Author Nation Live 25 P-35 Amazon Optimization and Ads Tool Kit
The Advertising Automations session at Author Nation 2025 presented by Ricardo Fayet (Reedsy co-founder) addressed the escalating competitiveness of book advertising through systematic automation strategies. The session documented that average cost-per-click has quintupled since 2015—from $0.20 to over $1.00 on Amazon ads and $0.30 to $1.20 on Facebook ads—as more authors master advertising fundamentals. Fayet demonstrated four practical automation workflows: automated bid optimization using rule-based software (BooksFlyer, Merchbar), systematic ASIN harvesting from bestseller lists via Amazon Product API or Scraper API, automated Meta ad performance analysis through Google Sheets integration, and AI-powered creative generation for ad images and copy. The presentation emphasized critical ground rules: automate only vital, repetitive tasks already proven effective; use AI models capable of reasoning and web search; expect significant upfront time investment before realizing efficiency gains; start simple with single-step automations rather than complex multi-system workflows. Fayet distinguished between automation (systematic task execution) and artificial intelligence (reasoning capability), noting AI serves primarily as an automation-building tool rather than the automation itself.
Advertising Platforms:
- Amazon Advertising: Primary advertising platform for book marketing with automated bidding capabilities
- Meta (Facebook) Ads: Social media advertising platform for book promotion
- TikTok Ads: Emerging advertising platform for authors
- YouTube Ads: Video advertising platform mentioned
- Connected TV Advertising: Emerging advertising channel mentioned
- Amazon Prime Video Ads: Video advertising within Amazon ecosystem
Automation & Development Tools:
- n8n: Workflow automation platform with modular node-based system, costs approximately $30/month, includes built-in AI assistant for troubleshooting
- Make.com: Alternative automation platform, more user-friendly but less customizable than n8n
- Zapier: Alternative automation platform mentioned
- Google Sheets: Spreadsheet platform used for data manipulation, automation scripting, and ad performance analysis
- Airtable: Alternative to Google Sheets mentioned (preferred by Shell Haniger)
- Excel: Alternative spreadsheet platform
- Google Apps Script: Coding environment within Google Sheets for creating custom automations
APIs (Application Programming Interfaces):
- Amazon Product Advertising API: Allows unlimited retrieval of bestseller data, requires Amazon Associates account with minimum 3 qualified sales per 180 days, marketplace-specific access
- Scraper API: Third-party service ($30-40/month) that scrapes Amazon data (technically not allowed by Amazon), limited to top 30 results per category
- OpenAI API: Enables programmatic access to ChatGPT models including GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 Mini, and DALL-E image generation
- Meta Marketing API: Facebook's advertising API for creating ads, managing campaigns, and retrieving performance data
- Google Advertising API: API for Google Ads management
AI Models & Tools:
- ChatGPT (GPT-5, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 Mini): Large language models for reasoning, code generation, and automation creation; GPT-5 automatically decides when to reason/search
- DALL-E (Image-1): OpenAI's image generation model for creating ad creatives
- Claude: Alternative AI model mentioned for automation assistance
- Gemini: Google's AI model, noted for occasionally using outdated API documentation
- Notebook LM: Google's tool capable of ingesting entire books for analysis
- Sora: Video generation model mentioned for creating animated ad content
Key Advertising Concepts:
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Average cost per ad click; increased from $0.20 (2015) to $1+ (2025) on Amazon
- Cost Per Order (CPU): Metric for measuring advertising efficiency based on completed purchases
- KENP Royalties: Kindle Edition Normalized Pages read royalties from Kindle Unlimited, critical metric ignored by most bid optimization tools
- Break-Even Bid: Mathematical formula determining maximum profitable bid based on royalty rates and attribution windows
- 14-Day Attribution Window: Amazon's tracking period for attributing sales to ad clicks
- Read-Through: Revenue from subsequent books in a series purchased after initial ad-driven sale
- Bid Optimization: Process of adjusting advertising bids based on performance data
- Budget Optimization: Strategic allocation of advertising spend across campaigns
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Percentage of impressions resulting in clicks
- Return on Investment (ROI): Profitability metric for advertising campaigns
- Retargeting vs. Prospecting: Distinction between ads shown to previous engagers versus new audiences
Automation Strategies:
- Target Harvesting: Systematic collection of ASINs, book titles, author names from bestseller lists for ad targeting
- Logical Rules: If-then conditions for automated bid adjustments (e.g., "if cost per order ≤ $1, raise bid 10%")
- API Integration: Connecting multiple platforms through programmatic interfaces
- Data Scraping: Extracting information from web pages (technically prohibited by Amazon but commonly practiced)
- Time-Based Triggers: Scheduled automation execution (weekly, monthly intervals)
- AI-Powered Analysis: Using reasoning models to categorize campaign data and identify trends
- Automated Creative Generation: Using AI to create ad images and copy from book excerpts
Amazon Ad Targets:
- ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers): Unique product identifiers used for targeting specific books
- Bestseller Lists: Top 100 rankings in categories used for identifying high-performing targets
- Hot New Releases Lists: Recently published top-performing books in categories
- Goodreads Lists: Curated book lists for targeting
- Oprah's Book Club List: High-profile book recommendations
- Book Titles: Targeting by specific book names
- Series Titles: Targeting by book series names
- Author Names: Targeting by author identities
Technical Requirements:
- Amazon Associates Program: Amazon's affiliate program requiring minimum qualified sales to access Product Advertising API
