First, it’s not just one metric. There are several that go together.

Most people are focused on sales. It’s an excellent metric. It tells you straight up if you’ve succeeded or not. More or less. The more part is if you have a lot - but there’s a trap in that. More sales is good. …

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Note that its the frequent readers who keep authors afloat.

I’ve seen other figures quite a bit less startling. I don’t know which are true, but all have one…

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Until now.

In July 2025 I was hired as Lead Marketing Consultant for a traditional publisher. My first job was to construct for their marketing staff an Amazon ads manual, and central to that is the Amazon algorithm. If you don’t understand the algorithm, you can’t publish or advertise successfully.

Now, for the first time, this 40,000 word manual, in PDF format with cutting-edge explanations, tables and charts, is released to the general public. It’s big enough to be a novel. But not a paragraph of it lacks razor-sharp insight into how things actually work.

If you want to sell a lot of books, this is a gold-class game changer.

My personal promise to you is this. I’m not a guru who earns a living by teaching indie authors. I’m in the fiction-writing trenches myself. These tactics work. They’ve been polished to a gleam by years of experience as a successful full-time author and consultant to beginner authors, six figure authors, seven figure authors and a traditional publisher.

They’re also up-to-date. This manual gives insights you can’t find anywhere else, and provides the methods to leverage them for success. It tells you what works now. And how things will work in the future. Because once you understand the algorithms and why they are as they are, you’ll understand the inevitability of where they’re heading.

This training will transform how you advertise. It will also transform how you publish.

Is it for everyone? No. It’s not for beginners. It’s not for those who follow standard advice and are happy with standard sales. But it is the most advanced course available to the book industry, bar none. Is it expensive at $299 US, or a bargain? You decide. In my opinion, others often charge three times for a tenth of the insight.

It doesn’t waste time teaching you the nuts-and-bolts of how to set up ads. It’s not a how-to-sell books guide from someone not selling their own. It’s just no fluff, hard-core info for experienced authors looking to break out.

If you want a copy, send me a message.

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That was good information.

As always though, the truth of things can be teased out until you get an even clearer picture.

First, a recap of what I said in case you missed it:

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Amazon reviews and especially ARC tea…

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And for good reason. Amazon is cracking down on things. This is nothing new though. It might seem like a recent thing, but it dates to the algorithm changes of May 2025.

Actually, those changes themselves were just a doubling down of the things Amazon have long been doing anyway.

Like what they’re doing or not, they’re being perfectly consistent.

Anything that can be seen as scamming the system gets removed. Now, as it happens, they allow ARC reviews. But that doesn’t mean they like them.

This is pretty much the same as free. They let permafree exist too, so long as you jump through the hoops. But it doesn’t mean they like that either.

If you rely heavily on ARCs, there are two questions you have to ask yourself.

Are they actually effective at selling books?

And will the ability to do them always exist?

The answer to the first question is pretty clear. A bunch of reviews don’t make much difference at launch. Or at any other time. You don’t need a single review to sell, and to sell nicely. And once you do the reviews will appear organically. No time or effort required on your part.

The second question is trickier. Who can say? They may never be banned. Or maybe they will. Or maybe Amazon will just delete them as fast as they appear.

My advice? Don’t spend time chasing reviews. Spend your time on marketing that’s a LOT more effective.

Reviews have never been effective. And their usefulness has deteriorated even more.

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People speak with authority. They explain how something works, and we accept it. You need a newsletter list. You need a reader magnet. Reviews. An ARC team. You need to bid low to profit from ads. You must use an editor. The list is…

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The platform has come a long, long way since the primitive iteration we first got lumped with. So don’t get me wrong. The Amazon Ads dash has headed in the right direction. It still has a way to go, but it’s getting there.

At its core though, what used to work still works. You don’t need all those bells and whistles. In fact, unless you’re a professional author using the platform daily, those extras only distract.

And for nothing. Because they don’t deliver any real advantage. It’s just more to keep track of. More to learn. More to obfuscate what’s really going on. More to confuse you.

Even as a full-time author myself, having used the platform for something like a decade, having written a bestselling book on the subject, guess what?

