To be your own boss or to go from jobless to bestseller means you are empowered, so to reach your goal you will need to create resources and learn the tools to make it happen for you. You need to change your life and be willing to do a simple set of exercises over time. You need to create healthy habits that will support your dream. And you need to know that when it comes to publishing dreams, you need to learn how to use amazon ads for promoting your books.
So, the question is how to use Amazon ads in a way that will really benefit your books? To find out more listen to today's episode of Serve No Master podcast.
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The post SNM185: Why do you need to invest in Amazon ads to promote a book with Marc Reklau appeared first on Serve No Master: Be Your Own Boss - Live Free
Connect with Jonathan Green
To be your own boss or to go from jobless to bestseller means you are empowered, so to reach your goal you will need to create resources and learn the tools to make it happen for you. You need to change your life and be willing to do a simple set of exercises over time. You need to create healthy habits that will support your dream. And you need to know that when it comes to publishing dreams, you need to learn how to use amazon ads for promoting your books.
So, the question is how to use Amazon ads in a way that will really benefit your books? To find out more listen to today's episode of Serve No Master podcast.
▶️▶️▶️▶️
Resources mentioned:
Leave some feedback. We would love to hear from you!
Connect with Jonathan Green and Serve No Master:
The post SNM185: Why do you need to invest in Amazon ads to promote a book with Marc Reklau appeared first on Serve No Master: Be Your Own Boss - Live Free
Connect with Jonathan Green
to make online competition fair and transparent with equal opportunities for all. To find out how SCMrush can help you compete with the big boys, go to servenomaster.com\scmrush today. [00:00:23] Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now - than you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master podcast where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. [00:00:43] Presented live from a tropical Island in the South Pacific by bestselling author, Jonathan Green. Now - here's your host! [00:00:53] We have an amazing guest who's really digging deep into the realm of Amazon ads, which is something that I was talking about a few years ago. I've shifted a lot of what I'm doing, and so I don't talk about Amazon ads as much as I used to, but he's really showing some amazing opportunities.
[00:01:06] And this interview - it got me excited. The first thing I did after this phone call was reactivate some of my old Amazon ads campaigns because I was so excited by what he was making happen and accomplishing. So, if I got excited, I know you guys are getting excited. He's going to talk about, really simply, just - dipping your toe in the water to Amazon ads for self-published authors, how to translate your books and open new markets with new audiences and how to find amazing tools or people to help you in this process, and how he went from jobless to self-published, and a successful, financially successful, bestselling author. So without further ado - Mark, let's take it away! [00:01:38] Welcome to this session. I'm so excited. I have Mark Reclau here. He's live from his boat. He's given us a special presentation. He's the author of 10 different books, and he has an international bestseller 30 days - Change Your Habits, Change Your Life, which has been sold and download over 200,000 times around the world since April of 2015. It's been translated to over 15 languages, including Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Indonesian, Chinese, Portuguese, and even Korean. He wrote the book in 2014 after being fired from his job, and he went from jobless to bestseller, which is of course the title of his second book. And Mark's mission is to empower people to create the life they want and to give them the resources and tools to make it happen. [00:02:16] He writes about habits, productivity, and habits. His message is simple. Many people want to change things in their lives, but if you were actually willing to do a simple set of exercises constantly over a period of time, you can plan and create success and habits in your life by installing habits to support you all the way to your goal. And we're so excited to have you. Thank you so much for being here today, Mark. [00:02:35] Thanks. Excited to be here.
[00:02:37] Awesome. So we mentioned some of your amazingly successful titles and they're self-published, right? Can you tell us why you chose self-publishing instead of the traditional route - trying to find an agent and all that? [00:02:48] For many reasons. First of all, when I wrote my book, I was so unknown. So It was kind of the only way. Second was time. I didn't want to spend one year to find an agent, to take another year to find a publisher. I just wanted to get that right off the market. I knew already, this was in 2014, that there were some success stories going on with Kindle publishing, so I just tried it. [00:03:18] First half of the year - nothing happened. Then I got a BookBub deal and then things started taking off.
