The success of Pilot Error has meant that my dad has a small passive income stream and an engaged following of over a thousand followers. Most of all it has given him something to focus on, knowing that at least someone will read his next book.
We never expected to sell this many copies, it has sold far more than it would have done if it had been published in the first place (which is what he originally wanted). I will show you what I did to get this book from a obscurity to number 22 in UK history – selling between 20 and 30 copies a day for over two months. Here are some things you will find out in this article:
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The book reached 22 at its peak, but I forgot to take a screenshot. This is the highest recorded position.
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The usual JK Rowling comparison
Pilot Error is a semi-biographical novel about my grandfather's death in a plane crash (my grandfather was the pilot) a few weeks after VE day. It must be good as it is currently rated 4.3 stars out of 5 and has 77 ratings.
My dad wrote the book in the early 2000s. He sent his completed book to more than 10 publishers, where it was rejected every time. JK Rowling-esk. He then gave up on the whole thing.
Then, Amazon kindle was born. On 15th August 2011, at the beginning of the Kindle revolution, I figured out how to upload the manuscript and publish it onto the Kindle portal. I designed the cover myself - in Microsoft paint, using an out of copyright image from google images. The image was too small, so I copied a piece of the grey area at the bottom of the image and spread it down to fit the page. In a way, this accidentally gives the image the appearance of motion.
It's hard to believe, but the cover you see today beat all the professionally designed covers it was tested against.
My dad wrote the book in the early 2000s. He sent his completed book to more than 10 publishers, where it was rejected every time. JK Rowling-esk. He then gave up on the whole thing.
Then, Amazon kindle was born. On 15th August 2011, at the beginning of the Kindle revolution, I figured out how to upload the manuscript and publish it onto the Kindle portal. I designed the cover myself - in Microsoft paint, using an out of copyright image from google images. The image was too small, so I copied a piece of the grey area at the bottom of the image and spread it down to fit the page. In a way, this accidentally gives the image the appearance of motion.
It's hard to believe, but the cover you see today beat all the professionally designed covers it was tested against.
Early organic sales peter out
When we first uploaded the manuscript, Kindle was in its infancy. For this reason, we did achieve some success early doors, which culminated - 2 years later in 2013 - in peak organic sales of 250 copies in a single month. This fizzled out a bit within 6 months and pretty much stayed that way for the next 7 years (other than an inexplicable boost in 2017). By 2019 sales were very low, but we must have had some word of mouth leading to some sales.
At the beginning, the only marketing tactic we had was to choose the keywords that amazon allows you (we chose: military history, RAF, WW2, war, military, spitfire) and try to include some of these keywords into the description section of the book page. Amazon also gives you two categories to choose for your book to be included within. As with the keywords, It's a good idea to choose categories that you stand a chance of getting into the top 50 for. We chose:
Fiction > War & Military
Nonfiction > History > Europe > Great Britain
Another thing I did early on was create a profile for my father on Amazon – this is the area where all his books are displayed together – united under a profile picture. A profile on Amazon only really becomes of use once you have more than one book for sale, as it is predominately a place where people can see what else you have written. At the time of Pilot Error’s birth, we had two other books listed – neither of which sold at all. This is what the profile looks like now:
At the beginning, the only marketing tactic we had was to choose the keywords that amazon allows you (we chose: military history, RAF, WW2, war, military, spitfire) and try to include some of these keywords into the description section of the book page. Amazon also gives you two categories to choose for your book to be included within. As with the keywords, It's a good idea to choose categories that you stand a chance of getting into the top 50 for. We chose:
Fiction > War & Military
Nonfiction > History > Europe > Great Britain
Another thing I did early on was create a profile for my father on Amazon – this is the area where all his books are displayed together – united under a profile picture. A profile on Amazon only really becomes of use once you have more than one book for sale, as it is predominately a place where people can see what else you have written. At the time of Pilot Error’s birth, we had two other books listed – neither of which sold at all. This is what the profile looks like now:
Lockdown 2020
When lockdown hit in mid-March 2020, I was in Vietnam, in this capsule hotel. I soon realised that Vietnam was becoming no place for an Englishman – and headed back to England. My flat was rented out (and I was happy to escape London anyway to be honest) and so headed to Loughborough to my childhood home.
Safe, but unemployed and with time on my hands, I decided to try to increase sales of the one thing I had to sell. This might finally be a good opportunity for me to actually try using Facebook ads, rather than just endlessly listening to podcasts about them.
