We get asked this question daily, and the answer is: It depends on your goals, and on the response you get to your ads. Most commonly, authors advertise their book for two reasons: 1. To build awareness that the book is available, and 2. to sell books.
In order for an advertising campaign (for any product from books to computers to automobiles) to drive a consumer action, that consumer has to be exposed to as many as nine marketing impressions. That means that if you want to see results, you should plan an ongoing, multi-week campaign. The minimum marketing spend BookBaby will allow is $400 spread over several weeks – smaller budgets have no shot at driving a positive ROI. However, we usually recommend spending at least $1,000 to $1,200 on marketing your book.
While your ads are running, you’ll be able to track the response to your advertising in your BookBaby author dashboard. You’ll see traffic data, buyer demographics, and (for sales through our Bookshop) sales data. If you see that your ads are working, keep advertising! If it doesn’t look like the ROI is great, there is still value in the ad impressions your book is generating by getting seen online. In such a case, we are happy to work with you to tweak the ad copy, author targeting, or the budget.