[00:00:02] Carissa Andrews: I'm Carissa Andrews, International bestselling indie author and CEO of Author Revolution. With more than 15 books published, it's safe to say I have made a ton of mistakes in my endeavor to become a full time author. The most important thing that I've learned in the past decade is that indie authors need to protect their creativity and their serenity. Being an author is a long game, and that's why I'm on a mission to teach other Indies just like you how to publish books with a sustainable rapid release method. I created the author Revolution Podcast to give you insights and actionable step by step strategies to help you do just that. If you're an ambitious author or one in the making who's looking to create a long term author career and a life you love, You found your tribe, my friend. Let's get your author revolution underway.  

Welcome back to the podcast, my friend. Oh, boy, this week is gonna be so much fun. So here's a little back story on how this whole episode came about as an indie author and student of the craft for at least a decade. I have always made it my mission to learn as much as humanly possible from as many sources as possible. One could even say, I'm a little bit obsessed with the learning side of things, and they'd probably be pretty accurate. Today's podcast guest is someone I have been following since at least 2015, maybe even earlier than that. He's the co host of the sell More books show. A podcast geared toward helping India's to You may have guessed it sell more books, but he is also the CEO of Best Page Forward, a copyrighting company that helps authors by crafting exceptional book descriptions in order to sell more books. In addition to that, he's also the founder of Amazon Ad School, an online course. But dare I say, a community designated to help authors understand, implement and master Amazon ads? Yes, I am a student, and I have taken the challenge multiple times that he is about to launch. Well, today I have Brian Cohen on the show, and we are talking about all things book related. We dive into it all book blurbs, podcast shows and, yes, his upcoming Amazon ad challenge and so much more so I'm not going to make you wait any longer. How about we get started? 

Welcome. So much, Brian, for joining us today on the author Revolution Podcast. I am super thrilled that you're here joining us today. For those of you who don't know who you are, which is super doubtful, at least in our in the author realm, Can you tell my audience just a little bit about who you are and what it is you do?

[00:03:00] Bryan Cohen: Sure, Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. Of course. So, basically, I am an ad guy. I am a blurb CEO, and I am an author. So what do those things mean? I really like to help authors at any level just kind of understand the scary world of Amazon ads. I am the CEO of an author copyrighting agency that's written over 3000 book descriptions for the author community. And I'm an author myself. I have eight novels. I have 30 plus workbooks. I have some other nonfiction books in there as well. And so those are kind of like the three things I most identify with right now,

[00:03:50] Carissa Andrews: not a podcast. Host yourself.

[00:03:52] Bryan Cohen: See, That's the thing. It's like you got to pick just three because it's the rule of threes. But, yes, I am the co host of the sell More books show Podcast, which we just finished our seventh year anniversary.

[00:04:06] Carissa Andrews: Amazing. That's amazing. I think I started following you guys right around 2015. So it's been a while. That's

[00:04:13] Bryan Cohen: amazing. We've been partying Hardy.

[00:04:16] Carissa Andrews: All right, Well, obviously, like I said, I've been following you since you first put out sizzling synopsis. So this

[00:04:25] Bryan Cohen: one I made a bookshelf, made it. It did. And of course, I'm a paperback girl. I have to have it and give it back, because that's why

[00:04:34] Carissa Andrews: I'm, um So you obviously, like you said, have a passion for books. You have a passion for sharing that information with other authors because that's kind of been part of your routine from the very beginning. Where did all of that really kind of initially come from the wanting to share more?

[00:04:50] Bryan Cohen: Yeah, I think it became pretty clear early on that the folks who seem to be the most helpful were the ones who were always just very transparent about stuff, you know, And I think like whenever I've had an opportunity to share something I've done, or whenever we've been able to do something for a client that then we've, uh that they got results from. I've never really wanted to be that person who said, Great, Now we'll just tell a select group of five people and we'll use it until it stops working. It's it's really more about. I just always wanted to try to help people get a little bit further to get past their kind of roadblocks. And I think some of that is like personality types. Some of that's upbringing. Both my parents were teachers, my, uh, my dad's mom as a teacher, like, there's a lot of teaching that that I really I think I kind of just come from that background. But I also just I love when people are in a certain place, can't figure it out. You give them that. I'm sure you get this as well. You give them like one piece of advice and it it gives them a boost that they hopefully then last and continues to get the momentum going forward for years and years.

