- Are you looking for book marketing strategies
and tips for authors for promoting your self-published book?
Are you beginning to wonder if it's a pay-to-play world
and you're at a disadvantage
'cause you're not doing anything
when it comes to paying for your advertising?
Well, today's video,
we're gonna address the pay-to-play question.
Should you be paying to play?
Should you not?
Well, stay tuned.
(hard rock music)
This is Self Publishing with Dale
where you learn to publish books that sell
and build an unstoppable author brand.
What do you think is the most effective way
of marketing your books?
And also, does it have to cost a lot?
Love to hear your candid thoughts
inside the comments down below.
Also, stick around to the end
'cause I'm gonna give you my candid insights
and my experience
when it comes to marketing your self-published books.
It's important to understand where we came from
before we start to analyze where we're at today.
The way it used to be.
Back about five years ago, I came into this business.
I noticed that people would find that hot topic
or that trending niche and they would jump onto it.
They would just kinda fire off one here, one there,
also known as shotgunning or spray and pray.
People would just kind of go after these different things.
And the nice thing is
it was really, really a good methodology,
and people were profiting hand and fist.
Organic sales were through the roof.
And you really didn't need to do much more
than spam social media and get reviews for your book.
The way it is now.
If we were to compare and contrast both models
of today and about five years ago,
there is one thing that is shared in common.
That is hot topics and trending niches.
Yeah, everybody's always going
to be consuming the next latest craze, but here's the thing.
Brands are winning the biggest.
The authors that really cement their legacy
in a given niche are going to win bigger
than someone who's just firing off one-offs.
And let's face it, Amazon is getting a lot more strict
when it comes to gathering reviews.
The review gathering process
was completely different years ago,
whereas now Amazon almost wholeheartedly gets
behind just organic reviews only.
The Amazon algorithm, the thing that's responsible
for serving the customers what they believe is going
to be best for their buying needs,
it's becoming a lot more sophisticated.
They're starting to train it up to understand
what are the best buying patterns
and how they can best serve their audience.
So where it was a little clunky back in the day,
now it has become smart.
And especially now that there's been some loopholes
that have been closed up
and they're starting to show the algorithm
to kind of vet out those less savory elements.
So those people that are going into a niche and they go deep
into it are gonna be the ones that win biggest.
But what does that have to do with anything
when it comes to marketing tips and if it's pay-to-play?
Well, stay with me for just a minute
because it has a lot to do with Amazon's search engine.
What is the difference maker?
Well, here it is.
I'm gonna serve it right up here on a platter.
It's called relevancy.
You've heard me say that a lot on this channel,
but search engines work a lot
on whether or not your product
or your service or your page is relevant.
But what exactly determines relevancy?
It all comes down to impressions, to clicks, to buys,
and engagement or activity.
I've talked about this in previous videos,
but those four specific metrics really help
to determine the relevancy of a product.
And of course the biggest metric is is this selling?
Are people coming and landing on your page
and clicking that buy button and hanging onto that product?
And the next thing is are they really saying,
"Okay, I love this product,"
or they're giving some type of a feedback?
Because the name of the game
is can you drive revenue on Amazon?
So that's why a lot of these folks that are going
for one-off hits are at a bit of a disadvantage
because they're going into it just one book on their hands,
no reputation, no real audience, and they're saying,
"Well, Amazon, you take care of this.
"Bring me some customers."
Well, Amazon's going, "What have you done for my lately?"
Honestly, what have you done for Amazon lately?
Just because you're firing off these one-offs doesn't
necessarily mean that you're all that and a bag of chips.
Into the unfair advantage, paying to play.
Okay, so you're probably saying, "Paying to play."
If you're new to this business,
you're probably glossing over, going,
"Well, what does this mean, Dale?"
This means that you have to invest in some type
of advertising or marketing and promotion
to drive traffic to your book.
And hopefully your product page is all dialed in
and people buy the product.
So let's take a look at a few models
when it comes to advertising your books,
and I'll give you my personal opinion
when it comes to what's gonna be best for you.
Amazon Advertising.
Amazon Advertising,
formerly known as Amazon Marketing Services,
is quite possibly the most dead simple way
to advertising your book.
I'm starting out in sharing this particular model because,
to me, I think it's grossly underused and underrated
and a lot of the indie authors are highly uninformed
when it comes to the Amazon Advertising platform.
It's cost-effective
as long as you keep your cost-per-click low
and you're choosing a wide array of keywords relevant
to your particular publication.
In my opinion, right now Amazon Advertising is Wild West.
