| Hey, I've become more flexible as I advance in years. Not physically, obviously – nothing works properly and everything creaks; I mean mentally. When doling out advice ten years ago, I would have been much more proscriptive, insisting there was a singular right way to solve any given problem. My intentions were good but, looking back, it feels a little One True Way. Life teaches you there are different paths to the top of the mountain. That said, some roads are more challenging than others. You have considerable freedom in how you approach your writing and the business of selling it. However, paying attention to certain elements will sustain you along the way. I like to think of it as Product, Promotion, and Platform – and last week we explored the Product pillar. Not just having books to sell, but understanding how to position them in the marketplace, and how to package them. Knowing your genre, essentially, and presenting your book accordingly. This week we look at Promotion. Or to put it another way… if not ads, then what? Every time I speak about Facebook Ads, I get replies from people with no interest in the platform, or who have an epic rant to share about Zuckerberg and his ilk, or simply oppose the very notion of spending money on advertising. I have sympathy here but let me ask you this. If not ads, then what? How are you going to generate traffic to your books? There are alternatives to Facebook Ads, of course. You have Amazon Ads – which probably don't solve the platform, billionaire, or money-spending aspects for those who object – but can be a very reliable source of sales, and which can also scale as much as ability and budget will allow. You have BookBub Ads – which can be effective but it's imperative to note that the platform has become inconsistent, ever since BookBub increased the amount of emails going out to readers (who don't seem to care for the additional deals, but we get charged the same). And then things like Google Ads have never really worked for books. Realistic options in 2026 come down to Facebook Ads or Amazon Ads. Iean Facebook because I've always had more success there, and I enjoy the flexibility to reach readers outside of Amazon and boost my list too. If you have Amazon Ads working for you, that's totally fine. (And if you are in the minority still getting consistently good performance at scale from BookBub Ads outside of smaller retailers and markets… more power to you.) But, if not ads, then what? How are you going to reliably deliver readers to your books, at scale, in an ongoing way? Because unless I'm suffering a colossal failure of imagination, options look thin on the ground. Promo sites are a good option. They have lots of advantages over the ad platforms. They're much cheaper – a typical promo site might cost maybe $50. They require no skill to use – you simply fill out a form, there's no learning curve. And they require little time or effort – everything is done for you. They have pretty clear limitations too. Often you can't advertise a new release or a non-discounted books or books without a certain number of reviews or a certain minimum score – so you can only use them at certain times under specific conditions. Very handy for boosting something like a 99¢ sale or a free promotion but not a continual source of traffic or something that will directly help a new release. The biggest limitation, though, is one of scale. All of the sites have a limited number of readers, and you will run through them quite quickly. The only exception is BookBub's Featured Deals, which are very tricky to get (almost impossible if you are in Kindle Unlimited), not least because they increasingly favor traditionally published books, which seem to get selected and featured under vastly different criteria. While the sales spike is still unique, it's a one-shot deal and, as with most other promo sites, only available for freebies and discounts – not new releases. When I started fifteen years ago, you could get in the Top 100 just with one ad from a promo site like ENT – and that visibility could nearly be self-sustaining. Fast forward five years and it required a little more thought to make a splash – stringing several such promos together and arranging them thoughtfully to seduce Amazon's algorithms. These days, that's rarely enough unless you have a BookBub Featured Deal in the mix and, even then, it's almost impossible to avoid The Witch's Hat – i.e. when you get an outsized spike in sales followed by an equally fast drop, right back into the primordial ranking soup from whence you came. And if you aren't throwing ads into the mix to help keep things afloat, what other options do you have? Social media? LOL. Content marketing? Maybe the latter will deliver you sales in an ongoing way if you write a certain kind of non-fiction. But in both cases it's kind of like hammering a nail into a wall with a wrench. You might get the job done but its purpose is something else (engagement) and, ya know, the hammer is right there! Don't get me wrong, I still love promo sites and use them every single time I have a sale or free promotion. But I think it's fair to say that the sector is a little stale. I've been making a list of recommended promo sites for years now – which you can read on my site right here – and each year I update it. And each year it requires less and less work to update. Even the prices aren't changing in many cases! Which is good in one sense, but also a sign that their lists aren't growing, perhaps. Not a criticism, just a reflection of a tough landscape for them. my love is like bad medicine I'm not saying you must write in a commercial genre, or that you need to produce a series instead of standalones, or even that it is compulsory to make your book's cover look at least somewhat like the other ones beside it on the shelf. But doing all these things will make your load lighter. It's the same with advertising. Yes, there's a lot about it that sucks but there's a lot about the world that sucks, quite frankly, and we must carve a path through the ice nonetheless. There's also a lot about it that doesn't suck – especially the part where it can sell lots of books for you. So, make your decision… and then accept all that comes with it. If you choose not to use Facebook Ads, that's totally fine. Figure out an alternative. If you choose not to advertise anywhere, again, that's completely your decision. But accept that you will need to work extremely hard on alternative traffic sources for your books. Or simply write like a demon and hope you catch lightning in a bottle. The decision is yours. You can choose your own path. Just be aware of the challenges and limitations of the road you take and set your expectations appropriately. You will face difficultes regardless so it's essential that you turn as many purchasers into returning readers as possible. I'm sure you have heard the maxim that it's much cheaper to retain an old customer than to acquire a new one. We will explore that concept next time as we grapple with the final pillar – Platform – and lay out your options to building a sustainable readership. Dave P.S. Writing music this week is Lael Neale with Blue Vein. | 
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