Which book should you advertise?

Hey,


When you're making your first foray into advertising, it can be tempting to advertise every book in your catalog and/or series.

But this really isn't a great use of your budget.

As with most things in life and especially in advertising, 20% of your actions will be generating 80% of your results. (Also known as the 80/20 rule or Pareto's Principle).

With this in mind, 20% of your books will be generating 80% of your sales.

And that's where you should be focusing your budget; on the 20% of your books that are generating 80% of your results.

To put it another way... focus your budget on your bestsellers.

If you write in a series, I would highly recommend spending the majority of your budget (however big or small), on advertising book 1 of your best-performing series.

If you write standalone books, focus your budget on your best-performing book.

Now, this isn't to say that you should never advertise other books of yours that don't come under the umbrella of best-performers.

However, to get traction as quickly as possible with your advertising, you will see much better results if you put budget behind books that are already doing well.

In terms of how much to spend on each book/series in the beginning, I would recommend $10 per day, ideally. $5 per day at an absolute minimum.

If you have a $20 per day budget, yes, you could theoretically advertise 2 books, but personally, I would rather put that full $20 per day budget behind one book and push it as hard as my budget allows.

With more budget comes more data, and you can position your book in front of more readers, helping to sell more books, improve your bestseller rank and make more organic sales.

Once you have some traction with one book, then, if your budget allows, layer on advertising for another book.

You will naturally benefit from read-through/sell-through to books you aren't even advertising, simply by focusing your budget on your bestsellers, as readers will organically seek out your other work if they enjoyed their first experience of your books.

So, when you're deciding where to spend your budget, don't spread yourself too thin and advertise every book you've ever written; focus your budget on your best-performers and you can't go wrong.


To Your Success

– Matt