Kindle Book Advertising is a cost-per-click (CPC) advertising program that allows you to pay to have your book displayed as a sponsored product ad on websites.
Almost everyone is aware of how successful a business self-publishing can be. Many self-published authors make six or even seven figures from their works each year, and others even go on to earn multimillion dollar book or movie agreements.
Naturally, writing the book is the simple part. Whether you want to believe it or not, publishing the book is truly only the start.
Once the book is out there, it must be promoted for it to succeed. The likelihood of your book becoming a success without making a big marketing effort is minimal to none.
You will discover the most effective strategies for Kindle book advertising in this guide. No matter the genre or whether you’re publishing fiction or non-fiction, you’ll find out how to sell as many copies of your book as you can.
You’ll discover the top paid and free traffic sources, as well as how to maximize the potential of each resource. You’ll also discover how to schedule your KDP advertising activities to improve outcomes.
Kindle Select Program
The KDP Select program has generated significant attention in the self-publishing community ever since it was initially set up, but never more so than now that Kindle Unlimited Self-Publishing has been made available.
The KDP Select program initially only offered a few advantages. It lets you run up to five free promotions or discounted rates over the course of a 90-day period, and it allows you to get paid each time an Amazon Prime member used their one free Kindle eBook credit per month to borrow your book.
This didn’t result in much income, and you could run a free Kindle book advertising by simply setting the book’s price at zero at another retailer (like Barnes & Noble or Kobo) and then requesting Amazon to match that price.
The only significant negative was that you had to be Amazon’s exclusive for 90-day intervals (although you had the choice to remove your book at the conclusion of the term).
This prevented you from uploading your book to any of the other websites, but as Amazon was by far the most widely used eBook retailer, some people thought it was worthwhile.
Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited Publishing in the summer of 2014. Potential readers may borrow up to 10 volumes at once for around $10 per month, and an infinite number overall.
A part of the basic budget was paid to KDP authors. The author would get compensated for that borrow provided at least 10% of the book was really read.
Depending on the overall number of books borrowed that month, the borrowed value changed, and each borrower presented a part of the total budget Amazon set aside for borrowing that month.
Potential readers got on board in large numbers, and authors soon realized they could profit greatly from such borrowings.
In the beginning, KDP authors received payments of up to $2 per borrow, a proportion of the overall fund dependent on how often their book was taken in comparison to other works in the program.
Over the course of a year, this amount decreased until loans totaling less than $1.40 were made. For the majority, it was still decent money.
Then, barely a year after the program’s launch, significant revisions were made in the summer of 2015. Many referred to this as “Kindle Unlimited 2,” or KU2.
When a reader finished 10% of the book, they no longer had to pay a fixed price; instead, they began paying by the number of pages read. This figure began at about $0.0057 per page read and gradually decreased.
This may have been a benefit for those who had lengthy novels that were finished, but it resulted in a significant decrease in revenue for many authors.
So, is KDP Select worth it?
Long story short, yes.
From a promotional perspective, KDP Select is still crucial. In terms of creating bestseller lists, a borrow counts as a sale even if the borrower never ever reads the book.
Every time someone uses their Kindle Unlimited subscription to borrow a book, that title receives a boost on the bestselling lists. At the time of this writing, this offers novels in the KDP Select program a significant boost that other books just can’t obtain. This may change in the future.
Another benefit is the free days. Without needing to make the book permanently free, you might perhaps draw attention to it by conducting a brief free advertising campaign (or timed discount).
If you have a series of books, this is very beneficial since you can use your free days to get one book downloaded and then advertise the other books in the series after the one that is now free.
The choice to join KDP Select is ultimately a personal one. Are you prepared to forget possible sales at other websites? You just need to be exclusive for 90-days, keep this in mind. Then you could decide to upload your book somewhere else after removing it from the KDP Select program.