[00:03:25] Okay, so tell me about the BookBub deal. That was really what gave you that initial kickstart. That's very interesting. [00:03:31] Absolutely. So I got a BookBub deal after half a year of not selling a lot and in a couple of days I got 40,000 free downloads. Those 40,000 free downloads translated later in lots of sales. I think after the BookBub deal in the next two, three months, I made like $8,000, so that was awesome. And then I got another BookBub deal. So I really started out with three BookBub deals in a row and I thought, 'Yeah, that's it. This builds my business around the BookBub deals.' And then after two years I noticed, 'Oh, well maybe I can't count on BookBub deals because they got less and less'. And then I had a little bump, but by that time, thanks to the huge downloads, I mean - in total I had like over a hundred thousand downloads on Amazon, a 120,000 with my BookBub deals.
[00:07:38] So now I started translating everything, all of my books in German. Because I'm hearing from many people that the German market is also amazing with ads. You can be a totally unknown person, but if you translate your books to German, if you start running ads
to them - Amazon in Germany, in Spain, are a lot cheaper than in the US. So US is the most competitive market. So, if your ads are working in the US they're probably going to work in Germany and in the UK, and all these other countries.
[00:08:12] So that's interesting. How can someone get their books translated? I know it's something that I've tried in the past and not had great success with, so I'm very interested in that. [00:08:20] How can people get their book translated? I'm lucky, so I translated them myself, but you can find translators on Upwork, on Fiver. First, I did it all by myself, but for the German books, first I found a proofreader and she was doing really, really well because she's from Germany. I write in English, and somebody proofreads it, but I can see if they've done a good job or not a good job. Same in Spanish - I can translate my book to Spanish, I take a native proofreader, but I don't know if it's good. But in German I can see it. So, the girl did my proofreading. I loved it. I asked her, 'Are you translating?' and she said, 'Yeah, I'm also translating'. I said, 'Okay, let's do this - why don't I let you translate everything.' So, I think Upwork, Fiverr, and really, I would say, search a little bit. Because in translating, you can go from, let's say for a 30,000 words book, you can go from $500 to $3000. Translators are very, very expensive. [00:09:31] If you don't want to spend $3000 or $4,000 you have to look a little bit closer and do your due diligence, watch all the reviews they have and everything. Because for you, it's like for me in English or Spanish - if you translated a book to German, how are you going to know no if it's well or not, right? But it's the same thing. So usually you have to think, 'Okay, you need a translator and the proofreader'. But in my case, I just asked her because many times they do both things. And of course, now she's translating it and at the same time she's proofreading it. So, I'm kind of saving a little bit of money. And that's what a lot of people are doing now. The translators have a lot of work now because even if you spend 3000 - you should start with your best books to translate them. So I took my English books that are bestselling, funnily - also in Spain, it's the same book. So of course, I took those three and had them translated to German because I'm thinking, 'Well, probably those will be selling very well in Germany too'. And then the other ones I will translate later. [00:10:43] Okay. That's really interesting. I'm very excited about that, because I've been thinking about doing some translation stuff. And you talked about doing Amazon ads and that's really interesting too. Are you still finding a lot of success in American Amazon ads, or are you mostly focused on the European theater now? [00:11:00] Everywhere. So, it's very funny because I might know have good five figures with my ads. I was building it up so I stopped in July 2018. When I started, I was making on Amazon a thousand dollars a month, not enough to lift, and now I multiplied my sales by 16 to 20, so I'm making good money right now and and it's very funny - I fly under the radar. So I don't sell extremely well in the US, many of my friends are selling more. I don't sell extremely well in Spain. Friends of mine sell more. I don't sell extremely well in any market, but together I'm making 16, 18, 20K, which is amazing. So I think that if you are doing well with the US, monetarily I'm still making most in the US, so in the US I might make like 60%. And in the other countries I make less, but I also spent less.