[00:06:24] Carissa Andrews: Absolutely. And I think sometimes it even like jump starts a kind of a comprehension them that Oh, there's even more here that I didn't realize that I didn't know. And then all of a sudden, they're digging into a lot more and engaging with, especially in the author Hood. There's so many hats that were always wearing at any given moment of time. And, yeah, I absolutely understand that. So all those workbooks, those were those are all teacher based, correct? Yeah,

[00:06:52] Bryan Cohen: a lot of those workbooks I kind of had. My first couple of nonfiction books were books of creative writing prompts, and they just really lent themselves to being put into more of a educational setting, to give them to parents to give them two kids and put out a lot of those in 2012 2013 when, you know I didn't know anything, but none of us really knew anything, right? And so, um, put sold a lot of paperbacks on create space. It got moved over. And honestly, that's actually it's That was one of the things that moved me into wanting to do Amazon ads and wanting to learn them. So when my books moved over from create space, you know you're the paperback girl and that moved over from create space to KDP print a couple of years back. Some of the so called organic sales, uh, they started to tail off, and I didn't know if it was just when it got moved into the new infrastructure, because it was always the same listing on Amazon. But something happened and those book sales started to go down for these very, like, evergreen kind of books. And so I said, All right, guess it's about time I figured out what this whole Amazon ads thing was and and really started to dive into that. So a lot of that was from just wanting to do a better job of getting these workbooks out.

[00:08:32] Carissa Andrews: Interesting. So is that when the relentless authors advertised podcast came about because I actually followed that one until it kind of ended. And then you've pivoted obviously into Amazon ad school, which has been fantastic. So okay, that makes

[00:08:45] Bryan Cohen: sense. Yes, that podcast short lived, but still on the Internet somewhere. I just shared my ad results every week for about six months and you learn some things about ad. You learn some things about yourself when you when you are very much sharing everything about what you're doing and not all weeks, we're winners.

[00:09:11] Carissa Andrews: Well, absolutely. I can attest to that, even following all of your advice through Amazon ad school, even with my own books. Totally different genre, not all months or even winners. Sometimes it switches to a new month and I don't even know. Amazon decides. Let's just back off for a little bit and see if this actually works. I don't know

[00:09:28] Bryan Cohen: your super weird.

[00:09:30] Carissa Andrews: Okay, so with best paid forward, you help authors with copyrighting their book descriptions. Obviously, um, which is a super frustration for most of us authors

[00:09:40] Bryan Cohen: from watching

[00:09:41] Carissa Andrews: you. It looks like the copyrighting passion came first, and then it kind of transitioned into more of the selling book stuff. Is that fairly accurate? Would you say,

[00:09:50] Bryan Cohen: um, I mean, I think that a lot of stuff kinda happened at the same time. Best page forward was around the time you started following somewhere Book show. Best sell More books show started first, but best page forward kind of started in year two of that podcast back in 2015 or so, and I could see that people were struggling with it, that people were frustrated. And I I never want people to feel frustration. And so I definitely wanted to see if I could use like, Yes, I was a copywriter before this because almost by necessity, it's like, Hey, writer needs to make money. Oh, copyrighting is a thing. And so I wrote thousands of blog posts for companies. I actually ghost wrote for several CEOs in entrepreneur and Fast company. And so I learned a lot about copyrighting before I got into the author bits. So you're right about that. The copyright and kind of started first, Um, but I think that it was the story, as it always gets told, it's It's practically apocryphal at this point, but, uh, Simon Whistler, who of the rocking self publishing podcast, which now he's a big YouTube star. So he's not in self publishing, uh, field anymore. But we were in a mastermind. I always recommend masterminds, a small group of like minded people who are looking to make some make some waves, get in a group and talk about your projects every couple of weeks. It can make a major difference as it did for me because Simon Simon said that when, uh, why don't you just combine this love of helping authors with this love of, uh, copyrighting or this, you know, required to live of copyrighting And I just took it and ran with it, pushed that idea, had a sales page up very soon. And then I just the first month we sold about 100 so it was pretty wild, and I didn't know what to do with myself on that. But it has been really great to learn the system, like, kind of come up with the system, learn it, and then I've been able to pass it on to others. And now we have about 10 to 12 writers and editors like We just had a had a promotion this month. I was looking at the board. We had 223 blurbs to write this month, and the team is working on them and and and and they're doing just a fantastic job.

