On Mastering Amazon Ads for Indie Authors with Sonja Dewing

Hey friends! In this episode of Talking Book Publishing, Kathleen and Adanna sit down with indie author and Amazon ads expert Sonja Dewing. Trust us—you don’t want to miss it! Sonja spills all the details about her journey from traditional publishing roadblocks to thriving as a self-published author. She shares how her first book, Toy of the Gods, overcame early rejection to become a hit, and she’s here to help you navigate the world of Amazon ads.

Sonja's got you covered if you’ve ever wondered how to get your book in front of the right readers. She breaks down the secrets of running successful Amazon ad campaigns, explains why organic traffic is key, and even talks about how Facebook ads can work together with Amazon. Oh, and did we mention she’s hosting a webinar on October 24 for WPN (wpnwebinars.com to register) where you can learn even more? Tune in for some real-world advice and actionable tips that could help boost your book sales without breaking the bank.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:02 SPEAKER_02
Hello, and welcome to Talking Book Publishing. I'm Kathleen Kaiser, along with my co-host Adanna Moriarty. And today we have Sonia Dewing, who is a really very interesting author, but someone who really went after understanding Amazon and how to work Amazon ads. In fact, she's going to be doing a webinar later in October for us. But I wanted you all to get to know Sonja first and understand who she is and a very talented woman. So welcome, Sonja. Thank you.

00:00:37 SPEAKER_01
you.

00:00:38 SPEAKER_02
So tell us about your books, how you got started. We'd love to hear how people started. A lot of people didn't start, you know, immediately as a young person being an author. So tell

00:00:51 SPEAKER_01
us your journey. Absolutely. Well, I, my first book that I wanted to get published was called is, is called Toy of the Gods. And I really wanted to go to the traditional route. And I started searching for agents. except one of the agents that I was really excited to meet told me, no one is going to read an adventure novel with a main female character. And so that set me back for probably another year. And then I found a small publisher because I basically, I felt like I needed someone to tell me my book was good enough. So then I eventually took the book back from the small publisher because I am very savvy with technology, and I didn't like the kind of marketing they were doing. So I took my books back, my book back, and I've self-published ever since. So I'm super happy being an indie author. And by the way, that book has sold a lot of copies, so that agent was wrong.

00:01:55 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but Amazon ads like that was, you know, there are so many books out there, so many. And really, there's got to be a way to get, you know, your book in front of your ideal reader. And so I wanted to learn Amazon ads. And in this case, I ran into another organization during an online conference, and they were looking for someone to take over their Amazon ads. And I kind of told them, well, I know about this much. And they're like, well, you know, more than more people. So we're most people. So we're going to hire you now. Like, OK. So they hired Grace Point Publishing, hired me to run their ads. And. In the beginning, it was very obvious their ads were losing money. So basically, I turned off all their ads and restarted everything from scratch. And it was kind of like a test. It was an awful, an awfully awesome way to learn is using all these 40 books that they had. And so basically took them from losing money on their ads to making money. So I've learned a lot about Amazon ads. And now these days I run ads for certain authors. I run ads for myself. And so I feel like Amazon ads and Facebook ads are really great opportunities for authors to target their ideal audience. I totally agree with that.

00:03:16 SPEAKER_00
agree with that.

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We had a client last year, early last year, who was with an imprint at Simon & Schuster, which ended up being a nightmare, but that's another story. But in working with them, I got to work with the gal who runs Simon & Schuster, at least for a group of imprints, all their Amazon ads. And it was really interesting, because I'd ask her questions. She'd tell me what she was looking for, how she was doing it. And I went, oh, this is cool. I had no idea you could do this or that. And that's all she did all day for, I think, five or six imprints and all of their titles. And she was telling me how long it would ramp up, different things like that. Does it take a while to get off the ground, do you find? Absolutely. Well, and also

