I am a learner and this journey is about publishing a book and learning other things associated with publishing which are never talked about before publishing. This week I am discussing online advertising and my experience on this platform.
I undertook online advertising after realising that I was to do the footwork in selling my book. I can talk directly with people who get interested in buying my book however it is difficult selling online. I looked forward to online advertisement since everyone talks about it and this is my finding.
Amazon ads
There are different types of advertising on Amazon such as brand sponsored, cost per click (CPC) among others. I could not understand how the cost per click meant but at least I have an idea now. After my research, I settled on lock screen advertising. As per my understanding, this advertisement is displayed on customers kindle readers gadgets and when the customer clicks on your ad, they get directed into your book site assuming they might get interested and purchase your book.
I carried this advertisement for almost three weeks and the budget has to be $100 since Amazon does not let you set it less than that. Within three weeks I saw on the report that nothing much had happened with this advertisement and I sold nothing from it. Just before the campaign finished, I discontinued the advertisement.
Facebook ads
My next trial was facebook ads and this was based on cost per click and decided on how much I was willing to spend on this campaign. There are different campaigns on facebook one where you can promote your page and the book and the other where you buy the likes. I chose the promotion of my book. I put a budget of 40 dollars to run over two weeks but different times. The two weeks are five days per week, not seven.
The report showed that there were a lot of people who clicked on the site however it did not drive any sales. After that campaign I decided that companies are making their money through this online marketing but nothing much for the advertisers. Some people might make their money through facebook marketing but it wasn’t for me. I am not planning to run another campaign through facebook.
Its write now
Unlike Amazon and facebook, its write now is a platform build to promote ebooks particularly kindle. They also run free book promotions and low bargain paid ones as well. I gave a paid promotion a trial and even though I never made a sale from that advertisement the site sends a report as to where they have shared your campaign.
Its write now has two paid options $10 for three days and the campaign is posted ten times through their facebook, twitter and Pinterest accounts. For $20 the campaign is posted more than twenty times, runs for seven days and provides advertisements on their three platforms as mentioned above.
Book Bub
BookBub is well regarded in terms of advertising books and since it is highly talked about, I thought I give it a go to see how my book would fare on this platform. There are two types of advertising on bookbub cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM).
You pay when a customer clicks on your advertisement on CPC model while in CPM you pay per one thousand advertisement impressions. I chose the former with a budget of $20 to run for a week. On the third day, there were a lot of clicks but after the week lapsed, I never got any sales from the ads.
The advertisement money all adds up however the sales cannot break even. Therefore, I decided I will enjoy writing and putting my work out there for people to read and if I earn something small that is good enough and if not, I will not waste money on advertising without any results. However, the learning is still on and I am still experimenting to see the results. Who would have thought that writing a book comes with a lot of complications? Please share your views.