[00:12:51] Carissa Andrews: So how do you How do you divide those out like, is it a first come first serve? Here's the big long list. Or are there some where they handle different genres. How does that usually work?

[00:12:59] Bryan Cohen: Oh, that's a great question. I'm not sure I've ever been asked that question. So way to go get you. Uh, we kind of have a just folks who have been in the system for a long time. Like our longest standing writers are Robert, Australian, sci fi author and nonfiction guru, and John Fabian, who has written in a variety of genres. And they kind of eat first. They they do a lot like they are involved in multiple steps. It's about a 14 step process David out over five different people, and sometimes there's an overlap. But like two of the people are the same. But, uh, so it really is just a matter of who's trained in what? Who's, uh says, Yeah, I could do 20 blurbs this week if you want me to. And like, Great, Here you go. And so we have some. Some of the people on our team have done over 1500 just themselves.

[00:14:04] Carissa Andrews: Wow,

[00:14:04] Bryan Cohen: So it's wild.

[00:14:06] Carissa Andrews: That is crazy. I would think that after a while it would get pretty easy to to kind of spot the parts that are going to really pop in a blurb versus like. Okay, how do you piece all this through? Is it hard? Do you think with some of the authors, when they give you the information, Do you really have to pull stuff out sometimes?

[00:14:25] Bryan Cohen: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I often have to ask some additional questions. Just if I get it. It's like if you say you Chris, we're like a book you released in 2018. And suddenly you need to remember what the protagonist was like. You know, You, you you. If you hadn't touched that series in a while, it might be like, Oh, man, I don't even know And

[00:14:52] Carissa Andrews: I've been asleep since then. What are you talking about? Pretty much

[00:14:55] Bryan Cohen: so, Um so it is hard, but I think the authors who work with us are are very game. They know that they they really want to get the best possible thing. And we try not to inundate. People were really looking for in fiction. We're really looking for what is the emotional hook? What is the the main character's emotional journey? Because we can talk about explosions and romances and shifters all we want. That's in every book. What's different is Oh, this person is dealing with this thing. This person is reacting in this way. It ends up being very different, just based on the what the character is dealing with and and then how we can try to get readers to connect with that emotional journey,

[00:15:47] Carissa Andrews: right? Right. I think that's even a tough thing for authors who are somewhat decent. Copyrighting is to kind of remember what is the emotional part of it. There's so much emotion in it. Which one do I really want to leverage? And that's where it all get so muddy and get. That's why it's very nice and helpful to be able to go here. Here's this thing. You figure out which one's going to sell better.

[00:16:09] Bryan Cohen: Exactly, and we liked it. I think so. Many of the so many of the people I'm fortunate enough to work with are also authors in addition to being copywriters, and I think every single one of them would say they've gotten better at writing their fiction or the nonfiction since they have written just a heck of a lot of blurbs.

[00:16:31] Carissa Andrews: I bet I would probably even imagine. In some cases it's better to start with the blurb because then you know exactly what it is you're trying to portray in the novel, and it sells itself through that process of the copyrighting first and then

[00:16:46] Bryan Cohen: the story about that.

[00:16:48] Carissa Andrews: Oh, do tell.

[00:16:49] Bryan Cohen: So my former project manager who who uh, made too much money from their books so they had to leave reached out to me, were writing in a new genre And they they said, Hey, is you know, does this sound like for a book one in this series? Does this sound like paranormal cozy mystery? I looked at it. I'm like, you know, like there's a couple of elements that are missing and I roped in a friend of mine who also writes in the genre and said, Can you help me with this blurb to? Because we just want to make sure if the blurb isn't there, then you know the story probably isn't there, too. You need to write to market both on the inside, but you need to kind of market to market. When you're putting the book out, it needs to match the inside and outside, of course, need to match. And so, uh, they fixed the blurb. They were about halfway down. The book had to do a lot of revamping, but now they're on, like Book 11 or something, and they really close to hitting 10,000 month off of just their own books. And so I was sad to lose them as a project manager, of course, but very excited that we caught it early. It's just like we were talking about. I was a victim of identity theft. I think I caught it early enough that I might be able to mitigate any damage pretty quickly. And that's what you want to do with the problems in your story. You want to catch them early enough so that you don't, uh, miss out on having written to a certain market or connecting with your readers.