Safe, but unemployed and with time on my hands, I decided to try to increase sales of the one thing I had to sell. This might finally be a good opportunity for me to actually try using Facebook ads, rather than just endlessly listening to podcasts about them.
Facebook Page
Before running Facebook ads, your book must have its own Facebook page. Luckily – I had set up a Facebook page when Pilot Error was first published. I had added a little message on the final page of the Pilot Error book, informing the reader of the existence of the Facebook page.
By Lockdown 2020, the Pilot Error Facebook page had accrued around 600 people over the 9 years - enough to create a campaign using the notorious Facebook ‘lookalike audience’ (more on this later). But they didn't learn much from the Facebook page. Before the blog, we had virtually no content going out on the Facebook page. Creating content for a new page is a thankless task – it’s time consuming and nobody reads it at first. But there must be something, as it acts as PR for those who click onto your profile before clicking through to the Amazon page. The content should add value, build trust, spread goodwill and it should be relevant. Don’t try to sell anything and don’t tell them about what you had for breakfast. Here are a few content ideas:
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Boosting Posts
Even the most engaging and engaged with posts will still only reach a fraction of your Facebook following. It is therefore sometimes a good idea to promote posts to your own audience. You should consider doing this for the following category of posts:
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A few pointers about this video offer:
- We added some story appeal with the England flag, Melton Mowbray sign and the records that probably fit the psychographics of the target market
- We put in a small amount of scarcity – but not enough to come across as salesy
- The offer is a serendipitous one – it makes sense to the viewer. We actually were cleaning out the garage during lockdown.
- The offer is relevant – the books we gave away were related to Pilot Error and there was an element of mystery to what they would get
- Text on the screen was simple but added some dynamism
- Got my dad wearing his striking purple jumper/green polo neck combo
Facebook cover and profile images
For the profile picture, I use a picture of the front cover of the book – you have to edit it a bit to fit the circle design that Facebook use as profile pictures.
For the cover image, I generally use an image related to the book subject. For pilot error, I use a photo of a collection of spitfires. For ‘Very short stories’ - another of my dad's books - I used a photo of a mouse, as one of the stories is about mice.
Cover videos can be a great way to story-tell quickly and convey some of the emotion behind the book it represents. I commissioned this one to a guy from fiverr.com who made it for £40 – it’s for one of my dad’s other books, about music:
For the cover image, I generally use an image related to the book subject. For pilot error, I use a photo of a collection of spitfires. For ‘Very short stories’ - another of my dad's books - I used a photo of a mouse, as one of the stories is about mice.
Cover videos can be a great way to story-tell quickly and convey some of the emotion behind the book it represents. I commissioned this one to a guy from fiverr.com who made it for £40 – it’s for one of my dad’s other books, about music:
The Blog
Once we had a proper following, with more and more people joining the group each day, it was becoming obvious that we should try to create content for our followers. This content aims to do the following:
I look at it like this; sales of the books are funding the ads. Meanwhile, we are cultivating a following, which now consists of over a thousand people, who are fans of my father or military history and are consuming his content on a regular basis. These people interact with the content we publish, spreading it across Facebook. They tell their friends to follow us and/or read my dad’s books.
We now have access to a small audience of engaged, loyal customers – to whom we can launch new books, or sell – in the case of Pilot Error – military related products. The ads are selling books in the short term and developing a following in the long term. We’re building a brand and it's up to us to add value to this group of people. If we do this, the group will grow.
There are three main ways in which the blog builds an audience:
As well as building goodwill and an engaged audience, there are three main ways the blog increases sales:
We try to use the 80/20 rule; 80% nothing to do with selling a book, 20% relating to one of his books or making a sales promotion.
- Keep awareness of my dad high – it might lead to someone purchasing a different title
- Spread word of mouth by writing about interesting topics
- Increase the overall size of our following (as people see that their friends comment on posts and subsequently follow us)
- Improve our algorithm with Facebook (which will help our irregular promotions).
I look at it like this; sales of the books are funding the ads. Meanwhile, we are cultivating a following, which now consists of over a thousand people, who are fans of my father or military history and are consuming his content on a regular basis. These people interact with the content we publish, spreading it across Facebook. They tell their friends to follow us and/or read my dad’s books.