Enrolling with KDP Select is still beneficial for many people. Borrows may not bring in as much money, but for most individuals, the advertising KDP value outweighs that. It could be more difficult to decide if you have a large fan base and earn well at other businesses.
Kindle Book Reviews
Before we talk about reviews, it’s important to understand that Amazon strongly prohibits any sort of bribery and any form of requesting reviews, especially good ones. This might have devastating results and cost you your whole KDP account. Never do it!
After clearing that out, we can start talking about reviews seriously.
Unless you specifically request a good review from the reader, Amazon does not consider giving out a free copy of your book in return for a review to constitute bribery.
The fact that you’re giving away a free copy of your book in return for a frank review must be made clear.
An ARC is a copy of your book that you are giving away before it is released. Advance Review Copy is what this term denotes. Offering ARCs before publishing is usual practice to allow readers time to read the book before it is published so that reviews may be found the day the book is launched.
It is only referred to as a Review Copy if you are providing a copy of your book for review after it has been released.
In addition to receiving reviews on launch day, which increase book sales, releasing ARCs before release also avoids the danger of offending Amazon by offering copies of your book elsewhere.
In KDP Select, keep in mind that your book MUST be exclusively available through Amazon, and YES, they DO include review copies in that. (It may sound absurd, but it’s true.)
So, if you want to be in KDP Select, you must give free copies PRIOR TO publishing.
You might offer to buy a copy for the reviewer on Amazon if you wish to provide review copies after publication. Just add the reader’s email when buying the book as a gift. The reader will receive the book as a result.
You could also use your five days of free kindle book advertising to let people know they can obtain your book for nothing in exchange for a frank review. Be sure to express your gratitude for their time!
Where can you find reviewers to send copies to then? Facebook and GoodReads are the ideal locations. In the next sections, we will examine both locations in further detail.
Another reliable source of reviews are book bloggers, who have entire sites devoted to discussing books. Many of them will copy their evaluations into Amazon and other websites, which might bring you a lot of traffic from their blogs.
Kindle Book Advertising Tips
If you’re a Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) author, you can now use Amazon Advertising to promote your books on Amazon.com or other websites.
Benefits of using Kindle Book Advertising include:
- Increased visibility for your book
- The ability to target your ads to specific customers
- Pay only when customers click your ad
- No long-term commitment – you can start and stop your ad campaign at any time
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups differ from fan pages in several ways. In essence, substantial message posting on Facebook fan pages is limited to the administrator.
Few people really look at the little section on the side of the Facebook page where messages from fans appear when they post them. Various groups exist. Members of groups have the same posting privileges as page administrators, and their postings appear in the members’ news feeds.
The first thing to understand about Facebook groups is that you CAN NOT expect to get away with drive-by posting. While some groups only exist to promote KDP books, many groups include posting guidelines.
For instance, if you joined one of the organizations for readers of romance novels, you’d undoubtedly find that many of them had guidelines like:
- Only active members who have been posting non-ad messages for a predetermined amount of time are eligible to place an ad.
- You’re only allowed to see so much advertising in a certain time period, like two per month.
- Kindle book advertising must be relevant to the group’s subject or limited to books at specific price points (such as 99 cents or free).
Before you ever join, make sure you carefully read the group’s guidelines. There is no use in joining a group to promote your Kindle books if it doesn’t allow any advertising at all or if you think it would be too difficult.
It could be too much work for you to put in the effort if you must post consistently for a month before being allowed to submit an ad.
The good thing about these guidelines is that they make it simpler for you to achieve your goals. People will find and appreciate you if you post often and engage in the group; as a result, they will be much more inclined to buy your books. It helps both parties.
In addition to being a terrific location to advertise, Facebook groups are also the ideal place to find readers who are willing to review your book in exchange for a free copy.
Just keep in mind that many groups will likely treat providing a review copy as a Kindle book advertising. As a result, make careful to keep note of how often you do this in each group to ensure that you don’t exceed your distributed promos.
Simply searching for groups related to your topic on Facebook is the simplest method to find them.
