12: Effective Creative

Creative Principles

  1. Grab attention to stop the scroll
  2. Get the click
  3. Pre-sell the book to get people excited to read it
  4. Clearly signal genre with your image and copy
  5. Establish congruence with book page so the reader thinks yes, this is what I clicked on when they reach Amazon. Easiest (but not only) way to do this is to use the book cover or book background as your image.

Ad Elements, in Order of Importance

  • Audience
  • Image (use book cover to increase conversion)
  • Copy
  • Headline
  • CTA (button)
  • Bottom Copy

My Go To Creative Formulas

  1. Book cover on book cover background + blurb. I usually run this first because it tends to convert best (because of congruence) and if CPC is bad (and I know my targeting is right), then it notifies me that my blurb or cover is likely a problem and needs to be tweaked.
  2. Book cover on book cover background (or stock photo) + excerpt. Similar to above. Different excerpts can produce vastly different results, so test a few. You can get a lot of marketing mileage out of the words you’ve already written in the book itself.

Headline Formulas

  1. Hooky tagline based on book’s character, plot, conflict etc.
  2. Social proof—enthusiastic review quote that highlights genre
  3. Do you like [author x]? Try [book title]
  4. Looking for a new [genre] read?
  5. New [genre] novel
  6. FREE [genre] novel (if permafree)
  7. FREE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED
  8. COMPLETE SERIES FREE IN KINDLE UNLIMITED
  9. 99c for a limited time

My Three Go to Copy Formulas

I probably use these for 80 – 90% of the ads I run.

    • Blurb (either full or just the lead—which is the first 30 – 50 words)
    • Excerpt w/ dialogue (for white space/readability), conflict, end on cliffhanger
    • Teaser:1 – 2 sentence teaser, effusive/enthusiastic review quote that highlights the genre, CTA (READ NOW > [Amazon Link]