Writing and Publishing: My Newsletter and the Future of Amazon Ads

How do you like my new banner?

Ok, so it’s not great, but it’s a start. I definitely need to spend a little while longer with it.

How are you all doing?

I’ve been busy. Not only do I have a full-time job, but my writing hobby (yes, it’s still a hobby) has kept me on my toes.

For one, I started a newsletter. It’s not public yet (it’s only at the back of The Recruit, but no one’s downloaded it since… since January 31st, I’m sorry to say). But, I’m doing it! Soon, it could turn out to be a great adventure.

For now, it’s still on a trial basis. You gotta start somewhere, right?

I have also been hard at work with revising and editing The Fall of Witchcraft, which is now totally available for preorder! I’m looking forward to the March 30th release. I’m so excited because I’ll soon hold all three paperbacks in my hand and by the end of 2019, I may hold four! To me, that’s the best part of this writing endeavor (I didn’t say hobby this time, see?).

Ok. Let’s get down to business.

AMS ADS IN 2019 SO FAR

As some of you know (or all of you know), Amazon decided to do a few changing to the way their advertisements work. For one, it’s no longer called AMS (it will probably always be that to me, but I know it isn’t).

What I understand is that Amazon decided there were too many books out there and it wasn’t worth advertising books that aren’t selling. Also, they decided to make a little bit more money on each add, so the low bids aren’t working like they used to.

After a horrible January, I decided to do a little experimenting with ads. So far, it’s been a little depressing.

My books aren’t popular. They aren’t expensive (>$2.99) and they don’t have a lot of reviews. What they call organic sales are non-existent. Since I don’t have a mailing list, then I don’t have a following and since I didn’t decide to publish ten years ago, I’m basically invisible to readers on Amazon.

Yep, that’s how it works.

When I used to get a BUNCH of impressions and clicks at 10 cents a bid, I now get ZERO. When I used to get MORE than a bunch of clicks with 25 cent bids, I now get ZERO.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m supposed to bid a dollar or more, but I don’t have that kind of money. Besides, my books are $2.99… I can’t be paying ALL the time.

Also, I’m in KU and I’m not even getting downloads this way.

I’m invisible, plain and simple.

Here’s how my ads in February look:

Pretty bad, right?

No matter what I do, I just can’t get enough. D you see the 6K+ impressions, I realized KDP Rocket wasn’t even giving me the right keywords! So I spent about 6 hours one weekend to clean the keywords it spit out. My books are Urban Fantasy Action/Adventure and somehow, KDP Rocket kept giving me Paranormal Romance and Reverse Harem. What in the world?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I’m searching authors and titles that are NONE of those things. Now, I know my book is a little different. I didn’t know how different until I got a few reviews. It seems it really is a different way to tell stories about vampires and the like. I feel proud for being original, but at the same time, I don’t write to market so it’s hard to get keywords. I think I managed 350 and they aren’t working at all.

It doesn’t matter. I still don’t get impressions or clicks. In January I got one sale. ONE… February is DEAD.

It makes me think about what other possible action I can do to advertise and not spend hundreds of dollars a month. I’m willing to lose a little, but not a lot. I’m not made out of money and my day job still needs to pay for life.

I will keep on experimenting with AMS Ads… probably forever, but I don’t want to go overboard. Also, I only have 2 books out of a 6 book series out. Maybe I need more books. Maybe that’s it.

When book 3 comes out, I will do some extra advertising by paying external people to put my book out there. I will use my Free Days and I will offer a low price for book 2 and 3… but that’s as much as I’m willing to do (for now).

KINDLE UNLIMITED – STILL WORTH IT?

Since Amazon Advertising isn’t giving me anything back, I have been considering moving out of KU and going wide.

I heard a podcast today (The Creative Penn, my new favorite), and the guest speaker, a writer named Adam Croft, was talking about KU and why it may not be a good idea to stay there. He has a few books, but the one that interested me the most is his non-fiction one called “The Indie Author Mindset”, which I’m seriously considering as a future read:

The point he was making was that KU authors think about KU when they’re starting and once they get a big enough following, they go wide. Then he asks, “if all your readers are KU subscribers and you take your books out of KU to go wide, then what happens to your following?”

Good point.

Right now, KU isn’t doing anything for me. Amazon Ads aren’t doing anything for me. Why stay in KU. Perhaps it’s time to explore B&N advertising or Apple Books! Kobo? GooglePlay? Sky’s the limit.

The only thing stopping me right now is that I only have two books in my series out. I’ll have three at the end of next month. Should I wait until all of my six books come out? What about the next series? Do I start it in KU?

Ok, so maybe it’s more than one thing stopping me.

I also think about learning about advertisement outside of Amazon Ads and then I start to think about what else I need to learn before I make that big leap. There’s a lot to think about.

For now, I’ll focus on finishing my first series and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to crack Amazon Ads.

NEWSLETTER: THE START OF A MAILING LIST

Ok, so I’ve heard in A LOT of places that authors are really a nobody unless they have a mailing list. I have been fearing building one for a long time.

Again, my fear may have come at a bad time. Perhaps I should have started it back in 2017 and now I would have a few people on it.

I didn’t, so now I’m going to start from scratch even if nobody ever downloads my book (I’m being a pessimist, I know).

The truth is I was fearing the inevitable until I heard about this wonderful book by Tammi Labrecque called “Newsletter Ninja”.

First of all, I love her writing. More because I heard her speak in an interview on The Creative Penn (yes, it’s my new favorite podcast, did I mention that?). She sounded nice and her advice sounded sound. So, I went ahead and bought her book. It was $4.99 and worth every penny.

I’m almost done, and even when she doesn’t tell you anything about set up (I used a youtube video to learn how to create a landing page and the introductory emails), she explains a lot of things about what the newsletter should be used for and how.

My first newsletter (issue #1) comes out in March. It’ll be monthly and in it, I’ll talk about my writing process (not in as much detail as this blog, more like updates), books I’m reading, TV shows or movies I’ve watched and places I go on vacation. Things like that.

I’m excited to share the things I’m passionate about. I may find readers who are interested in the same things I’m interested in and they will find my books interesting, too.

I’m excited and terrified. That’s normal, right?

CONCLUSION

And that’s all I have to say this month. Hope you enjoy The Fall of Witchcraft, it’s my best one yet! I’m having so much fun rewriting and adding details to these stories I wrote 20 years ago.

cheers!