Platforms and Programmatic Ads

The cover of my collection of short stories on Amazon Kindle. I am using this to experiment with their programmatic ads service.

I’ve been doing a lot (and I mean, a lot) of thinking about author platforms and how they should evolve.

On December 7, 2021, the New York Times ran a short, sweet, and simple story (here) that discussed how authors with massive social media platforms are underperforming for book sales. One of the examples is Billie Eilish. As the Times writes:

A book by Billie Eilish seemed like a great bet. One of the most famous pop stars in the world, Ms. Eilish has 97 million followers on Instagram and another 6 million on Twitter. If just a fraction of them bought her book, it would be a hit.

But her self-titled book has sold about 64,000 hardcover copies since it came out in May.

Meanwhile, Eilish received a $1 million advance presumably on Eilish’s massive social media platform.

Justin Timberlake didn’t fare any better.

Point being, huge social media numbers don’t mean sales success. They never truly have nor has reliance on social media platform promoted publishing more literary literature that tells great stories.

In fact, I believe it’s created a significant blind spot where good books that could sell don’t get picked up and those that do fail because the marketing strategy is based far too much on social media access.

It has also proved a challenge for those of us who write book proposals when we have a client and/or story that is uniquely compelling but lacks a massive social media platform. In one discussion, a publishing industry expert said if you don’t have at least 10,000 followers don’t even bother mentioning your social media presence. And even with 10,000, that’s nothing.

So how do you create a compelling marketing/platform section without using social media as a cornerstone?

First, don’t spend time or money trying to build what you don’t have. It’s pointless. And only makes you one of a very, very large herd (see previous posts on standing out).

One way to get around this is to take a look at programmatic advertising. Basically, this is highly targeted online advertising that seeks out your audience (ergo the critical important of understanding your audience). There are services out there with worldwide reach and the skills to hyper target your ads in a way that you are being a far more effective marketer than someone with 50,000 or 100,000 social media followers.

One way to cheaply experiment is with Amazon ads. They only appear on Amazon pages and the targeting specs are weak compared to far more robust services, but you can run a set of ads for little money, experiment with messaging, and get real-time data on performance.

This isn’t about sales. It’s about learning. You then use what you learn to craft a savvy marketing/platform section with a strong programmatic element.