00:04:10 SPEAKER_01
also it depends on how long your book has been on Amazon. If your book is recently published, it's a better opportunity for using Amazon ads because Amazon is kinder to those books that are more recently published or higher on the Amazon listings. Right. So higher on the charts. It's actually better if you have an old book that you haven't been making a lot of sales. Facebook ads are actually better to kind of get momentum versus starting with Amazon ads. But Amazon ads are like, I like to compare them to a train going up a steep hill. because you have to feed it a lot of information to get those that that Amazon ad training train to start running. And yeah, so it can the older your book is, the harder it can be to get that ad going. So you're saying if

00:05:05 SPEAKER_00
if you had like a backlist of books that you're trying to revive, you would run. Facebook ads for a while and then run an Amazon ad, like, absolutely. Some sales into it and trigger the algorithm to absolutely make it move forward. Kind of. Yeah. And I

00:05:23 SPEAKER_01
And I mean, the whole goal of Amazon ads, too, is to get organic traffic. even though you're paying for ads, the more sales you start making, the more Amazon will start showing your book to potential readers for free, right? People are going to see your book in the also bots or they're going to see it, you know, in other places in Amazon. If you are starting an Amazon with a book that has made very little sales or hasn't sold a book in a year or more, Amazon, it's not being mean to your book. It just doesn't know what to do with your book, right? Because it doesn't have enough information to serve that ad to the right people. So if you do a Facebook ad and you start getting sales, Amazon is going to be kinder to that book because it's starting to see who your ideal reader

00:06:17 SPEAKER_00
is. Yeah. Yeah. But that makes sense. Like, I mean, I feel like that's kind of how algorithms work everywhere. I mean, it's the same thing with using hashtags on Instagram. I mean, you know, you're trying to drive people to your page so it will come up on, you know, you might also like, like, I mean, that's, that's the whole goal always is

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the whole

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is to, you know, get visibility in as many places as you want. So that's interesting though.

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Yeah, I like that. With Facebook, what do you find as challenges in starting a Facebook campaign? Say someone was going to

00:06:56 SPEAKER_01
do that. Well, I think finding really great images that capture someone's eye, the kind of ads I like to run, you're actually uploading three different images and you're allowing Facebook to choose which one will work the best. And so I tend to, use Canva to create my images. And then I will, what I'll do is I'll look at other ads. Like if I'm scrolling Facebook and an ad catches my eye, I'll stop and take a picture of it because that's the goal of a Facebook ad, right? To stop the scroll. So creating an image that gives someone an immediate feeling of your genre and that it's a book, right? You don't want just an image of a woman, you know, running through a fire, right? You want an actual book image with maybe the fire behind it, right? Something like that, that gives them genre, that it's a book, that it's for sale, click this button and go buy it, right? So, but the nice thing is if you have three different images, you can upload those into a single ad. and Facebook will serve those, well basically it will test out those three images and find out what works better and start serving that single image and suddenly your ad starts working better. So I think just figuring out what your image should look like, yeah.

00:08:28 SPEAKER_01
Can I answer the question? Sorry. I think what you're really showing is that people need to know how to design these

00:08:31 SPEAKER_02
what you're really showing is that people need to know how to design these ads. I mean, that that's a whole art form in itself of being able to get an image and an emotion, like what you said, with the back image being showing the genre, the book cover, the brief message. that's kind of a very good skill you seem to have perfected. How long did it take you to really work on that?

00:09:01 SPEAKER_01
Hmm. That's a good question. I, I, I love designing and I feel like, I mean, I am not a graphic designer. I don't do my own covers because that's just crazy because I'm not good at it. But so I hire other people for that, but I feel like I'm comfortable enough creating a, You know, an image for Facebook and actually, if you get something like a book brush has opportunities there where you can upload your cover and create images for social media and for ad campaigns. Or if you, if you are more adept at designing, you can use something like Canva or, or you could hire someone if you're not comfortable. Like if I was not comfortable designing an image, I would go to one of my cover artists and say, Hey, could you. Take the cover and do something like this and, and tell them, you know, what size images I'm looking for. But yeah, it all depends on your level of comfort too. Right. With technology.

