C.L.’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2017)

C.L.’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Alex wrote: "I've heard, obviously this is anecdotal so take it with a pinch of salt, that books that don't fit neatly into a specific genre do better outside of Amazon. Personally I would have expected the opp..."

I had heard that too but honestly I was getting zilch by being wide. Going back into KDP tripled my income so it works for me. I think people are more willing to take a chance on it if they can read it for free, and once they start it they are hooked and tend to binge read it in a day. And since my books are on the long side being paid by the page works well for me as a model.

95 clicks for 15,000 impressions is quite good. It means you have good copy. I get a lot of clicks per impression too, usually one click per 200-400 impressions where most people get one per thousand. Where mine falls down is conversion - It takes me around 30 clicks to get a sale or KDP download, which is considered poor. I've tweaked my description a number of times butI think it just comes down to the fact that my book doesn't fall easily into an obvious category so people aren't sure if it's their cup of tea or not.

Yes, thank you!

Update - it turns out that it DID create the story even though it told me it couldn't so now I have duplicates. Is there any way to delete one?

Also, how long should an episode be? I assume I break up chapters into scenes?

Also also - author notes - do people expect a lot of these in each episode? Or is just a sometimes thing?

I filled in all the stuff and then it told me it couldn't add the story because not all the fields were filled in.

Hey guys - I'm getting started on Radish but there's the slight issue where I have no idea what I'm doing. What the difference between a story cover and a feature cover? How do I upload?

HALP!

Oh, and totally ignore their acos line in their reporting - Amazon sucks at attributing sales. Just go by your Draft2Digital reports to figure out downloads. Assume anything more than your previous average number of downloads per day is attributable to ads.

Okay, that's not bad! So on the conservative side, you need like 15 downloads of book 1 to get a book 2 sale. So ideally you don't want to spend more than your royalty from book 2 to get 15 downloads of book 1. It takes about 1000 clicks or so to get a reliable average, so bid low, wait til you get 1000 clicks and do the math. If you're spending less or equal to your book 2 royalty to get 15 downloads of book 1, then you're golden because you'll also get book 3 profits.

Alex wrote: "It seems to be having a bit of an effect for me, though I am using it to promote a free book so that probably changes things,.."

I find it takes a while for an ad to get running, too, so you might not see a spike right away. Then one day, boom! As you say, it'll take a while to see your money coming back because your income comes from read-through. In your experience what percentage of downloads of the free book equal a purchase of one or more of your other books?

I don't remember either. I just remember creating the log in, then going to AMS and doing whatever AMS asked me to do to get started. Everything was on the AMS side and not the Advantage side. So if there was an AMS agreement I must have agreed to it.

If you want to know if you've done enough, just go to ams.amazon.co.uk and see if they let you make ads. The only point of the Advantage account is so you can log into AMS UK. Like, all I did was create the Advantage log in and then log in with it. I filled in the stuff that AMS asked me for and voila.

Anna - if you aren't in KDP I highly recommend it. I tried wide for a while but honestly, you can double your income with KDP and higher prices - the higher your price, the more likely KU people will be to try it because they feel like they're getting a bargain, and every KU download counts as a sale for the Amazon algorithm.

Anna Faversham wrote: "Oh C.L. I've obviously filled in far too much info.

I had an email back from Amazon from someone, very polite, who could not write English very well and repeated back to me what I had written to t..."

Even if they are going to bill you, hopefully you can make enough with ads to cover it. If you're in KDP especially, half your income will come from that. I've had very good return on UK ads, despite the fact that my book, being mixed-genre/subversion of genre, doesn't convert as well as a standard genre book would. You can get clicks at 0.05 each so even if it takes 50 clicks to make a sale, I can still make a profit if my book is priced at 3.99

Anita wrote: "Did you have to provide a bank account?"
No, I didn't fill in any banking info.

Oh, that sucks, I'm sorry.

I think I just put my address in. I don't remember if I used my home address or the business address of my publishing arm.

Alex, I'm curious - why not publish directly to Amazon via KDP? D2D is good for getting into Apple etc easily but why not go through Amazon directly?

Alex wrote: "C.L. wrote: "Once the campaign is approved you can edit your bids, but you should be making multiple ads anyway. Do a category interest ad, those do well, and a keyword ad at the very least."

Than..."

No, don't advertise book 2. Always just advertise book 1 and hope for read-through. One ad is not going to tell you much of anything, since some ads never take off, and some types of ads work better than others.

Tips for amazon - do not trust their ACoS or reported sales. Their reporting sucks. Track the number of impressions and clicks you get each day and track your sales from KDP dashboard. You will need at least 1000 clicks to figure out how many clicks tend to lead to a sale or KDP download if you're in KDP. Once you've figured out that conversion ratio (like 22 clicks = a sale) then you can figure out your maximum bid to make a profit.

Once the campaign is approved you can edit your bids, but you should be making multiple ads anyway. Do a category interest ad, those do well, and a keyword ad at the very least.

Alex wrote: "Thanks, C.L. I now understand and have just gone there and set up an ad, feeling proud of myself, and grateful for you taking the time to explain.

I've gone with £1 per day average, £0.25 max per ..."
No, do 0.10 per max click. Seriously you can get clicks on Amazon UK of 0.05 per click.

Guys I think you're not following my isntructions. Just create an Amazon advantage account. You don't have to do anything with it. Just create the log in. Then go to ams.amazon.co.uk. Sign in using your advantage log in. Voila. UK ads.

If you're spending time messing around in Advantage you're doing it wrong.

Anna Faversham wrote: "Me again.

I'm not sure I understand how it works. It says:

"Advantage
Available Product Lines: Books, Music, DVD and Video

Discount Rates:
Books: 60% off List Price
Music: 30% off Dealer Pri..."

That's because Advantage is usually used by people selling third party merchandise. Like, if you ran a used book store and wanted to market your ware a la Ebay, or if you owned a tee shirt store. But obviously you aren't going to use that side of Amazon. You'll just create the account so you can hack your way into AMS. So far they haven't asked me for any money and my books are selling at usual price.

I've been playing around with AMS a lot lately (highly recommend Brian Meek's book Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author's Guide) and I've found that KDP select plus careful AMS advertising is the best thing so far for my sales. It helps that my second book is quite long so I get a good KDP payout if people read through.