Amazon has extended its advertising services for authors to cover paperback books published through KDP Print.
Authors with KDP Print titles can now advertise through AMS (Amazon Marketing Services) using Sponsored Products ads. With Sponsored Products, ads for paperback titles can run alongside search results for best-selling print books and top authors in your genre, increasing visibility and reaching new readers.
To get started, go to your KDP Bookshelf and select Promote and Advertise from the options next to the paperback or ebook title you’d like to advertise on the KDP Bookshelf, click Create a campaign and follow the instructions in the Sponsored Products campaign builder.
Sponsored Product Ads use targeted keywords which mean ads can display in search results and on product detail pages. You can select Automatic Targeting or Manual Targeting.
Automatic will mean that Amazon will target your ads to all relevant customer searches based on your product information.
With the Manual Targeting option, you pick your own keywords, although Amazon will also offer you a list of suggestions based on popular customer searches that have recently driven traffic to your books at Amazon.com.
Some of the suggested keywords can be very useful while many will not be, so you’ll probably end up using a mix of suggested keywords and your own keywords and they can be edited after adding them to the ad.
The ads operate on a cost-per-click basis (CPC) so you’ll need to select an average daily budget for your campaign and a CPC bid for your keywords.
Keyword selection is the crucial factor in the success of your campaign so be prepared to do some research in this area and change things around if a campaign is not going well.
It’s also important to use the custom text for your ad to the best effect. You only get 150 characters here and you need to make an impact.
This latest move looks like another step in Amazon’s shift towards KDP Print, which was set up in 2016, and away from its original print book distribution arm CreateSpace, which doesn’t offer any advertising services.
You can get more details about using AMS for KDP books at Amazon.
KDP Print rolls out full launch of proof and author copies of paperbacks at wholesale prices