How author A.G. Riddle sold 2MM+ books on Amazon

After a decade in Internet startups, A.G. Riddle spent two and a half years writing his first novel, The Atlantis Gene, which was edited by his mother and featured a cover he designed himself. Over 2MM later, all sold through Amazon, it’s safe to say his novel did indeed “take off,” making his story not only one of emerging author success but one demonstrating the value of Amazon Ads.

I thought, I’m just going to write my first novel and see what happens, if it takes off ...
– A.G. Riddle, Author

Growing visibility for your books

“You pour so much of yourself into your first book, and you want to see it get out there in the world,” said Riddle. He used Amazon Ads to get the word out to Amazon’s hundreds of millions of active customer accounts.¹ “We just went into it to say, ‘Let’s do an experiment and see what happens,’ and we’ve been very pleasantly surprised.“

Connection to your readers

“The most important thing for me was finding readers and figuring out what they thought of my work, and how I could improve.” Riddle’s experience with Amazon shows that the connection between author and audience is not only extremely valuable to the writing process but also in marketing books to the right readers.

Amazon Ads offers discoverability and, most importantly, learning from readers ...
– A.G. Riddle, Author

Easy book promotion with Amazon Ads

A.G. Riddle didn’t start out as an expert at book marketing. Yet only a few hours after deciding to try Amazon Ads, he launched his first ad campaign—creating that key connection with his readers. Riddle used Amazon Ads to learn the audience appeal of his book within “sci-fi,” “thriller,” and different subgenres. “Within a few weeks of running campaigns, you really start to get some data. It is certainly a lot quicker than you get with traditional publishing.”

¹Active customer accounts represent accounts that have placed an order during the preceding 12-month period.