We now have access to a small audience of engaged, loyal customers – to whom we can launch new books, or sell – in the case of Pilot Error – military related products. The ads are selling books in the short term and developing a following in the long term. We’re building a brand and it's up to us to add value to this group of people. If we do this, the group will grow.
There are three main ways in which the blog builds an audience:
- People like the blog and so Facebook then allows me to invite them to join the group
- People comment on the blog and their friends see it
- People tell their friends about a particular post.
As well as building goodwill and an engaged audience, there are three main ways the blog increases sales:
- From time to time my dad writes about his books and sales of those books go up
- People sometimes tag their friends into posts to suggest they buy the book the post is about
- We sometimes make a sale offer within the blog post.
We try to use the 80/20 rule; 80% nothing to do with selling a book, 20% relating to one of his books or making a sales promotion.
I posted this video onto the Pilot Error Facebook page on the 75th anniversary (18th September 2020) of my grandfather's crash - the inspiration for Pilot Error. |
The front cover
A good front cover should seek to convey the emotions that will be roused by reading the book. It should also seek to appeal to the target market of the audience.
In May this year, I had two potential covers for Pilot Error made up to challenge the cover I created in 5 minutes in Microsoft Paint 9 years ago. I then ran a simple A/B test inside Facebook Ads for four days in three separate countries. These were the options:
In May this year, I had two potential covers for Pilot Error made up to challenge the cover I created in 5 minutes in Microsoft Paint 9 years ago. I then ran a simple A/B test inside Facebook Ads for four days in three separate countries. These were the options:
Virtually everybody under 40 who saw the options (I asked friends and did a post to the Facebook group to get feedback from our followers) was adamant that option 1 was best – by miles. Option 2 had no support at all and my father and a few of his older friends preferred option 3 (the incumbent). To me, it was clear that I had improved the cover by getting option 1 done. It was glaringly obvious.
But I was wrong. Every ad test I ran showed that Option 3 had a higher click through rate. This is the beauty of Facebook ads. They can solve these debates. Facebook ads can solve pretty much any kind of creative debate like this.
The method of getting three covers designed by three different designers is one that could dramatically change the sales figures of your book. Don’t allow your own beliefs to affect the truth of the market.
But I was wrong. Every ad test I ran showed that Option 3 had a higher click through rate. This is the beauty of Facebook ads. They can solve these debates. Facebook ads can solve pretty much any kind of creative debate like this.
The method of getting three covers designed by three different designers is one that could dramatically change the sales figures of your book. Don’t allow your own beliefs to affect the truth of the market.
Facebook ads
This video will show you exactly how to set up Facebook ads from scratch.
My strategy for Facebook ads for Kindle books is as follows:
STAGE 1 – Test the image
The image is the exact same JPEG as the winning front cover of your book. I tested the 2D picture against a picture of a printed version of the book and against a 3D mock-up of the book and the flat 2D image of the book cover won every time. When testing the front cover, use three ad sets within one campaign, with the image the only variable on each ad. Link it through to your book on Amazon, so you'll still benefit from some sales even during this test. It doesn't matter that two of your campaigns have different images than the Amazon listing.
STAGE 2: The copy
Fiction book adverts can’t follow the usual ad copyrighting formulas. It might be one of the reasons why so few books are advertised on Facebook. You can’t make an offer, promise a certain outcome, make price comparisons with other books, or extol the benefits of reading a certain book. All you can do, is hope to appeal to the right audience with writing that convinces the reader that the book will be enjoyable and or interesting to read.
In order to come up with tactics for ads, watch these videos about the 6 levels of persuasion by Robert Caldini and watch Ogilvy on Advertising. The main points to remember about writing ads are:
Try A/B testing the following copy formats:
Win the heart and the mind will follow.
Of all the ads I ran for Pilot Error, using the above ad types, the winning copy was always:
‘You’ll be blown away by the ending, but you won’t want it to end.’ ★★★★★
The stars give the social proof of the reviews on Amazon and the quotation marks make people notice it more. It evokes the curiosity of the ending of the book being good (Pilot Error does have a twist at the end) – enough to move people to the description page on Amazon - which acts as a sales page and has the social proof of the genuine 77 reviews and the nearly 5 star rating. Below are the three ads that were running up until my account was suspended recently (you can still click on them to see them in action).
