How Bookbub Ad Comparisons are Affecting my TBR list:

By Thio Isobel moss

The book industry is a maze—and marketing is the part where most indie authors get lost.

Writing the book is the easy part.

Revising, trimming, and editing are harder. Formatting each edition for each platform is its own special kind of torment. But marketing? That’s the frontier I wasn’t prepared for.

There are countless options, and just as many people swearing by each one. In my experience, they all work—if you’re willing to invest the time and money.

That’s the keyword: money.

Budgeting for a one-time newsletter feature is simple enough. Budgeting for ongoing ads—where you pay per click or per impression—is a very different beast. One I’m still figuring out how to tame.

With only four months of data behind me, I’ll say this: The Fussy Librarian and Bargain Booksy have been my best newsletter experiences so far. If your book is free, the results can feel a little magical.

For paid ad platforms, I’ve used Amazon Ads and BookBub. I’ve had real success with both—but not without a learning curve.

Amazon Ads felt straightforward… right up until I broke things. One hard-earned lesson: data is tied to your campaigns. Delete the campaign, and you delete the data. It’s far better to tweak than to start over.

BookBub, however, has been a revelation.

I’ve run dozens of campaigns that did very little. I started with their basic templates and eventually moved to custom graphics. What I’ve learned is this: the image has to tell a story instantly. It needs to be legible in two seconds at a very small size. The genre should be obvious. Any text must be clear, precise, and—most importantly—make the viewer wonder what happens next.

You can do all of this “right” and still fail.

We don’t all share the same tastes, curiosity, or budget.

Who sees your ad is just as important—and just as tricky.

Instinct tells you to target the biggest names, the authors who dominate the genre. In practice, that’s hit or miss, especially early on.

I’ve had two breakout campaigns so far. They were variations of the same graphic—and I’m still trying to reverse-engineer whatever magic I stumbled into.

The image was a little fuzzy. The subject matter was… odd.

And yet, it worked. It spends the full budget every day.

Apparently, perfection isn’t required. Clarity and curiosity matter more than polish.

While digging into those campaigns, I noticed something interesting about my author comparisons.

BookBub suggests related authors when you build an ad, and those suggestions are worth paying attention to. My TBR list has exploded because some of my best-performing comps are authors I’d never even heard of.

Others, I know very well.

I love Ilona Andrews. But despite that, “House Andrews” is not my best-performing comp.

What I’ve found instead is this:

• Mid-tier authors (roughly 20K–70K followers) tend to perform consistently

• Big-name authors are more competitive and unpredictable

• Unexpected comps are often the strongest performers

And then there are the outliers—the unicorns.

Every so often, you’ll find an author who stabilizes everything. They often have large audiences and write across genres with ease. Instead of overshadowing smaller authors, they seem to lift them.

For me, Lindsay Buroker has filled that role beautifully. She was a comp in both of my breakout campaigns.

I’ve been reading her work since The Emperor’s Edge first came out, and I’ve been a loyal fan ever since. I even recognized her style under the Ruby Lionsdrake pseudonym—which was both impressive and slightly disappointing. Two prolific authors would have been better than one.

Another surprise was Martha Wells. I wouldn’t have considered her initially because I associate her so strongly with Murderbot, and Blind Spot isn’t sci-fi.

Turns out, she’s very relevant.

So are Brogan Thomas and Heather G. Harris.

In hindsight, I probably could have learned this faster by looking at my own bookshelf. The stories we love shape the stories we write—it makes sense they’d also shape the audiences we reach.

There’s still a lot to learn. I’ve started running my own little data experiments, and while they’ll take time, they’re fascinating. I’ve even developed a certain fondness for my comps—some because they perform well, others because I simply like their names.

If I want long-term success, I’ll need to get past my own preferences and follow the data.

Still, there’s something encouraging in all of this. The comps I think should work aren’t dead ends—they’re stepping stones. They lead to better insights, better campaigns, and, inevitably, more books to read.

I haven’t tried Amazon’s custom ads yet, but that’s next on the list. I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned from BookBub—and seeing what breaks this time.

At this rate, I may eventually figure out what I’m doing.

In the meantime, I’ll keep testing—and reading everything BookBub points me toward.