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Episode 14: Ads for Authors–Your Low-Drama Guide to Book Ads That Work
42 Plays25 days ago
Book advertising can feel like an entirely separate career path hidden inside publishing–a path many writers don’t feel equipped to traverse. Luckily, Paul is here to help. Join us as he shares the fundamentals of his successful, headache-free approach to indie book ads, including his favorite platforms, the tools he recommends, and how he keeps campaigns profitable without disappearing into a spreadsheet dungeon.
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Transcript
Episode Introduction
00:00:14
Lindsay Franklin
Hello and welcome to Quilling It. I am Lindsay Franklin.
00:00:18
Paul Regnier
And I'm Paul Regner.
00:00:20
Lindsay Franklin
And today we are going to be talking about ads for authors. So Paul, this is going to be an episode where you're going to have to do the heavy lifting and we will talk about why that is um a little bit later.
00:00:27
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:00:34
Paul Regnier
Yay. yeah
00:00:38
Lindsay Franklin
But um yes, this is going to be one where you're going to share your wisdom with our listeners about um how we as authors can advertise our books and maybe some best practices, maybe we could talk about different platforms and things that might be helpful for particularly our indie authors or indie interested authors out there.
Paul's Experimental Approach to Advertising
00:01:01
Paul Regnier
Yeah, no, definitely. And i have to start with a little bit of a disclaimer. i am not a numbers guy. And I know that once you get into, it once you start looking into all this advertising, there's all these classes out there. There are people out there that are numbers people and they will gladly whip out spreadsheets and start talking about statistics and line graphs and charts and all this percentages.
00:01:27
Paul Regnier
And it's all good, right? I mean, that's all good stuff, but that's not me. But I will recommend, like I've taken a lot of these classes and I know like these people love their spreadsheets and I i hate spreadsheets and I don't use them.
00:01:43
Paul Regnier
um I'm more of a feel kind of like you know experimentation, see if it works kind of big picture guy. But anyways, but I will mention a class that I took that I think was the most helpful, at least as far as the Amazon ads.
00:01:59
Paul Regnier
And then I have another resource as far as BookBub ads go.
Understanding Audience for Effective Ads
00:02:04
Paul Regnier
But i I kind of wanted to start with what I've learned is has been the most helpful for me, that there is a logic to running ads that just makes sense.
00:02:15
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:02:17
Paul Regnier
um And I think writing in general, I feel like there's a logic to, like I think last time we talked about the logic of storytelling. Like we were saying, OK, my character's here.
00:02:30
Paul Regnier
um What's he going to do? Oh, he has this major problem, so he has to solve this problem. Oh, he's going to try this. When he tries this, this is what happens. And it's like this sort of logical question and answer thing that can really lead you through an entire story.
00:02:46
Paul Regnier
And um it's really cool.
00:02:46
Lindsay Franklin
Love
00:02:47
Paul Regnier
And it's kind of like this. I've been thinking about this a lot. Like there's like a real logic to writing and advertising and promotion. and I'm a big believer. Like you you asked me once if I was ever going to write a book about writing, you know.
00:03:01
Paul Regnier
And I'm like, no, I'm not a craft guy, but I'm thinking if it ever was, it would probably be about like the logic of it.
00:03:01
Lindsay Franklin
that.
00:03:07
Paul Regnier
Because I think there is, and it it really makes it easy for me when I see, oh, you know it's not just like some mystical thing. you know It's like there's really like a logic that can lead you through a lot of these things.
00:03:18
Paul Regnier
So, all right, I know that was really rambly, but my point of all this is the ads that have worked for me the best um there I believe there's a ah clearly logical reason why they've worked well.
00:03:33
Paul Regnier
um Because, so I'll just say upfront, like Amazon ads and BookBub ads have been the best for me, the most effective, especially Amazon.
00:03:43
Paul Regnier
But it makes logical sense because on Amazon, I can specifically target not only books, but books just like mine.
00:03:54
Paul Regnier
So people are on Amazon, they're already shopping, they're already ready to buy things.
00:03:55
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:03:59
Paul Regnier
So they're already like, you know, there's all these sales tactics like, oh, how to get someone to buy something. If they're on Amazon, they're already ready. So that's a huge hurdle that's already overcome. They're already looking to buy something. And then when you can be specific to books, they're ready to buy a book.
00:04:15
Paul Regnier
And then when you can be specific to your genre, your niche, they're ready to buy a book very similar to yours. So it's like so many of those sales advertising hurdles that you typically get if you're like a marketing advertising firm or something like that, they're already out of the way for you because that's what people are looking to do. They're looking to buy a book just like yours. And then you can specifically deliver your ad to those people.
00:04:39
Paul Regnier
So there's ah there's a very clear logic to why those can be very effective. and BookBub is similar. its BookBub is a site for writers and readers.
00:04:51
Paul Regnier
And often it's for like discount books and things like that. But again, people are there because they're interested in books. And they'll usually find...
00:04:59
Lindsay Franklin
Right. Everybody's already interested in the product that you have to sell, at least broadly, at least broadly.
00:05:02
Paul Regnier
Yes!
00:05:04
Lindsay Franklin
And so that is a good comparison to as opposed to like running ads on Facebook, which I know there is there are a lot of authors who will swear by that or kind of crack the code for their particular books.
00:05:16
Paul Regnier
who
00:05:16
Lindsay Franklin
But that's a whole different animal because we're not opening up Facebook. specifically to buy books most of the time. Whereas if we're looking at BookBub or opening an email from BookBub, or if we're shopping on Amazon in the book department, we're already there for
Challenges with Facebook Ads
00:05:33
Lindsay Franklin
books.
00:05:33
Lindsay Franklin
So that that really does make perfect sense. It's one hurdle that you've cleared already and a big one, a big one.
00:05:36
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:05:39
Lindsay Franklin
These people want books.
00:05:39
Paul Regnier
Yeah. No, totally. And thank you. You actually finished the other side of the coin that I was going to go, but you already explained it very well. Yeah.
00:05:48
Lindsay Franklin
but Sorry.
00:05:48
Paul Regnier
like and And no, no, it's it's good because it's, but you see that you, you, there was a logic to it and your mind just went, oh, it's logical that. So that's what I mean when I was talking about that, but yes, like Facebook or Twitter or X or whatever it is now. And then like any other site, um,
00:06:06
Paul Regnier
people could be there for all kinds of reasons. So you're trying to say like, hey, you want to buy a book? And that might not even be in their mind, right? or They might not even be book readers. You don't know. um Or they might like nonfiction and you're pitching your fiction book.