[00:18:37] Carissa Andrews: That's really important. It's I think it's probably kind of difficult for new authors who are coming in the scene, and they're not quite sure what they're doing just yet. But for sure, for authors who are a little more seasoned and kind of have their hands around their genre pretty well, I think that's incredibly valuable. Would you say that it would be beneficial then for authors to come to you at best page for it before they ever start writing and get a blurb first, would that be helpful?

[00:19:02] Bryan Cohen: Um, I think they would need to know certain elements of the story they're hoping for as well. I think in that case, it was like, you know, the person worked with best page forward, So

[00:19:13] Carissa Andrews: right, of course, I

[00:19:14] Bryan Cohen: was gonna say, Yeah, this doesn't work for this genre and that's a super interesting idea for maybe a future pivot into, like, get your blurb written to market before you write, the book would probably need to be a specific service because it's like we usually go with what they already have. But I think a lot of authors who have been in the pre order stages they've. They've definitely found it helpful to even write all that information down that we asked them to write because they can absolutely use that for other things

[00:19:47] Carissa Andrews: for sure. And I think it even would put your mindset in the right place. Like if they're not good at outlining, for example, and they're not really good about sitting down and giving themselves a really good plot having even just the Buckler before they start writing would be very helpful. I know. For me, it's like I need to have the outline. Otherwise, I have no clue what the heck I'm doing. And then I procrastinate. Yeah, Yeah. There are a lot of a lot of authors, different tips for authors to get their stories out.

[00:20:11] Bryan Cohen: Exactly.

[00:20:12] Carissa Andrews: Yeah. Okay, So the other thing, the other side of things that you do is obviously the Amazon ads School, of which I am a student. I am loving it. I'm constantly going in there and trying to figure out what am I doing wrong? Just complained the other day

[00:20:26] Bryan Cohen: about I never feel bad like I was in the course last year. Don't worry about it. You can always suppose.

[00:20:33] Carissa Andrews: Yes, I love that. I love that everyone is able to really interact and be so engaged inside that group. I've got really loud Children's outside my door. My five year old six year

[00:20:44] Bryan Cohen: old is a cat. Something until about five o'clock. Then we'll have the four year old running around here.

[00:20:49] Carissa Andrews: Yep. Yep. Area. I've got the six year old sitting outside the door, I think. Okay, So you've got the next you do these Amazon ad challenges and I've done about three of them myself, and I know you've got a new one coming up.

[00:21:02] Bryan Cohen: So do

[00:21:03] Carissa Andrews: you want to explain what this Amazon ad challenges and why authors who are listening to the podcast really should be listening up and probably joining up?

[00:21:12] Bryan Cohen: Yes, sure, absolutely thank you. Essentially, I think that the terminology terminology of a challenge sometimes puts people off. It's a free course, but it's it's kind of a different free course than something you get sent to your email and then you work on it and you forget about it after three days. It's actually a very interactive thing where we give homework to we. We have these videos, free videos that some people have told me This is more than I've gotten in the courses I paid for, and I'm like,

[00:21:47] Carissa Andrews: Absolutely, I agree with that.

[00:21:49] Bryan Cohen: Awesome. Thank

[00:21:50] Carissa Andrews: you.

[00:21:50] Bryan Cohen: We get that information out and then we say, All right, well, here's the application. Part of it. You apply that knowledge, Go create the ad. Take a picture of it, share it in this In this Facebook group, Go take a picture of the five campaigns you've now created posted in the group. Take a picture of the or right in the ad copy you want to write, share it in the group. And so we have that homework. But it's not just pasted into this vacuum we have now. We're coming up on 15,000 people in the group, which is crazy, but what it really is is we have existing add school students and and some paid members of of the ad school team supporting everybody. We have shifts. You should see our Google docs are docs are so doxie we have some shifts. Were like All right, well, in January, this was this. 10 to 12 was crazy. So let's have seven people supporting and it's like, Great. So we have seven people in there those two hours furiously answering questions, Um

[00:23:03] Carissa Andrews: wow.

