What I'd Do Next In Your Shoes

November 7th, 2026   •   3 minute read   •   Issue #179

"What should I do next?”

If I had to name the question behind most of my conversations with authors, it would be that one.

It’s rarely about a lack of information. Most authors have plenty of that in today's world. It’s about not knowing which piece matters right now. To you.

Looking across the authors I work with, most are in one of two places. So here’s what I’d do next in each case.

If you haven’t started ads yet

First, get your series ready, not just Book 1.

Book 1 is the front door, so it matters most for bringing new readers in. But the profit comes from what happens after that.

Every reader who carries on to book two, three and beyond is how your ads end up paying for themselves, because one sale of Book 1 can turn into a whole series of sales and page reads.

So check Book 1 first: a cover that fits the genre, a blurb that sells, and a price that makes it easy for a new reader to step inside.

Then look at what keeps them reading.

Straight after THE END of each book, are readers sent on to the next book? Do the covers look like they belong together, with the series name on each?

Before you spend anything on ads, work out your current readthrough from your KDP reports, calculate what a new reader is worth across the whole series, and how much your ads can afford to spend to find one.

These are critical numbers to understand before you spend a penny on ads.

If you write standalones, the same thinking applies to your catalog.

Start with the book that best represents what you write, and make sure the end of every book points readers to another of yours.

Then choose one ad platform. For most fiction authors, I’d start with Facebook Ads. For most non-fiction, Amazon Ads, because those readers are already searching for an answer.

Learn that one ad platform properly before adding another. I recommend commiting to an ad platform for at least 90 days.

Why 90 days?

Because a focused 90 days on one ad platform will give you far more data, insights and experience that 180 days spread across 2-3 ad platforms.

Then start with small ($5-$10/day) and give it time. Judge your ads over a couple of weeks (at least), not a couple of days. A slow first week tells you very little.

If your ads aren't profitable yet

This is where a lot of authors get discouraged, and I understand why. Money’s going out, and royalties aren’t keeping up. But in my experience, the cause is usually one of a few fixable things.

The most common is judging ads on book one alone. If readers go on to book two, three and four, a sale of book one is worth far more than its royalty. Work out your readthrough from your KDP reports before deciding an ad isn’t working.

The next is clicks that don’t turn into sales. If people are clicking but not buying, the ads are doing their job and the book page isn’t. Cover, blurb, price and reviews are where to look, not the ad.

Then there’s budget spread too thin. Ten dollars a day across four books and three ad platforms gives you four sets of numbers too small to learn from. Put it behind one book on one ad platform, and you start to get answers.

And finally, changing things too quickly. We’ve all done it: tweaking a live ad after two days because the numbers look worrying. If you want to test a change, duplicate the ad and change the copy, so the original keeps running and you can compare the two fairly.

What both have in common

Whichever group you’re in, the next step is almost never “do more”. It’s to choose one thing and do it properly.

Many of the authors I work with tell me time is their biggest struggle. Although it might sound backwards, doing one thing well actually takes far less time than doing five things with fractured attention. And gives you better results.

That’s it for this week.

Thanks for reading. See you next Saturday.

To Your Success
– Matt