00:06:22
Paul Regnier
and yeah So yeah, that's the logic to why I think those have worked the best for me. Not that you can't, I know, like you said, I know there's authors that have made Facebook work and and you can definitely make that work.
00:06:34
Paul Regnier
You could I'm sure you can make X work or any of the the other platforms. I just think um it's a heavier task and you almost have to have sort of this tricky way of doing it or a very studied way of like, oh, I figured out this neat little you know hack to make
Utilizing Newsletters for Direct Reach
00:06:52
Paul Regnier
it work.
00:06:52
Lindsay Franklin
Perfect.
00:06:52
Paul Regnier
And if you have more power to you, but like for the rest of us that don't know those little insider tricks, I think it's it's better just to go to a place like Amazon or BookBob where people are already interested in what you're trying to sell to them.
00:07:09
Paul Regnier
And go along with that, I will say we always talk about how author newsletters are really valuable. That's not really advertising, but it's the same idea, right?
00:07:20
Paul Regnier
These are people that are interested not only in books and books like yours, they're interested in your books because they signed up for your newsletter.
00:07:27
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:07:28
Paul Regnier
So that's actually your what they call like your warmest audience or whatever. They're like ready to hear, like, oh, what's your next project? Oh, what are you working on? Oh, what's your book? Oh, cool. It's out now.
00:07:38
Paul Regnier
I'll buy it. um And you don't have to pay anything for them. So that's like that's why those are so powerful. The newsletter is probably your most powerful tool, which I wish I would have known earlier because I started mine late.
00:07:51
Paul Regnier
But... That's why I'm saying it now for you young writers out there. Start your newsletter.
Exploring BookBub Advertising Options
00:07:56
Paul Regnier
um But yeah, so that's that's sort of my larger rant on the logic of why these certain sites are the best to start with.
00:08:06
Lindsay Franklin
That makes perfect sense. And also a very good point about newsletters. I have to constantly remind myself, it's not annoying to talk about yourself and your books in your own newsletter, because I get a little sheepish about it.
00:08:19
Lindsay Franklin
I don't love talking about my books.
00:08:20
Paul Regnier
I do too I have the same problem.
00:08:22
Lindsay Franklin
You know, it's, you just feel like, oh gosh, okay, let's talk about something else. But you know, the whole reason, the whole reason that people sign up for your email list is to hear about you and to hear about your books.
00:08:27
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:08:34
Lindsay Franklin
It's okay to talk about that there. And if anybody is annoyed by that, that's what the unsubscribe button is for. And that's completely fine. Like it's okay.
00:08:41
Paul Regnier
ye
00:08:41
Lindsay Franklin
So it is definitely a very warm audience because they either went to your website or the link in your bio or wherever and signed up to hear updates directly from you.
00:08:53
Lindsay Franklin
So yes, definitely talk about your books in your email newsletters. Don't be shy or sheepish.
00:09:00
Paul Regnier
Yes, no, agreed, agreed. um So I was gonna break down like, um so Amazon is sort of like my top for advertising.
00:09:11
Paul Regnier
And I was gonna give a little ah tips and tricks for that, but I'm gonna start with BookBub, which is sort of my second tier, which I definitely don't use as much, but I do think that there is a power to it. And I've heard some people who do it really well. And if you, and one of the reasons why is,
00:09:29
Paul Regnier
when So number one, a lot of people talk about the featured ad on BookBub, and that's the one where you can you have to sort of submit your book for it, like almost like, hey, can i you can't just buy this ad immediately. It's like, because a lot of people are trying to get this ad because it's a very effective ad.
00:09:49
Paul Regnier
It is definitely pricey. I mean, it's several hundred dollars, but most people that I've heard that have done it have like made that back and then some on top of that.
00:09:59
Lindsay Franklin
yeah.
00:10:00
Paul Regnier
um I've submitted my a couple of my books several times. I haven't got it yet. Fingers crossed. One of these days I'll get it. but But yeah, I get nervous because it does have a big price tag on it, but I've just heard a lot of good.
00:10:15
Paul Regnier
um have you did you Have you ever tried that, the featured ad for any of your books?
00:10:19
Lindsay Franklin
I have not done it personally, but we have done that at Enclave before. But it's it's so my understanding of this, because this is not something I personally do at Enclave.
00:10:30
Lindsay Franklin
But my understanding is it's almost like you're applying in a way to like you submit you like a pitch almost for your book.
00:10:35
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:10:39
Lindsay Franklin
And is it. it has to be on sale. Is that right? Like it has to be a 99 cent deal or a free or something like that, where they have certain parameters for it.
00:10:43
Paul Regnier
Yes. Yes. Yes.
00:10:48
Lindsay Franklin
So you would discount your book's price and, and you know, if it gets accepted. And so they feature it, BookBub does, in their newsletter that goes out to all of the people who have signed up for their list because they're, those readers are interested in those deals, um right?
00:10:57
Paul Regnier
yes
00:11:04
Lindsay Franklin
So they're looking for these 99 cent books or whatever it may be. So it's very tricky to, or difficult, we should say, to get um accepted.
00:11:14
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:11:15
Lindsay Franklin
We have had our books, I know at least once, and maybe more than that, but at least once that I can think of, we have had one of our books be accepted. for one of those deals.
00:11:26
Lindsay Franklin
And I've only ever heard from all of my author friends, and then our experience at Enclave as well, like, you make the money back, it is pricey, but you make it back.
00:11:34
Paul Regnier
right
00:11:35
Lindsay Franklin
And then a percentage of those readers will, of course, go on to finish the series if you're doing a book one in the series or
Benefits of Amazon's Ad Platform
00:11:42
Lindsay Franklin
something. So there's, there's the money that you make just with the volume of even those 99 cent buys, but then there's kind of a longer tail on it as well of people who will read through the rest of the series.
00:11:46
Paul Regnier
yep Yeah.
00:11:53
Lindsay Franklin
So
00:11:54
Paul Regnier
If you have a series that's like ideal, right? Cause then if they like that one that they got for 99 cents, then they move on to your others, which are priced at normal price.
00:11:57
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:12:03
Paul Regnier
And yeah, that's when things can really start, you know, going well. So yes, so yeah there's the feature ad and thank you. You explained that very well. They also have like stuff like ah new releases for less.
00:12:16
Paul Regnier
There's an ad you could run for new books. But you can also run just like normal ads. And the the thing that's good about the normal ads is you can be very specific about genre and and you can pick authors that are very similar to you.
