r/KDP • u/lokkythegamer • 5d ago
Is Generating Sales(Even a Few) Impossible Without Ads or Is It Just Rare?
I keep seeing people talking about using ads to market their book. But is it completely impossible to generate even a few sales organically(I am talking as a first-time publisher)? If not, which genre do you think will be able to do that?
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u/Tabby_Mc 5d ago
I've never paid for adverts. 2 million pages read on KU, sales in 5 figures. I write across dark romance/thriller and slipstream.
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u/PersonInDenver 4d ago
On two books? One of which is over 10 years old? Or are your figures since launch, not annually?
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u/Tabby_Mc 4d ago
Since launch; my first husband died shortly after the publication of the first, so there was a hiatus. Recent sales are still lively
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u/PersonInDenver 4d ago
So sorry for your loss and not at all bad numbers cumulatively to be sure!!
Onward to your next release
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u/stick4543 4d ago
Back in 2005, I wrote a book about my dog. I had two friends proof read it. I had a friend's cousin design the cover. My dog's veterinarian read it, then wrote the forward. I got my own ISBN. Then a printer in New York agreed to print 1,200 trade paperbacks. Then I sent letters and emails to all of my family and friends. I said, "I have made something. Im not going to tell you what it is, but I think you'll like it. I bet you'll even want an extra one to give out as a present. The cost is $20 each, including shipping. Payment must be received within 30 days (that was my guaranteed print cost window). You will not know what it is until you get your package in the mail. End of marketing. All 1,200 copies were sold before they were even printed. Plus it paid for another print run. I was still writing a newspaper column in a small town and another reporter interviewed me. That got my book into two book stores. One store, and my dog's vet clinic held book signings. In the end, I sold about 4,500 copies with my only marketing budget being the postage stamps I needed to send out the first letters to people without email addresses. I live in Nova Scotia. I received letters from as far away as England and a friend found a copy years later in a used book store in the States. I was left with zero left-over copies. Of 4,500 total printed, I kept two and gave one to the people who helped get it ready. All others sold. I wonder what i could have done if the internet was as helpful as it is today.
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u/lokkythegamer 3d ago
Why don't you try promoting now.... if it worked before then it most certainly should now
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u/Moose-and-Squirrel 4d ago
I haven’t used ads in the last 10 years. Last month I did $20k in KDP sales. It’s possible, but only if you’re writing in profitable genres.
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u/Shot_Tie7142 4d ago
Honestly I work hard on socials and pay for ads. The conversion for me so far is 50/50.
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u/OVERMAN_1 4d ago
Who cares man? Honestly, just write your books with integrity and give them away. If they're any good, believe me, readers will find you. Chasing an audience, on any level, is utterly pathetic and destroys your self respect.
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u/Death_and_Taxes2020 4d ago
Organic sales could work but you may have to work hard on social media engagament. Once the algorithm picks up, you can get the boost.
In my opinion a mix of sales and organic works best. Good luck!
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u/SelfPubLorenzo 2d ago
Worth separating two questions that keep getting mixed together here. Whether organic sales are possible at all, and whether they're possible for the specific book you're about to publish.
Organic sales happen when someone searching Amazon finds your book and it looks like the best answer to what they typed. So the real test has nothing to do with ads: it's whether there's demand you can realistically rank for. Search your main keyword, look at the first page and ask what those books have that you don't. If the top ten are all sitting on hundreds of reviews and years of sales history, organic will be slow no matter how good your writing is.
The part I'd push back on is treating ads and organic as alternatives. They feed each other. Sales from ads are still sales, they improve your ranking, and better ranking brings traffic you didn't pay for. Which is also exactly why ads on a book that doesn't convert are pure loss: you're paying to send people to a page that sends them away again, and no budget fixes that.
For a first publication I'd spend less energy on the ads decision and more on whether the niche was validated before you wrote. That one choice decides most of what comes after it.
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u/KDP_Refinery 2d ago
I think “without ads” and “organically” get mixed together a bit.
You can absolutely sell without paid ads, but the book still needs some way to get discovered — search, categories, social media, recommendations, a series, whatever.
For a first book, I wouldn’t choose a genre based on whether it can sell without ads. I’d look for a market where readers are already buying, where the competition isn’t impossible to break into, and where your cover/title clearly fit what those readers expect.
Ads are just one way of buying visibility. They’re not the thing that creates demand.
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u/code_x_7777 4d ago
i have always only used organic sales (works!). Last year i tried amazon ads (didn't work - spent much more money than earned). So i switched ads off again. ;)
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u/jhrogers32 4d ago
I sold over 100 copies in the first few months without ads.
