Amazon Opens up Advertising to Traditionally Published Authors

by Susan U. Neal RN, MBA, MHS @SusanNealYoga

An integral part of selling books is marketing. I’ve found Amazon ads to be a vital part of my high book sale volume. I took a couple of courses to learn how to run Amazon ads. It took seven months to get the hang of it before my ads became profitable. But since then, for every hundred dollars I’ve spent on ads, I’ve made almost $200 in profit. Amazon wants their cut of your profits. If your book sells well and you are willing to split the profit, Amazon will display your book ad before potential buyers, which results in more sales. 

Since there are millions and millions of books listed on Amazon, it may be difficult for a reader to find your book unless they type your book’s title into the search bar, Amazon displays an ad of your book, or it is listed in the Amazon best sellers list for a category (top 100 books in any category is on the best seller list). For example, 7 Steps to Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates is listed in the Healthy Diets Amazon Best Sellers list. To improve your chances of your book ranking high in a category, you should expand your Amazon categories from three to ten. But that is another topic. If interested, read my article Improve Your Book’s Amazon Rank or take the course, Improve Your Book’s Amazon Rank by Expanding Categories & Strengthening Keywords. 

Prior to March 2022, traditionally published authors could not run Amazon ads, so they had to rely on their publishers to run their book’s ads. Only self-published authors using Kindle Direct Publishing or Amazon Advantage vendors could run these ad campaigns for their books. As of March 2022, any author with a verified Amazon Author Central account can place Amazon ads for any book including traditionally published books. For now, this is only for the US marketplace. Traditionally published authors should login to their Amazon Author Central account or establish an account for free if they don’t have one. Click on the Reports + Marketing tab and look for the button that goes to the ads console. From there, you can set up your ads. Step-by-step instructions are provided in this article, How to Use Amazon Ads as a Traditionally-Published Author.

Amazon Ad Training Resources

Paid advertising has a steep learning curve. If you want to learn the basics of Amazon ads, these offerings are available: 

• Kindlepreneur offers a free course
• Amazon Zero2Hero at https://amazona2z.teachable.com/p/amazon-zero2hero
• Nicholas Erik has some of the best guidance on advertising for indie authors

Learning how to create and manage the ads is imperative, as you could lose a lot of money. Since authors can lose money, many are hesitant to advertise because it is risky. If you would prefer someone to manage your ads for you, here is a reputable company: 

• Warrior Book Marketing Group specializes in Amazon Marketing. To find out more, contact vincent@warriorbookmarketing.com

It’s challenging to run profitable ads even for those with experience. Whether you decide to take a class and manage your own Amazon ads or pay someone else to do it, Amazon ads are effective. 

Stiffer Competition

This expansion will increase competition for Amazon ads and, therefore, ad costs. As usual, the big winner here is Amazon, with an advertising revenue of $31 billion and counting. In the future, watch out for ad requirements in a traditionally published contract. If a traditionally published author runs Amazon ads, the chance of profitability decreases even further for them because they typically earn less per copy than self-published authors. The availability of traditional authors to place Amazon ads could affect publishers’ marketing expectations of authors. What do you think?

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Susan U. Neal, RN, MBA, MHS: Susan’s mission is to improve the health of the body of Christ. She has her RN and MBA degrees, as well as a master’s in health science. She is a CERTIFIED HEALTH AND WELLNESS COACHwith the American Association of Christian Counselors. She published five books, the Selah award winner 7 STEPS TO GET OFF SUGAR AND CARBOHYDRATES, CHRISTIAN STUDY GUIDE FOR 7 STEPS TO GET OFF SUGAR AND CARBOHYDRATES, HEALTHY LIVING JOURNAL, SCRIPTURE YOGAa #1 Amazon best-selling yoga book, and YOGA FOR BEGINNERSwhich ranked #3. She published two sets of Christian Yoga Card Decks and two Christian Yoga DVDs that are available at CHRISTINAYOGA.COM. Her digital product HOW TO PREVENT, IMPROVE, AND REVERSE ALZHEIMER’S AND DEMENTIAis a great resource. To learn more about Susan visit her website SUSANUNEAL.COMYou can also connect with Susan on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and INSTAGRAM.