There seems to be no end to the number of self-published books these days, since it has become so easy to do, and with self-published books come books about self-publishing. How-tos, checklists, and just about every thing you can possibly think of (and many you can’t) to give you the edge of everyone else who is self-publishing.
I glance at these once in a while, usually only the free books, though I have access to the books on Kindle Unlimited as well, so I can read a few without buying them outright. This was one of these latter books.
I’ve heard about Kindle publishing (CreateSpace) though I’ve never done any myself, but as I see Amazon’s advertising just about everywhere, this idea of Kindle Ad Campaigns seemed really interesting to me. I would imagine that it would pay off quite well, but, not having published anything myself, I don’t have anything to sell using these ads. In comes Barb Asselin, a self-published author of a variety of books that sell moderately well.
Asselin decides to pick a few of her books, in different categories, that she believes could be selling better. She walks the reader through the process of setting up Amazon Kindle ads, selecting different types of targeting for the ads to see how they might work. It was very nice to have this detailed structure to see just how the website is set up and how or why to make the different choices.
Asselin’s result are quite interesting (I don’t want to give away any of her secrets…read the book).
But I will say that this thin, 72 page book, should actually be a lot thinner. I realize that few pages makes it less attractive to the potential buyer, but approximately half of this book (perhaps a little more than half) is taken up with an almost word-for-word repeat of the step-by-step process for all five books in her case study, which includes the exact same form letter from Amazon telling her that her Ad has been approved. Five times.
I have to admit that after the third Case Study process, I wasn’t really paying attention. Yes, she was changing little things (such as how much to spend per click), but most of this could have been described in a much briefer summary format. Case Study’s #4 and 5 could have simply stated the book title and what she did differently (if anything) when setting up those ad campaigns. We did NOT need the exact same information repeated over and over.
The twenty or so pages that actually analyze the data from the ads, and Asselin’s conclusions, are worth reading this book. The ‘padding’ to fill this to a 72 page ‘book’ is unnecessary and a waste of time. A thinner, less expensive book may actually sell more copies.
Looking for a good book? If you are a dedicated author looking into self-publishing on Amazon’s Kindle platform, you will want to read the information Barb Asselin has in her book Kindle Ad Campaigns, but is it really worth the $3 for the limited information within? That has to be your choice?
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Kindle Ad Campaigns
author: Barb Asselin
publisher: Asselin Group Online Publisher
ASIN: B00TVWQA0M
ebook, 72 pages
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