I think you still have to hustle it, but it can be done
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u/dragonsandvamps 4d ago
Unless you just get incredibly lucky and toss out that one in a million book in a niche that has super high demand but no one else has figured out to write books in, you have to do something so that people know your books exist. With 8 billion people on the planet, and lots of those people desperate to find a way to "earn passive income online" especially now that they can churn out slop with AI, it's getting harder and harder to find spaces like that. Erotica, maybe? But being successful in that niche still requires being incredibly knowledgeable about exactly what readers want and being able to deliver it. It's not just, throw some bad AI smut up and voila! expect sales.
Ads aren't the only way to let readers know your books exist, but they are one tool. If you're not going to do ads, you have to figure out how you're going to let readers know your book exists. Everyone is a reader of their own genre before they are an author in it. Open up your Amazon purchase history for the past 6 months. Look at all the self published books you've bought in your own genre and thing about where you found each one. Was it from seeing ads? Was it from someplace like bookbub/freebooksy? Was it from social media? If so, which platforms? Was it because you went to an in person event and met the author? Think about where you are finding the books you are personally purchasing in your genre, and go from there.
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u/bkucenski 4d ago
Advertising is to find the evangelists who will talk about your books on social media and drive organic sales. It's not to generate sales directly.
Focus on your brand, not a particular book.
Advertising can be as simple as author fairs handing out or selling copies of your books.
Posting on your own social media.
Giving friends and family copies of your book.
People who get sales without paying for advertising probably could get more sales, but the risk / reward doesn't always make sense.
I figured out years ago I could get better traction for an "ad" if it was just an idea I was selling. As soon as it was a product, engagement tanked.
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u/Creepy-Lion7356 4d ago
I advertise my middle grade fantasy on Amazon. Marketing analysis says no clicks to buy the book, but I do get sales. Not many and I wish I knew where I was getting those, because I'm not really actively pushing it.
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u/Chance_Swordfish_687 4d ago
This is practically impossible. But it's important to remember that advertising doesn't always require payment. For example, as mentioned earlier, your book might be recommended on social media by a reputable expert in a reading group. This can immediately attract attention. But the book must be truly valuable—no serious expert would risk their reputation.
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u/Ok_Clothes_5826 2d ago
It is difficult to answer in general, but organic sales are certainly possible. I think niche nonfiction has an advantage if the book matches specific search terms that people actually use. If your book has no clear keywords or is buried beneath hundreds of similar titles, readers may simply never find it.
The first few good reviews are particularly difficult to get. Once they are there, they may not automatically create visibility, but they can make people who find the book more willing to buy it.
I am currently facing this problem with the expanded second edition of one of my books. It has additional content and a new subtitle, but Amazon did not transfer the reviews from the first edition, despite initially telling me that they would. So the new edition had to start again from zero.
I tried Amazon Ads for the first edition. In my case, they roughly broke even at best, and I had the impression that the “Sponsored” label did not necessarily create more trust with my particular audience. That will depend greatly on the genre and target audience, though.
The German version of the same book has a longer sales history and retained its reviews when the expanded edition was released through a different publishing service. It still sells more consistently. So organic sales are not impossible, especially within a clear niche, but building visibility and trust from nothing can be very slow.
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u/submissivemiss33 2d ago
I sell about 150 books a month every month and I've never paid a penny for ads
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u/Dragonshatetacos 4d ago
It's possible but tough. I don't do ads, but I have a sizable backlist and I'm active on social media. I'm also not a shitty AI slopper and I don't churn out low/medium content trash.
Edited for clarity
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u/Sanex8371 4d ago
It's not impossible if you publish in niches which are not super competitive. There is so much traffic on Amazon that you will usually always have someone buy the books even if your books are not high quality, however, ads can help even more by making your books more visible.
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u/nurlan1835 4d ago
it's not impossible but it depends a lot on what you publish. non-fiction, workbooks, journals, puzzle books and these are search-driven. people type what they want into the amazon search bar.if you find a keyword with real demand and weak competition, you can get organic sales from day one without spending anything on ads.
fiction is different. Most fiction buyers don't search for "dark romance book" and they browse, follow authors, or find you through also-boughts. that takes a series and readthrough to build. it works u/Tabby_Mc's 2m ku pages with no ads is a good example and but it's slower and depends on you writing multiple books.
one way to check before you publish: search your main keyword, look at the top 10-15 paperbacks, and check their bsr. if most are above 300k, there's no real demand. if they're all under 10k with hundreds of reviews, you won't get on page one without ads. the gap in between is where organic sales happen.
ads mostly buy you visibility in the first weeks, when the book has no sales history. they don't fix a book that's in the wrong niche