00:12:32
Paul Regnier
So when you start an ad, you can either do a graphic or you can just kind of self-make graphic with your cover, which is what I normally do, because I think it still looks pretty great. um And then you can pick authors, and typically the authors would have to be on BookBub.
00:12:50
Paul Regnier
And then when you pick them, it'll tell it'll tell you how many followers they have. And so you get an idea of like how many people are going to like view your ad potentially. So like you got your genre, you got your authors, um and then you know you start your ad. you can You can choose like how much you want cost per click kind of thing. And
Monitoring and Adjusting Ads for Success
00:13:12
Paul Regnier
then you start running and it and it runs it starts running fairly quickly. And then you can check it and check in on it daily or you know throughout the day and see how it's doing and maybe tweak some things if you want it to be.
00:13:25
Paul Regnier
So it's good, but I've found that it Generally, either you're breaking even or you're just above breaking even, which can be good. You can almost look at that as free advertising in a way, and you're you're getting new readers and you're getting the word out there. Even if you're breaking even, you know those are new readers you're getting for free.
00:13:47
Paul Regnier
um
00:13:47
Lindsay Franklin
Absolutely.
00:13:48
Paul Regnier
But you know it's always nice to see at least a little bit of profit. right so So those have been pretty good for me, but they're a lot harder to make profitable.
00:13:53
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:13:59
Paul Regnier
and ah and and I see those, often they die out and like they get less and less traffic and clicks over time. um And I'm sure that's, yeah, yes.
00:14:08
Lindsay Franklin
So I have a question about this. OK, so the regular ads on BookBub, do they run on BookBub's site Like, they're banner ads or something on BookBub's site?
00:14:20
Lindsay Franklin
Or do they go out in email lists?
00:14:23
Paul Regnier
Yeah, typically it's on the email.
00:14:23
Lindsay Franklin
They're just in different spot?
00:14:25
Paul Regnier
Yeah, like they'll send out emails and then usually like if you scroll down to the bottom of the email, you'll see an ad and that'll usually be where it'll end up.
00:14:25
Lindsay Franklin
OK.
00:14:33
Lindsay Franklin
Got it.
00:14:35
Paul Regnier
So, yeah. um
00:14:37
Lindsay Franklin
Cool.
00:14:38
Paul Regnier
But, so if anyone's interested, a great resource for this is David Gogrin. um he He has he's great resource.
00:14:51
Paul Regnier
podcast interviews about this, but he's written books about it too. He's like the book bub guy and he's one of those numbers guys. And so if you want to like get into like the nitty gritty details, yeah, just look up David Gogrin and then you can learn a lot more, but I can just tell you from my experience with it, like it's been pretty good, but like again, it's it's tricky you know to really, and to keep the attention. Because like I said, some of mine, i'll get I'll get clicks for a while and then it'll just seem to degrade. And then it's like, okay, well, I don't want to keep bumping up the cost per click because then I'll start to lose money. So I haven't quite figured out that piece of the puzzle.
00:15:32
Paul Regnier
And I probably have to learn more with David Gogrin's books myself. so
00:15:37
Lindsay Franklin
Awesome.
00:15:37
Paul Regnier
but But anyways, it's a good place to try. um
00:15:42
Lindsay Franklin
um
00:15:42
Paul Regnier
So Amazon, moving on to Amazon, which is my favorite. um Again, the great thing about that is you can get really specific. You can get kind of specific on BookBub, but on Amazon, you can get really specific and there's way more traffic on Amazon, obviously. um You got a lot more, a lot broader audience. And when they're...
00:16:05
Paul Regnier
and when they' so a lot So in other words, on BookBub, if they click on your ad, then it takes them to Amazon. So you're kind of anytime you're transitioning to a new website, that's always like a place you can lose a potential sale, right?
00:16:20
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:16:21
Paul Regnier
But on Amazon, they're already there. They click on your ad. They go to another page on Amazon, which is your book page, and then they can read about your book. So already you've eliminated that chance of like losing a sale. Right.
00:16:34
Paul Regnier
um again it's your your advertising very specifically to your genre um and i think amazon has a better algorithm so they kind of know like hey these books are similar and and as time goes on it seems to get better and better and know wearing to put where to place your ad and what books to place your ad alongside and you can even get specific with like um oh, I want to pay 10% more to get higher on the product pages or on the similar book pages or things like that. like So there's a lot of more fine tuning that you could do for the Amazon ads. and And I've found them to be more profitable than just about anything.
Sustaining Sales Post-Launch with Ads
00:17:22
Paul Regnier
um and and And one of the great things about it too is like, i I noticed, I remember like from my first days of launching books, right? It would be like, there's this big buildup, you know, you're launching a new book and everyone's excited and you're seeing like people posting and you're seeing graphics and it's like, hey, a new ad, new a new book, new book.
00:17:41
Paul Regnier
And then your book comes out, it's launch day and it's like, great. And then the next day comes and then it's like the party's over. It's almost like the sense of like, oh, now what, you know? Even if you got good sales,
00:17:52
Lindsay Franklin
It's like the day after day after Christmas, you know, it's like, ah.
00:17:54
Paul Regnier
It is, right? A little bit of a letdown.
00:17:56
Lindsay Franklin
ah yeah
00:17:58
Paul Regnier
um And I've found that it's very easy to all of a sudden see the sales dip and dip and dip and go down the hill and then like peter out.
00:18:09
Paul Regnier
Ads are the things that keep your book afloat, right? Keep it from sinking. You're still you know coming up you know on the listings. You're still showing up and um and you're still generating sales and maintaining that interest and that's what I've found to maintain like your book's visibility or else you kind of disappear.
00:18:30
Paul Regnier
I mean, what is the crazy thing? Like 3,000 books get published a day on Amazon? It's probably more now, but I think that was the last thing I heard, right?
00:18:37
Lindsay Franklin
That's crazy.
00:18:39
Paul Regnier
Yeah, like you will drown in that sea of book titles.
00:18:41
Lindsay Franklin
Wild.
00:18:43
Paul Regnier
It's crazy. So ads are the one thing I've found to kind of keep things afloat.
00:18:49
Lindsay Franklin
That's awesome. So when you are advertising on Amazon, you this is something that as an indie author you're doing through kdp or is there a separate account that you have for that?
00:19:00
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Well, yeah, no, it's actually called Amazon advertising, but you can get to it through KDP.
00:19:02
Lindsay Franklin
How does that work on the back end?
00:19:08
Paul Regnier
Like if you go into your book listings, you could go into like, there's a marketing section and then that has an option to go into Amazon ads or your author profile or a couple different pathways.