00:10:03 SPEAKER_02
Yeah. Now, I have a question because Facebook and Instagram are linked often. Do your ads, if you place it on Facebook, does it also go to Instagram or not? So you have a

00:10:14 SPEAKER_01
a choice. When you place an ad, you can tell Facebook where you want them to put it. However, Research has shown that your ad is better placed just on Facebook, that you will get clicks on all the other things that Facebook does, but you won't generally get sales. So when I set up an ad, I will keep it only on Facebook. Yeah. I just wanted to touch

00:10:40 SPEAKER_00
wanted to touch back on the design part that also, I mean, if you're not a designer and you're unsure of what it should look like, you can look at what other people are doing in your genre. You know, this idea that we're an island is silly because there are things that work per genre, especially in the digital marketing world. Like when you're, when you're expanding into that, what works for romance is not going to work for sci-fi. And what works for sci-fi is definitely not going to work for nonfiction. And that goes from everything from what your images look like in your ad copy to to also what you're posting, right?

00:11:24 SPEAKER_01
Yeah. And it's, I mean, all those things. Yes, absolutely. What I was thinking about when you said that was that not only could you, you could test, maybe you're not ready to spend money on Facebook ads, but if you created some images and share them to a group of writers and said, Hey, what genre does this make you think of? Would you click on this image? you know, that's an opportunity. If you, if you, if you can't hire somebody, cause I know a lot of us indie authors maybe don't make a lot of money, but asking people for their honest opinion on, you know, what's the genre, would you click this button? And that's the thing though, that could be more difficult with Facebook ads, Amazon ads. You, if you're doing just a sponsored ad, the only image you get is your cover. You can't make any changes to the image that they show. So it's easier for those of, uh, for those who don't want to worry about images, but you do have to make sure that your, the cover of your book is going, oh, that the cover of your book is going to portray your genre immediately to anyone who sees your ad. So step one, make sure you have a great cover. And

00:12:44 SPEAKER_00
your cover has to look good at like an inch tall.

00:12:48 SPEAKER_01
Right, right, like a postage stamp size almost sometimes, yeah. And in black and white for if like you do the Kindle ad. Yeah, and I'll talk about this more in the webinar as

00:12:54 SPEAKER_00
and white for if like you do the Kindle

00:12:59 SPEAKER_01
talk about this more in the webinar as well, but I suggest you don't do the Kindle ads because basically, more research, I love reading about research. Most people will not buy a book from their Kindle. So if you ever find the lock screen, actually, I think I didn't see the lock screen ads the other day. They may have removed them. I think they decided to get rid of those because nobody was using them because no one was buying from the lock screens on the Kindle. So, yeah, don't if they're available, don't use them. Interesting. That's

00:13:36 SPEAKER_00
That's good. That's really good information, because when you're setting up Amazon ads for your book, they ask you like, you know, do you want this? And do you want this for your, you know, the lock screen ad? And yeah, that's good info. Yeah. I've been doing

00:13:53 SPEAKER_01
doing this a

00:13:54 SPEAKER_02
a while. I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. I interrupted. Well, we hit this is this is really interesting. How do you go about because I'm I started life in market research. I was a publicist for years before that. But in market research is when I really got into what it takes to do stuff corporately. How do you go about doing market research on Amazon ads? Where do you find all this information?

00:14:24 SPEAKER_01
So that's a good question. So you're saying, for example, someone wanted to run an ad, how would they figure it out?