My strategy for Facebook ads for Kindle books is as follows:
STAGE 1 – Test the image
The image is the exact same JPEG as the winning front cover of your book. I tested the 2D picture against a picture of a printed version of the book and against a 3D mock-up of the book and the flat 2D image of the book cover won every time. When testing the front cover, use three ad sets within one campaign, with the image the only variable on each ad. Link it through to your book on Amazon, so you'll still benefit from some sales even during this test. It doesn't matter that two of your campaigns have different images than the Amazon listing.
STAGE 2: The copy
Fiction book adverts can’t follow the usual ad copyrighting formulas. It might be one of the reasons why so few books are advertised on Facebook. You can’t make an offer, promise a certain outcome, make price comparisons with other books, or extol the benefits of reading a certain book. All you can do, is hope to appeal to the right audience with writing that convinces the reader that the book will be enjoyable and or interesting to read.
In order to come up with tactics for ads, watch these videos about the 6 levels of persuasion by Robert Caldini and watch Ogilvy on Advertising. The main points to remember about writing ads are:
- The first line acts as the headline in a Facebook ad and it is the most important thing. If your first line doesn’t induce curiosity, then you will lose the prospect
- You need to be inside their head. The ads that work are the ones that make the viewer believe that you understand their core personality. Not who they pretend to be, but who they actually are. Considering how good the psychographic targeting on Facebook is, you should be able to do this enough to have a few options to test.
- A good ad should make the viewer think 'Ah! That's for me!' and push them into wanting to find out more. Try to evoke the emotion that the book seeks to evoke from the reader of your book. Write the ad for that person you wrote the book for.
Try A/B testing the following copy formats:
- An interesting section of the book itself
- The synopsis – in long format
- The synopsis – cut down to one paragraph
- A customer review (pure social proof)
- No copy at all (this sometimes gets the most clicks, but rarely the most conversions)
- A statement about how many copies have been sold (pure social proof)
- News, i.e. ‘The latest book from David Spiller’
- A clever tagline. For example, The tagline for Weekend at Bernie’s is "He may be dead but he’s the life of the party." Use this article to help you come up with a tagline.
Win the heart and the mind will follow.
Of all the ads I ran for Pilot Error, using the above ad types, the winning copy was always:
‘You’ll be blown away by the ending, but you won’t want it to end.’ ★★★★★
The stars give the social proof of the reviews on Amazon and the quotation marks make people notice it more. It evokes the curiosity of the ending of the book being good (Pilot Error does have a twist at the end) – enough to move people to the description page on Amazon - which acts as a sales page and has the social proof of the genuine 77 reviews and the nearly 5 star rating. Below are the three ads that were running up until my account was suspended recently (you can still click on them to see them in action).
One reason to not frequently change your ads after the testing phase is because it’s time consuming. Another is because Facebook likes consistency. The most important though is the compounding affect that the comments and likes section has on sales. Some of our ads now have hundreds of comments on them – many speaking positively about the book. This amount of social proof is worth more than any copy-writing hack.
The more of a specific interest your book is to a particular audience, the more people are likely to care and consequently comment. These interactions will dramatically reduce the amount you pay for ads – remember Zuckerberg just wants people to enjoy being on Facebook. If your ads are part of this he will reduce their cost and show them to more people.
Another consequence of having highly engaged ads is that Facebook will then increase your relevancy score for all the ads you produce in the future. So if you sell a high ticket products it might even be worth running unrelated ads that you know will delight a particular audience, just to increase your relevancy score for your other products.
Look at how many comments there are on this one ad. It’s almost become a community. On this ad, someone has uploaded over 100 photos of the Burmese war.
When people react to an ad (like, happy face, love, angry, etc), Facebook allows you to invite them to join the group. If you are getting dozens a week, it’s much easier to use a mobile phone, as you can swipe down and invite everyone in seconds. Click the notifications bell on your Facebook account and there will be updates on your ads – clicking them will take you to your ad and show you all the people you are yet to invite.
The more of a specific interest your book is to a particular audience, the more people are likely to care and consequently comment. These interactions will dramatically reduce the amount you pay for ads – remember Zuckerberg just wants people to enjoy being on Facebook. If your ads are part of this he will reduce their cost and show them to more people.
Another consequence of having highly engaged ads is that Facebook will then increase your relevancy score for all the ads you produce in the future. So if you sell a high ticket products it might even be worth running unrelated ads that you know will delight a particular audience, just to increase your relevancy score for your other products.
Look at how many comments there are on this one ad. It’s almost become a community. On this ad, someone has uploaded over 100 photos of the Burmese war.