00:19:13
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:19:19
Paul Regnier
But yeah, Amazon advertising, they call it, um which is kind of like a little bit of a separate, I don't wanna say it's a separate site, but it's a separate portion of their website.
00:19:30
Paul Regnier
where yeah, you do all your ad tweaking and and all that kind of stuff. And with those ads, you can you can run like keyword ads if you're trying to find keywords and key phrases, and that can sometimes work.
00:19:42
Paul Regnier
But honestly, like I've found once the algorithm learns your book, and sometimes I start with like a bunch of keyword ads, and then but eventually I'll stick with the auto.
00:19:49
Lindsay Franklin
Thank you.
00:19:55
Paul Regnier
Amazon has like an auto ad. And um once it kind of learns who's buying your book, once you've get you get some sales rolling in and it gets a sense, I found that auto ad to work like the most effectively of almost any of my other ads. Even though I'm you know i'm using Publisher Rocket and I'm trying to get real specific with the keywords and key phrases that I'm doing, like you know analyzing competition and see what keywords and key phrases they're using or they're showing up for and trying to use those.
Effective Cost Per Click Strategies
00:20:26
Paul Regnier
Like I do all this research and then Amazon's algorithm goes, yeah, I'm smarter than you. I'm just going to go ahead and beat you and deliver better results just to show you how superior I am.
00:20:35
Lindsay Franklin
like but It's like Ron Swanson at Home Depot. I know more than you. Or was it?
00:20:41
Paul Regnier
yeah right
00:20:42
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. To the employee, you know, don't help me.
00:20:44
Paul Regnier
Right, right.
00:20:46
Lindsay Franklin
I know more than you. That's Amazon when we're you know on the back end trying to target our ads and you know figure out buyer behavior.
00:20:48
Paul Regnier
that That's Amazon.
00:20:53
Lindsay Franklin
Amazon's like, no, thank you. I know more than you.
00:20:55
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:20:55
Lindsay Franklin
let me help you with this. It's fine.
00:20:58
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:21:00
Lindsay Franklin
um Sorry, Parks and Rec's reference there. If anybody is like, what is Lindsay talking about?
00:21:04
Paul Regnier
I gotcha. I got it.
00:21:06
Lindsay Franklin
That's what I'm talking about. Paul got it.
00:21:07
Paul Regnier
yeah ah
00:21:09
Lindsay Franklin
um Yes. Okay. So you mentioned the term cost per click. So can you maybe explain that for our listeners who are not familiar with some of the different types of advertising and how one pays for ads?
00:21:15
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:21:24
Lindsay Franklin
like How does that work exactly?
00:21:26
Paul Regnier
Yeah, so usually there's like two ways you can go. You can go cost per click or cost per, I mean, there's a couple names for it, like cost per view, basically.
00:21:36
Paul Regnier
So the other one is almost like, hey, I want it to show up to like a thousand or or however many. And they'll just it'll be sort of a visibility thing where they'll just show as many times they can.
00:21:50
Paul Regnier
Now, I tried that on BookBub and all of a sudden, like it started spending money like crazy. I'm like, stop, stop, stop. I'm like hitting the stop button.
00:21:56
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:21:57
Paul Regnier
and like I'm going to go broke doing this. um I've found like the cost per click to me is far more manageable, especially if you're you know trying to maintain like a budget for your advertising. um and It just makes um more direct sense to me. Again, there's that logic piece. like I don't want people to just view it because I don't know, maybe they'll just see it and scroll.
00:22:20
Paul Regnier
I mean, we are inundated with so many ads like on social media, on TV, where people are typically just like scrolling past them and they've not even given them a second glance, anything that looks like an ad.
00:22:32
Paul Regnier
So to me, that's like, I don't know how effective that is. It's, you know, it's going to say like, hey, we showed you to 5,000 people. I'm like, okay, well, who bought it? You know, so a cost per click, I think is more, is better because someone actually saw, found some interest in that ad and enough to click on it.
00:22:41
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:22:52
Paul Regnier
So that to me is like definitely a far more potential buyer than anyone that just happened to see it as they scrolled past whatever.
00:23:02
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:23:02
Paul Regnier
So I always stick with cost per click and I found it's just easier to manage. And so the typical, and I will even tell you on Amazon, the typical price I start with for a cost per click is like 35 cents or 36 cents, around there.
00:23:22
Paul Regnier
There's people, again, these numbers, people who get really good and they whittle that that cost per click down.
00:23:26
Lindsay Franklin
Thank you.
00:23:28
Paul Regnier
um i just i start That's where my starting point and then I watch it and I let it go. Especially if it's new, I'll let it go for a few weeks and I'll see what happens. And then maybe I'll try tweaks, right? like But those tweaks are small. like I'm talking like, oh, let me bump it up two cents and see what happened.
00:23:50
Paul Regnier
what happens this week and they'll let it run for a week. And then you can kind of chart it and and Amazon lets you say like, oh, results for last seven days, results for last 30 days, results for this year, you know, and you can really kind of get the sense of like what's working and what's not.
00:24:07
Paul Regnier
um It's really great. And um And I will mention, like I mentioned David Gogrin for the BookBub ads. So for Amazon ads, I've taken ah you know a several different courses for this. And to me, the one that I found the most valuable was one by Brian Cohen. I don't know if you heard of him. He he does a lot with you know book, like copy ad and and advertising too. But he had this... um class called the, I think it was called the Five Day Author Challenge. I believe he still runs it, where it's like there's five days and five days are free.
00:24:45
Paul Regnier
So you can follow along these videos. Like it's like a video each day of the five days and you can follow along and and and do you know what they're teaching as they're teaching it.
Managing Ad Spend Wisely
00:24:57
Paul Regnier
And each day kind of see the results of something you tried from the class. and everyone's commenting in and you know there's commentary and all that kind of stuff. And then at the end of the five days, you can either just take that and run with it or then you can sign up with like a monthly fee. And I think it's it's fairly reasonable. i think it's like 30 or $40 a month.
00:25:17
Paul Regnier
um when i did it i did the free thing and then i signed up for i think a month or two and then i i felt like i had learned a good amount so i stopped and i i felt like okay if i need to go back i can sign up for again but i liked that it was a monthly fee because some of these places charge just like a huge overall fee but they'll say lifetime access and you're like yeah but i just spent a thousand dollars so
00:25:33
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:25:41
Paul Regnier
I don't know how often I'm going to come back for this. So I liked that he had it like a ah lower monthly charge.