00:14:33 SPEAKER_02
Well, how would they figure it out? And yeah, and what's good and what works and what doesn't work besides taking our webinar? Right. Well, you know, if you're out there and you're, you know, you have a little like, say, if I wanted to figure it out, what would I go after? I mean, are there groups are there? I know there's loose configurations of people who work with Amazon a lot, and they're sort of a they all sort of talk to each other and share things when they you know like when they what was it two years ago they fired the 1400 people and the kindle and all of that stuff right that spread like wildfire really quickly it wasn't like some official announcement going out right

00:15:15 SPEAKER_01
Well, okay. I know, I think earlier you mentioned that you thought I was part of a group, which I'm not, I'm, I have a group, but it's not for Amazon ads. I ran, I run women's thriller writers association and everyone else is not really into Amazon ads. It's just me. I keep track of updates by kind of watching Facebook groups with writers in them, just general writers groups. And then basically by doing Amazon ads, I mean, Amazon has tried to do some training, but Amazon, I feel like Amazon is more interested in you spending your money versus giving you the research and saying, well, you may not want to use this ad, but you can use this one, right? So like right now, they're making a lot of changes to sponsored brand ads to make it really cool. And you can upload videos to your ad and blah, blah, blah. Sponsored brand ads are the ones that you see across the very top. And you have to have at least three books to do a sponsored brand ad. But they also spend a ton of money because everybody who opens up Amazon and looks for a book is going to see a sponsored brand ad. And they're going to most likely click on that ad. But because they're not as targeted, you get a lot of clicks. And every time someone clicks, you're spending money. but not as many people purchase from that ad. So those ads tend to overspend, but Amazon wants you, you know, to use that kind of ad because they can make more money. So I feel like going to Amazon for training is probably, and looking at their education, it's probably not the best option, right? And some of the tips and tricks I'll be showing are like how to not overspend on your ads. Cause I know when I was first publishing and I was first using Amazon ads, I spent $500 in one week and didn't make any sales. And so I don't do that anymore. I spend maybe $20 a week, maybe less. And I make at least three or four sales a week per book. So it's like, yeah, knowing the secrets of not overspending. how you would know that? Like I do have a book about Amazon ads, but yeah. And I think there, I'm sure there's others who have their books out there as well about Amazon ads. But other than that, I don't know how else you'd, you'd figure out how to do

00:17:52 SPEAKER_00
it. I have a question just because I, I've done Amazon ads and I feel like when I set them up, you have choices. They're not all pay per click, right? You can choose pay per click or you can do like, you know, by busy time and stuff like that. So they are all Amazon

00:18:10 SPEAKER_01
Amazon ads. The sponsored product ads are pay-per-click. You can, you can raise your bids on those clicks if you want to want them to show up at the top of the page or as the first ad versus the 10th ad that's off the page, et cetera, that kind of thing. But these are all pay-per-click.

00:18:36 SPEAKER_02
Is it the same thing with Facebook? So Facebook is also spending your money by how

00:18:39 SPEAKER_01
Facebook is also spending your money by how many people see your ad, as well as how many,

00:18:47 SPEAKER_02
as how

00:18:48 SPEAKER_01
yeah, it was so rich impressions. So impression would be, you know, Susie Q from Oklahoma is scrolling and she sees your ad, but she keeps scrolling. She saw your ad, so that's an impression. But Facebook, you can tend to spend less money and get more reach versus an Amazon ad. Personally, I like, you know, when I get to a point like I'm about to publish a new book, I am gonna run, because it's a newer book, I'm gonna run some Amazon ads and I'm gonna also run a Facebook ad because the two of them work well together, especially when you have a new book or a new story or whatever it is you're, you know, publishing. And I should mention, if you are published through a publisher, you can still run ads as the author. You don't have to have the publisher do them. Yeah, because it's your own social

00:19:48 SPEAKER_00
media. They want you to do that. I mean, they want you to run your own campaigns and they'd be happy for you to pay for your own advertising. Well, and it's also Amazon

00:19:58 SPEAKER_01
it's also Amazon ads. So through your author central account, you can run ads on your own books, even if they're published through a third party.