[00:12:02] So for example, if we're talking about the anchors, for example, anchors in the US now it's like 45%. Spain was 20 for a long time. Now it also rose in Germany - it's like 35, so click costs are a lot cheaper, as I said before in Germany, Spain, UK. So if you have been doing ads in the US, you will be really well prepared for the other international markets - doing the same. So, I'm not even using copy because some people say, 'Okay, but I don't German and I can't do copy texts.' I haven't been using copy texts in my ads for a year because it's just like the standard thing and I leave it to Amazon to put the ads where they want with my keywords. I don't care about the positioning and it works. Because for me, the only thing I'm really looking at is how much do I spend every day on ads and how much am I earning every day on ads. And as long as that number is North of 300, 400 - it's great. [00:13:04] When I started it was 30, 40 euros a day, my net gain, and then it just built up gradually. As I said, it took me one and a half year. Maybe you can do it quicker, but it needs time. [00:13:19] Okay. Now, you've built this career. It sounds like things were really turned around in the last year, which is really wonderful. I'm glad you're having that success. And we talked a little bit about before the call about how you have this independent streak - you live on a boat, you do your own thing, and personal freedom is so important to you and it's important to me as well. That's why I live in basically the middle of nowhere, what I call the edge of the world. When did you decide, or how did you decide that you wanted to help other people achieve the same thing? How did that become a part of your journey, that you want help other people have financial freedom and financial independence? [00:13:50] I think it's the same thing like for you, you know, it's like we're doing something, we notice it works, and then you kind of, I see how the writers get kind of altruistic and we're like, 'Well, okay, let's show other people. I mean, we have the knowledge already. We probably have written it down somewhere. And let's just do it'. And because we are now talking in a situation where the world is in lockdown and, as we said before, as writers, our lives don't change much because usually most of the time we are locked away anyway, writing books and just going out to get some necessary things. [00:14:26] And then the thing is, now we just see a lot of worries around us because shops are closing, restaurants and bars are closing, and we are kind of like, quarantined - but the books keep running, the online courses keep running. So it is really a great model. So for me, it was not a decision, it was from my chest, kind of a part of the journey. [00:14:49] It was the same thing you know when I started five, six years ago, I wanted to be a coach. I wanted to be to sell coaching. I wanted to coach people. I wanted to do speaking gigs and everything, but it just kind of didn't work. It's like, when I was analyzing my numbers, it's always nice to have extra money, but when I was analyzing, my numbers most always came from books and foreign rights. And so after a while I said, 'Okay, I mean, if I'm spending it, where does my money come from?' And 80% of my money comes from books. So, I decided to spend 80% of my time on books, which for me means writing my books, translating books, making audio books, promoting books. [00:15:33] And then just when I started this and I got more and more sales - now the other stuff comes up and it’s nice extra money, you know? So now when the checks come in from the international publishers, it's nice, you can live from it. You can't depend on it because some pay, some of them pay next year. You never know, but it's a nice money too when it comes to investing in savings, or to pay some extra bills or whatever. But my main business really is Amazon. I noticed I could more or less get a steady flow of income and everything else, affiliate sales, et cetera, et cetera, it's extra, which is also highly appreciated, of course. [00:16:16] So authors like us, you and me, we build our business around our writing. You know, writing is what I do. I was just working on a new book over the weekend and sending it to my editor, which I'm very excited about. But can you give us a little insight of how you got started and what you see are the important steps into someone who's trying to build a career as an author, someone who wants to replicate your success. [00:16:33] I was troubling, so I lost my most important excuse. I didn’t have time, and I studied self-publishing. I knew about the success stories and I said - okay. In that moment, I was still thinking that I'm going to be a coach. And I said, 'Okay, a coach with a book is better than a coach without a book, right? A book is a great tool for us. Follow up branding for to differentiate us from other people who do the same profession. So I just noticed that everything was