Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out. I received your enquiry and I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts. It's a tough spot to be in, and honestly, what you've described is incredibly common and one of the most demoralising things for a creator. Seeing those clicks come in, gettin' a little bit of hope, and then... nothing. It feels like shouting into the void. But it's also a massive clue about what's gone wrong.
The good news is that this is almost certainly fixable. The core issue isn't that 'ads don't work' for books. They absolutely can. The problem is that most people, through no fault of their own, are taught to use them in a way that almost guarantees failure, especially for something as personal and subjective as a book. You've essentially paid Facebook to find people who like clicking on things, not people who like buying books like yours. We're going to unpack that whole mess and start to think about a proper plan to get your book in front of people who will actually buy it, read it, and hopefully be waiting for book number two.
So let's get into it. This will be a bit of a long one, but I want to give you a proper framework to think about this.
We'll need to look at why you paid to find non-buyers...
This is the first and most painful truth. When you ran your Facebook ad campaign, what objective did you choose? If you’re like 99% of people starting out, you probably chose "Traffic" (to get link clicks) or maybe "Engagement". It seems logical, right? You want people to click the link to your Amazon page.
Here is the uncomfortable secret about how these platforms work: when you give an algorithm a command, it follows it to the letter with ruthless, idiotic efficiency. You told Facebook, "Find me people inside my targeting who are most likely to click a link, for the cheapest possible price." And Facebook did exactly that. It sought out the users who are chronic clickers. They click on everything. Ads, articles, cat videos... they just don't buy anything. Their attention is cheap because they're not in demand by advertisers who want actual sales. You have, quite literally, paid the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you the worst possible audience for your product.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the platform that costs new advertisers a fortune. Awareness and traffic are byproducts of good advertising, not the goal. The goal is a sale. Normally, we'd set the campaign objective to "Conversions" or "Sales". This tells Facebook, "I don't care about clicks. I only care about results. Go and find me the people in my audience who have a history of actually buying stuff online, and show my ads to them." It costs more per click, but the quality of the person clicking is infinitely higher.
Now, here's the spanner in the works for authors: you can't place a Facebook Pixel on your Amazon product page. Amazon owns the playground, and they don't let you see what happens after someone clicks your ad. This means you can't directly optimise for sales. It's a huge disadvantage and it means your advertising has to work much, much harder than it would for a normal eCommerce store. Because you can't rely on the algorithm to find buyers for you, your targeting and your ad creative have to do ALL of the heavy lifting. They need to be so effective, so compelling, that you are only sending hyper-qualified, desperate-to-read-it traffic over to your Amazon page. 34 random clicks won't cut it. You need 34 clicks from people who feel like you wrote the book just for them.
I'd say you need to forget 'audiences' and find your 'nightmare reader'...
So how do we find these perfect readers? You throw your current targeting in the bin. I'm guessing you probably targeted broad interests like "Reading", "Books", "Kindle", or maybe the name of a mega-author in your genre like "Stephen King" or "J.K. Rowling".
This is the second fatal flaw. Targeting "Stephen King" doesn't find you fans of horror. It finds you 50 million people who once liked a page about the movie 'It', or clicked on an article about his dog. It tells you nothing of value. You need to stop thinking about demographics and start thinking about psychographics. You need to define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) not by what they look like, but by their pain. Or in the case of fiction, their desire or boredom.
Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. What is the specific, urgent 'reading nightmare' your book solves? Let's make this practical with a few examples.
| Genre | The Reader's 'Nightmare' (Their Problem) | How You Target Them |
|---|---|---|
| Epic Fantasy | "I'm so bored of the same old farm-boy-saves-the-world trope. I want complex characters, grey morality, and a magic system that feels real and has consequences. I'm tired of predictable plots." | Forget Tolkien. Target fans of more specific, modern authors who deliver this: Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Steven Erikson. Target interests like "The First Law Trilogy", "Malazan Book of the Fallen", "Stormlight Archive". Target followers of fantasy book reviewers on YouTube who specialise in 'grimdark' or 'hard magic systems'. |
| Psychological Thriller | "I can always guess the twist on page 50. I want a book that genuinely messes with my head, makes me question everything, and keeps me up all night. I want to feel unsettled." | Forget James Patterson. Target readers of Gillian Flynn, Tana French, Shari Lapena. Target interests related to specific tropes they love: "unreliable narrator", "domestic noir". Target people who like pages for TV shows like 'Black Mirror' or 'Mindhunter'. |
| Sci-Fi (Hard) | "I'm sick of sci-fi that's just fantasy with spaceships. I'm an engineer/scientist/nerd and I want stories grounded in real physics and plausible technology. I want my science fiction to respect my intelligence." | Forget Star Wars. Target authors like Andy Weir ("The Martian"), Adrian Tchaikovsky, Alastair Reynolds. Target interests like magazines ('New Scientist', 'MIT Technology Review'), podcasts ('Acquired'), or even software/tools they might use (e.g., MATLAB, Python). Layer these with a reading interest. |
You need to do this work for your own book. Get brutally specific. Who is this person? What newsletters do they read? What podcasts do they listen to on their commute? What niche Facebook groups are they members of? This intelligence is the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. Stop trying to find "readers" and start trying to find the 10,000 people in the country for whom your book is the perfect antidote to their reading boredom. This is exactly how you pre-qualify your audience. Instead of a broad net, you are using a sniper rifle. We had a client in the recruitment space, a medical job matching SaaS, and we reduced their cost per user from a staggering £100 down to just £7 by applying this exact principle of hyper-specific targeting to find the right doctors, not just 'people interested in medicine'.
You probably should be writing ads that sell the feeling, not the plot...
Once you know exactly who you're talking to, and what their specific 'nightmare' is, you can write an ad that speaks directly to it. Your ad copy is not a book summary. Nobody cares about the plot yet. They care about the feeling the book will give them. You need to sell the experience.
The best copywriting framework for this is Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).
1. Problem: Hit them with the pain point you identified. Call it out directly.
2. Agitate: Pour salt in the wound. Remind them how frustrating this problem is. Show them you understand their annoyance.
3. Solve: Position your book as the perfect solution, the escape they've been looking for.
Let's write some ads using this. We'll stick with the Epic Fantasy example.
| Ad Copy Example 1 (Focus on Tropes) |
|---|
|
Headline: Another Chosen One? No, Thanks. Body: Tired of farm boys with mysterious destinies? Sick of plots you can predict from the first chapter? Fantasy should be an escape, not a re-run. |
| Ad Copy Example 2 (Focus on Feeling) |
|
Headline: That Feeling When You Finish A Book... Body: You know the one. That book hangover. When you close the final page and have to just sit there for ten minutes, staring into space, because the world you just left was so real. |
Notice we're not talking about "Aelfric the Brave" and his journey to the "Glimmering Mountains". We're selling an end to boredom. We're selling a specific emotional payoff. The ad's only job is to get the right person to click. The person who reads that and thinks, "Yes! That's exactly what I've been missing!" is a thousand times more likely to buy than someone who just clicked on a pretty cover.
You'll need to treat your Amazon page like a ruthless sales machine...
Okay, so your killer ad has worked. A hyper-qualified reader, someone who feels understood by your ad, has clicked the link. They land on your Amazon page. This is the next point of failure. Your Amazon page is not a library card catalogue. It is a landing page. Its only job is to convert that click into a sale or a Kindle Unlimited download.
I can't see your page, but 9 times out of 10, when sales are zero, it's one of these things:
1. The Cover: Is it professional? Does it look like it belongs on a shelf next to the bestsellers in your genre, or does it look like it was made in Microsoft Paint? People absolutely judge a book by its cover. This is the single biggest investment you should make. A cheap cover screams "amateur author" and destroys trust before they've even read the title.