00:20:09 SPEAKER_00
Oh, that's good. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. As I was saying

00:20:12 SPEAKER_02
As I was saying again, Simon and Schuster told the client last year he couldn't do that. Only they can do

00:20:20 SPEAKER_01
can do it. Well, maybe they don't want him to do it. Maybe they like

00:20:25 SPEAKER_02
like control. Yeah, that's totally

00:20:27 SPEAKER_00
totally true. But if they set up the books through their author portal, how would you get them into your Author Central? So as an

00:20:37 SPEAKER_01
author, you can go into Amazon. It's called Author Central. and you can claim your book. So, for example, I own a publishing company called Plot Duckies, and I published, I'll give you an example, an anthology of short stories from other authors. So it's called Thrill Hers. It's published in my publishing company, not through me. I went on to my Author Central account as the author Sonya Dewing, and I can claim this book as mine. because I'm one of the authors. And then through Author Central, I can go to marketing and sales and I can run an ad for this book separate from the publisher. Oh, that's great

00:21:24 SPEAKER_00
great information. I love that.

00:21:28 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that is that's news to me, because I've been told no. So that's great to

00:21:33 SPEAKER_00
to know. And also, just so our listeners know, like, you can't see it, but the cover to that book was

00:21:41 SPEAKER_01
awesome. That is Kate. Yeah, Kate is an awesome cover designer. Yeah, that cover

00:21:46 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that cover frosting. I'll have to put that on the website just so the episode so people can see that cover because I think that you know, cover covers are a sort of intimidating thing, I think. And being able to find good designers and, and having your vision and work with them and have it come to life. Like, I feel like that was a really great example. I love that. That's a great

00:22:14 SPEAKER_01
cover. Right. And I would say, you know, when you do show this example, when anybody looks at it and I'll, I'll send you a link to her website. So the original version, the, this was not behind the building. So the title was not, it almost looks three-dimensional. I don't know what to call it, but I'm the one who suggested, you know, maybe we see the building all the way and the thrillers is behind it. And so, you know, coming up with ideas, looking at other covers is how I came up with that idea. But she's the one who did the amazing work, right? So kind talking with your cover artists and coming up with ideas is a great way to make it even

00:22:57 SPEAKER_02
better. Yeah. The one thing I think a lot of indie authors don't do when they're working on cover, it's one of the areas where they seem to want to skimp and they don't realize that's the first impression everybody has of your book. It has to be brilliant. And the

00:23:12 SPEAKER_00
the thing that, I mean, people don't even read the back cover. Like if they don't cover, they're not going to flip it over.

00:23:20 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, or if they're online, if that little, you know, thumbnail doesn't attract them, they're not going to read the book description. You know, how are they going to see you? And one thing I've always told people, and I repeat it here, if you really, if you're working with a designer and you're in conflict and they're the pro and you're not, take what you think is great. have a real printer, like have the local quick print shop, print it out to size, cut it out, put it on a piece of cardboard and go to Barnes and Noble or someplace and put it up by the best sellers in your genre. It's a real fast lesson in what you're not understanding. And then have the cover your designer had, then it looks a lot more like what's being sold in your genre. Because covers sell by genre. And people just don't understand that. Absolutely. Just like your social media

00:24:15 SPEAKER_00
Just like your social media ads. Everything's by genre. I mean, your website should be by genre. Like, you know, I mean, if you're a horror writer and your website is covered in light colors and, you know, butterflies and rainbows, like your readers are going to be like, what?