00:25:43
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:25:46
Paul Regnier
And I found that he really broke down the Amazon ads. Just his strategy, I thought was pretty good. And i I base some of my stuff off what he taught and then other stuff I've just learned by doing it, which is another good way to do it. But yeah, so if anyone's interested in the course, that's the one I would recommend.
00:26:07
Lindsay Franklin
That's very cool. That sounds like an awesome resource. And so, okay, so you mentioned that there's almost like those two different ways to pay for ads in a sense where you can be paying for views or paying for clicks.
00:26:20
Lindsay Franklin
And I would agree, it makes a lot more sense to me just logically speaking that with a click that is again a warmer lead, right?
00:26:21
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:26:30
Lindsay Franklin
Because that's somebody interested enough to click on it. So I'm guessing it's typically true that you're going to pay more per click than you would per view. But it's kind of a quality over quantity, probably ah situation here where you're going to pay more for each individual click than you would for each individual view, but you are likelier to get a sale from an ad click than you are from an ad view.
00:26:44
Paul Regnier
yes
00:26:54
Lindsay Franklin
Is that accurate?
00:26:56
Paul Regnier
That's how I look at it, yeah. I mean, again, like they've clicked on it because they're interested. like Your ad was enough to make them stop and just go, huh, that looks cool. Click.
00:27:07
Paul Regnier
I mean, to me, that's a big ask you know when there's so much advertising everywhere.
00:27:11
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:27:13
Paul Regnier
And I think the the other version where it's just like visibility and just like you know you're getting it out there to everywhere... That might be good um if like you initially think, oh, I just want to get the word out.
00:27:25
Paul Regnier
you know And if you're just not, maybe you're not as concerned with like, okay, I have kind of a larger budget at first just to kind of get the word out, just to get visibility. I think in those cases, yeah, that would make more sense. But um And I think probably like a big publisher does those kind of things a lot because they're like, you know if especially if they have this big author and they're doing a big launch, they're going to just plaster it everywhere.
00:27:44
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:27:51
Paul Regnier
um
00:27:52
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, and that's kind of what I was thinking is that that that type of advertising might really make sense as part of a broader strategy where you're maybe doing that sort of in a number of places.
00:27:52
Paul Regnier
But for... Yeah.
00:28:00
Paul Regnier
yes
00:28:03
Lindsay Franklin
So you're not just running ads on Amazon, you're putting it, you know, maybe you've got banner ads on different websites where readers are, or you're advertising also on socials and it's just kind of everywhere.
00:28:15
Lindsay Franklin
Because I think, I don't know if this is still true, because marketing is one of those things that just changes all the time. But I remember learning that you know, it takes the average buyer of seven different touches or seven different times of seeing something before they are actually going to purchase that thing.
00:28:27
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:31
Lindsay Franklin
So it might be part of, yeah, like that kind of strategy where you're just getting those touches out there, so to speak, and then maybe also doing some targeted ah cost per click type ads instead so that it's like, it's a whole big picture thing where you're you're getting the visibility and then getting those warmer leads once somebody has seen that like man i'm seeing that book everywhere i'm gonna click and um you know learn more about this figure out what this thing is all about so um i'm guessing that's because otherwise you think why do those the the cost per view ads even exist but i think that's why it's part of a bigger strategy that that does make sense if you're doing that whole thing
00:28:31
Paul Regnier
I've heard that too.
00:28:53
Paul Regnier
Yep.
00:29:11
Paul Regnier
Yeah, no, totally. and But so but the this the problem with that, though, is you're going to spend a lot of money. So if you're a humble, low wage earning writer like most of us,
00:29:26
Lindsay Franklin
Like 99% of us yes.
00:29:27
Paul Regnier
You might not be able to do that. Right. ah right So you're probably going to want to be a little more cautious with your advertising spend. And that's why I like cost per click. You can really, and even on Amazon, you can control how much you spend daily.
00:29:44
Paul Regnier
So you're not going to log on at the end of the day and you'd be like, oh, it was only 35 cents per click. Oh no, I spent $5,000. It's not going to be that because you set a limit to how much each ad is going to spend per day.
00:29:58
Paul Regnier
So you've got all these guardrails in place so that you know you're not going to like lose your shirt over you know whatever, over your advertising in a day where you didn't pay perfect attention or something like that. So it's it's nice. Yeah.
00:30:12
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, that is really nice. Kind of that, like a cap, there's a cap on it. So it's 30, maybe 35 cents per click, but your budget is, you know, $100 day or whatever it is. I don't know what's a, what is a normal daily budget?
00:30:23
Paul Regnier
Hey, big big spender, Lindsay.
00:30:24
Lindsay Franklin
I know I was like, I just a hundred popped into it.
00:30:24
Paul Regnier
Wow. ah
00:30:27
Lindsay Franklin
That's a nice round number. And then I said it, I was like, that, that might be really
Optimizing Ads Through Metrics
00:30:31
Lindsay Franklin
high. I have no idea. What is a normal daily spend for an ad?
00:30:34
Paul Regnier
So, and I will say this too. So I will say it's actually kind of difficult to make Amazon spend a lot, which sounds weird, right?
00:30:44
Paul Regnier
Like you think they would spend as much as they possibly can, you know? You know, this big corporation just wants to spend all your... They don't because Amazon wants to, well, I'm sure they want to spend your money, but they for as far as the ads go, they actually want the ads to be quality.
00:30:56
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:31:02
Paul Regnier
They want to make sure that when someone clicks on your ad, um they're it's not going to take them to something that they weren't expecting. So if you get a ton of clicks and like hardly any purchases, Amazon will probably stop running that ad. Even if you bump up the cost per click and your daily ads, because they're going to say, this is not, this is not making the people that are clicking on the ads happy.
00:31:30
Paul Regnier
And Amazon's very, um, on, you know, uh,
00:31:31
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:31:37
Paul Regnier
satisfying the customer, right? Whether it's the products or even the ads themselves. They don't want a bunch of junky ads that when people click on it, it's going to lead to something that they weren't expecting and they're not happy with and they're not going to buy. So your ad has to be at least kind of effective at like, oh, these people clicked on it, but then you actually, that led to purchases. Amazon loves that. And then that's how those people, the numbers people can lower their cost per click because they've made very effective ads that people click on and then they actually purchase. They make the purchase because everything lines up in a very like specific way.