[00:23:04] Bryan Cohen: And so what we try to do because the first part is the hardest. Getting into an ad account for the first time, creating an ad looking up keywords for an ad writing ad copy. We know that these are some of the steps that people get stuck on and no webinar and no book is actually going to get you to sit down and do it. So we say Come for this week and it's like a week stretched out over a week and a half. But come for this week and a half. Watch the video. We have everything in a nice transcript underneath. Watch the video. We know some of you won't read the Post, do the homework posted in the group, and then we're going to help you if you run into issues along the way. And so it's like a free course with, like, a lot of free support at pretty much every given. Our I think it's about 16 18 hours. We're not quite a 24 hours worth of support, but we always have someone who can help

[00:24:14] Carissa Andrews: one of the things that I really found not only besides the help, because that's been really invaluable to because I think I've sent my own emails back and forth a couple of times, not just within the group, but I love the fact that you actually set out the course information technically in three different ways, where you've got it written like you said underneath, but you've got your slide presentation where you're talking about it first, and then you do the showing part of it. So you could hypothetically kind of skip the first part. If you if you want to just see it in action and learn it or if you need to really get it to sink in, watch the whole video because now you're learning it twice, and then you have all the information to read it underneath it as well. And if you ever have to go back and you know this is the video where it's like, you know? Okay, what's that one piece that Brian said? I got to go. You can, like, search it quick, and you can find it real quick. So that's really helpful. I found that really interesting because not a lot, of course, is do that. Was that something that you thought to do, or was it just that's how it worked out? And it it seemed to make sense like was there?

[00:25:11] Bryan Cohen: I mean, it's so visual. I mean, you know, with Amazon ads, you could hear about something. But unless you're actually going through it, step by step and that's one of the things I noticed shortly after, uh, closing down, relentless authors advertise. I started doing some webinars and trying to teach this stuff and realized if I don't share my screen, no one is going to have any clue what I'm talking about. And so it was really about, like continuing to break things down into their component parts. Seeing where where people struggle were consistently trying to figure out like you probably saw this this past week in the ad school course, there were a lot of people saying My ads are really tailing off, and it was a lot of people all at once. So we said All right, this is a very key need. Let's record a new module

[00:26:10] Carissa Andrews: were so bad creating

[00:26:13] Bryan Cohen: more. But let's record a new module for the students how to wake up your sleeping adds up. And just the response to that, because because it ended up, I think, really tying some loose ends together for some people in their head. And we're always trying to do that sort of thing, like not just in the course, but in the challenge, like, where are people struggling? How can we figure out a solution and and and then it goes deeper. Okay, well, 60% of people figured it out. How do we get the 40 people who percent of people who didn't and just always trying to grow on that and iterate. And that is why I think a lot of people really like the challenges

[00:26:56] Carissa Andrews: for sure. So speaking of those problems, too, though, So in terms of those Amazon ads, do you What is what do you think is the biggest hang up for profitability for a lot of authors. I know what it was for me and what it still is for me, but

[00:27:10] Bryan Cohen: we can talk about that. You've got me, so you will use me. But the biggest hang ups, I think it's if they can get the ads running because a lot of people still struggling with those first couple steps. Fortunately, usually they go through the challenge and they're like, Oh, I was clicking this button instead of this button or something along those lines. So once they get past that point, it's like, Oh, crap, the Judgment Day is here. My book does not profit when I send it really cheap traffic. And they realized, Oh, this book wouldn't have been profitable no matter what I did.

[00:27:53] Carissa Andrews: I

[00:27:54] Bryan Cohen: need to do something to the outside, the inside or both parts of my book because it's not going to sell. It is not going to sell if I don't do something. And that, I think, is the toughest part.

[00:28:11] Carissa Andrews: So do you think it's usually the cover or the blurb? Or do you think it's that disconnect between the blurb and the inside of the book?

