When the Ads Stop Working
Why authors need an email list.
I’ve been watching a handful of authors scramble for audience growth recently. And I get it! Up until now, they’ve built strong sales history, collected solid reviews, and shown up consistently in their categories. From the outside, they look like authors who have figured it out.
My best guess is that when the Amazon algorithm shift caused an increase in ad spend and still, sales slowed, they were forced to pivot their marketing strategy. They’re shifting to Meta ads for book sales and community building. The real signal for me? They’re seasoned authors starting from scratch on these pages.
This is what got my attention: their social community numbers don’t line up with their sales history. The followers are thin. The engagement is quiet. How could that happen? Those sales weren’t coming from relationships. They were coming from ads.
This isn’t a story about Amazon being bad or ads being a waste. Ads work, and I use them and recommend them. But there is a real difference between a marketing tool and a marketing foundation. An ad rents attention. The moment you stop paying, the attention stops.
Marketing has always been clear on one thing: repeat customers drive sales. The reader who bought your book and loved it is far more likely to buy your next one. But how do you reach that reader directly, without paying for the privilege every time? Unless you’re selling from your website and can collect that sales data directly, the answer is an email list.
It’s the one asset in your author marketing toolbox that you actually own. You’re not at the mercy of an algorithm. You’re not renting space on someone else’s platform. Your list is yours. The relationship is yours. And that relationship is what makes repeat readers, early buyers, launch team members, and word-of-mouth possible.
There’s also something a list does that ads can’t. It gives you a place to share your work in real time, to let readers inside your process, to make them feel like they’re part of something rather than just buyers of something. That’s a very different relationship than the one that starts and ends at a purchase link.
None of this means email is the only answer or that ads are the wrong approach. The most successful author marketing I’ve seen is broad in reach, specific to your target audience, and well-rounded. It’s a combination of activities that fit the author’s goals, genre, audience, and honestly, time and energy. Some authors do well on social. Some find their people through podcasts. Some run effective ads for years. None of that is wrong. Combined, it can be incredibly effective. Still, it’s all effort on someone else’s space.
Your email list is the asset that holds it all together. It’s where your community lives, even when the other platform changes the rules.
I’m in the middle of building one right now with a client, and I thought the most useful thing I could do is bring you along. Not with a theory, but with the actual steps, in the order we’re taking them.
Next week I’ll share how I built the guide that starts the whole thing.
In the meantime, if you’d like quick, practical author marketing advice delivered straight to your inbox, click here to subscribe to the Three Things newsletter - Three things every author should know, learn, and do. Every week.
Lynn brings her more than 30-years experience in small business marketing, publishing, and multiple best-selling author campaigns to her Substack newsletter. She helps authors build and grow their platforms to reach their unique marketing goals through private coaching, non-fiction consulting, and done-for-you marketing programs. And all this, through her computer, in her little lake house in rural Pennsylvania which she shares with her husband, son, and two fluffy companions, Kaiju and Bella. Learn how to work with Lynn here.