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A New AMS Thread

116K views 972 replies 138 participants last post by  A past poster 
#1 ·
Edited to say: Sorry guys. Based on new ownership at this site and their response to legitimate author concerns I've chosen to withdraw from participation here.
 
#678 ·
Cassie Leigh said:
I had this happen on an ad. It was at $8,600 in estimated sales one day and $8,300 the next. But no returns either on the ebook or the paperback side, so I figured it was some sort of random adjustment to the AMS dashboard.
Back in the good old days of the Model T, Henry Ford paid his suppliers by simply weighing their invoices and making a guess at the amount he owed. Apparently nobody complained; business was booming. Do we have a similar situation here? Or just an element of chaos? ;D
 
#681 ·
Cassie Leigh said:
I had this happen on an ad. It was at $8,600 in estimated sales one day and $8,300 the next. But no returns either on the ebook or the paperback side, so I figured it was some sort of random adjustment to the AMS dashboard.
Thanks Cassie. I checked my returns. For the book with the biggest loss, I've had no returns in this month and only one in last month. Even if the one return was a paperback I still lost sales. I could write AMS but since I'm doing so little sales, I'm figuring it's not worth the aggravation. I'll just write it off as a "random adjustment." Do random adjustments ever add sales? ;)
 
#683 ·
I watched a paperback sale disappear from one of my new AMS ads the other day. It was a 6.99 sale, easy to spot because my report-processing software showed -6.99 against that same ad the next day. That sale was still missing this morning, then appeared again this afternoon.

It's happened with smaller amounts too - maybe they have different servers or databases processing figures, and which figures you get depends which one is serving them up to your browser at the time?
 
#684 ·
My most recent novel came out on 5/1. That afternoon, I put up a SP ad with about 500 keywords, bids between 25-40 cents. I put up 2 more the next day, same bids, each another 500 keywords. Each ad was approved after 2 full days, which is longer than ever before but much, much worse than the long approval time, all 3 ads are completely dead, just dashes (not even 0's) where impressions and clicks should be. Amazon usually supports new books with at least a few days of excellent impressions, but I've never had a SP ad, let alone 3, show absolutely nothing. The first ad is now on its 3rd day, with no response at all. Has this happened to anybody else?
 
#685 ·
rikatz said:
My most recent novel came out on 5/1. That afternoon, I put up a SP ad with about 500 keywords, bids between 25-40 cents. I put up 2 more the next day, same bids, each another 500 keywords. Each ad was approved after 2 full days, which is longer than ever before but much, much worse than the long approval time, all 3 ads are completely dead, just dashes (not even 0's) where impressions and clicks should be. Amazon usually supports new books with at least a few days of excellent impressions, but I've never had a SP ad, let alone 3, show absolutely nothing. The first ad is now on its 3rd day, with no response at all. Has this happened to anybody else?
[/quote

You have to understand the algorithm, which works like this:

Round about the couldron go:
In the poisones entrails throw.
Toad,that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweated venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first in the charmed pot.
Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing.
For charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and couldron bubble.

Scale of dragon,tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd in the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat; andslips of yew
silver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by the drab,-
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For ingrediants of our cauldron.
Double,double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

;D
 
#687 ·
Cassie Leigh said:
Since they're not running, you have nothing to lose. Try pausing two of the ads and see if that gets the third one running. Or up your bids. If that doesn't work it sounds like AMS has been glitchy on new ads this week. Might try shutting those down and resubmitting.
Cassie, thanks. I had hoped that doing the second and third might be enough to get the first one running, but nope. I'll give it a day or two and wait to see what Amazon has to say. My bids are already pretty high (25-40 cents). I don't think that could be the reason that these ads are dead on arrival. Shutting them down and re-submitting is something that I had not thought of but I'll try it if I can't get them to run in another couple of days.
 
#688 ·
LilyBLily said:
It finally happened. Unless my math is wrong, or my regular Amazon dashboard is not recording recent sales, the cost of my AMS ads so far in May is greater than the income from sales.
Sorry to hear this. I pulled out of AMS a couple of months ago because I hit the same wall. I planned to test the AMS pool soon, but I keep hearing more and more of the same stories. I'm sure it's not the same for everyone, but it seems that AMS has dried up for too many. I'll keep my focus on other channels for now - at least until the almighty algos make a favorable shift.
 
