5 Options for Creating Your Amazon Ad Copy

By Beth Whitney

Part of The Indie Authors Column

JH: Authors are great at writing stories, but we're not always so great at writing ad copy to sell those stories. Beth Whitney shares tips on finding the right words for our Amazon ads.

Beth Whitney has always loved reading, writing, and word play. After achieving a mixed degree in Technical Editing, English, and Culinary Arts, she spent a decade working in kitchens across the Mountain West before taking up copy editing work again. Since joining the Best Page Forward team, she’s been rediscovering the joy of helping other creatives refine their words and make them shine.

Take it away Beth...

We’ve all sat staring at that blinking cursor, waiting for the right words to jump into our brains. But as I’ve written for Best Page Forward, I’ve gradually developed some strategies for quickly creating ad headlines. Now the short and snappy taglines are my favorite part of the blurb to work on. I save them for last, like leaving a sweet for after dinner.

How to Set Up Your Sponsored Product Ads in Amazon

By Dave Chesson, @DaveChesson

Part of The Indie Authors Series 

JH: Advertising your book on Amazon might seem like a challenge, but it's easier than you think. Dave Chesson shares a step-by-step process on setting up your sponsored ads. 

Dave Chesson is the founder of Kindlepreneur.com and creator of Publisher Rocket, a software that helps authors market their books more effectively.

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Take it away Dave…

Amazon ads are an amazing marketing tool for authors who want to see more conversions--whether that means Kindle Unlimited borrows or just plain sales. For that reason, indie authors should probably be investing some of their marketing budget, no matter how small or big, into Amazon’s advertising platform.

Author Advertising: Stacking Ads to Maximize Promotional Dollars

By John G. Hartness, @johnhartness

Part of the Indie Author Series

Get the most bang for your buck with ad stacking.

This is kind of a complex topic, and if you haven’t read Marcy Kennedy’s articles on ads here on Fiction University, I suggest you at least familiarize yourself with them now. Her excellent article on the basics of advertising will give you a basis for understanding what I’m talking about here.

There are a million book promo sites, and they range from the very inexpensive to the downright wallet-busting, and range in efficacy from negligible to chart-topping. 

Today we’ll talk about how to maximize the bang for your buck(s) and stack promos to make sure your book hits as many eyeballs as possible and hopefully insure you see a positive return on your investment. As always, here’s a caveat – your mileage may vary, and no results are guaranteed.

How "Pay-Per" Advertising Works

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

Welcome back to my ongoing series on advertising as an indie author.

If you haven’t read all the previous posts in this series, I recommend you start from the beginning. We’ve already looked at a big picture overview of when and what we might want to advertise, and we talked about whether there’s ever a time when it’s okay to lose money on advertising.

Then I threw you into the math deep-end because we needed to figure out whether we’re earning or losing money on our ads and how read-through affects our investment.

Last month we moved on to one of the different options available to us for advertising—newsletter ads.

This month I’m continuing on with “pay-per” ads.

Understanding Newsletter Ads

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

Over the past few months, we’ve been talking about advertising our books because one of the biggest hurdles we have to overcome as indie authors is discoverability. Readers can’t buy and enjoy our books unless they know they exist.

I know that talking numbers and marketing isn’t fun for a lot of writers, but I’m so glad you’re sticking with me. Successful indie authors are also successful business people.

Are Your Book’s Ads Earning or Losing You Money?

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

A couple of months ago, I started a series on advertising as an indie author. We’ve already looked at a big picture overview of when and what we might want to advertise, and last month we talked about whether there’s ever a time when it’s okay to lose money on advertising.

From this point on, we’ll be looking at advertising where we earn back at least as much money as we invested in the ad. But there’s something we need to do before we can go any further talking about ads. We have to figure out how to measure whether our ads are earning us money or not. It’s fine to say we want them to earn us money, and another thing entirely to know how to tell if they are. That’s what I’m going to walk you through this month and next month.

Is It Ever Okay to Lose Money on Advertising?

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

Last month I started a series on advertising as an independent author. (If you missed it, I suggest you read The Basics of Advertising for Indie Authors first.)

In that post, I said that my basic premise for the series was that we wanted to earn back at least as much as we invest in our advertising. There are times, though, when it is okay to lose money on our ads (at least in my opinion). The key to losing money while still considering the ad a success is to have a strategy. We want to lose money in the short term in order to make a long-term gain.

The Basics of Advertising for Indie Authors

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy

Part of the Indie Author Series

As independent authors, we’re in charge of everything, including marketing our books. There are a lot of ways to spread the word, but today I’m starting into a mini-series on advertising for indie authors.

I think this is an important topic for us to understand because it can either help our sales or lose us a lot of money. The more we know, the better our chances are of making money off our ads.