00:32:18
Paul Regnier
um And that's part of like your marketing, you know, your audience, your marketing to them, you're hitting all the things they're looking for. And that's goes back to what we were saying in the previous episode about finding your niche, knowing your readers and, you know, finding something that once they click and buy it, they're happy with it. kind of thing. So Amazon's very good for the for the advertising the same. So yeah, it's actually kind of difficult to spend a ton of money.
00:32:45
Paul Regnier
Usually, like with my ads, I'll do something like I'll set like a $10 a day budget, and it almost never hits that. Just because, you know, there's again, it's really specific on who it's showing it to and making sure it's effective and and whatnot.
00:33:03
Paul Regnier
And again, that's where the algorithm makes all the decisions and you just try your best to make a good ad.
00:33:08
Lindsay Franklin
and good Yeah, that's it's a good thing, too, because like you're saying, Amazon is not wanting to kind of clog up. You think about the user experience, right?
00:33:19
Lindsay Franklin
So if you're scrolling on Amazon as a shopper and you are on a product page or in your search results because yeah ads can appear in either of those places.
00:33:19
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:33:29
Lindsay Franklin
um You know, and you know you're looking at an ad if it says sponsored on it. You know, you'll see sponsored um on there.
00:33:35
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:33:36
Lindsay Franklin
So that's that's an ad that you're seeing. Somebody has paid for that book to show up in your search results or on the product page that
Aligning Book Presentation with Ads
00:33:43
Lindsay Franklin
you're viewing. So what Amazon doesn't want is for the shopper to be on a product page that has an ad on there that's completely irrelevant to the thing that they were shopping for initially, irrelevant to their interests.
00:33:56
Lindsay Franklin
Because eventually that just that that really downgrades the user's shopping experience when the page is going to be cluttered with so many things that have nothing to do with why we're there things we're not interested in.
00:33:57
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:34:09
Lindsay Franklin
um And so, so that's, that's what we're talking about here with with Amazon being good at targeting their own shoppers. so They are only going to show Paul's ads to readers who have are either are currently shopping for that kind of book or maybe have purchased books like his in the past.
00:34:28
Lindsay Franklin
And so that those are going to be warm leads again, like warm ah potential readers for that particular book.
00:34:29
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:34:37
Lindsay Franklin
um So, OK, I have some questions about the ads themselves and having a good ad um because I'm I don't have any experience with this myself.
00:34:47
Lindsay Franklin
So we're going to talk about why again in in a little bit. but um But I have a data analytics brain. And so the my data brain says that there are kind of a number of different areas where your ad could potentially succeed or fail, right?
00:35:05
Lindsay Franklin
So different steps along the way, where you could either lose that that warm lead or get them to follow through all the way toward, you know, or to the add to cart button, which is of course the goal. um So when we talk about having a good ad, when you run an ad, are you designing something for that?
00:35:27
Lindsay Franklin
Or is it text that you are including there? Is it just like product image that links to your book's page? Is that what what the ad is?
00:35:37
Paul Regnier
Yes. I mean, you you can do copy if you want, like advertising copy, but like all the articles I've read and all the classes I've taken are basically saying it's better just to run it without.
00:35:52
Paul Regnier
which is just like, and that's one of the initial choices you make when you're setting up your Amazon ad. you know It's kind of like a standard ad. So basically what it's doing is it's showing your, like a little thumbnail of your book cover.
00:36:08
Paul Regnier
the book title, and then what was the other information? And usually like the price. and And it's like what you see if you're scrolling through Amazon products, you'll see, like you said, those ones that say sponsored, it doesn't usually have a sales pitch there. It's usually just a little thumbnail picture of the product, the name of the product, and like the price.
00:36:32
Paul Regnier
And then like, you know, click for more and you can click and um So that's basically what is, and those appear to be the most effective. I have tried to do ones with like advertising copy and stuff. And I find the ones without actually are the best performing ads.
00:36:49
Paul Regnier
and And that's what I hear like universally most of the time, unless you know maybe someone's really great at you know getting copy that can lure people in. And if you can, like, cool, go for it. um So yeah, that's that's usually what shows up.
00:37:05
Lindsay Franklin
Okay, cool. So in that case, if you're if you're running an ad that is for some reason not being successful, meaning that it's it's out there, but it's not seeing the returns that you hope for, then that means that there is probably something off with either the targeting of
00:37:14
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:37:24
Lindsay Franklin
how that ad is like who it's being pushed to um and the targeting might need to be adjusted or that could mean that then there is something um i was about to say something wrong but that's not what we mean something that could be improved about either the the blurb so the description of the book or the cover or you know something on the product page itself that might need to be tweaked um in order to get that warm lead all the way to the add to cart button is that accurate yeah
00:37:54
Paul Regnier
Oh yeah, I see what you're saying yeah you're saying. You're saying this is like someone's already clicked on it and then they get to the page and then all of a sudden they don't buy.
00:37:59
Lindsay Franklin
yes right right
00:38:01
Paul Regnier
Like what's what's the problem? Yeah. So it could be, again, it kind of starts with like what ad you're running. Maybe if you're doing keywords, maybe you chose a keyword that wasn't quite a perfect fit.
00:38:15
Paul Regnier
um And when you do those keyword ads, you usually have like usually drop in like a ton of keywords. And then when you check your ads platform, you can go through all those and you can see how each keyword or key phrase is performing.
00:38:31
Paul Regnier
And you'll see some are duds and some do really well.
00:38:32
Lindsay Franklin
That's cool.
00:38:35
Paul Regnier
And then the ones that do well, you can tweak that individual cost per click.
00:38:36
Lindsay Franklin
Awesome.
00:38:39
Paul Regnier
So again, you can get pretty granular in there and do like all these little tweaky things. And to me, it's kind of fun, like because you're just like perfecting a formula almost.
00:38:45
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:38:47
Paul Regnier
But for some people, I get how it would drive them crazy. And again, I'm not a numbers guy, but it it just seems interesting to me. You know, it's like and then I learned something like, oh, that's weird. Like, that's not a phrase I would think that people. So then you almost learn more about your audience and things like that. so um But the other thing, let's say let's say it didn't have anything to do with keywords and you were just running like that auto ad that I was talking about where the Amazon's algorithm is just making the decisions for you, which are usually pretty good.
00:39:17
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:39:18
Paul Regnier
They'll break it down between like really specific,
00:39:20
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:39:22
Paul Regnier
like they've run it through really specific, what do you call it, comp titles, and then complimentary and substitute. They have all these terms for like, because they'll get a little specific and then they'll get a little loose. like So they'll try to find like who your audience is and then you'll get like details on each one.