2. The Book Description (Sales Copy): Is your description a boring summary of the plot? "Follow John as he goes on an adventure to find the magical sword..." Bin it. Your description is sales copy. It should continue the work the ad started. Use the PAS framework again. Start with a hook, a question, or a bold statement that grabs the reader from your ad. Use short, punchy paragraphs. End with a clear call to action: "If you're ready for a thriller that will keep you guessing until the final page, scroll up and click 'Buy Now' or 'Read for Free'."
3. The 'Look Inside' Sample: Your first chapter has to be absolutely scintillating. It needs to hook them so hard they forget they're just reading a sample. If your book has a slow start, you need to be honest with yourself. Can you edit the first chapter to start with more action or intrigue? This is your free trial. It has to be amazing.
4. Lack of Reviews (Social Proof): This is the killer. A book with zero reviews is a massive red flag to a potential buyer. It signals risk. Why should they be the first to risk their time and money on you? Getting those first 5-10 honest reviews is one of your most important jobs. You need to build a small 'launch team' or 'street team'. These are people you can give an early, free copy of the book to (an ARC - Advanced Reader Copy) in exchange for them promising to leave an honest review on launch day. Find them in those niche Facebook groups, on Goodreads, or just ask friends and family who are genuine fans of the genre.
Your Kindle Unlimited offer is good, as it lowers the barrier to entry, but it can't overcome a page that looks untrustworthy or boring.
This is the main advice I have for you:
Putting this all together, this is a systematic approach to fixing the problem. It moves from the broadest part of the funnel (the ad platform) down to the sharpest point (the buy button). We've used this same systematic thinking to help clients sell everything from high-ticket industrial products to online courses, generating $115k in revenue in just a month and a half for one course creator. The principles are universal.
| Step | Actionable Task | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Define Your Reader | Forget demographics. Write a one-page document on your 'Nightmare Reader'. What is their reading pain point? What specific, non-obvious authors, shows, podcasts, and communities do they love? | This is the foundation of your entire strategy. Without this, your targeting will be generic and your ad copy will be weak. You're building your targeting blueprint. |
| 2. Rebuild Ad Campaign | Create a new 'Traffic' campaign on Facebook. But this time, use the audience research from Step 1 to create 3-5 hyper-specific ad sets targeting those niche interests. A budget of £5-£10 per day is enough to start testing. | You're now aiming for quality of clicks, not quantity. You are manually doing the job of pre-qualifying the audience because you can't rely on a pixel to do it for you. |
| 3. Rewrite Ad Creative | Write 2-3 different ads using the Problem-Agitate-Solve framework. Focus on the emotional payoff and the reader's 'pain', not the plot. Use a powerful, professional image of your book cover as the creative. | This ensures your message resonates with the specific audience you're now targeting. It's the hook that makes them feel like your book is the answer they've been searching for. |
| 4. Overhaul Amazon Page | Get honest, brutal feedback on your cover. Rewrite your book description as if it were sales copy. Make sure your first chapter is flawless. And start building a small launch team to get your first 5-10 honest reviews. | The ad gets the click, the page gets the sale. If you're sending perfect traffic to a broken page, you will still get zero sales. You must remove all friction and build trust. |
As you can probably tell, this is a lot more involved than just boosting a post and hoping for the best. It's a proper marketing system, and it requires you to be a ruthless marketer as much as a creative author. Getting any one of these parts wrong can cause the whole thing to fall over and you end up right back where you started, just with less money in your bank account. The difference between burning cash and building a real, sustainable readership is in the strategy and the details.
If you'd like to go through this in more detail for your specific book, we could hop on a free 20-minute strategy call. We can pull up your Amazon page together, talk about your genre, and map out some of these concrete next steps. No pressure at all, but sometimes it helps to talk it through with someone who's navigated this kind of stuff before and can see it from the outside.
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