When people react to an ad (like, happy face, love, angry, etc), Facebook allows you to invite them to join the group. If you are getting dozens a week, it’s much easier to use a mobile phone, as you can swipe down and invite everyone in seconds. Click the notifications bell on your Facebook account and there will be updates on your ads – clicking them will take you to your ad and show you all the people you are yet to invite.
The beauty of Facebook ads is the targeting capabilities. Facebook knows everything about everyone, including what you like, what type of ad you respond to and whether or not you are a consistent purchaser of products advertised on Facebook.
STAGE 1
Put your head into the head of your perfect reader - who would they follow on Facebook? Whatever comes into your head – type that into the targeting box and see if Facebook has it as an option. So for Pilot Error, the obvious choice was ‘Military History’ which did exist. I tested against targeting ‘world war’ and ‘Royal Air Force’ (as an interest not an employer).
Use Facebook Audience Insights to give yourself ideas on which other pages your audience – or audiences of similar books to yours - are likely to follow and how big they are.
Set up a campaign for each relevant target market and kill the ones that don’t work. As you are unable to insert a Facebook Pixel into your Amazon page, you might want to run each ad separately to see which of the markets you are targeting are converting into sales.
As a second targeting category – I put in Amazon Kindle. There are 10 million people in the UK who like Kindle on Facebook so it won’t reduce your audience size by much and it will give you leads who are guaranteed to be e-book purchasers.
If your audience size is small, perhaps leave out a second targeting category – it is possible after all, that those who don’t like Kindle will buy the paperback or at least tag someone who does read into the ad.
So for pilot error, consumers of my ad must like military history and Amazon Kindle:
STAGE 1
Put your head into the head of your perfect reader - who would they follow on Facebook? Whatever comes into your head – type that into the targeting box and see if Facebook has it as an option. So for Pilot Error, the obvious choice was ‘Military History’ which did exist. I tested against targeting ‘world war’ and ‘Royal Air Force’ (as an interest not an employer).
Use Facebook Audience Insights to give yourself ideas on which other pages your audience – or audiences of similar books to yours - are likely to follow and how big they are.
Set up a campaign for each relevant target market and kill the ones that don’t work. As you are unable to insert a Facebook Pixel into your Amazon page, you might want to run each ad separately to see which of the markets you are targeting are converting into sales.
As a second targeting category – I put in Amazon Kindle. There are 10 million people in the UK who like Kindle on Facebook so it won’t reduce your audience size by much and it will give you leads who are guaranteed to be e-book purchasers.
If your audience size is small, perhaps leave out a second targeting category – it is possible after all, that those who don’t like Kindle will buy the paperback or at least tag someone who does read into the ad.
So for pilot error, consumers of my ad must like military history and Amazon Kindle:
STAGE 2
After about 3 days you can start to optimize your campaign by looking at which demographics are working best. With Pilot Error, it was obvious from the ad analysis that the target market was men aged over 50. I went back into the ad and edited the targeting to reflect these demographics. This will make your ads cheaper.
STAGE 3
Once you have over 500 followers of your Facebook page, you should include a campaign aimed at the much coveted Facebook lookalike audience for you Facebook profile page (which - if they have found you via the final page of your book - is made up of people who have read your book). Lookalike pages are where Facebook takes thousands of data points shared by followers of your page and shows ads to people Facebook thinks have psycho-graphics similar to those who already follow you.
By doing this and targeting the top 5-10% of the most likely to purchase within the lookalike audience, you might even achieve 1p clicks - which I did for a while in June. KEEP TESTING and ending the ones that don't at least break even..
After about 3 days you can start to optimize your campaign by looking at which demographics are working best. With Pilot Error, it was obvious from the ad analysis that the target market was men aged over 50. I went back into the ad and edited the targeting to reflect these demographics. This will make your ads cheaper.
STAGE 3
Once you have over 500 followers of your Facebook page, you should include a campaign aimed at the much coveted Facebook lookalike audience for you Facebook profile page (which - if they have found you via the final page of your book - is made up of people who have read your book). Lookalike pages are where Facebook takes thousands of data points shared by followers of your page and shows ads to people Facebook thinks have psycho-graphics similar to those who already follow you.
By doing this and targeting the top 5-10% of the most likely to purchase within the lookalike audience, you might even achieve 1p clicks - which I did for a while in June. KEEP TESTING and ending the ones that don't at least break even..