[00:28:18] Bryan Cohen: Well, it's definitely Everything definitely comes together after everything definitely comes together. Where it is, everything has to sync up. If you have a sci fi romance cover a a military sci fi blurb and a title that sounds like paranormal romance, that disconnect is going to make people confused. As you've heard me say, confused reader or mine says no, so they aren't going to buy something, but I think that if you are not sure of that sort of thing, it's really time to put a pause because the second series you write is probably going to have the same issues put a little pause. It's time to do a little research. It's time to do a little reading it's time to see well, is it my writing style? Is it? My cover isn't my whatever, because it can be a combination of things. If I had to say what it was most often, it's probably the cover. Okay, if it's a good cover that fits your genre and everything else is bad, you're still not going to sell,

[00:29:38] Carissa Andrews: right? Well, for me, it's It's for whatever reason, I can be profitable. I can get good conversions, but my r o I is still not there. That's the part that I struggle

[00:29:47] Bryan Cohen: will talk to me about this because because this might be a money story situation. When you say the r. O I is not there. What does that mean for

[00:29:57] Carissa Andrews: you? Well, that's what you're I can't remember. The lady who I was talking with said that the r o I needs to be bulked up. What

[00:30:06] Bryan Cohen: is it now? What is it

[00:30:07] Carissa Andrews: now? I do not remember. Off the top of my head, I'd have to go back and look at the email.

[00:30:11] Bryan Cohen: Oh, no, that's okay. I just The reason I bring that up is because I think we see some big success stories. We see the Atom Crofts and the Mark Dawson's and the Barber free. These and the big, big, big successes where they can show numbers saying, I put out a dollar, I get five back,

[00:30:32] Carissa Andrews: which

[00:30:33] Bryan Cohen: is unreasonable for most people. Um, last year, my r o. I was a lot better than usual. I think in 2019, my r o. I on my books was around 30 to 35% which is not huge.

[00:30:52] Carissa Andrews: Still decent, though

[00:30:53] Bryan Cohen: it's still decent. I'm not gonna complain about it, but I think some people are looking for 300% 500% um, this past year, Fortunately, uh, a lot of parents that were stuck inside needed workbooks for their kids, So my RL I was closer to 70%. But I think that, yes, if it's like 5% 10% obviously you can't really live on that. So when you have r o I, that is a little bit low. You either need to get a better conversion on Book one than you have, or you need to get more read through through the series because that is where the money comes in. It's like conversion of book one people making it to book 23 and so on.

[00:31:44] Carissa Andrews: Yeah,

[00:31:45] Bryan Cohen: it is tough. That is like you get to this point. I'm sure you were here in this, like mindset. I got it. I figured this out. God adds up. Great. Got the book. Something look decently. Look, good people are buying them. I'm only making a little bit of money to go making as much

[00:32:03] Carissa Andrews: money as when I started my ads. What is going on here? Yeah,

[00:32:08] Bryan Cohen: right. And it's tough. And I think what you just said and the way that was phrased its like, we get a lot of people were like, I'm making the same amount of money as I did before my ads. And it's like there is no way to look into that alternate, uh, night verse D c. Dystopia to see if you had not run the ads, would you be at zero? Would you be at the same? There's no way to know that. And so, um, what I like, though, if you were to be it, let's say it's 5% 5% ry with no ads versus 5% ry with ads. The reason I would prefer with ads is because there's control,

[00:32:53] Carissa Andrews: right? You

[00:32:54] Bryan Cohen: get to control how much traffic goes to these books versus when you don't have the ads. You have no idea if this month will be five. Next month will be 20. Next month will be negative. 50. You just don't

[00:33:09] Carissa Andrews: That's a good point. That is a really good point. Actually, I didn't think of it that way before. And I've never not run ads. I mean, other than, like, very, very early on in my career. But it's one of those things for me, at least, where I'm like. Okay, well, I'm always trying to test and tweak, and I'll listen to pretty much every single one of your videos except for every once in a while. I got to tell you, Brian, I will two times you where you're going twice as fast so I can get it all faster.

