UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
Agony Aunt
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Amazon paid ads - anyone found them useful?
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Having listened to the comments of others, I have yet to be convinced that Amazon adds pay
Strangely enough i was thinking of giving it a try. I paused Goodreads ads for the holiday as there are lots of random clicks without adds during holidays. (Kids on mum's account?) Maybe I will leave it a while. The Christmas period has been dire for me but things are starting to move again.
Lisa wrote: "Strangely enough i was thinking of giving it a try. I paused Goodreads ads for the holiday as there are lots of random clicks without adds during holidays. (Kids on mum's account?) Maybe I will lea..."I think it's true what people say - people don't buy eBooks as Christmas gifts. They want stuff they can wrap and put under the tree.
Maybe my data is skewed due to the time of year, I don't know - but it needs to be an order of magnitude better to make it financially viable.
Ethan, please open your author thread in the group and give us a link to your book.We could give your cover and blurb a look over for you and offer advice, if you'd like.
Getting engaged in our group will give you more returns than any amount of paid Amazon ads will, in my opinion.
I'm sure many in here will agree.
Advertising is expensive; if you can afford it, it's probably not worth it.
Ethan wrote: "I think it's true what people say - people don't buy eBooks as Christmas gifts. They want stuff they can wrap and put under the tree..."You're right in that. Even when in our family younger members are given cheques towards things that they need, there's still something that can be wrapped
ebooks don't seem to cut the mustard as presents. If only because, frankly, they're so inexpensive.
I stopped and worked it out, I could give somebody my entire fantasy works and it's still not a twenty quid present.
I did try Google ads for a while, and whilst there was a reasonable click through ( for which i paid) actual conversion rate was pretty poor
I've tried Am Ads for many months and in all sorts of combinations and I have come to the conclusion that Amazon ads = donations to Amazon.
I agree with Anna: total waste of time and money.ENT has been the only advertising (that I could afford) which actually paid for itself.
Tim wrote: "I agree with Anna: total waste of time and money.ENT has been the only advertising (that I could afford) which actually paid for itself."
ENT?
An ent is a giant in Anglo-saxon folklore, though they spelled it eoten (and the Nordic countries called them jotuns .. oh, wrong, ENT...ENT is an acronym that refers to Ears, Nose and Throat; the term is often found on hospital signage...oh, no, wrong ENT...
Oh, yes, EreaderNewsToday.
It probably depends on your genre, but I did not find ENT very productive (though better than most). I'd say Bookbub is the only one where you get a real deal.
As for Amazon ads...yes, I've found them to be next-to-useless as well...
You missed out Tolkien's talking trees ;)
I'm with the majority, I'm afraid. I didn't find AM ads at all productive. As Patti says above, I've had far more success through interrating here.And don't underestimate the power of social media either. I've had a number of sales from Twitter and Facebook follows - plus it helps to get to know your readers.
Amazon ads did very little for me. Facebook ads have given me huge numbers of impressions and "likes" for my author page, but no real sales results.Goodreads ads are worth a punt. I've currently paused my campaigns until a few books in my pipeline are on the market, but I've found them very useful in increasing the visibility of my work.
And as Patty said, getting engaged in this group (and others like it), is far more effective.
G J (Gaff to my friends) wrote: "As Patti says above, I've had far more success through interrating here."I misread that as "irritating" . . .
He's not that bad, Tim!
Only on months with an R in them... And to be fair, I'm usually busy on the other three!
Thanks all. The evidence certainly does appear damning.It's not that I'm suggesting the ads are "useless", but certainly they don't seem to work for the majority of people.
Tolkien's Ents, etymologically, were based on the first definition ;)True, Ethan, they've been useless for me as far as I can tell...but probably not for everyone or else no one would have used them more than a couple of times and they would not still be offered by Amazon...
Well they obviously work for Amazon.It might be that they're more useful in the US for US writers?
D.M. Andrews (author) wrote: "True, Ethan, they've been useless for me as far as I can tell...but probably not for everyone or else no one would have used ..."Well, the fact they still exist only means that they make money for Amazon; it doesn't really say whether they actually work for authors.
Focusing on Amazon ads, though, has anyone found these to be of much use? To give an idea, I've ran two sets of ads.
Firstly, a product-based ad, where I nominated a bunch of other books near the top of the same categories as mine. This has cost me $16 (they only work in $) and brought in 28,000 impressions, 42 page views and 1 sale (one singular sale). This suggests a CTR of 0.15% and a sale rate of less than 2% of clicks.
Secondly, an interest-based ad, where I nominated my book's categories and a couple of other related ones. This has cost me $10 for around 10,000 impressions, 40 page views and zero sales. I can't do much more analysis as I haven't got even one sale.
I've just paused them indefinitely today, as I'm unsure they're worth bothering with (the maths don't really add up). With an individual sale of a £2 book bringing in around £1.30, you'd have to get a sale for less than that in ad expenditure.
I'm pretty confident in my cover and ad phrasing, as I used Google Ads to iterate on my approach.
Has anyone here had better luck with them for fiction books?