Today, I am blogging for my fellow authors to share an awesome tip! If you take my advice you’ll save hours and hours of your precious time and, hopefully, earn some more money from your books too!
I don’t know about you but the months of September-October always find me in a state of mild depression, mainly because I keep feeling that time is running out and I haven’t even started on projects I was supposed to have finished by now.
Two are the projects I mind the most that I haven’t been working on:
a) Writing a new novel
b) Mastering AMS campaigns after following the mind-blowing free training course by the Kindlepreneur.
I had the best intentions to work on both this year but, sadly, life got in the way.
And here I am, in mid-October, having just issued a short story collection instead of a novel (because I felt compelled to offer some kind of new content to my readers this year the way I’ve been doing so far), and now it’s high time I wrote that new book that’s well overdue. The other day, I was getting frustrated thinking that for the foreseeable future AMS campaigns would remain uncharted territory for me… when an email came to offer me a wonderful solution.
The email was from Matt Stone, aka Buck Flogging, a highly successful entrepreneur whom I’ve presented in this post along with a couple of his free resources.
So, anyway, Matt has just started a new site where he and his associates, having mastered AMS campaigns, offer authors the chance to sit back and watch as they run their AMS campaigns for them!
Being well informed about the giving nature and the high marketing skills of Matt Stone, for me, the decision to sign up for this service was a no brainer.
Note: When an author signs up for this service, they grant access to BookAds from their AMS campaigns dashboard, but without sharing the password. The author only invites BookAds to become an ‘editor’ for their AMS campaigns. This is done from the AMS dashboard. In this case, a team member from Bookads gains access to the author’s AMS dashboard and only that – they cannot see the KDP Bookshelf/Reports, for example.
Just think of all the time this could save you in your daily work schedule… allowing you to write instead, or to do other kinds of marketing that you actually enjoy or feel confident with.
Check out BookAds and see what you think. From what it says on the site, their customers are making more money than what they spend. This could be the case for anyone whose book looks good on the product page (i.e. has the right average star rating, number of reviews etc).
Since the site is new, Matt is offering this service at the low price of $49 per month for a limited time only, and he’s going to take on a small number of customers at first. I hope you will get to be one of them.
Clarification: The monthly cost for you will be the $49 fee PLUS the charges you will receive from Amazon for the running of the campaign. The site mentions a recommended minimum daily budget of $10. And even though a simple calculation may suggest that you’re looking at a monthly Amazon cost of $300, in reality it won’t be anywhere near that according to Brian Berni who runs the campaigns for the customers of BookAds. When I asked about the total Amazon costs I’d be likely to pay, saying that I wouldn’t be happy to spend more than $100 per month at first, he gave me this answer (that put my mind at ease) and I quote it here verbatim to help you decide:
The daily spend is an average. It is very very very unlikely you’ll be spending that much in a day. In fact, almost impossible. That’s because if I see you are (and not making a positive ROI), I would pause the campaigns that are costing you too much. If, on the other hand, you’re spending more than 10$/day but making 20, I’m sure you’ll agree that’s a different story 🙂
The budgets you see in the campaigns are an absolute maximum the ads can reach, after which they will cut off. As per above, this NEVER happens. I’ve done hundreds (if not thousands) of campaigns, and I’ve never seen an ad go through its entire daily budget. Especially since we typically bid very low.
The amount you see for those 2-3 campaigns (100$) is the minimum required by Amazon for that type of ad (Product Display). The same as above applies. I’ve never seen any ad even get close to that. Some ads spend around 20$ in their ENTIRE lifetime (6 months).
How to apply for the service:
The application procedure is quick and the screens take you through the 3 steps effortlessly: First, you set up the monthly payment via Paypal or whatever, then you are diverted to a quick video that shows you how to invite BookAds as an editor to your AMS dashboard and, last, lower on the same screen, you fill in the entry form with the details of the book you wish to promote. Done. And you can cancel the service at any time.
Note: The above link to BookAds contains an affiliate link, which means if you sign up for this service I will earn a little commission. This doesn’t affect the fee you pay. Thanks in advance if you use my link to sign up!
In my book, time is precious… and all indie authors suffer from not having enough of it. For me, delegating tasks to people more skilled than me is a huge time-saver as well as the practice of any entrepreneur worth his salt (both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison spring to mind here). I am getting excited as I write these lines, thinking that by putting my trust in someone more skilled than me I can save precious hours of my time AND be in for a chance to make more money than I did before.
Here’s the link to BookAds again… I am off to write my novel now… Thank you, Matt Stone!
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