#689 ·
I've never made money with AMS ads, but fool that I am, I continue to use them. Even on days when I don't see sales, I often see two to four rank drops on Beyond the Forest, so I'm getting KU borrows, and readers typically work their way through the trilogy. Now I have book one out in a spinoff series, and I was hoping AMS might be useful for Wards and Wonders. Otherwise, I'm depending solely on follow-through reads. But alas, it's not looking good. At the moment, I have 11,609 impressions and 16 clicks but no sales. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
 
#691 ·
I think AMS results must be related to genre because my results don't seem to match anyone's in this thread. Then again, that doesn't make sense because as far as I can tell I'm in a competitive area (mystery).

Here are some of the ways my experience has differed...

1. I have never reached any of my daily limits or even been close to that. So now I set them all to $8 a day regardless
2. I have always had a very good ACOS (apart from 2 ads I cancelled), generally around 30% on all of my ads (and I'm in KU so page reads are on top of that)
3. I only bid low across the board and it seems to work

This is just using author names by the way.

I've also noticed that even if I add say ten ads that don't get any clicks, my sales rachet up a notch again regardless.

It's all slightly odd and mysterious, but I am mystified when I here of people spending thousands a day as I just don't see how that's possible!
 
#692 ·
Well, after I paused my one ad that was performing decently and then restarted it again, the ad seems to be dying on the vine.  Guess I should pause it to put it out of my misery.

Maybe I should copy all the more successful keywords and launch another ad, to start fresh.    :mad:
 
#694 ·
Cassie Leigh said:
The book's in KU and it's a fantasy title. So I wouldn't worry about no sales until about 25 clicks. But as LilyBLily says above, if you want a better click:buy ratio than that then look at possibly tightening your keywords.
25 clicks would cost about $8.25 on a book with a royalty of $2.70.
 
#697 ·
Here’s the scoop on Amazon limiting us to 10 categories.

Providing you let Amazon handle everything, they’re happy.  If you sell via Kindle and/or CrateSpace no problem, you’ll get your 10 categories (maybe even more - one of my eBooks carries 13).  But, of course, expect the usual Amazon confusion and hassles along the way.

If you’re like me, and self-publish (and do your own printing, shipping, etc.) it’s a different story.  Basically, they want a bigger cut of the action.  Which is what I’ve suspected all along.

For me to get my 10 categories, I have to enroll in their “Advantage” program - where they get a 55% cut (but, they store my paperbacks in inventory and covering shipping).  They also charge me an Annual fee of $99.  It’s a sweet deal - for Amazon.

With my self-publishing set-up, Amazon gets a 36% cut, as detailed in the following paragraph (which I posted a few days ago):

“Amazon charges customers $13.48 for my Solar Wizard book (of which $3.99 is for postage) (my price is set at $6.39), gives me $8.67 - they’re left with $4.81 - a 35.7% cut (4.81 / 13.48) - which seems reasonable to me.  In short, if it were not for their postage charge of $3.99, which they factor into their pay-out equation, they would be sending me a lot less than $8.67.”

Why Amazon can’t be upfront about all this is upsetting.  Seller Support sends me a barrage of emails with B.S. about limiting categories to just one, and implying that they will “Auto-resolve” the category issue (whatever that means) if I don’t respond within 48 hours.

Some way to run a business!
 
#698 ·
Following is a direct quote from a Seller Support email of May 20.  What I find especially amusing is the “Although hard to believe, after …….“ part.  Actually, it wasn’t hard at all - I never did believe a word of it.

I love the “…multiple nodes intertwines….” crap.  Where do they come up with this B.S.?  Talk about creative writing!  They must mistake us all for Idiots!

But not to worry.  All I need do is enroll in the Advantage Program, and the 10 Categories dilemma will magically disappear!

“Although hard to believe, after extensive research they have found that actually having multiple nodes intertwines the search-ability within the system and caused cross conflict of category information for an item resulting in a sales decline. Please note, we do not use node paths any longer to change the category for products in Amazon.com.

Existing ASINs that already have 2 or more nodes assigned to them may remain however any addition or attempts to add will reduce it to one and new ASINs in the catalog are prohibited to have more than 1.”
 
#701 ·
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