Parisian Phoenix Publishing

It happened one week into my 14-day author profit challenge with Amazon Ad guru Bryan Cohen. I had my first click and my impressions doubled.

I am the world’s most pragmatic optimist— I want to believe that things turn out for the best but am always planning for the worst. I am a skeptic, while I also trust too little and too much. I blame that on my favorite English teacher who always said that she trusted everyone until they gave her a reason not to.

So the idea of paid advertising is terrifying. Buying little programs or hiring someone is terrifying. I know I’m not the only one, but the idea of advertising feels like heading to the casino as retirement planning.

Now, if you’re like me, you read that paragraph and read clicks and impressions and thought “okay, that sounds nice, but does that sell books?”

The answer: who knows?

Here’s the deal, based on what I know so far. Amazon is huge (and evil in many, many ways and convenient and accessible in many others). And if you enter your name or your book title, you might not even find books, let alone your books. The idea behind Amazon ads is to anticipate what readers search for, and guide readers who might like your book to your book.

So this 14-day challenge is about inexpensively developing ads that will train the Amazon algorithm. Whether your book sells depends A LOT on your book cover, description and if the writing holds up.

I spent 13 cents so far on Amazon ads. In the first week. That 13 cents has delivered:

• 160 people that have seen my ad, for my book.
• ONE person who clicked on that ad.
• No sales (yet) based on that click

One more week later, I have spent 89 cents. That 89 cents has delivered:

• Nearly 6,500 impressions, or appearances of one of my ads while someone was browsing.
• THREE clicks
• No sales.

But I’m thrilled that I’m navigating the system, learning about the algorithm and not spending money. I’m perfecting some of my categories and keywords and the tricks and tools Bryan shared in this teaser course will help me set up future titles.