PublishDrive has debuted a new tool to help authors run Amazon ads, but anyone new to click-based advertising will need education if they want to invest wisely
In 2016, Amazon opened up Amazon Marketing Services (AMS) to all self-published authors distributing books via Amazon KDP. Like other automated, online advertising platforms, such as Google paid search ads, the ads are based on a bidding system. You as the advertiser pay for the ad based on clicks (typically, less than $1 per click) and set a budget in advance.
Recently, AMS has been renamed Amazon Advertising, reflecting a revamp of the program and its features. Anyone selling products on Amazon can advertise, and if you’re following Amazon news, then you know that its advertising business is rapidly growing. It’s now third in the market for online ads (see closing image in today’s issue). And, since 2016, indie authors have felt more pressure to advertise their work on Amazon to keep it visible and selling. But because more authors are advertising (and bidding against one another), the cost of the ads has increased over time.
Authors have access to two types of Amazon ads: sponsored-product ads and lockscreen ads.(Ads that appear on Kindle lockscreens are generally not recommended in the indie author community.) While technically it’s not hard to set up an advertising campaign using Amazon’s dashboard, it can be overwhelming for an author unfamiliar with click-based advertising and the practice of bidding on keywords. Should you trust Amazon to automatically target your ad to the right people? Should you use their keyword suggestions? If not, what keywords or products should you use for targeting? How important are negative keywords (ensuring your ad doesn’t show up for particular searches)? How much should you bid? Should you bid more to appear on top of search results? And that’s just the beginning.
Recognizing that authors may be intimidated by the system—but still want to advertise—ebook distributor PublishDrive has launched an Amazon advertising setup tool as part of its services. This tool combines all the advanced targeting features of Amazon’s ad dashboard with Savant, PublishDrive’s proprietary AI technology that helps authors choose categories (BISAC codes) for their titles. You don’t have to distribute through PublishDrive to use the tool.
We gave this feature a try and compared it to Amazon’s experience. While we’re not confident this tool informs the process any better than directly using the Amazon ad interface, it does suggest related products that authors may want to use for ad targeting. However, for one of Jane’s titles (a beginner’s guide on publishing), suggested products included writing-category bestsellers that were not a great match audience-wise (e.g., On Writing Well by William Zinsser and The Chicago Manual of Style). There are no recommendations on setting keywords or bidding strategy; PublishDrive directs users to read Amazon’s own guidance on those matters.
We suggest that authors who want to experiment with Amazon Ads first educate themselves through an online course or instructional guide. Authors must be committed to actively monitoring and improving their campaigns; this is not a set-it-and-forget-it opportunity. And it may not make a lot of sense for authors with a single title; series authors are more likely to see a payoff. Karen Myers has a good case study here from a year ago. And here’s a more recent post by Chris McMullen. To dive deeper, consider the following.
- Check out Mastering Amazon Ads by Brian Meeks, a cornerstone guide published in mid-2017. It now needs an update, but it covers the fundamentals. Look for the Facebook group run by Meeks as well.
- Review Dave Chesson’s free online course in Amazon advertising. Chesson is the creator of KDP Rocket, a paid tool that helps authors research Amazon keywords.
- Listen to Bryan Cohen’s new podcast, Relentless Authors Advertise.
- Watch a 45-minute YouTube tutorial from the summer of 2018 with Dale L. Roberts and Marco Moutinho.
Amazon ads are one area of marketing where (so far) we’ve found that authors need to be willing to do the legwork themselves rather than outsource. We asked full-time indie novelist Terry Maggert, who has experience and knowledge in this area, if he’d ever recommend hiring out such work. He told us, “There are new ‘experts’ every week, and they require admin privileges on your author page/Amazon page. That exposes us to them using our own audiences for other clients, which is an issue of trust. … It is an absolute must that I understand ads and write them for myself. I personally use KDP Rocket and my own research, as well as upcoming novels in my genre.”
Before investing, be sure that your book’s packaging is exactly on target. Chesson told us, “The truth of the matter is that the output of AMS [Amazon Advertising] strongly depends on the quality of cover, title, and book description. AMS truly drives traffic to a book, but if those things aren’t in place and well done, the conversions will be low.”
Bottom line: Even if authors want to hire hands-on help, it’s difficult to find quality service providers. We asked Chesson for his thoughts on why no major services have arisen to assist authors with Amazon ads. “I believe that the market structure of such a service wouldn’t be profitable in the book world; hence why you don’t see a lot of services popping up all over the place—again, stressing the book world part,” he says. “The first strike for these companies is that they must screen their clients heavily before choosing to bring them on,” since many books aren’t well positioned to succeed in the first place. Furthermore, he says, “They would need to invest a lot of time consistently on each project” to get results that would justify whatever they’re charging. Chesson told us that many publishing companies are now designating a single person or team as responsible for Amazon ads. “I have actually been doing a lot of consulting with publishers on establishing this aspect to their organization.” So authors aren’t the only ones having to learn a new skill set.
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.