I only use about a tenth of the ads dash.

Because that tenth is the portion that works. The rest is nice to play with, but irrelevant.

The old saying of KISS comes to mind, and that saying has survived because it embodies a primal truth.

So, how do I run ads?

For starters, I only run ads in one store. The US. It gives the best bang for buck. It’s where the most readers are. Now, maybe there are reasons to run ads in other countries. I seem to sell just fine without them. And I used to run them in the UK. But I found it a time-sink for no real benefit. If you’re still having trouble with ads, stick to the one store. Focus your valuable time on that until you get it right before even thinking of different stores.

Next is the ad type. There is a range to choose from. Again, you can trial other types if you like. Once you’ve mastered the best option. But start first with Sponsored Product ads. Either ASINs, keyword or category. These are the backbone of the system. The original. The best. The ones with the most chance of working. The other ad types … are just fluff. Just a means of Amazon being able to generate extra impressions and earn additional money from advertisers.

Sponsored Product ads go on a carousel that mimics the organic also-bought carousel. Because of this, they’re trusted more. It’s that simple. Ads (for good reason) aren’t trusted by buyers. An ad type that looks organic delivers better traction.

Then there’s dynamic bidding. Avoid it. Shun it. Throw it out. Stick to fixed bids. Just set them to a level you’re comfortable with.

Budgets are the same. There are all sorts of garbage theories out there that you can stimulate traction by setting a large budget but having a low bid. There’s multiple versions of this idea. They’re all garbage. Set a budget you’re comfortable with, and make sure it can fund the clicks your getting. If not, reduce the number of your targets.

Targeting is the next thing to simplify. Forget data scraping software. It’s useless. Worse, while you use it to do the legwork for you you’re not studying the targets themselves in the store. Manually finding those targets and analyzing them is how you learn what’s working, or not, in your genre. Find a few highly relevant targets (manually) with great rank. If they don’t have rank, how are they going to earn impressions for your ad? This approach also stops you spending half the day sorting through an avalanche of data on massive numbers of targets, none of which have sufficient traction to tell you if they’re working or duds.

When you simplify things to the max you get the clearest feedback for what’s working.

That’s about it. That’s all you need to do. Keep your system simple and it will reward you. Slash the time you waste on ads and invest it where it serves your better. Writing.

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Worse still, AI will increase that even more.

Not only is the overall number of titles skyrocketing each year, but also many individual publishers with AI under the bonnet will release at a rate of a book a month or better.

You can’t compete against this.

You do…

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For years, but especially lately, there’s been talk about how the payout is sliding. That KU isn’t what it used to be. And that it’s time to go Wide.

Well, if you do the math and think it works for you, by all means go Wide.

Let’s have a closer look at these posts about KU though.

They present a case that the payout started at $0.0058 per page. And since then it’s declined drastically to about $0.0046.

Well, that’s a not insignificant drop. Maybe they have a point.

Or do they?

Truth is, their claim is disingenuous. That initial high rate only lasted a matter of months when the scheme was born and started to find its feet. That was about 12 years ago. For over ten years since then, the payout rate has been remarkably steady at about $0.0046. So no real change at all for over a decade.

We have, therefore, a serious case of fake news.

Of course, there’s an argument that inflation has risen but the payout rate hasn’t.

Blimey. This is perfectly true. But the rate isn’t really the important thing. What counts is how much an author earns.

Payout amounts have increased massively over the life of the program.

Twelve years ago the Global Fund from which authors get paid was $2.5 million. Now it’s a tick under $70 million.

Holy hole in a doughnut, Batman! That’s MASSIVE growth. And indie authors benefit from it.

The naysayers will again argue that this is true, but there are so many more authors now that the Global Fund is stretched thin like a bikini on Godzilla.

This isn’t true any more than the other arguments. You always have to look to your specific genre, but pretty much every single genre has seen a shift toward KU. In most genres KU earnings now exceed sales earnings. In quite a few genres KU income is most of an author’s income.

Why would anyone ditch that?

