Lindsay - March 12, 2020This week’s guest is Mark Dawson, the brains and talent behind Ads for Authors and the Self-Publishing 101 course. Mark is an award-nominated, USA Today bestseller of thrillers, with more than 20 books published and over 3 million books downloaded in multiple countries and languages. As well as writing, he teaches other authors how to self-publish and is one of the hosts for The Self-Publishing Show.
Mark spent over an hour speaking with us and answering questions that ranged from how he got started in publishing to how his new German language translations are going and what he’s doing to market them. He got his start with courses teaching authors about Facebook ads, and we asked if Facebook is still his passion, or if he’s moved over to Amazon ads. Whether you’re new or experienced, you should find some great information in this show — Mark really has done it all now.
Here are some of the specific questions we asked him:
- How many books a year do you release right now?
- What does a book launch look like for you these days? You did a stand-alone in January (The Vault) and are launching a new series (Atticus Priest) very soon. Do you treat these differently than say a Book 15 in an established series?
- What are your thoughts on audio? Do you include audio in your launch strategy?
- You do all of these courses — you must have written some non-fiction to go with them? (Yes, his team has put out quite a few, and they’re published under Self Publishing Formula.)
- We’ve heard indies say that thrillers can be tough to break into, but the rewards can be high in a genre with such a big audience. What are your thoughts on the genre for indies?
- It seems like there are tradeoffs for both extremes of the genre spectrum. If you pick a popular, established genre, the sky is the limit for earnings, but getting noticed is more difficult because of saturation and competition. If you pick something niche, you’re more likely to stand out, but there’s less of an audience to go around. If someone was starting today, where would you recommend they set their sights?
- Many authors would like to get their books translated into other languages. What are things they should have in place first, and where should they start?
- How did you launch your books into Amazon Germany (Rapid release? All at once?), and for marketing are you using the Amazon auto ads something more sophisticated?
- You switched your books to Kindle Unlimited a little while ago. What was the deciding factor behind that, how has it gone, and how should other authors approach similar decisions? (Going wide after being in KU and going into KU.)
- What’s new with your Ads for Authors course this year?
- You seemed to be all-in with Amazon ads last year. What are your thoughts on the state of them now, regular and AMG (Amazon Media Group)?
- What role are Facebook ads playing for you currently? Do you still run ads to a free book to build your mailing list or do you go for the direct sale?
- Mastering a single ad platform is difficult. Mastering two or three can seem downright impossible. Are there any basic advertising principles that are widely applicable? Any skills that can serve as a foundation for building up an aptitude in most/all ad platforms?
- Carrie asks: Mark recently did a book trailer. What’s the ROI? Is it really worth it?
- Beth Fratesi asks what Mark’s take is on rapid release and whether it’s as big as everyone thinks it is.
As this show goes live, Mark’s Self-Publishing 101 course is open. If that’s something you’re interested in, you can check it out here.
And of course, you can find Mark on his own site: https://markjdawson.com/
Thank you for listening, and thank you to Joshua Pearson for producing the show.
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