New indie authors are finding it increasingly difficult to reach new readers with Amazon ads.
Last month, we looked into services that help indie authors with Amazon ad campaigns, and we noted changes happening at Amazon Advertising. The key takeaway: authors need to be prepared to do the hard work themselves; there are few or no shortcuts to running a successful campaign. But one thing we didn’t explore is the necessity of placing Amazon ads and their effectiveness over time. Are they a must, and do they remain a reliable way of pushing sales?
To answer this question, we first consulted with several experienced people in the industry, including Dave Chesson, who has created a tool to help authors with the keyword research typically needed for Amazon ad campaigns. He told us that ranking number one for a keyword search on Amazon is hugely beneficial to sales—and that as it stands today, Amazon ads now sit in the number one and number two search result spots. That means “those [advertised] books benefit the most and take away the organic clicks that could have been.” (See Chesson’s analysis on how Amazon search ranking affects sales here.) While he was quick to point out that avid Amazon shoppers have become accustomed to those ads and may skip them to see the organic results, there’s no denying these ads affect the marketplace and are powerful in terms of location.
However, we’ve heard anecdotal reports from authors who’ve been running Amazon ads for a long time now that the ads have become less effective this year. Amy Collins and Keri Barnum of New Shelves told us, “We had a huge run of successful ads for our authors right up until late January, early February. At that time, the amount of impressions went way down.” Even though they began experimenting to try to increase the impressions, they still dropped quickly. “We now see that Amazon is driving up budget suggestions but then not using all the budgets because books never get the impressions and the clicks go down. We found that we have to at least double our budgets and per-click amount.” Of course, doing so drives down profit. As a result, “The investment is more for awareness,” they said. “The current ROI is so unpredictable that we have stopped offering Amazon ads to authors in almost all cases.” They have found an important exception: highly visible authors with traditional publishers are more likely to get a guaranteed return on sales, as before.
Ian Lamont, founder of the i30 Media Corporation (a publisher of nonfiction books), spends more than $20,000 a year on both book and merchandise ad campaigns. He says, “Long term, I believe the increasing number of publishers and rising bids will make the Amazon Advertising platform difficult to generate returns, especially for low-margin titles. We saw a similar pattern with Google AdWords a decade ago. But for the time being, it’s possible (not guaranteed) to create campaigns that perform well—i.e., generate sales and raise brand awareness.”
With help from Orna Ross and the Alliance of Independent Authors, we gathered feedback from the organization’s members on authors’ experiences. Collectively, most of their comments confirmed that Amazon advertising has become more challenging since fall 2018, especially for fiction in the United States—although a few outliers reported more success this year than last. (Some authors said profitability can be easier to achieve when advertising at Amazon UK, for now.) One factor in profitability is whether the author is able to strategically advertise first in series, which can mean continued sales across the series. Laurence O’Bryan of BooksGoSocial said, “One thing to take account of is the effect of the 10+ books series author who can bid above $1 a click, as they can be sure that each sale results in five or six books in a series being sold.”
But there’s a double bind here: the ads indie authors must rely on to increase discovery may no longer be effective or profitable for them. Most believe that the average indie author has very little hope of achieving consistent, organic sales on Amazon—that some type of advertising or promotion is necessary to drive awareness, for fiction in particular. Author Karen Myers said, “Short of sudden bestseller status, I don’t think organic reach is very meaningful anymore. When the top 100 books in your genre are buried by a half dozen authors (Game of Thrones, Outlander), many of whom are squatting on your genre category inappropriately, your ability to come to the attention of strangers organically is effectively dead. I don’t think discovery happens any more without ads. And mailing lists, for new releases.”
Authors writing in specific nonfiction categories appear to be in a better position to profit on Amazon ads. New Shelves said they’re still seeing success in niches, as did some of the indie authors we reached out to for comment. But genre fiction and other commercial fiction can be problematic. New Shelves said, “We do not think it is a coincidence that Amazon’s top categories are the same categories that are seeing such a drop in impressions.” They say that Amazon’s books are showing up more often at the top of sponsored searches than even books from the Big Five publishers.
Children’s authors may also enjoy an advantage; Darcy Pattison says that Amazon advertising doubles her income. She told us, “Last year, I advertised ebooks but sold picture books. Since KDP Print has taken over from CreateSpace, I can now advertise paperbacks. The increase isn’t as dramatic because the competition is fiercer this year, even in the smaller niche of children’s books. Advertising paperbacks, I’m maintaining the same level of income even though my ebook sales have dropped off, since I don’t advertise them.”
Bottom line: With increased demand for Amazon ads, the cost has risen, making ROI more difficult to achieve—except for authors in a niche or perhaps those writing a series. Whatever your situation, if you’re new to Amazon advertising, you should determine how your genre/category may affect your success. And, unless your work is exclusive to Amazon, it’s probably not necessary to rely on Amazon ads, but you’ll likely have to promote or advertise somewhere to see steady sales. Diversify your approach and consider all options, including Amazon, Facebook, BookBub, and smaller firms that advertise ebooks. (Author Nicholas Erik has a good roundup of those smaller firms.)
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
