#3 Saturday Book Promotional Article: "Amazon Ads, Pros and Cons" from Penned in the City

Photo by: https://www.pexels.com/@mccutcheon

Writers use different methods to advertise and promote their work. I have used Facebook ads for short ad campaigns. Heck, I've even used Pinterest ads. When it comes to getting actual sales and book reviews, I have had the most success with Amazon ads, but you have to be patient and think long-term game.

Right now, I have three ad campaigns for two books I published this summer for a total of six campaigns. My sales aren’t amazing by any means, but I make two times the sales that I spend on the ads.

Pros:
1. The ads are paid per click; more than likely the people who click will be interested in your book.
2. You can set an automatic and manual campaign; automatic ads generate the keywords for you, and you set the keywords for manual ads. (I recommend setting both automated and manual ads for print and Kinde books of the same title.)
3. You can control what keywords to keep. So if people are clicking on a keyword, but not generating sales you can retire it.
4. You can set the amount per click, although usually, the average per click is about $.10 cents.
5. You can set your daily spending budget. I set mine to $5 per campaign.
6. You can set up to 1,000 keywords for free, per book.
7. You can keep a record of keywords in an excel spreadsheet that you upload for manual ads.
8. You generate the ad text, so keep it short and enticing!
9. You can set your ad campaign to run over a short time or indefinitely.

Cons:

1. You may need software to generate 1,000 keywords. I used Amazon keywords, popular author names, and https://keywordtool.io/amazon (the free version).
2. Once you set an ad, you cannot edit the text.
3. Some popular keywords can be costly and generate no sales, so you have to check your ads regularly, like once a week.

I hope this was helpful. Post any constructive comments or questions. Also, I would love to hear how you have used Amazon ads.

(This article was originally posted in my Facebook Group Penned in the City. One main purpose of the group is to promote writers, especially indie writers. Join in!)

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