How Authors Can Make Their Ads More Profitable [One Simple Trick]

One of the lowest hanging pieces of fruit you can grab with both hands to increase the effectiveness of your Ads, is maximizing your sellthrough; and best of all, it won’t cost you anything!

When you’re maximizing your sellthrough (sometimes referred to as readthrough, but I’ll refer to it as sellthrough for the remainder of this story), you are also squeezing the most juice and return on Ad Spend out of your Ads.

Why, you ask…

Let’s say you’re advertising Book 1 of your 6 Book Series with Facebook Ads.

You optimize your Ads until you’re selling an average of 20 copies of Book 1 every single day. That’s 140 people a week who are buying (and hopefully reading) Book 1. But…

• What happens when they reach the end of the book?
• How easy have you made it for them to start reading Book 2 of that same series?
• Are you offering them an incentive to join your email list?
• Or do you end the book with THE END and call it a day?

Clearly, not every person who reads Book 1 will go on to read Book 2, but a good percentage of them will, providing you’ve written a fantastic book that leaves readers wanting to continue the story.

And because you’ve already brought these readers into your books through your Ads, if you can move them onto Book 2 (or another book in your catalogue) using the tactics I’m about to share with you, you don’t have to pay to reach them again.

Your acquisition cost has already been paid.

Every book an individual reader buys from you increases your average customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Meaning, if it costs you $2 to acquire a single reader from your Facebook Ads, and they purchase 6 books from you, all priced at $3.99, that’s around $18 in royalties, minus the $2 acquisition cost from your Ads, gives you a profit of around $16 from that one reader.

If, however, you just have 1 book published, priced at $3.99, and a single reader purchases that 1 book, they love your work, but you have no other books they can purchase from you, the maximum you can earn from any single customer (assuming you’re not selling any back-end products/services) is around $3 in royalties, minus the $2 acquisition cost from your Ads, your profit is just $1.

Here’s a simple comparison, based on a $2 acquisition cost through your Ads:

• 6 books priced at $3.99 each = Customer LTV of $16 (approx)
• 1 book priced at $3.99 = Customer LTV of $1 (approx)

So, for those readers who do want to continue with Book 2, make it as easy as you possibly can for them, whilst at the same time, increasing your Customer LTV.

How, you ask?

Let’s look at some potential ways you can use the oh-so valuable real estate that comes directly after THE END.

For books in the same series

• Include a link to the next book in the series. E.g. Book 1 has a link to Book 2, Book 2 has a link to Book 3, etc.

For standalone books

• Link them to another book of yours that is similar or related to the book they have just finished reading

For the last book in a series

• Link to Book 1 of another, similar series of yours that the reader may enjoy (ideally, in the same genre)

Building your email list

Let’s now talk about building your newsletter/email list and how to use this real estate after THE END to do it.

I like to have a maximum of 2 Call-To-Action’s (CTA’s) after THE END:

• The first CTA is for the next book in the series
• The second CTA is offering a valuable reader magnet, that ties into the book they’ve just read, in exchange for the reader’s email address

Your reader magnet could be:

• A prequel novel/novella
• A side story
• A map of the world your books are based
• Character profiles
• Character drawings
• Resources to help readers take action on the content in your book (non-fiction)
• A free strategy call/discovery call (non-fiction)

As long as your reader magnet is relevant to the content of the book they have just finished reading, you’re going to see a strong sign-up/conversion rate to your email list, that can be building all the time for you, in the background.

If you don’t tell readers where to go and what to do after they have finished reading your book, they’re going to find another book to read.

If a reader has stuck with your book, immersed themselves in it and read it from cover to cover, as soon as they read THE END, they are primed and ready for more from you; give them more and make it easy for them to take action.

Make sure that whatever your CTA’s are that you put them directly underneath THE END; on the same page. Don’t put your CTA’s on a separate page as readers may not turn the page to even see them.

You can of course still add links to your website, social media channels, etc, but do this on a separate page. Save the prime piece of real estate after THE END for your most important actions you want readers to take:

• Read the next book in the series (or another similar book of yours)
• Join your email list (incentivized with a reader magnet)

With readers joining your email list, you’ll be able to sell them more of your books further down the line, let them know about future promotions and future launches of new books. And best of all, once you have a reader on your email list, you won’t need to pay to convert them into a paying customer again, because you have direct access to them through email.

But, don’t abuse their email address; they are trusting you with it and you should respect them for that by only sending relevant emails to them that are going to add value to their lives.

This all sounds so simple; and it is! But it’s also incredibly effective. So if you want to make your Ads more effective and provide a better return on Ad Spend, optimizing your sellthrough is one of the best and easiest ways to do just that.

Thank you for reading! And I hope you have a fantastic week.

All the best
Matthew J Holmes (Matt!)

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