00:24:29 SPEAKER_01
butterflies and rainbows,

00:24:34 SPEAKER_01
See, and I am, I don't stay in one genre, but I do, all of my characters are strong female characters. So that's what my website is about. That's what my, that's what I, you know, so that is my, that's my brand. Well, I think it's very interesting that some time

00:24:50 SPEAKER_02
interesting that some time ago, an agent told you venture books that don't want to read about a female hero. 80% of the people that buy books are women. Right. I love reading about strong, powerful

00:25:05 SPEAKER_00
women. There's so many stories about strong, powerful women. Like, I mean, the Wheel of Time, like that's all women. The The Hunger Games. I mean, Katniss is a very strong woman. Same with the Divergent series. I mean, she is an incredible young woman. Like there's so many stories out there that are you know, women-based, I mean, Laura Croft from Tomb Raider, like, you know, there are so many women that are adventure and strong. And I mean, that's crazy. That was just someone who didn't know how, my bet is, is they looked at your book and said, this isn't my wheelhouse and I don't know how to market it. And instead of being honest, they told you your

00:25:54 SPEAKER_01
book sucked. Right. And I think it, I wonder if this was the same person because that was back in 2014 when someone said that to me. I forget his name. I don't know who he was because I was in so much shock. And then in 2021 or 22, I was at the same conference, met Linda. What's Linda's last name? I don't remember her name, but anyway, I will remember it later because she's one of my authors. She went to see an agent. She was really excited. And he told her, well, your novel doesn't work because a woman can't use a sniper rifle. And I was like, show me this guy, I want to meet him. And he was gone by then. And so but I helped her publish her book about her woman sniper. And it's like, it's stuff like that. That's just ridiculous.

00:26:43 SPEAKER_02
Well, especially nowadays, maybe 20, 30 years ago, they were more male oriented, but the world has changed. There are other generations taken over. You know, there was a statistic I heard from 2016 to now, 20 million boomers have passed away and 42 of Gen Z, Gen X and Gen Z have come of age. So they've been raised on a whole other vision of who women are than the ones that are in the older group who were the traditional book buyers. Right. Oh, and it's totally different. I don't think personally I'd work with a male agent. I've had a female agent. I've had two. They're both women. And they both understood that I was talking about a strong female. And some of this was 30 years ago. But yeah, There's women want that. People want, you know, something they can really personally relate to. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Like I

00:27:44 SPEAKER_01
Exactly. Like I am, I, I go on adventures. I went to the Amazon for researching my books. I play roller derby. Like I, and I want to see myself a books. I want to see strong female characters. Yeah.

00:28:00 SPEAKER_00
That's just wild that women can't handle sniper rifles. I was so bad, but I mean, just the idea that like, well, that's a high powered gun, you know, like, yeah. Yeah, I was, I was angry and

00:28:12 SPEAKER_01
like, yeah. Yeah,

00:28:16 SPEAKER_01
poor Linda, like she had that look on her face. Like I did back in 2014, like. my God, am I writing the wrong genre? Am I, you know, and yeah, I'm glad I was there for her. And that's, that's the reason why I started the Women's Thriller Writers Association too, to help support women who are writing strong women to, you know, to publish and maybe find agents who don't tell them stupid things. Right. Well, there there's,

00:28:44 SPEAKER_02
there there's, Nothing like putting, you know, the easiest thing you can do to a writer is give them self-doubt. I mean, they're full of self-doubt from day one, you know, and to just throw that in your

00:28:59 SPEAKER_00
face, you're discouraging them. And it's so easy to disrail writers. Oh, yeah. Easy. I've fallen into that

00:29:06 SPEAKER_02
fallen into that a lot. Yeah, I feel

00:29:09 SPEAKER_01
it, right? We are the ones with the, you know, the largest amount of imposter syndrome, right?

00:29:16 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it happens. And a lot of it, I think, I'm older than both of you. I fought through that, but I have so many friends, even now in their early 70s, that are still going through it, though they've had successful careers and stuff, but somebody says something and it throws them back into that. It's like you can't get caught in that trap. Right. It's a way to, it's a control factor. It's a way to control you.