The Amazon Algorithm
One thing to consider is that Jeff Bezos – like Zucks – just cares about the happiness of customers on his site. So if your book is obviously catering to a certain type of person, Amazon will push it out to those people – much like a Facebook lookalike audience does.
If Amazon can’t figure out what the connecting dots are between the purchasers, the algorithm won't fire. This is another reason – at the beginning at least – why it is best to start with a small or medium sized target audience, rather than trying to sell to everyone in a particular country. |
Facebook strategies
1. It's important to start each ad off small. Doing this will stop you from wasting money on ads that don’t work – but it will also give Facebook time to build up an understanding of the psycho-graphics of the people the ads are working on.
2. Once you have some winning ads, you should try to scale them. BUT scale each ad no more than 25% at a time, leaving 3 days in between each upscale. For example, going from £1 a day to £1.25 then to £1.55, etc. Do this until increasing the spend stops increasing the number of sales. I got to around £18 a day until sales stopped increasing completely.
NOTE: Facebook doesn’t like it when you try to scale too quickly. If you try to scale more than 25%, Facebook views this as an ‘edit’ and starts its data process again. If you’re selling well, this can disrupt your winning streak.
3. One of my beliefs is that good marketers leave money on the table when it comes to ad cost. They are willing to pay more for the CAC, knowing that it’s an investment into future sales and word of mouth – rather than just the initial profit on the original sale.
4. There is no back end to Kindle – I can’t email those who purchase the books, but I can try to get them to follow my Facebook page (by including information about it in the book itself). Once the ads began, we started to see sales of books that hadn’t sold for years. These were purchases by people who had become brand loyal to my father as a writer. These people will then have more material to tell their friends about and so on…
5. Never change a successful ad. Just let it be. If your ad has been performing well at a decent spend, for some time, duplicate it then scale that one. Same goes for targeting, don’t try to change the target of a successful ad – duplicate the original and change the targeting. Then just delete the worst performers.
Facebook ads were extremely cheap during May and June –the corporate advertisers pulled out - and have only gone up slightly since then. I was buying clicks – straight to the sales page for 2p. Those clicks are now costing me 5p.
2. Once you have some winning ads, you should try to scale them. BUT scale each ad no more than 25% at a time, leaving 3 days in between each upscale. For example, going from £1 a day to £1.25 then to £1.55, etc. Do this until increasing the spend stops increasing the number of sales. I got to around £18 a day until sales stopped increasing completely.
NOTE: Facebook doesn’t like it when you try to scale too quickly. If you try to scale more than 25%, Facebook views this as an ‘edit’ and starts its data process again. If you’re selling well, this can disrupt your winning streak.
3. One of my beliefs is that good marketers leave money on the table when it comes to ad cost. They are willing to pay more for the CAC, knowing that it’s an investment into future sales and word of mouth – rather than just the initial profit on the original sale.
4. There is no back end to Kindle – I can’t email those who purchase the books, but I can try to get them to follow my Facebook page (by including information about it in the book itself). Once the ads began, we started to see sales of books that hadn’t sold for years. These were purchases by people who had become brand loyal to my father as a writer. These people will then have more material to tell their friends about and so on…
5. Never change a successful ad. Just let it be. If your ad has been performing well at a decent spend, for some time, duplicate it then scale that one. Same goes for targeting, don’t try to change the target of a successful ad – duplicate the original and change the targeting. Then just delete the worst performers.
Facebook ads were extremely cheap during May and June –the corporate advertisers pulled out - and have only gone up slightly since then. I was buying clicks – straight to the sales page for 2p. Those clicks are now costing me 5p.
A comment on commenting on comments
Once a month I set my father up at Facebook on my mum’s computer and he spends a few hours replying to comments on the ads. There are many and they usually relate to the emotional subject of war. My dad loves doing this as these as he loves seeing that people are enjoying his book.
This is what Gary Vaynerchuk calls ‘scaling the unscalable’. It makes no economic sense to spend time on comments – commenting to people who have already bought the book – but it builds up an audience of people who care about what you are doing. And guess what – they tell their friends. Oh and the algorithm loves it. |
Amazon Ads
Adverts that run within Amazon are arguably the greatest marketing product of all time. Marketing through Amazon means that you are able to target people who are in a buyer's mindset and actively searching for the type of thing that you are selling. Ads on Amazon appear in the sponsored section underneath the product listing of the page you are advertising on:
Even if you have a product that can’t be sold via Amazon, try creating an informative e-book with learnings from your industry and price it to break even. Include a page at the back with contact details and buy some ads against it.