[00:33:34] Bryan Cohen: I do not mind because I do that to other people,

[00:33:38] Carissa Andrews: right? I do that to everyone. So it's not just you, but I like listening to it all, and, uh, I'd like to get through it all so that I can hear it at least once and then go back to the sections where I'm like. Okay, that's the part where I need to listen to a little closer. And that's where I'll pay more attention.

[00:33:53] Bryan Cohen: Yeah, that's

[00:33:54] Carissa Andrews: just the way my my brain works, for whatever reason. Okay? Yeah. So one of the things I've been wanting to know and never had an opportunity to ask the question. I keep seeing like the instances of the Zen Leamer and I want to tell the story behind this. I have no idea where this came from and how it came about.

[00:34:16] Bryan Cohen: As with the best things, it just happens randomly and organically. We are always trying to have fun in the challenge, is always trying to have a good time. And we stumbled upon this great meme That was just a Leamer sitting in this very Zen Buddhist pose. And it was just like Zen. Leamer says good Amazon ads come to those who wait. And so that was the Zen Leamer. And we did that one challenge, and we found that, of course, we're all impatient. Everyone needed to keep being reminded. And so we kind of just kept talking about the Zen Leamer and the Zen Leamer and the Zen Leamer. And now it's become like a thing where we just are

[00:34:59] Carissa Andrews: like hosting

[00:35:01] Bryan Cohen: Leamer gifts. And

[00:35:03] Carissa Andrews: it's like the mascot now

[00:35:04] Bryan Cohen: the mascot. We had a poll if the mascot should be my daughter or the lemur and daughters cute, but it's got to be

[00:35:12] Carissa Andrews: there. So

[00:35:14] Bryan Cohen: I think that now I have pictures with the Zen, the Leamer doll on my shoulder. Um, we're gonna be moving soon. We're gonna be within 20 miles of this Leamer center. So I have a feeling a photo shoot.

[00:35:31] Carissa Andrews: It might be

[00:35:32] Bryan Cohen: an ordering soon.

[00:35:33] Carissa Andrews: Yeah,

[00:35:34] Bryan Cohen: but but yeah, now, like we even have it as a as a like in some internal documentation. It's like our logo. And so, yeah, we're all Leamer all the time because the patient's factor on Amazon ads Amazon ad Spend if you if you bid reasonably bid 35 cents or below. Amazon ads spend the slowest of the three platforms we have. It's funny people like it's too slow until it starts spending, and then they say it's too fast. But, um, it's very forgiving. If you have a lower bid and one of the reasons we have folks start with lower budgets as well is if they do mess something up, it's It's not that damaging Facebook. We've heard horror stories of people accidentally spending $500. Amazon ads are likely not gonna do that unless you really don't listen. Yeah,

[00:36:38] Carissa Andrews: you did $35 for a bid instead of 35 cents or something. Exactly.

[00:36:43] Bryan Cohen: And you did, like five million budget

[00:36:46] Carissa Andrews: words. There's something. Yeah. Oh, yeah, right,

[00:36:48] Bryan Cohen: Exactly.

[00:36:50] Carissa Andrews: Yeah, that would. That would not be a good time. I am kind of grateful that Amazon is slower in some cases. But I'll tell you, there are sometimes where it's like This book is perfect for these keywords. Why are you not listening to me? You're even showing them on my page what is happening. But I get it. There's a lot of authors who are out there, and they're like, it's so weird how it takes so long for most of them when they're starting out to turn on.

[00:37:12] Bryan Cohen: I know it is very strange, but hey, uh, we don't get it right away, and we're okay and away we'll hang with the Leamer. We'll drink a mango, Lhasa or something, and I assume that's what they drink. But, yeah, we'll take our time.

[00:37:30] Carissa Andrews: We'll take our Yeah, Okay, so now this next add challenge starts When?

[00:37:36] Bryan Cohen: April 12th. It's Monday, April 12th. It it is a five day challenge. There's a bonus sixth day, and it's not all consecutive so that there's some time for the weekend. So it's really about April 12 to April 20th will say, and basically we have six videos that will go out and kind of an advanced webinar at the end, and you can jump in before the 12th sign up. I'll make sure you have the link, Chris and and, uh, you can be ready for the latest challenge. We're super excited to take a lot of people like yourself. Will will retake the challenge multiple times, but we we always are fortunate enough to welcome some new folks in as well.