00:39:42
Paul Regnier
And then sometimes it'll surprise you like, wow, they're're they're doing this one that seems kind of like they're going more broad, but they're bringing more people in. So I'm gonna tweak the cost per click on that one a little bit and see what happens. So again, you're kind of fine tuning things.
00:39:57
Paul Regnier
um But if they did click, like if your ad was successful and they clicked and they get to the page and they didn't buy, yes, that's when you have to start thinking like, is my cover, does my cover fit?
00:40:09
Paul Regnier
for the audience, for my for my subgenre. Is it the right cover? Let me look at the bestsellers of that subgenre. Is it kind of like along the lines? Does it fit? And then my copy, the back of the book copy that Amazon usually lists lists right next to your book title when someone clicks on your book page.
00:40:27
Paul Regnier
Like, does my copy need to be tweaked? does it need and And then again, that's another place where I say, go look at the bestsellers in your sub genre and see like, what are they doing? Or can I learn something from them?
00:40:38
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:40:39
Paul Regnier
um Yeah, so those are the two big ones. I say your book cover and your back of the book copy or your blurb or whatever the term Those are kind of like your two big things. and And think about it as like, if you're going shopping for a book, what do you usually do? Like, oh, that cover looks cool. And I'm already searching in my genre. I wonder what that's about. Click, you'll read the back of the book.
00:41:02
Paul Regnier
If it sounds good, you'll probably, like that's your decision where it's like, okay, purchase, you know, whatever. I mean, I don't know.
00:41:08
Lindsay Franklin
right
00:41:09
Paul Regnier
That's kind of all I need. ah Sometimes... ah So if I want to take it one more step, and I actually usually do this too, I'll do the look inside feature and I'll read the first chapter.
00:41:23
Paul Regnier
And I'll say like, oh, I like this style of writing or like, oh, this wasn't
Troubleshooting Non-Converting Ads
00:41:27
Paul Regnier
what I thought. So that's a big one too, right? You want your first... chapter, your first couple chapters to be like tight. That's why people spend so much time on that first chapter, just to make sure it's like is probably like the best chapter of the book to get people hooked. right Or at least that's the one that gets the most attention and editing and and so forth. But um but yeah, that's that's what that's kind of the three steps I do. Like cover, back of the book, look inside. Let me read the first. shot Okay, that sounds cool. Like cool story set up.
00:42:00
Paul Regnier
The writing's good. I'm in Click. you know So yeah, those are the things I look at.
00:42:04
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. So if if you are. listening and have, you know, run ads in the past or run into some frustrations with that with them not performing, you know, as well as you maybe would have liked, those are some areas where you can sort of look and see where, where did the ad kind of fall down? Where did you lose people? Was it not getting people to click all the way through or to click at all?
00:42:30
Lindsay Franklin
um then that would would be more of like probably a targeting or a keyword type of an issue. But if it was they clicked through and didn't, nobody bought or very few people bought, then that's going to be maybe something more with the product page. And you might want to tweak, brush some, some things up and see if you can get stuff, you know, maybe more polished or matching perhaps what the ad was kind of promising, if that makes sense. So it might be that it's targeted really well to what sub genres you have it placed in, but perhaps maybe the cover is not, you know, it's not giving that it's not giving that sub genre. And that might be why people go, well, that's not what I expected to see or what I expected to read. in the description when I clicked on this ad. So those are just things that you can check along the way to make sure everything is hitting the way that it's supposed to so that your ads will perform in the way we all hope our ads will.
Traditional vs Indie Authors in Advertising
00:43:23
Lindsay Franklin
um
00:43:23
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:43:24
Lindsay Franklin
So shall we shall we talk about why i with my 16 years of experience in the publishing industry, know very little about ads?
00:43:33
Paul Regnier
Spill it, Lindsay. what's what's holding you What's holding you back?
00:43:35
Lindsay Franklin
All right.
00:43:37
Lindsay Franklin
So why have i never done this for myself? That is because very often traditionally published authors are are not running ads on their own books. And why would we not do that? um The reason is because of the way that our publishing model is set up.
00:43:58
Lindsay Franklin
excuse me, we are of course getting, you know, a royalty percentage that is usually not, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, kind of what ah a normal traditional publishing contract looks like versus what the numbers look like with indie authors. And with a traditional royalty percentage, usually the amount that you are making per book as the author, it is almost never going to make financial sense for you to run ads based on what they cost you know per click or however you're going to do it, you're going to be cutting in so deeply to your to your profits as the author, because of course that's gonna be coming out of your you know your whatever it is, if it's 12%, 15%, 18, 20, whatever you're making as the author.
00:44:46
Lindsay Franklin
And then if you're paying your agents on top of, it you know out of that percentage, you're just eating away, the piece of the pie is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
00:44:49
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:44:55
Lindsay Franklin
And it almost never makes sense for us to do that unless you go into it planning as as a traditionally published author. Like I really just want to get my book out there.
00:45:07
Lindsay Franklin
And I am going to just go ahead and take a loss on this and do it for a limited amount of time and just try to you know get the word out there. Because, of course, we do invest money on you know book tours and things like that where we're not expecting to you know make a whole ton back.
00:45:23
Lindsay Franklin
It's just about getting the word out there and getting some of that visibility. So you certainly can do that with advertising. as a traditionally published author, but we do not run ads the way that indies do.
00:45:36
Lindsay Franklin
Advertising is very important for most indie authors, at least that's been true in my observational experience. Is that true to what you observe within your own community of indies, Paul, that this is like super important as an indie author to to do advertising?
00:45:50
Paul Regnier
Oh, yeah. Well, as an indie, yeah, I would say it's crucial, but it's also like completely um helpful, too. So it's it's almost like you'd be dumb not to as an indie, you know?
00:46:00
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:46:04
Paul Regnier
Because like one of the things as an indie, you don't have that great support team of a publishing house behind you that's going to be... you know, promoting you through various channels and through all their newsletters and, you know, on their website and all this kind of stuff and trying to get you into stores and stuff like that.
00:46:21
Paul Regnier
So there's a lot of those type of things that you're missing out on. So you got to make up for it with other things that you can do. And advertising is a really powerful way um that an indie can get their books out there.
00:46:34
Paul Regnier
And um just to kind of like, reinforce what you were talking about. like As far as like percentages that you earn, like for example, like you said, if you have a traditional publishing contract, especially as a newer author, you know you may get like around 15% of the profit.
