Writers' Corner

I mentioned in my newsletter that I participated in the free Amazon Ad School window. I decided from the bits I learned to sign up for 3 months of Ad School. I have to admit, I kind of regret it. While I'd made some headway into the training during the free window, within a few days of paying for it, I hit a lesson that made me realize the timing wasn't right for me to sign up for three months of Ad School.

I cannot pin down now which lesson it was, but the key learning was that most authors do not create a marketable book or series until their fourth to SEVENTH attempt. Don't take it badly, it's just data. And the school was honest and open with that data, so kudos to them. But it, of course, left me wondering why I should dole out even more money for the years it will take me to get to that point. I can't really justify it.

That said, there is A LOT of good info in the Ad School, and it is probably worth doing a month every half year or so (that's my current thinking). I am signed up for a focus group that may change my mind--maybe I will find great value in that. I'll let you know.

​https://learn.bestpageforward.net/author-ad-school-enroll/​

Every writer is at a different place, and so will pull different things out of the school. There's a whole slew of "scaling up" lessons once you prove you have a profitable books or series that I haven't bothered listening to. There's a lot of lessons that hold your hand through the starting-out process of creating your first Amazon Ads--I'd done those several times over the last few years, as they're offered for free every quarter. So my focus has been on courses that focused on trying to become profitable.

I have to start by saying that I'd given up on Amazon Ads long ago. I'd switched to using BookBub Ads. With those, I was at least able to sell books, though I hadn't been able to make a profit. I've been operating at a steady loss while trying to figure out how turn that into a profit. In order to focus on the lessons from Ad School, I stopped the BookBub effort, halting my ads there. It's the only way to collect clean data to see if the lessons from the Ad School are actually working. Unfortunately, I had already launched one of the quarterly Amazon freebie efforts, and I have another running in a few days, and that screws up the data, so I won't truly start "clean" until about three weeks into August. That's okay though... I have three months in Ad School after all.

I reviewed the "getting started" lessons and realized I hadn't really given my new series a fair shake in Amazon Ads, so I dusted off Mother of Trees for a do-over. I've been creating new keyword ads every couple/few days, and even threw a few in for my old Guardian League series. I finally understood, through the lessons, that there is believed to be some advantage to kicking off new campaigns--that Amazon's algorithm seems to reward that and you get more impressions (which means more opportunities to gain clicks and purchases). So some of the work that they ask for, which seems a little silly, like scraping for keywords from related books, isn't just about finding good keywords, it's also about revving the engine.

I also finally found the lesson (lessons actually) that explain that you really shouldn't run Ads to anything but the first book in a series. Edith, I know you and I had discussed that before, and it wasn't clear from what they offer in the free school. But that was also good to learn, and I could clean up my Ads with that info.

I bought a tool recommended from one of the lessons called Publisher Rocket. I think I got that right--I'm not on the computer that I bought it on, so I can't see it. This tool really helps you optimize the seven keywords on your book configuration, and there are several lessons that help you understand why that's so important. Unfortunately, the word "keyword" is overused in Amazon Ads. When you create your book, there are seven "keywords". When you create Ads, you create "keyword" ads, and these are totally different uses of the word "keyword". It is sometimes hard to tell which usage is meant in a lesson, but after a while, it really does become second nature to understand the context. Anyway, if you want to learn more about that, the Publisher Rocket team (that's separate from Ad school) also has a set of freebie classes that are quite good. You don't need the Amazon Ad school lessons to figure that optimization out.

Those seven keywords, and your automatic, category, and "keyword" ads, will go hunting for readers and show them your ad. There's a few lessons on getting that ad copy right, and I've been doing those for a while and can see pretty clearly which sets of my ad copy perform the best (though I've also gotten lazy and just keep using them... I aught to occasionally try to improve them as well). Now you've got someone interested enough that they click.

The next bit is where I fail. This is where reader tropes kick in. Most (maybe every) reader has a favorite trope or two. Or has a trope they are looking for when they are looking at books. They're searching for some feeling, that endorphin release, that is just like that thing they read last week or last year that gave them all the feels. If your cover doesn't tell them they're going to get what they are looking for, they won't buy. And this is where I missed the point in writing-to-market. It's not about writing something you don't want to write (as I pound my chest and declare my artistry), it's about understanding what you want as a writer. If I just want to write books, why ever even put them on Amazon? Just to say I did it?

So you've gotta ask yourself why you're there. For me, I love writing, but I have an idea in my head of being able to make "some money" off of writing so that I can retire into writing and maybe stop design chips a little earlier than I might otherwise, because I know I have a little income drizzling in. Is it vital? No. But if I dig into my soul a little deeper, I want people to READ MY BOOKS. Maybe more than I want to make money. Sooo, arguably, I could continue the BookBub route, and loose a little money on Ads to get my books out there. It's not a lot of money, so I call writing a hobby and justify that path. But here's the thing--I really want my audience to grow, the advertising to become self-sustaining, and my time to be spent focused on the writing. The best way to do that is to figure out these advertising mechanics, including writing-to-market, so that the engine spins with just the regular dropping in of new books to the systems.

Anyway, what became clear to me is that Guardian League does not directly hit an Amazon market. Urban fantasy has come to mean "vampires, werewolves, demons" in the modern world. That series isn't sci-fi. "Action and Adventure" is too vague. Oddly, it hits well on "Dragons and other Mystical Creatures", but it isn't really that genre either. So Guardian League is VERY UNLIKELY to be profitable. If a reader can't make all the connections that release their endorphins and tell them to buy the book, them my conversion rate (ad clicks to purchases) will forever remain low. That doesn't mean they will never make money. Some day, once I have a series that converts well, people will also buy my other books.

Thaumatropic Roots is more aligned with a specific genre on Amazon. Epic fantasy. This series has a better shot. But through the "cover therapy" sessions on Ad School, I recognize that my cover isn't right. I actually think the other puzzle pieces for that series line up pretty well. I'm not 100% sure--for whatever reason, Mother of Trees ranks in "Dragons & Mystical Creatures" and not "Epic Fantasy", but I think it might be that I'm drawing the audience with my goddess picture on the cover. Again, not sure.

Unfortunately, I don't have any data that is worth sharing at this time. I think my data is tainted by the fact that I ran a freebie about two weeks ago. I did make a profit for the first time in forever last week, but I can't prove that it was from the changes I made through the learnings from Ad School. In fact, I really doubt that it was--I think it was carryover from the freebie. I should mention that using the freebies is ALSO part of what you learn to do in Ad School. I just coincidentally mis-timed it as I set them up right before I joined Ad School.

So is Ad School worth doing? If you're just starting out, for sure do the freebie stuff (Amazon Ad challenge on Facebook). Ping me if that isn't clear and you have questions where to look. If you've done those freebies and you're not quite getting it, buy a month and go learn as much as you can squeeze in for a month. If you're borderline profitable, it is probably worth signing up. Many of there lessons are about improving your sales by 25%--if you find a few gaps in your efforts that could get you across the line, then it opens up a whole slew of profitability scaling classes that I haven't bothered with.

One other, orthogonal piece--in the last week, they introduced lessons on growing your email audience. These seem profoundly good. (And they are done by someone outside the Ad School--I could probably point you to them external to the Ad School with a little work.) I'm taking baby steps to gear up for those efforts. With the family health stuff we have going on, I don't have the data with me at the times I need it in order to move forward, but I'm inching toward it. And growing your email audience has a snowball effect over time if you are also releasing books. These two pieces compound and accelerate growth. At least in theory. We shall see.

​​May you get lost this week in another world.

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