going there, you know, it was kind of the easiest thing to do. It's difficult to describe. You will notice it because for other people it can be other things, but it's just how it happens. So, then I said, 'Okay, I'm going to keep on writing'. [00:17:28] And the second thing is - learn from the best. So, you need to invest money. I noticed that because when I got my first BookBub deal, I think it was $500 and I was living on $800 chop less welfare, so it was really a huge chunk of money that came in. I had my savings, everything was fine, but it was a huge decision to make. I made a decision. And the money came back 10 times, or 15 times - great return of investment. [00:18:00] And when I was really not doing very well, which was two years ago, well, this couldn't go on like this anymore. I was selling less and less, visibility was going away, and I said, 'Okay, what are the successful office people doing? You know Steve Scott, household name and the nonfiction, he's selling between 20 and 60,000, I said, 'What is he doing differently?' I bought his course. Then there's the Englismanh Mark Dawson - thriller writer who, by that time was making $250,000 a year. Okay, what is he doing? And then I was looking what they were doing and I was like, 'Wow, that's great. They're not doing so much differently from me. The only thing that I have is like 10, 20 or more books. They always have a book on promotion, so they always have a book for 99 cents. That's why I like the 99 cents and the free giveaways from us, because it draws new readers. And then really investing a lot of money in ads. [00:19:00] Then I learned ads from Mark Dawson and then I noticed, wow, it's the same. So what I really would say is learn from the people who are already there. And keep investing. So when I bought Mark Dawson's course, I was so poor, I couldn't even pay it one down. I needed to get the payment plan, which has so many great courses. You can get a payment plan on $50 or $70 and it might feel a lot, but this course that cost me, I don't know, a thousand dollars - it's brought in the money. I mean, I don't know, I made nearly six figures last year, if nothing else bad happens, I will make six figures surely this year. I can tell you that already. [00:19:44] So sometimes you have to invest and you learn from the best. Learn from people who are already there. And of course, I've proven success. Nowadays, everybody sells you a course on how to get successful with books and most of them don't sell a lot of books. They sell a lot of courses. So it's better to buy the course from somebody who's actually really a household name in the self-publishing business, like you, for example. Right? And they can check us out on Amazon, and they see our books there and then they can make their decisions. But it's definitely one of the most important things - learn from other people. [00:20:26] What is the mindset, once you keep, while going through their career as both an author and an entrepreneur, of a coach?
[00:20:33] What's the mindset? For me, the mindset change was really an incredible thing. Prisoners mindset. Yeah. I think at the same time when this finally started working and I was not burning savings anymore, it was when I really changed my mindset and become a very 'number person'. I like to help people. That's why I do it. But I love the money too, you know? So finding a balance for that. And, like I said before, for me now as a businessman, a business mindset, I had to say, 'Okay, I need more products'. Every product adds to my bottom line. Audio books, paperback books, eBooks... That's my core business. Every day I know I have to invest heavily, so I'm now investing between $6000 and $10,000 in Amazon ads every month. It depends on how much Amazon takes. If they want 20 I give them 20 because when you figure out, when you know your numbers, that's the hardest thing, when you know your numbers and then suddenly know just that maybe every dollar you invest in some ads - Amazon, Facebook, whatever, and you see, you will always get $2 out, and then you need to put more money. And many authors say, 'Oh no, Amazon, they're so mean. They always take 30% of my book. Now I have to pay them advertising and they will get even more money from me', but this is not the right mindset. [00:22:10] The mindset is - if I pay Amazon $1 and I get $2 out, then I want to give Amazon as much money as I can. It's like an ATM. Because, go to your bank and try. Go to your bank and give your bank a thousand dollars and look what they give you in the year. And you would probably have 1,010. [00:22:33] So that's a really good advice. You actually got me thinking I'm going to go back in re-dig into my Amazon. Beause I haven't really been focusing on there because I've been focusing on some other things. What I'd love to know is - what's your current big project? What can we expect from you in the upcoming months? What's ahead for Mark Reklau? [00:22:51] Mark Reklau was a little bit lazy in