00:29:45 SPEAKER_01
Well, and my suggestion for that is when I feeling self-doubt, I have a little thing next to me that says why I'm amazing and all the things that I've done. So a little note next to yourself, this is why I'm an amazing writer, et cetera. Yeah, well, positive reinforcement

00:30:02 SPEAKER_02
well, positive reinforcement works. Yes, it really, really does. You have, you know, you've got to believe. And if you're writing a story you believe in, that you're passionate about, go with it, because it means something to you. It's going to ring true with other people. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit

00:30:25 SPEAKER_02
So let's talk a little bit more about other what do you ever use other types of online advertising or just Facebook and and Amazon ads?

00:30:37 SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that's the only paid advertising I have been playing with. I do, you know, as an author, when people ask me for opportunities or ask me to take up opportunities like being on a podcast or doing a webinar or going to an, I did an event last month in Santa Fe with some other authors. You know, I say yes, and I go to events and I talk to people and connect with readers and, but Facebook and Amazon are the only paid online ads that I do. Well, that's good to know that you don't try

00:31:10 SPEAKER_02
that you don't try anything. Have you tried ebook promotions? What do you think of them?

00:31:15 SPEAKER_01
you think of them? Oh, ebook promotions. So I've done a lot of those to get reviews, not necessarily sales. Like when I did my first book, toy, the gods, I, I knew I, you know, you gotta have reviews to sell books. So I did, I put the book for free and I put it in several of those reputable newsletters like hello books, free booksy, free like fussy librarian. And those did really well. I got a ton of downloads. I also did a good reads. I tried a good reads giveaway, which not, yeah, yeah. Which I think did fairly well. Right. I did an ebook for 500 ebooks. but it took about a year, but now, you know, I got a hundred plus reviews on my book. And so for me, those are great. Number one, to get reviews. And number two, if you have a series, cause all those people who read book one have now purchased book two, three, and four. So yeah, that's when I use those.

00:32:19 SPEAKER_02
I find personally that the reader reviews are probably the most important thing you get out of it. Absolutely. You get out of it. On Amazon, you'll get ranking also if you do it right, especially if you do it as you're coming up or if you have a series, doing them beforehand and then hitting hard when the new release comes out. You're supplementing everything else along the way. Absolutely. Well, and I just

00:32:49 SPEAKER_01
I just also want to warn people, you know, sometimes you'll get those, not sometimes you will, once you publish on Amazon, get those emails from people saying, you know, pay us and we'll put your, your book on our website and share it to our millions of followers on Facebook and blah, blah, blah. And if they're emailing you out of the blue, This company is not going to sell you any books. They're going to put your book on their website, sure, but no one goes to look at their website. And if you look at their followers, they're all probably fake followers. And if you look at their Facebook profiles, you'll see no one has shared or liked their posts. So the followers are fake or don't care. So if you ever get those emails out of the blue, delete them. Yeah. I've been contacted

00:33:39 SPEAKER_00
through like, you know, Instagram messenger and stuff too, of people who are like, I do book reviews and you know, if you pay me 25 bucks, I'll make sure that it gets, you know, whatever, 5,000 views or something. I feel like those are also a scam. Absolutely. Like there

00:33:59 SPEAKER_01
Like there are such things is paid reviews, right? Like Kirkus Review, Reader's Favorite, you know, but those are, you know, they're well known. And those you can take and put on your editorial review page on your Amazon page. But to pay someone individually to put a review on Amazon is just like, you don't need to do it. You can put your book for free, your ebook for free, put it on a newsletter, like I said, reputable newsletters like Hello Books and Fussy Librarian, et cetera, and get thousands of downloads and then hopefully some reviews out

00:34:39 SPEAKER_01
of downloads and then hopefully some reviews out of that.

