If you’ve ever opened the Amazon Ads dashboard, stared at words like “ACOS,” “impressions,” “bid,” and “negative keywords,” and then closed the tab again, you are not alone.
Amazon Ads are one of the most effective ways to get consistent, ongoing sales for a nonfiction book. They’re also one of the most intimidating things authors have to think about. So the question I hear constantly is a fair one: Should I learn to do this myself, or should I just pay someone?
I have a lot of opinions on this, because I’ve done it both ways.
My own winding road with Amazon Ads
When I first started with Amazon Ads, I did what a lot of authors do: I read the books. Then I took a couple of courses and workshops. I learned the terminology, set up my own campaigns, and muddled through.
Eventually I decided I’d rather not spend my time on it, so I hired someone to run my ads for me, and I did that for years. It was a relief to hand it off. Then, he changed the way he ran his business and hired a bunch of people who didn’t do a very good job. So I went back to doing it myself, until I found someone better to run my ads. I worked with him for a couple of years.
And then, after all that, I went back to doing my own ads. On purpose.
I’m telling you this up front because I want you to know that there’s no single “right” answer here, and that your answer is allowed to change over time. I’ve been the overwhelmed DIY beginner, the author who outsourced it, and the person who took it back in-house. Each choice was the right one at the time.
Why Amazon Ads feel so overwhelming
Let’s name the thing: Amazon Ads have a steep learning curve.
It’s not just clicking “boost post.” You’re dealing with different campaign types, keyword and product targeting, bids, budgets, negative keywords, and a metric (ACOS) that tells you whether you’re making money or losing it. And the platform changes regularly, so what you learned last year may not be current.
None of this is beyond you. You’re an independent author; you can do this. But it does take time to learn, and even more time to manage well. That’s the real trade-off, and it’s the same trade-off that runs through everything in publishing (and business): every task costs you either time or money. Ads are no different.
When it makes sense to run your own ads
Doing your own Amazon Ads can be a great choice if:
- You want to truly understand your own numbers. No one is going to care about your book’s performance the way you do, and no one knows your book like you do. When you run your own ads, you see exactly what’s working, which keywords bring in readers, and where your money goes.
- You enjoy this kind of thing, or you’re willing to learn it. Some authors find the data genuinely interesting. Some people love digging into the details and tweaking things. If that’s you, this is a real strength.
- You’re planning to publish more books. Everything you learn on your first book’s ads pays off on every book after it. It’s a skill that compounds.
- You want to keep costs down while you’re starting out. You’ll still pay for the ads themselves, but you won’t be paying someone to manage them on top of that.
- You only have one book, and/or you don’t plan to write more. It’s generally easier to get a better return on investment when you’ve got multiple books in a series. Buyers will click on an ad to read your first book, then use Amazon search to find and purchase your other books.
The learning curve is real, but it’s doable. I did it myself by using books, courses, and workshops, and plenty of authors do the same. But do you really want to?
When it makes sense to hire help
Bringing in someone to manage your ads can be exactly the right move if:
- You’d really rather not. This is a completely valid reason. If ads drain your energy and you’d rather spend that time writing, serving clients, or literally anything else, outsourcing buys back your time and your peace of mind.
- You don’t have the hours to learn and manage them well. Ads aren’t set-and-forget. That’s a great way to lose money. They need regular attention to stay profitable. If you can’t give them that, a professional who does this all day may get better results than a distracted DIY effort.
- You keep starting and stopping. If you’ve set up campaigns three times and abandoned them each time, paying someone to actually keep them running may be worth every penny.
- The numbers justify it. More on this in a moment, because this is the part authors skip.
- You’re self-employed, and you have the budget. Maybe your book feeds into your business, which means that a book sale might lead to thousands in client fees. When your endgame isn’t a book sale, but rather a big-ticket client, it’s in your best interest to ensure your ads work.
There’s no shame in hiring help. I did it for years, and it was the right call for that season of my business.
The part authors forget: ads cost money on top of the person
Here’s the honest math, because I’d rather you go in with clear eyes.
When you hire someone to manage your ads, you’re paying two things: their fee and your Amazon Ads spend. So the ads don’t just need to work; they need to work well enough to cover both and still leave you ahead. That’s a higher bar than most authors realize when they first hand it off.
This is also where nonfiction authors have an advantage worth understanding. If your book leads somewhere—to your coaching, your course, your services, or other books—then a sale is worth more to you than just the royalty. Whether you write a companion workbook or use the book as a strategy to sell more products or services in your business, the book sale isn’t the endgame; it’s the entrance to your sales funnel. An ad that looks like it’s breaking even (or even losing money) on book sales alone might be profitable once you count the reader who goes on to work with you. (I’ve written a whole post on the many ways to make more money from a nonfiction book, and this is a big reason the ad math is different for this type of author.)
Your price matters here, too. A book priced too low can make it very hard for ads to pay for themselves, so it’s worth being deliberate about that before you pour money into advertising. However, you don’t want to price your book so high that it’s not an easy yes. I have strong feelings about book pricing, which I discuss in a separate blog post.
Questions to ask before you decide
Instead of asking “which is better,” sit with these and be honest with yourself:
- Do I actually want to learn Amazon Ads, or do I just feel like I should? Those are very different answers.
- How much time can I realistically give this every week? Not in an ideal world. In your actual, busy life.
- Do I understand my own numbers well enough to know if someone I hire is doing a good job? This one matters even if you outsource.
- What is my book leading to? The more your book feeds the rest of your business, the more advertising can be worth it.
- Where am I at right now? The right answer this year might not be the right answer next year, and that’s fine.
Why I went back to doing my own
After years of outsourcing, I brought my ads back in-house, and I want to be honest about why, because it’s not that my ad manager did a bad job. He was great, and I still recommend him to my clients to this day.
Honestly? I stopped writing books. For the last two years, I’ve been working on a master’s degree, and I just don’t have the headspace to work on my books. I stopped going on workcations, which were my primary way of getting books written. My own creative projects have been paused.
So it didn’t make sense to be spending the extra money to have someone else run my ads for me. Now, I look at my Amazon Advertising account every Monday. I look at what’s working, what’s not, and I pause the targets and campaigns that are costing me too much money.
Will I go back to working with my Amazon Ads guy? Yes, once I start producing more books. I loved having someone else do this for me. I don’t love DIY.
You don’t have to choose forever
Here’s what I most want you to take away from this blog post: whatever you choose today isn’t a permanent, one-time decision.
You might learn the basics yourself, even if you plan to hire out, just so you can tell whether your money is well spent. You might hire someone to set things up and then take over the day-to-day once you’re comfortable. You might do your own ads for years and then hand them off when your business grows—or the other way around, like I did.
The goal isn’t to do it all yourself, and it isn’t to hand it all off. The goal is to make a deliberate choice that fits your skills, your time, and your goals right now. And then reevaluate that in the future.
If you’d like help thinking through where you land, feel free to book a Pick My Brain call. We can talk through your book, your numbers, and whether DIY or hiring help makes the most sense for you right now.
And if I think you’re better off doing your own, I’ll tell you that, too.