There’s a lot more competition than there used to be. But the Global Fund has seen massive growth. It’s still growing. Most author’s make most of their money via KU. KU is where the whale readers are. And if you’re not in it (for most genres) you’re in a much worse financial situation. That’s a hefty price to pay for an ideological position. And keep in mind whatever arguments you see presented against KU the background to them is ideological rather than mathematical.

I’m not a KU fanatic. I’d go Wide in a heartbeat if it made sense to do so.

It doesn’t.

But many people are Wide fanatics, and they’ll try to indoctrinate you into their cult.

Do the math for your genre and your situation. Then make the right decision for you.

What do you think?

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They didn’t know. That didn’t stop them from filling that knowledge-void with stories though. For instance, campfires, lamps, boats and the like.

In the sport of pigeon racing, particularly in the past but right down to the present, many people believe athletic performance c…

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I’ll come back to that.

First, what do I mean by paying attention?

The place to start that is with your own data. You know your books. You know how they’re selling. You know the general trend. Do you observe though when something goes against the trend?…

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Whatever people say, the frequency that you release books matters. You may not like it. Or maybe you do. But Amazon and the other retailers are hungry. Feed the beast, or the beast prowls elsewhere.

This means you need to write consistently. That might be every day or every weekend or whatever routine works for you. Just get those quality words down regularly.

This doesn’t mean you have to hit some massive word count each time. And probably burn out. It means do what you’re comfortable with - but do it consistently. You’ll have a novel much faster than you think.

Consistency in branding is next. Cover, title, blurb preview. They should all sing the same song. If not, the customer gets confused. Confused customers don’t buy.

The same applies to your marketing system. Find one that works for you, your books and your set of circumstances. Refine it. Apply it consistently when you release.

If it works for you, it works.

Be reluctant to change in search of some new way that seems bright and shiny. However, nothing lasts forever. There are times when you need to pivot. Watch things closely. Act when necessary.

Which leads me to the biggest point of all this. It’s nice to aim high. I get it. I’ve been high on big bestseller lists. Nothing spectacular, but when you get under 1,000 in rank in the Amazon store, it’s a very, very nice feeling.

But this really is a bit of a secret. While high rank is nice, it doesn’t earn the money.

What earns the money is consistent sales. If you can get sticky at a rank below 15,000, and have more books in the series, this earns MUCH more than a book that hits 800 in the store and then fades after a few weeks.

Stickiness can last for months. Even a year. Or longer. That’s where true income is generated. Anything else is nice but transitory. Consistent sales (even if not spectacular) over a long time is king.

Or queen!

There are midlist authors out there that you’ve never heard of, or if you see them pay little attention to. But if they’re getting consistent sales they’re earning more than some of the stars you revere.

Consistency is your secret weapon. And stickyness. But how to get sticky is a big, big subject.

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I’m sure you know what this means.

It means they have ad fatigue before they even see your pretty little ad on Amazon or Meta.

Their senses are assaulted by ads as they browse. Big ads. Little ads. Vid…

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This week the COSMO paper on Amazon garnered attention in some of the higher circles of Indie publishing.

Briefly, COSMO is AI that uses Large Language Models tech to more intuitively make connections and understa…

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One lot of gurus will advise you to keep your powder dry. Hold off. Write, publish and repeat until you have at least four books out. More likely six. Or whenever the series is finished.

Other gurus will say nope. That’s wrong. Go for it from the start. Don’t lose time.

How are you supposed to know what to do?

Truth is, both of these opposite strategies can work. The variable is you.

Where are you at in your publishing journey? What is your skill level at creating a good book package? The package is the cover, title, blurb and preview. How deep is your expertise with ads?

I can guarantee you that a book one, by itself, if all the above ducks are in a row and the author’s advertising skill is high, is quite capable of being launched to the bestseller lists. And even sticking there for a good period of time.

Can that be done profitably though?

Again, the answer is yes. But each step here is increasing the difficulty level by orders of magnitude.

If you know exactly what you’re doing because you have experience, and you can get all your ducks in a row, you can do this. It might be for a new series, a new genre or a new pen name. It can be done, but it’s pretty darn tricky.

Most authors don’t just wake up one morning with a complete skill set for getting the package right and advertising with finesse.