[00:38:27] Carissa Andrews: For sure, I pretty much bring in as many people as I possibly can every single time because it's I am the president of a local writers club, and so we'll nonprofit club. And so we have a lot of authors who are constantly trying to figure out, like self published my book But why is it not selling well? Have you tried? Amazon adds. Yet what are those? Yeah, and so then it's always like I I am not the ad person, but I do know a guy. So that's why whenever the challenges come up, I always try to make sure that people are aware of it. I think I have about a third of my membership, is already taken courses or gone, at least through the challenge before at least

[00:39:04] Bryan Cohen: once. So absolutely,

[00:39:08] Carissa Andrews: it's it's so invaluable. Like I said, I've I've taken multiple courses on pretty much every ad platform that we authors use out there, including multiple Amazon ad challenges or add courses. And yours, by far has far exceeded every one of them. So it's It's given information in a way that because I'm a knowledge person, I need to understand the why not so much a data person. So once we start getting to the data, I start kind of have to. Then then it's the drudgery. But I know I have to say I do it, but understanding the why I have to do it is where it's critical for me, and your course provides that which has been so helpful and so far you're the only one who has done that for me, at least in my where

[00:39:49] Bryan Cohen: it works in my brain. Yeah, hey, feather in my cap. But I'm so glad we've been able to help you with

[00:39:56] Carissa Andrews: that, for sure. Well, thank you. Like I said so much for joining the podcast this week and for my listeners out there if they wanted to find you just kind of start perusing around. What's the best way for them to like? Look you up on the Web? Is it best page forward? Is it Amazon Ad school? Is it Brian Cohen?

[00:40:13] Bryan Cohen: I finally updated my website and go to Brian Cohen. That's Bryan with a y brian cohen dot com. It has pretty much a link to most of the things we're doing well also recommend you just go ahead and look for the five day Amazon Ad Profit Challenge group on Facebook because that's where we share. Once we send out an email with the info we we also shared in the group because you never know when an email is gonna slip into spam or something, but but yeah, we are so excited to be able to connect with more folks. That's that's one of the things I love. There's just always new authors joining the four. There's always new folks coming into self publishing, And, uh, we just came to help help folks, no matter what stage they're at in the game.

[00:41:06] Carissa Andrews: Awesome. Well, everyone definitely Check out Brian. Check out all the different aspects that he does because he's got it covered. He's got you covered when it comes to selling books. Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you again. So much for taking the time. I know how busy you are and how crazy your schedule must be. And like you said, your daughter is probably about ready to come in and take over the show. So thank

[00:41:30] Bryan Cohen: you again for having me. It's been a blast.

[00:41:32] Carissa Andrews: Absolutely. It's been a lot of fun, and hopefully it was more enjoyable than getting your whole identity stolen.

[00:41:38] Bryan Cohen: I would say it definitely be bad.

[00:41:43] Carissa Andrews: Wasn't that a great interview? I had such a fun time chatting with Brian and learning about his journey. He has a unique and refreshing take on how to help in the authors get the most out of their author careers, and I absolutely love that. Now, if you're someone who struggles with Amazon ads, has never tried doing Amazon ads or if your ads aren't doing as well as you like most of us, I highly suggest that you check out the latest Amazon ad challenge. Like we've said, it starts on Monday and you can get signed up at author revolution dot org forward slash Amazon ads It's 100% free, and I can tell you right now you will learn so much from the challenge. It's absolutely incredible. Now, if you'd like to learn more about Brian, best page forward, the sell, more books show and, of course, Amazon At school, you can head over to today's show notes at author revolution dot org forward slash 75 I will be sure to link to everything right there. If you'd like to ask any questions about Amazon ad school and my experience with the challenges, you can also head into the author Revolutions online community, and we'll talk about it there. Amazon ads are an invaluable tool at the indie authors disposal and what I believe that we should all master if we want to sell more books. Alright guys, that's all I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and enjoyed the interview. And I hope to see you inside the Amazon Ad challenge next week. In the meantime, go forth and start your Author Revolution.