Here’s what I did:
AUTOMATED TARGETING
This is where Amazon shows the ads on the books their algorithm deems to be related to your book. So the ad will show up in the ‘sponsored ads’ section underneath similar military books. The ad is an image of the front cover with an abbreviated description. Test with a budget of £5 a day.
MANUAL TARGETING is split into the following options:
Keyword:
This is where you choose specific search terms that Amazon customers are searching and bid against other people who want to advertise against those search terms. So I chose 'military novel, military history, RAF novel, second world war novel' etc.
Product is split into two further categories:
Categories: Where you choose the category of book and Amazon does the rest and
Product
Where you select the exact books you would like to advertise against. My method for doing this is as follows:
Go onto your book listing on Amazon. Scroll down to take a look at the books that appear on the 'books you may like' and the 'What other items do customers buy after viewing this item' and add all the books into your manual campaign.
Here’s what I did:
AUTOMATED TARGETING
This is where Amazon shows the ads on the books their algorithm deems to be related to your book. So the ad will show up in the ‘sponsored ads’ section underneath similar military books. The ad is an image of the front cover with an abbreviated description. Test with a budget of £5 a day.
MANUAL TARGETING is split into the following options:
Keyword:
This is where you choose specific search terms that Amazon customers are searching and bid against other people who want to advertise against those search terms. So I chose 'military novel, military history, RAF novel, second world war novel' etc.
Product is split into two further categories:
Categories: Where you choose the category of book and Amazon does the rest and
Product
Where you select the exact books you would like to advertise against. My method for doing this is as follows:
Go onto your book listing on Amazon. Scroll down to take a look at the books that appear on the 'books you may like' and the 'What other items do customers buy after viewing this item' and add all the books into your manual campaign.
Look through the books and add all those that share commonalities with your own book. Run the ads for a few days so that you can get an accurate cost per bid for each book and an accurate conversion rate for selling your own book.
Make sure to turn off ‘broad’ targeting as you will pay for less warm leads.
Set your average bid low and increase slowly if you aren’t getting any impressions. Once your campaign has run for a few days, Amazon will show you what the average bid for each keyword is. In most cases, I would then shut off the expensive ones, unless they are converting.
Again, getting in readers is more important that figuring out the exact percentage cost of acquisition and sticking to some kind of formula in order to make a profit.. If the campaigns are working and roughly breaking even, see them as an investment into the brand.
Make sure to turn off ‘broad’ targeting as you will pay for less warm leads.
Set your average bid low and increase slowly if you aren’t getting any impressions. Once your campaign has run for a few days, Amazon will show you what the average bid for each keyword is. In most cases, I would then shut off the expensive ones, unless they are converting.
Again, getting in readers is more important that figuring out the exact percentage cost of acquisition and sticking to some kind of formula in order to make a profit.. If the campaigns are working and roughly breaking even, see them as an investment into the brand.
My dad has written another book which I turned into a website – a translation into English of the lyrics of the famous Brazilian singer – Chico Buarque (pictured above). This topic is so specific that it is one of the only websites of its kind and generates about 30 visitors a week.
On the website are two links to pilot error – on the homepage and and on a page that I labelled ‘shop’ – a listing of all my dad’s books.
I’ve included a page on the Chico site that contains the same blog that goes out on all three Facebook pages for my dad's three most popular books - including Pilot Error. The Blog has a link to the Pilot Error Facebook page as its only call to action.
This simple Chico Buarque website is the only way I make any attempt to pull in potential customers from Google – in the sense that both the homepage containing the Chico Buarque lyrics and the Blog content sucks in some organic traffic from Google. These customers are hot leads for my dad's music booksm but the hope is that they enter into the David Spiller eco system, and follow Pilot Error on Facebook.
Here are the main SEO tricks I used, these tips will work on any website:
- make sure all the meta descriptions and page descriptions are for 'Chico Barque translated into English'
- rename all images on the site so they are called 'Chico Buarque translated into English'
- try to get my dad to write a few blog articles with the words Chico Buarque scattered throughout
- create content in the hope that other credible websites want to link to your page.