- Meta for Developers Account: Free account required to create apps accessing Meta Marketing API
- Google Apps Script Knowledge: Coding ability for creating custom Google Sheets automations (can be AI-generated)
- API Capacity: Usage limits based on affiliate revenue generation (Amazon) or account tier (other platforms)
Financial Concepts:
- Gross Income vs. Net Income: Critical distinction between total revenue and profit after expenses
- Royalty Rates: Variable earnings percentages for ebooks vs. paperbacks affecting bid optimization calculations
- Time Value: Hourly worth of author's time (weekly optimization hours × opportunity cost)
- Subscription Costs: Monthly fees for automation tools ($30-40 typical range for Scraper API, n8n, BooksFlyer)
Automation Ground Rules:
- Vital Task Priority: Only automate tasks already proven essential to business
- Repetitive Task Selection: Focus on daily/weekly recurring activities
- Significant Time Investment: Automation setup requires substantial upfront time despite future savings
- Failure Expectation: First automation attempts typically fail; persistence required
- Simple Starting Point: Begin with single-step automations, add complexity gradually
- Limited AI Use: Apply AI only where reasoning/creativity genuinely required
- Model Selection: Choose AI models with reasoning and web search capabilities (GPT-5, GPT-4.1)
Creative Generation Concepts:
- Prompt Engineering: Crafting detailed instructions for AI image generation including composition, lighting, camera angles
- PG-13 Constraints: Content moderation requirements for AI-generated images avoiding graphic violence/sexuality
- Moderation Retry Mechanism: Automated prompt sanitization when initial generation fails safety checks
- Excerpt-Based Generation: Creating ad visuals from specific book passages
- Public Shareability: Making AI-generated images accessible via public Google Drive links
🔒 Unlock the Full Replay
📌 The Live Google Sheets Demo That Actually Worked In the full video, Ricardo Fayet performs a live demonstration of his n8n workflow calling the Meta Marketing API in real-time—retrieving October's complete Facebook advertising data, having an AI agent automatically categorize campaigns as retargeting or prospecting, calculating ROI and cost-per-signup metrics, and writing formatted results into a new Google Sheet—all while the audience watches the automation execute. He reveals the exact n8n node configuration, the AI agent prompts for dynamic campaign categorization, and the specific code snippets for ROI calculations that save hours of manual spreadsheet work monthly.
Q: How much have Amazon and Facebook advertising costs increased since 2015?
A: Both platforms have seen 5x increases—Amazon ads rose from $0.20 to over $1.00 per click, while Facebook ads increased from $0.30 to $1.20 per click. Ricardo Fayet documented this dramatic cost escalation across all industries over the past decade, attributing it to both increased advertiser competition and improved advertiser sophistication from conference education. The 2025 dip reflects incomplete year data before peak holiday advertising periods (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Prime events), meaning costs will likely rise further by year-end.
Q: What are the minimum requirements to access Amazon's Product Advertising API for automated ASIN harvesting?
A: You need an Amazon Associates account with 3 qualified sales in the past 180 days, plus at least 1 sale every 30 days to retain access. Fayet explained that Amazon gates API access behind affiliate revenue generation—the more sales you drive through affiliate links, the higher your API capacity. Critically, the API is marketplace-specific: Amazon.com access doesn't grant access to Amazon UK, Germany, or other international stores, requiring separate qualification for each marketplace.
Q How do I refine queries when an AI model gives me answers I don't understand or can't use?
Ricardo's advice: talk to the AI like a human being. If you don't understand the response, copy-paste the confusing parts back and say "I don't understand this—can you provide more information?" or "can you explain this to me in layman's terms?" Don't hesitate to clearly state what you don't understand. Sometimes with very long conversations, starting a fresh chat helps, but generally you can continue the same conversation thread and ask follow-up clarification questions naturally. The models are designed to respond conversationally, so treat them like patient teachers rather than intimidating technical systems.
Q:What's the learning curve for n8n and how much does it cost?
n8n costs approximately $30/month with tiered pricing options. There is a learning curve because the platform is highly modular and customizable—this flexibility makes it more powerful than alternatives like Make.com or Zapier, which are more user-friendly initially but less capable. However, Ricardo created his first working automation in one week of spare time with zero previous n8n or coding knowledge. The key resources: n8n includes a built-in AI assistant you can chat with inside any node to troubleshoot errors or ask "how do I achieve this?", and you can use ChatGPT or Claude to ask questions throughout the process. Ricardo emphasized this is a worthwhile investment in your future capabilities—the more time you spend learning automation tools, the better you become.
Q Is using Amazon Product API or Scraper API a replacement for Publisher Rocket, or do they serve different purposes?
They're different approaches to the same goal. Publisher Rocket is more manual—you open the software, search for what you want, download a report, then manually add results to a Google spreadsheet. Using an automation removes the "middle" steps: a Google Apps Script in your spreadsheet automatically calls the Product Advertising API or Scraper API once per week, retrieves the top 30 (or more) ASINs, and writes them directly into your spreadsheet without you opening any software or doing any copy-pasting. Ricardo clarified you cannot call a "Publisher Rocket API" because they don't offer API access. The automation advantage is hands-off weekly data updates versus manual weekly research sessions.