Those skills are built by time and experience. Maybe over a series. Probably over a few different ones after a number of years.

So is the alternative strategy right then? Should you wait until the end of each series and then start to advertise?

I don’t think so. And I have a few reasons.

First, regardless of what some people say, the best (not only, but best) time to advertise a book is when it’s new. A new book is given some advantages by Amazon algorithms. It also has no previous sales. The longer a book is out there the more sales it will generate either by ads or organically. This means when the time comes to advertise, to some degree at least, you’ll be advertising to people who can’t buy. So your CTR will be worse than it could have been, and CTR is used by Amazon as a gauge of popularity and customer engagement. This situation is not optimum and does not send the best signal to Amazon.

Second, it’s not uncommon for a readership of a series to build, release by release, and if that happens a later book can do well even organically or mostly organically. For instance, book one might get a hundred readers. Book two three hundred, and because it acts as a free ad for book one, an extra two hundred for that. Book three … you get the drift. After a few books you’re starting to nudge the algorithms nicely. But none of this will happen if book one was neglected and allowed to sink into oblivion without a ripple.

Third, advertising is a major and complex skill set. It takes years to get the hang of it. The best time to start learning it is yesterday.

So my advice is always to advertise a first book in a series. Even if it’s your debut book.

But, and this is a big but, don’t get carried away with ads. Play on a small scale. Don’t burn cash. Get a feel for things by low cost experimentation over a long time. If, during this process, a book blows up, scale your ads accordingly. If not, slowly, deliberately and surely build your skill set.

And the body of readers following you.

Profit isn’t always linear. It comes in waves. You’re building your email list (if you have one). You’re increasing your followers on Amazon. You’re building a group of people who like your stuff and will buy. The bigger this group is the more you tickle the algorithms when later books come out.

But it all starts with book one making some sort of impact, even if it’s a small one.

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The claim goes like this. About 27% of Amazon categories look normal in the KDP dash when you go to choose them, but they aren’t actually visible for browsers in the store. That’s more …

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The cover includes the imagery as well as the typography.

Branding has lots of benefits, but I’m going to skip over the obvious ones and discuss one in particular that I don’t think is talked about much. Or ever. Despite that, it’s a hug…

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It also means covers and blurbs are (to a degree) less important than they were. The buying decision now skews more toward actual reading of the story than it used to.

How can we take advantage o…

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This is an inevitable reaction to thousands of years of cultural history where the protagonists of stories were good guys.

There will always be writers who seek to do something different. There will always be readers who appreciate that.

This is a niche though. A trend. The pendulum is swinging back the other way. There’s only so much Game of Thrones you can take before you want a return to…

The kind of world you want to live in. The kind of friends and family you want to have. The type of person you strive to be yourself.

Good guys usually win in a story. We want them to. And that’s because we see ourselves as the good guys in our own story. And those who put us down, who strive against us, we see as the bad guys. The story is a proxy.

In short, when we see the good guy in a story win we get a sense of justice, and we hope for that in the real world.

Which leads to a point. When you have a morally gray antagonist, you can call them a complex character. The literati will applaud that. They want to tease out human psychology and see what makes a person tick. What will break them. What will turn them to the dark.

Ordinary readers aren’t much interested in this though. They love to cheer a good guy on. And they love to hate a villain. They want to see them punished in the end.

This is justice. And they want to see it in stories so it keeps their hopes alive that it can happen in real life. In their lives.

If you want literary awards, write your characters so that the protagonist and the antagonist are hard to tell apart.

If you want readers … go for good guys who are good guys and bad guys who are bad guys. The good guys may not wear a white hat. The bad guys may not wear a black hat. You may not be writing an old-school western. But who is who should be just as obvious.

That doesn’t mean the good guys are perfect. Did Clint Eastwood ever play a perfect character? I don’t think so.

But he delivered justice. And audiences loved it.

Think on who your true audience is while writing your characters and informing your story with a worldview.

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Writing to market does not mean you can’t put your own slant on a genre. Give or take, as long as you’re meeting genre expectations 70% of the time, you can do your own thing the other 30%.

There are exceptions. For instance, if you write roma…

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