There are lots of keywords you can really capitalize on
to bring in more audience to your book.
The reason why I go so bullish
on Amazon Advertising is people go to Amazon
to buy things.
They're already a warm audience.
They go onto Amazon's platform,
not just to research or find out how-tos.
They go there because they want to consume.
So to me, I think that Amazon Advertising is probably one
of the best pay-to-play options
when it comes to advertising your book.
Now, let's go and let's refer back
for just a second here on relevancy.
If somebody is advertising their book
through Amazon Advertising, think about this.
We're delivering traffic over to our book's page,
and it's being served up to relevant keywords.
It's having impressions, possibly clicks, hopefully sales,
and then eventually some type of engagement.
So this is why I think Amazon Advertising is probably one
of the best pay-to-play options out there.
And believe it or not, Amazon's not paying me to say this.
So you want one of the easiest and most effective ways
of increasing relevancy,
Amazon Advertising is your solution.
But what about Facebook ads and Google ads?
Well, here's the deal.
When you are going onto, say, Facebook,
you're just going on there probably to see
what your grandma's up to or watch some cat videos
or post a picture of your food from this morning.
You're typically not going on there thinking,
ah, I'm gonna go on Facebook today to buy a book.
So you're already dealing with cold traffic.
Yeah, there's gonna be some Facebook ads experts
losing their minds
because obviously it's a little bit more detailed.
But the fact of the matter is there is so much more work
that's gonna have to be put into Facebook ads, say,
versus Amazon ads.
And then let's look at Google ads.
I'm gonna lump these two together
because, again, we're dealing with cold audience.
And unless we have some type of remarketing
or retargeting plan put out in front of us,
we stand to lose quite a bit of money.
Unlike Amazon Advertising,
Facebook and Google are more than happy
to relieve you of your money regardless of the outcome
of your ad campaign.
Amazon, on the other hand,
you can probably set a $5 per day budget.
You put your cost-per-clicks really low,
and you may not even have any type
of clicks on a given day, and that's okay.
What about BookBub?
A couple years ago,
I actually interviewed a good friend of mine, Paul Rega,
and Paul actually shared a little bit
of his love for BookBub
and how he had some great success on that platform.
Even Martin Crosbie was another interview guest here
and spoke of the effectiveness of BookBub ads.
But here is the deal.
It is really, really, really tough
to get a BookBub placement inside their newsletter.
They are very stringent with their guidelines.
So the likelihood of you getting in there are slim and none.
And even when you do, it is a bit more pricey.
I've heard some great success stories
when it comes to running BookBub ads,
but then I've heard on the other end of the things
that there's some people that have lost some money.
Then there's also their CPC ads
to where their cost-per-click is set at a certain amount,
and it pretty much runs like, say, a Facebook
or a Google ad in they'll drive the traffic now.
I'm gonna give BookBub the benefit of the doubt in the fact
that if they are serving their ads out to readers,
then they're gonna be a bit more warm
than, say, someone that is off Facebook or Google
because people are going to BookBub obviously
to purchase books.
So I have not tried out BookBub before,
and I definitely would love to hear from you
if you have tried out their cost-per-click campaigns.
And what about other promotional services on websites?
I hate to say this, and I'm not pointing to any one website.
There are a ton of websites out there
that do promotional services for your book,
and some of 'em more particularly will drive traffic to you
if you have, say, free books or 99 cent books
or some type of deals.
Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
I've had some great success with some, and other ones, eh.
But for the most part it's gonna take a little bit
of time and testing for you to kinda figure out.
If there was one recommendation
that I would give for all of these types of ads,
try them one at a time.
Don't try to do all of them
because you never know the effectiveness of any one area
if you don't try to focus on it one at a time.
But what about the question.
Is it a pay-to-play world?
Well, it's not a necessity, but it certainly helps.
You will find other types of methodologies
that are gonna be able to get your book out there
and build your author brand,
but you are starting out at a severe disadvantage
over those that are already established
and running ads to their particular book.
I'd recommend starting out with one avenue at a time.
And if I were to recommend anything over the other,
give Amazon Advertising a shot.
In fact, it was just this past year I had a good friend
of mine, Marco Moutinho, here right on this channel
where he shared some insights
about running good Amazon Advertising campaigns
and how you can kinda tweak some of the metrics
inside your dashboard.
You're gonna wanna make sure that you go and take a look
at that video. (bell dings)
I'll see you there.
- I don't wanna be overspending on keywords
that might not work, right?
So I wanna test it first.
So what I do.