00:34:44 SPEAKER_02
Yeah, what I found is, I think like Kirk is, and especially Book Life, is that we've had a couple people get editor's picks from Book Life. Then your review runs in Publishers Weekly. That gets you in front of the bookstores. Nice. And that helps that way. The editorial reviews are good if you're trying to sell the libraries and bookstores, but the reader reviews are really good to get customers. Yes. Absolutely. There's two different things you're trying to accomplish with getting reviews. And especially if you want to go out for podcasts, they all like seem to like

00:35:24 SPEAKER_01
the editorial

00:35:25 SPEAKER_02
reviews. So they do that. Well, would you tell us just a little bit? I

00:35:27 SPEAKER_00
you tell us just a little bit? I mean, I feel like this whole podcast has kind of just shown, you know, how well you really know this subject. But could you just tell us a little bit about the webinar that you're going to do for WPN and what what that looks like when people sign up, what they're gonna get from

00:35:45 SPEAKER_01
what they're gonna get from you. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you all exactly how to set up an Amazon ad, what your choices are, what you should pick, what you don't wanna pick, right? How to keep from overspending. That's the biggest thing, right? What book to pick, right? Because if you're like me, I'm amazed even now that I have more than one book. Like, how did I do that? If you have more than one book, which book to pick. If you have short stories, like I have some short stories and I'm playing around with ads for those, how does that work? Also, you know, when to combine a Facebook ad and Amazon ad. If we have time, I'll go over Facebook ads, but probably we're going to really dive into Amazon ads the

00:36:33 SPEAKER_00
most. I saw in your description that they'll get like, it looks like a really good handout from you. So that's really great. And I think this is a really good one. Our last one was on querying, and that was a really good subject. And then this is like that next stage of after the book is published, and what do you do with it? And I feel like those two work so well together.

00:36:58 SPEAKER_01
Absolutely. Yeah. They're going to, anyone who comes to the webinar is going to get a free copy of my book, making dollars and cents out of Amazon ads. So it's going to have a lot of notes and I'm going to update it before our webinar as well with some latest stuff that that's going on with Amazon. And if I, I might add some Facebook stuff in there too. So that'll help figuring that out. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that'll

00:37:21 SPEAKER_02
that'll help

00:37:24 SPEAKER_02
be really helpful, Sonja. I really appreciate that. And I think everyone who attends will probably read that cover to cover. Well, it's a PDF, so they'll scroll through the whole thing and read it. So I just want to remind everybody that's going to be How to Use Amazon Ads to Sell Books. And that's going to be October 24th, 11 a.m. Pacific. And if you want to sign up, it's at WPNWebinars.com. And you can click there, you'll see Sonia's picture, click on it, sign up, and you'll be able to get all the information you need. So, well, I think this has really been great. I actually learned a couple of things today. I'm going to call my guy who is with Simon & Schuster and tell him, get your own ads out there. So this is really, really good. And I appreciate it. This is information that we really need. This is nuts and bolts stuff that you can take and use right away. In fact, I'm going to be using it. I'm sure Dana will. We learn, and I'm sure the listeners will too. So thank you, Sonia. We look forward to seeing you October 24th. Yeah. Well, Sonia, could you just tell people where they can find you? Like what

00:38:35 SPEAKER_00
you just tell people where they can find you? Like what you're... Yes. your website and your social media so they can connect with you if they want to?

00:38:45 SPEAKER_01
they want to? Absolutely. You can find my website at Sonyadoing.com and that's

00:38:52 SPEAKER_01
S-O-N-J-A-D-E-W-I-N-G. And I also run women'sthrillerwriters.com. And you can find me on Facebook as Sonyadoingauthor on

00:38:58 SPEAKER_01
find me on Facebook as Sonyadoingauthor on Instagram, same thing. And on TikTok, I'm sure you can find me on TikTok. Just look for Sonyadoing. And yeah, I think that's all the places. Awesome. Thank you so

00:39:13 SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank

00:39:16 SPEAKER_02
you. And we'll be seeing you then. And thank you everyone for listening today and listen, you know, come back, subscribe and learn more about what's going on with Talking Book Publishing.