00:46:44
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:46:55
Paul Regnier
And if you have an agent, then they get 15% of that or 20% or whatever contract you've arranged. So as an example, like um of my, I'll use my 35 cent example. Let's say I have my ebook on Amazon and I have it priced at $4.99. So if I get a sale, I get, ah since I'm exclusive through Amazon, I get 70%. So I'll make like, i don't know, three something. I don't know if it's quite 350, but it's, but it's, you know, or three something, maybe 340. I'd have to look. But, um,
00:47:33
Paul Regnier
So if I'm running a 35 cents a click ad, I can get 10 clicks and that will cost me $3.50. So if I can get a sale from 10 clicks, then it's like, cool, I've broken even, it's all good. But if I'm making only 15%, it's like,
00:47:54
Paul Regnier
I better get a sale on what, the first click?
00:47:55
Lindsay Franklin
isn
00:47:56
Paul Regnier
ah Otherwise I'm losing my every click.
00:47:57
Lindsay Franklin
Like every click.
00:47:59
Paul Regnier
And it's like, that's that's too difficult.
00:48:00
Lindsay Franklin
Every click. Right. Mm-hmm.
00:48:03
Paul Regnier
And I think that's why so many traditional traditionally published authors don't do it just because it doesn't make financial sense. Now, sometimes you have a publishing house that will run ads for you.
00:48:14
Paul Regnier
And if you do, that's pretty awesome. but um But yeah, I think as an indie author, that's the only place where it actually makes financial sense to pursue
Importance of Ad Knowledge for Authors
00:48:25
Paul Regnier
advertising.
00:48:25
Paul Regnier
Sorry, I don't mean to bum any traditionally published authors out. you know It's like, they're like, why didn't you tell me this at the beginning of the episode? I wouldn't have wasted my time listening to you ramble.
00:48:36
Lindsay Franklin
its it's still such a good thing to learn though it it really is it's it's good and if for anybody watching on youtube you may have seen me this whole time maybe not i've been trying to be low-key about it but i've been taking notes as paul has been talking because it's it's an important thing i feel to learn um if you ever plan to go hybrid or even just to have
00:48:40
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:48:58
Lindsay Franklin
knowledge of the back end of all parts of our industry, I think is very valuable. And these kinds of things can help you make decisions about whether you want to be indie or traditional and what makes the most sense for you. So, you know, yeah, as a traditional author, this is something that we don't, it doesn't make sense for us. And we don't um have as much access either sometimes to the back end and the things that you need in order to be able to advertise your books in certain places. But The more educated you are, even if you don't plan to go indie or or be hybrid, you can be talking to your publisher, your marketing department about these kinds of things. You can ask them if they plan to run any ads. And the more educated you are as the author, the more empowered you are to ask really good questions and to understand their marketing plans as well. They may present to you, okay, here this is what we plan to do. And they might have information in the marketing plan about advertising. And if you've never heard terms like, you know, cost per click, or you know, any of these things, or you're not familiar with what a normal advertising budget might be for an an indie author, or it just you have no context for anything that they've just shared with you. So I think the more educated we are as authors, the more empowered we are to make really good decisions for our careers, no matter what path or paths we choose.
00:50:22
Paul Regnier
Yep. And I'll just leave you with ah one final thought. um the The interesting thing too is you you are also doing a little bit of market research for your book with running ads.
00:50:36
Paul Regnier
So it kind of gives it like a little dual purpose there too, or maybe a bonus purpose, I should say.
00:50:36
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:50:41
Paul Regnier
um And one of the things I was thinking, like because I mentioned before like keywords, you kind of start finding, oh, what keywords, which might make you think, like oh, interesting. I didn't realize that people liked that aspect of my book or or that's what was pulling people in. Like, oh, maybe I'll tweak my back of the book to include some of that in there, and maybe that'll make it even more effective when people get there and they read it. Maybe I'll get more sales on that. So that's one part of the puzzle. And the other thing I was thinking too, and this is I'll share a specific example that I learned. um
00:51:17
Paul Regnier
I recently shifted into middle grade fantasy books, and I started advertising those. And what I found was... those sell way more paperback versions than my other books because middle graders, I guess, like to have the paperback book in their hands and read it that way rather than through like a digital e-reader or something like that.
00:51:33
Lindsay Franklin
Thank you.
00:51:39
Paul Regnier
So that was like, oh, I didn't know that. I actually learned that just from like, wow, because my other books before that, mostly e-books, and now all of a sudden I'm doing mostly paperback for my middle grade.
00:51:51
Paul Regnier
And I'm like, okay, I would not have known that. Like maybe logically like, okay, that makes sense, but like it's it's a cool thing to know and you make more with paperback.
00:52:03
Paul Regnier
um And then also when you're exclusive to Amazon, you have page reads, which and is another piece of this puzzle because your your ad can lead people to buy an ebook, a paperback, an audio book if you had it, or also page reads, which you can also earn money from.
00:52:20
Paul Regnier
So kind of multiple ways this ad can prove like profitable um on
Episode Conclusion
00:52:27
Paul Regnier
Amazon. So there you go. That's my last little bit of information.
00:52:32
Lindsay Franklin
but That is awesome. And I think that we that's it for our you little kind of advertising primer here. So thank you, Paul, so much for sharing all of your wisdom with us.
00:52:44
Lindsay Franklin
I've got my page full of notes here. I'm rather excited about it. I am a spreadsheet girl. So you know that if I'm ever like doing the advertising thing or the indie thing, i'll I'll have a little spreadsheet and I'll try it.
00:52:54
Paul Regnier
Oh, you're going to love these classes I recommended then because they're they're all numbers people.
00:52:56
Lindsay Franklin
I love it.
00:52:59
Paul Regnier
You're going to just be in heaven. I was not too pleased with all that, but you're going to love it.
00:53:05
Lindsay Franklin
But I love that you gave that disclaimer because I think it it shows that you don't have to be this like spreadsheet nerd to like get this, to do it, to be successful with it, and to make it work.
00:53:12
Paul Regnier
Right. And to make it work. Yeah.
00:53:17
Lindsay Franklin
Exactly, to have success with this. You don't have to be geared in that direction or even do any of that. um You just have to learn the platform.
00:53:23
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:53:26
Lindsay Franklin
Learn the terminology and, you know, be teachable as you go through and and figuring out new things, figuring out what works and what doesn't. And as long as you're willing to learn, it sounds like you can really unlock some cool things for your book advertising.
00:53:42
Lindsay Franklin
Bye.
00:53:42
Paul Regnier
That's right. ah All right. Thanks everyone for listening. Hope this was helpful and we'll see you next time.
00:53:50
Lindsay Franklin
i think