If you or your dad have any content you can turn into a website, try using it as a lead magnet for your book. If your website is about a niche subject you'll pull in traffic without much effort.
On the website are two links to pilot error – on the homepage and and on a page that I labelled ‘shop’ – a listing of all my dad’s books.
I’ve included a page on the Chico site that contains the same blog that goes out on all three Facebook pages for my dad's three most popular books - including Pilot Error. The Blog has a link to the Pilot Error Facebook page as its only call to action.
This simple Chico Buarque website is the only way I make any attempt to pull in potential customers from Google – in the sense that both the homepage containing the Chico Buarque lyrics and the Blog content sucks in some organic traffic from Google. These customers are hot leads for my dad's music booksm but the hope is that they enter into the David Spiller eco system, and follow Pilot Error on Facebook.
Here are the main SEO tricks I used, these tips will work on any website:
- make sure all the meta descriptions and page descriptions are for 'Chico Barque translated into English'
- rename all images on the site so they are called 'Chico Buarque translated into English'
- try to get my dad to write a few blog articles with the words Chico Buarque scattered throughout
- create content in the hope that other credible websites want to link to your page.
If you or your dad have any content you can turn into a website, try using it as a lead magnet for your book. If your website is about a niche subject you'll pull in traffic without much effort.
The audiobook version of Pilot Error makes Tommy Wiseau’s performance in The Room sound like Daniel Day Lewis. The guy even sounds a bit like Tommy Wiseau. It might be worth buying purely for the comedy - especially his attempt at an Irish accent.
The audiobook was done by an American guy who offered to do the 6 hours and 39 minutes of recording for a profit share (we’ve sold 79 copies in 5 years so he probably regrets that now). I for one was not going to sit through the whole thing to see if it was any good. Turns out it wasn’t.
If you do start getting sales of your book, it might be worth investing in a vocal artist to record an audiobook version. The profits for the audiobook are higher and as you’re advertising your book anyway you may as well offer the full suite of products. I also have a feeling that it might be beneficial for your algorithm to have an audiobook attached to your e-book and paperback, but I can’t prove this.
www.acx.com is the platform where it’s all done. You can find potential voice artists to work with within ACX, some of whom may agree to do it for a cut of the profits. Once complete, ACX will publish your audiobook to Amazon (it joins your existing book listing), iTunes and Audible.
The audiobook was done by an American guy who offered to do the 6 hours and 39 minutes of recording for a profit share (we’ve sold 79 copies in 5 years so he probably regrets that now). I for one was not going to sit through the whole thing to see if it was any good. Turns out it wasn’t.
If you do start getting sales of your book, it might be worth investing in a vocal artist to record an audiobook version. The profits for the audiobook are higher and as you’re advertising your book anyway you may as well offer the full suite of products. I also have a feeling that it might be beneficial for your algorithm to have an audiobook attached to your e-book and paperback, but I can’t prove this.
www.acx.com is the platform where it’s all done. You can find potential voice artists to work with within ACX, some of whom may agree to do it for a cut of the profits. Once complete, ACX will publish your audiobook to Amazon (it joins your existing book listing), iTunes and Audible.
Or maybe you have written something yourself?
How would it feel to be published? With people actually reading the book.
Few books are currently being marketed in this way as publishers and writers believe the profit margins to be too small. They aren’t viewing the marketing as an investment to build a community, so there is a huge opportunity.
If you would like to speak to me about your own book, fill out the form below. I'll reply with my thoughts on your book.
Here’s what we can talk about:
I can create the e-book and paperback versions and do all the technical stuff including TWO front covers using my favourite designer which I will AB test to find a winner. I can set up your Facebook ads, targeted at the exact people who are most likely to buy your book.
How would it feel to be published? With people actually reading the book.
Few books are currently being marketed in this way as publishers and writers believe the profit margins to be too small. They aren’t viewing the marketing as an investment to build a community, so there is a huge opportunity.
If you would like to speak to me about your own book, fill out the form below. I'll reply with my thoughts on your book.
Here’s what we can talk about:
- What kind of audience your book might have and how to target them (remember, Facebook allows campaigns to run from £2 a day, so we can test the concept very cheaply)
- Which marketing tactics might work
- What kind of cover to use and which designer to use.
I can create the e-book and paperback versions and do all the technical stuff including TWO front covers using my favourite designer which I will AB test to find a winner. I can set up your Facebook ads, targeted at the exact people who are most likely to buy your book.