the last month because he got so much - Christmas business was awesome. That's where I'm working. So, I was mostly kind of in an ultra-business mindset. So I was like, 'Okay ads are doing so well'. And I noticed that the more ads I made; the more money is coming. So I us concentrating a lot on ads. It went so far that in January I had complete lack of liquidity because I was putting everything into ads. But thank God after 60 days, I got some nice transfers from Amazon. So now I'm putting in and I have like five books on the line. One is indoor installation, one is written, but I don't have the title yet. [00:23:36] It's been two months without finding a title, because I have a great title, but then the title already exists from a Spanish author. It's a similar book, and I could even take it in English, but it just doesn't feel right. It just doesn't feel right, so I said, 'Okay, I will think a lot more about the title'. The German books I have titled so I will roll out two German books in the next two months. I will put on my English book, and then I will, because of the preorder, you can also now put books on Bria a long time before, so I would probably put the book after that, which it will be about minimalism. I think minimalism order and all this. I think I will just put it on Bria for launch in September. I haven't written a word yet, but it's like, it's always good, you know, with a preorder, you can, build up pressure. And there's the deadlines. Because you can't mess up a preorder. If you mess up a preorder, you can't do a preorder anymore for a year or so. And I don't want that, so that's the thing. So I will finish one book, which will be out, well, I just did the title, so that could be out like next month or whatever. Rollout a German, two, three translations, put another book on preorder for September, and with that, I think I'll be quite busy. [00:25:07] That's amazing. One final question before we close out is - what would be your message to those who are just stepping on the road to changing their lives and their careers? [00:25:15] Be patient. It takes time. It's a process. So, don't give up too early. You can try to ride to agents, to publishers, but I think self-publishing is the way to go. When you listen to us, when you really learn from people who have built a business around it... but it needs time. I think maybe a year. Give yourself a year, write a lot of books, of course, maybe you can do it quicker than me, because you write more books, you can learn from the mistakes we made and all this. So, patience, don't give up, take it seriously, take it as a business mindset. And you can earn money with doing what you love, because that's like a limiting belief - 'Oh, I love to write. Maybe I can earn money with it'. Tom Hanks loves to act and he's earning a lot of money with his acting, so you can too. [00:26:14] So yeah, that would be two things. But we all learned from that, from the past. Don't stop educating yourself. I'm trying to get everything on Amazon ads, because every time I learn a little bit more. Keep on learning and tell us where you are in a year. [00:26:35] That's amazing, Marc. Thank you so much for spending time with us. This has been an amazing presentation. I know everyone is absolutely loving it and I can't wait to see what's coming from you over the next few months. [00:26:46] Thanks, Jonathan. It was a pleasure to be here. [00:26:49] Thank you guys for listening to my interview with Marc. I hope you really, really enjoyed it. You can learn more about him at marcreklau.com. The link will be in the show notes. I know that sometimes I talk too fast and the spelling is hard to follow. This is part of our continuing authorship miniseries. And we're going to have more miniseries as part of the Serve No Master podcast main feed. [00:27:09] And it's really important to know that you guys are enjoying these interviews, that you want me to continue making them because it's a lot of extra work on my behalf to put these together. But if you enjoy it, if it gives you value, if I get some thumbs up or if you can leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts - that really helps to let us know that we're on the right path. And of course, as always, you can leave comments below the YouTube video or the blog post tied to this episode. I can't wait to see what you guys have to say. Thank you so much, Mark, for being amazing on this episode. We'll see you again in the next episode. [00:27:35] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss another episode. We'll be back next Tuesday with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race. Head over to servenomaster.com/podcasts now for your chance to win a free copy of Jonathan's bestseller Serve No Master. All you have to do is leave a five-star review of this podcast. [00:28:01] See you Tuesday. [00:28:07] Ready to turn your book into a bestseller? Find out what other authors don't want you to know at servenomaster.com/secrets.