This Crazy Writing Life: Dipping Our Toes In The Amazon Part One — Beware The Piranhas!
By Steven Womack
It’s borderline too late to say this, but Happy 2025! As at the beginning of every year, I have high hopes and cautious optimism. We’ll see how long that lasts.
With this installment of This Crazy Writing Life, we’re going to start digging into the real down-in-the-weeds details of marketing our books in the indie-pubbing space. And one of the reasons this column is a little late this month is that I decided to begin this exploration by tackling the ads on the platform that we’re all going to use the most: Amazon.
And that’s the problem.
As I alluded in previous columns, anything having anything to do with Amazon is by its very definition and at its very core hard to understand and navigate. Much of the inner workings of Amazon are unpredictable and so far behind-the-scenes as to be almost invisible. Even the experts—and believe me, I’m not one but I’ve read many—agree that sometimes things just seem to happen without any rhyme or reason. Navigating the Amazon advertising platform can be overwhelming, especially if you’re a newbie in the digital marketing arena. After all, Amazon has been the fastest-growing digital ad platform in the world for the past few years and is on its way to passing Google and Meta (or as we old timers call it, Facebook), and you don’t get to that point by being simple and low maintenance.
While I’m not a beginner in digital marketing, it has taken me longer than usual find my focus and to figure out where to begin.
So where is that starting place?
Let’s begin by looking at a few basics of digital advertising. First, much digital advertising is based on a bidding system. On a lot, if not most, platforms, you don’t just buy an ad and it magically appears on somebody’s screen. You create your ad account, create the ad, and then you figure out how much you’re willing to spend to get your ad out there and you compete to beat out all the other guys who are trying to get their ads out there.
There are some advertising platforms where you can just buy an ad and it appears (FreeBooksy, EReader news, Robinreads, etc.). But on Amazon, you gotta jump into the scrum and fight. And it’s not just the size of your bid that determines whether you get picked, but we’ll get to that later.
There are basically two kinds of ads to bid on: CPC and CPM. You’re only charged for CPC (Cost Per Click) ads when somebody actually clicks on your ad and goes to the link embedded in the ad. If your ad is served up to a gazillion people and nobody clicks on it, you aren’t charged (but believe me, that’s not what you want).
CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) ads are ones where you’re charged—as the name implies—every time your ad appears on a thousand screens.
So what’s the real difference here? If you’re trying to sell one specific product in a highly targeted fashion, then CPC is the way to go. CPC ads focus on user engagement (click here to see how Sudzo Dishwashing Detergent can give new meaning to your life!). The goal is to make a sale, or if not a sale, then some other kind of conversion (another term we’ll get to later).
A CPM ad, on the other hand, saturates screens everywhere and brings broader visibility to your brand or product. When you want your product to become a household name, then go with CPM.
Fortunately, you don’t have to agonize over the choice. Unlike Facebook or BookBub, Amazon is solely a pay per click advertising platform. You’re only charged when somebody clicks on your ad. What this means is that if there’s something wrong or off on your ad (keywords, targeting, relevancy, etc.), then neither your nor Amazon is going to make a penny off it. It’s in Amazon’s best interest and yours to get the right ad to the right people. So make sure you have a compelling, engaging cover. Your book’s title should reach out and grab readers. Your Amazon book description should absolutely sparkle. And you have to do the research and hard work to make sure you’re targeting the right audience.
And before I come off as somebody who’s constantly going medieval on Amazon (and I’m not; almost all of the money I make as an indie pubber comes from Amazon, so I’m a fan), let me point out one great benefit of Amazon ads: they’re easy to create. You don’t have to be a Mad Men caliber ad copywriter, and you don’t have to be a brilliant graphic designer. Just go with the Amazon model and you’ll be okay.
So what determines an ads success? I’ve already mentioned your book title and the cover. What else comes into play?
Reviews are critical. Before your ad even has a chance, you’ve got to have the best reviews possible—an average of between four and five stars is best—and as many of them as possible. This can be a challenge, since one of your primary goals for advertising in the first place is to get more reviews.
Price is a big one as well. One of the reasons the indie pub space has grown so much in the last couple of decades is that indie pubbers are willing to make their price points incredibly competitive. When I see an eBook edition of a book by a famous author published by one of the Big 5 New York Publishers (or are we down to 4? 3?) and its price is nearly that of the trade paperback edition, I head to the library to check it out for free. Also keep in mind that Amazon ads are going to primarily target people who probably don’t know you as an author. If you’re an unknown author and your eBook costs more than a lunch combo at Steak ‘n Shake, that’s a big hill to get over.
So how are those ads served up to potential customers? For indie authors, there are three types of campaigns available on Amazon.
The first type of campaign is Sponsored Products. Sponsored Product ads are the most popular and effective way to get started, especially if you’re advertising a single title. Sponsored Product ads are the ones that pop when you type something into the search bar. You get the search results, but there are also books that are in a box and have the word Sponsored somewhere around the book in little bitty type. There’s a little grey circle with an “i” it right next to the word. Then there are the “Also Boughts,” where the Amazon algorithm served up somebody’s paid ad to you based on what other customers have purchased.
By far, Sponsored Product ads are what most indie authors deploy. For one thing, Sponsored Product ads give you the most data and analytics on your ad’s performance. You’ll get data on the number of impressions, clicks, orders, sales volume, and if you’re enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, then you get reports on KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages) and the estimated KENP royalties for every single target in the campaign (if that acronym is new to you, just remember that authors who enroll a book in the Kindle Unlimited program are paid by the number of pages that a subscriber reads when they download your book).
The second type of campaign is Sponsored Brands. Underneath that broad umbrella, there are a couple of options: product collection ads and video ads. For authors with more than three books in a series, the titles are displayed on a “carousel,” along with a headline, a picture or your smiling mug, and some other image.
For the video ads in a Sponsored Brand campaign, you’re advertising one specific book and, obviously, a video is your chief marketing tool. Think book trailer…
So how are Sponsored Brand ads served up to a potential customer? If you’re using a Product Collection ad, these show up on prime Amazon real estate—the top of the search pages. You have the option of your author photo being there, or a logo for your imprint, along with a headline and an optional image, and then your three books.
Video ads, on the other hand, are usually shown on the product page, much like a Sponsored Product ad.
I say usually because Amazon likes to experiment around and try these ads in different places, delivered in different ways. As always, Amazon is fluctuating in a kind of work-in-progress fashion.
The last type of Amazon ad campaign is Lockscreen Ads. Lockscreen ads are those ads that fill up your screen when you turn on your Kindle or when your screen saver comes on. These are big and bold, but they also show up when your potential customer is not really searching for something new to read. Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brand ads show up when someone is actually looking for something to buy; Lockscreen ads show up when they’ve gone to get another beer…
But the main drawback of Lockscreen ads is that they’re impossible to precisely target. With the other types of ad campaigns, you can specify who the ads go to all the way down to sub-sub-subcategories in Amazon. The reporting’s not as detailed either, so it’s harder to assess the effectiveness of a Lockscreen ads.
Okay, have you had enough for one session? I know this stuff is overwhelming and it’s best to take it in small chunks. Next time, This Crazy Writing Life will continue on with this exploration of Amazon until we’ve got a foundation to work with. But keep in mind, there are entire books written about Amazon ads. It’s way more than we can cover in a monthly column in Killer Nashville Magazine.
But we can get started. Thanks again for playing along.
