the ‘best seller’s overnight’ have similar stories like this. Not perse in fanfiction, but they already have a huge following of fans, whether they be from a blog, or social media, they had fans. Loyal fans. Fans willing to buy, share and advertise their books. And that is something that can’t easily be bought or obtained. You need to invest time and effort into it.

One of the marketing tools to do so is what they call a ‘reader magnet’. Usually, a story that people can read for free. So I decided to start an account on arhiveofourown.com (AO3). But you have to give it some thought. Because you want readers there to get to know your writing style. So the story you put up there, need to be in a similar genre/style than your novel(s). Then you add your link to your website, newsletter, etc at the end, to generate traffic to your novels and you as an author.

Is it a lot of work? Yes. But, I think it can be a very good investment of time and effort. Remember, no one makes it big overnight. Everyone has a backstory, a story that’s not always as widely known. So with the illusion of becoming big overnight shattered, I focus my energy on the long term; Creating a fanbase now one of my top priorities.

Chicken and the egg, review style

One of the many things I’ve learned, yet never really thought about it is the importance of reviews. To be honest, when I buy a book (even by an unknown author to me) I never pay much attention to the reviews. The cover and blurb are what draws my attention most. But, having said that, that doesn’t seem the norm. Most people do take reviews very seriously, especially when they don’t know the author or their works yet.

There are several ways to get these. One is the organic way, people buy your book and hopefully will leave a review. But this is a ‘who was first’ situation, because if they won’t buy the book without reviews, how do I get reviews?

As I’ve talked about before there are sites like Booksprout where you can offer your books for a free ARC (Advance Reader Copy) in return for a review. It works. But I only had a handful of people who signed up. (I did get my first 5* review there, so totally worth it). Then I started thinking. You don’t just want any reviews, you want reviews from people who are your target audience, and therefore are more inclined to like your book and leave a positive review. Better yet, you want reviews from people who want to spread the word and buy your books.


I started my search on Facebook. (it’s the only social media platform I’m active on) So I searched for groups. ARC groups, review groups, but all, and this is very important, within my genre. I write m/m Paranormal romance/urban fantasy, so I made sure to target groups with exactly those interests. And Lo and behold there were about a dozen that I could find within half an hour or so. And that’s not all, they welcome authors within their genre, welcome ARC’s even more, but also let you advertise your book, complete even with links to where they can buy a copy. This alone resulted in several loyal followers who signed up for my newsletter true my own website, followed my authors’ page on Goodreads, and Amazon etc.

So yeah, Facebook groups are a win!

Another win to get great reviews and get your name out for free are reviews blogs. Again, it’s important that you find groups within your genre! These groups and blogs etc can be harder to find. I didn’t even know about their existence (stupid me, I know) until I used KWFinder. As I mentioned in my previous post, KWFinder is an absolute goldmine. It shows you which websites use a lot of those keywords. Besides sites like Amazon, Goodreads etc. it also showed several sites/blogs that were basically the same thing as the FB groups. Sites within a specific genre that offer a platform for authors to showcase, advertise, and get reviews for their novels. Most of these do this for free. You submit your story, they will write a review. A great example of this is: MM Good book reviews. Mind you, there is no guarantee, of course, they will write a positive review, but still.

So I signed up with several of them, and within 2 days my novel was already mentioned in two newsletters as a tip, and as an advertisement for a new release. AT NO COSTS! Sure you can buy advertisements, probably reach an even bigger audience than this, but if you’re on a tight budget like me, this is very valuable. And what’s more, this newsletter may not go out to a million subscriber, but it does go out to people who are highly interested in my specific genre. (not to mention the immense motivational boost to my ego to see my novel in an ‘official newsletter’ that I didn’t write 😉 )