You will start getting recommendations for more groups you might want to join once you have joined a few in a certain subject area.
To find general audiences to advertise to, you may also search for phrases like “Kindle Unlimited,” “free eBooks,” and other terms of a similar kind.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads used to be a goldmine for promoting books, but with the level of competition now, you might find it a little more challenging. However, if you’re diligent with your ads, a successful Facebook ad has the potential to generate a sizable return.
When promoting books on Facebook, there are a few things to bear in mind. The first is that you need to thoroughly understand their guidelines.
They are quite picky about the kinds of stuff they leave on their site, and you might be surprised by some of the things they don’t.
For instance, they won’t run ads for romance books that feature a shirtless male or a lady in lingerie because they don’t accept book covers that reveal too much skin.
Some people might be surprised to learn that they don’t allow adverts for goods associated with categories like dating and herbal weight reduction supplements.
An advertisement for such a product may occasionally slip through, but in most cases, it won’t be long before it is found and taken down.
The cost of an advertisement is independent of the level of competition. Like many other ad networks, this one does not allow you to choose a precise price per click.
Instead, the cost is decided by variables like the number of interactions your advertisement receives (likes, shares, etc.)
They do this to make sure that only ads that viewers are interested in are displayed, which makes sense. So, the less expensive your clicks will be, the more engaging your advertisement might be.
Kindle Book Promotion Sites
You may advertise on a variety of very well-liked book-related websites for a fee. Many of the highly famous websites are rather pricey, and many of them only take reduced or free fiction.
You might be confused as to why they have a price ceiling since they are paying you to promote your Kindle book. Well, it’s mostly because those who sign up for their mailing list do so to learn about free and drastically reduced books. They will lose subscribers if they allow full-price books.
Many of these sites have additional specifications in addition to needing you to offer a discount or free Kindle promotion. Some demand that your book has a specific quantity of reviews and a specific average rating for those reviews, such an average of four stars.
Others want a particular length. Some people only consider the outside of your clothing while making decisions about you.
In order to keep the high caliber of their roster, they might be rather fussy. They will lose list response if they constantly advertise junk. If they primarily promote excellent KDP books at low costs, their members will read their emails more often and buy more books.
Remember that many of these locations only accept adverts for fiction novels, so it could be challenging to find sites to promote your non-fiction KDP book.
Here is a list of some of the best locations to buy Kindle book advertising:
- Bargainbooksy
- Thebooksmachine
- Choosybookworm
- Ereadernewstoday
- Thefussylibrarian
- BookHub
- Justkindlebooks
- Theereadercafe
- Kindlenationdaily
- Themidlist
- Pixelofink
Goodreads
Goodreads is a website designed exclusively for readers. It enables users to rate and review books, add titles to their own shelves for later reading, find new titles, and connect with other readers.
A wonderful location to find potential book reviewers is on Goodreads. Find readers of publications that are comparable to yours and contact them to offer them a copy of your book in exchange for a frank review. You may also join communities where you can discover more readers.
Conclusion
Although Kindle publishing may be a successful career, it does require a lot of Kindle book advertising to generate book sales. You can’t expect to create a book, have it published, then just sit back and collect your earnings. Although it is conceivable, this is highly improbable.
Thankfully, there are several effective strategies to market your book. Many of these techniques are cost-free, and the ones that aren’t are often quite successful.
The most important thing to bear in mind is that most of your Kindle book advertising should be carried out either just before or immediately after the publication of your book.
Because it’s tougher for older novels to enter the bestseller lists, you could discover that your efforts have virtually little impact if you wait until after your book has been released. Act now, whilst your book is still fresh.
Naturally, this isn’t always the case. For instance, there’s a significant possibility you may make the FREE bestselling lists, which are different from the main lists if you make your earlier book free and then promote it.
Your chances of succeeding in Kindle book advertising increase as you put more work into it. If you can, take the time and make a little investment. The work will be worth in my opinion.