David Gaughran's Blog

I started working in digital advertising way back in 2004 and while it is tricky to generalize about three very different ad platforms – Facebook, Amazon, and BookBub Ads – there are some general rules that I recommend everyone considers, before losing their shirts on book advertising.

Not least because books present a pretty unique marketing challenge when compare to generic products. Something which can surprise marketers who move into publishing. Read More...

The post 15 Rules For Advertising...

These are the best book promo sites in 2022 for boosting your sales, broken down into various categories – with something for all budgets and experience levels, even some completely free options. This list is curated by me personally, and all these sites have been tested and are recommended because of the results generated.

You can skip to the section you are looking for below but make sure to check the final section for a free course on how to build a proper marketing campaign. Read More...

The...

Choosing the right Amazon categories for your book can greatly increase your visibility in the Kindle Store, making your work more likely to be discovered, purchased, and recommended.

But if you make bad decisions here – or opt to do nothing at all – you can limit your book’s success in surprising ways. Sometimes you can even nudge Amazon towards recommend your book to all the wrong people! Which invariably fails, of course, and causes Amazon to think you have written a dud. Meaning Amazon is le...

Want to learn exactly how to self-publish a book like a pro? I’ve been doing this for a decade now and I’ve created this comprehensive guide to help you through the ten steps to successful self-publishing.

Use the menu below to click ahead, if you like, but I recommend grabbing a sandwich and reading the whole thing. Hell, two sandwiches – it’s a monster, but there is a treat for you at the end. (It’s not another sandwich.)

Getting your book cover design right is the arguably most important stage in self-publishing a book. Handle this delicately if you want to have any chance of success — this is not an area where you can skate by.

Without the right cover, no one will give your book a chance, no matter how well-written it is, or how diligent your editor.

This comprehensive guide will break down the anatomy of a great book cover so you know what you’re shooting for, but that’s just the beginning.

It will a...

Authors are giving away more stuff than ever before: permafree books, reader magnets, and ARCs are just the tip of the iceberg. What’s going on? Should you jump on the free train? Does any of this stuff generate money? Let’s break it down.

The self-publishing landscape today looks very different from when I started ten years ago, that heady time when ebooks first exploded in popularity.

But some things are suddenly feeling quite similar. The impact of the pandemic and lockdowns has seen a lot of...

Authors are giving away more stuff than ever before: permafree books, reader magnets, and ARCs are just the tip of the iceberg. What’s going on? Should you jump on the free train? Does any of this stuff generate money? Let’s break it down.

The self-publishing landscape today looks very different from when I started ten years ago, that heady time when ebooks first exploded in popularity.

But some things are suddenly feeling quite similar. The impact of the pandemic and lockdowns has seen a...

Amazon recommendations drive millions of dollars of book purchases every single day, and Also Boughts are central to this system, which can lead to panic when they periodically disappear.

Also Boughts play an important role in Amazon recommendations — that process of pairing books to readers like some literary version of Tinder — but the exact role in Amazon’s recommender system can be misunderstood.

So let’s break it all down today, and show you the exact role Also Boughts play in Amazon recomm...

Amazon recommendations drive millions of dollars of book purchases every single day, and Also Boughts are central to this system, which can lead to panic when they periodically disappear.

Also Boughts play an important role in Amazon recommendations — that process of pairing books to readers like some literary version of Tinder — but the exact role in Amazon’s recommender system can be misunderstood.

So let’s break it all down today, and show you the exact role Also Boughts play in Amazon ...

Short stories are fun to write, but can you make money from publishing them? The quick answer is: maybe. But it’s almost certainly harder than you think, and the path to success with short stories can be circuitous.

Let’s begin by looking at the enduring popularity of short stories, including how a surprising number of much-loved movies were adapted from shorter work – but also contrast that with how difficult it is to get them published… unless you decide to do it yourself.

Another needed...