Book Review: Book Funnels

Book Funnels is a very good book. It brilliantly serves the objective of teaching authors who do not know much about the Amazon advertising system how to set up their first campaigns, so they won’t go broke. Even better – the ads are guaranteed to make them money.

Yet, it is not without drawbacks. However, most of the CONs are directly related to the book’s objective. Alex focused on laying out his concept in as simple terms as possible – and believe me, it is not easy with this system! With this focus, he discarded anything that didn’t fit the purpose.

Traditionally, let’s start from the…

CONS

1. Extremely Detailed.

Book Funnels is full of screenshots. It’s an excellent guide. You can literally open the book on one screen and your AMS account on the other and create ads step by step.

But I guess the book may be expired in several months. Amazon is changing the interface and adding functionalities to their system all the time. And the same is true about all the “hardcoded” rules from the book – for example, how much to bid for the categories ads. While the advice in the book is excellent today, it may not be so next year.

2. Excellent Textbook.

Alex sacrificed every non-essential sentence to create a concise guide on how to manage your ads and your book funnel. So, Book Funnels is an excellent textbook, but it’s hard to learn from it. People learn via stories. This is how we memorize facts and principles. Alex could’ve illustrated every single “rule” in his book with a story. I could have done that! I can instance a story for whatever he said – why not to use default Amazon bids, why looking at the ACoS is a very bad idea, and so on. I’ve seen people making those mistakes and how much they cost them.

But such stories are few and far between. Instead, a reader gets a ton of detailed step-by-step instructions.

3. Expert Blindness.

The author made an excellent job of breaking things down to ridiculous details. He clearly intended to make this book idiot-proof. Yet, he failed a few times. He is just too experienced and cannot see when he skims over some interface’s quirks.

One flagship example:
Again, make sure you do this for all of your targets, not just the first page (or ad group if you have more than 1).
But what is “the first page?” I created tens of thousands of Amazon ads, so I know what Alex meant. But a person who sees the AMS interface for the first time will probably have no clue.

So, Book Funnels has its minor flaws. Still, it’s the best book on Amazon ads I’ve ever read. I highly enjoyed Brian Meeks’ Mastering Amazon Ads, but he took the numbers freakiness to the whole new level. I’m a number freak, and I couldn’t employ Brian’s methods! Book Funnels is much better suited for common mortals. You can read it, implement it at the same time and quickly enjoy the fruits of your ads.

PROS

1. Extremely Detailed.

With all those screenshots, it will be really hard for anybody to say: “Oh, but I didn’t know how to…” Seriously, half of the book reads like a helpdesk tutorial – “click this, then that, scroll here, type this…”

You simply cannot fail with this book! The funniest thing, for me, is that an ignorant reader will have no clue how much pain Book Funnels will save him. Following Alex’s instructions is an equivalent of going over an abyss full of hot lava; on a thin line; blindfolded. And Alex screams “duck” every time a dragon protecting the passage attacks you.

You can fail with Amazon ads in so many ways that it is just mind-blowing. And Alex shows you this one way in 14 million to defeat Thanos.  😀

2. The High-Level Funnel Concept.

The graphic used in the book is brilliant. It so aptly encapsulates everything that comes into play when you try to sell books with Amazon ads. And it is just the supplementary resource to detailed explanation on how each element of the funnel integrates with other elements – and ads of course!

Then, the graphic is repeated multiple times in the book to solidify the whole concept in the reader’s mind. Brilliant!

Your cover, your title, your book description, reviews – they all interact to some degree with the prospects seeing your ads.

And Alex tells you how they interact, what metrics to track to get a clue what’s going on and what and when to modify to improve your results.

3. Concrete Details.

You have no idea how much the usual stuff of “ads gurus” frustrates me. Their statements are full of qualifications that it is different for each book, blah, blah, blah…

Book Funnels is so refreshing in this regard. Use that bid for a category ad. If a keyword has 20 clicks and no sale, turn it off. Concrete guidelines instead of disclaimers.

4. Short and to the Point.

Yes, I’d love more stories. But I will take this book without stories with no hesitation. You can read – and implement! – the whole book in about three hours. If you have no clue about Amazon ads, this is the best no-nonsense guide I’ve ever found.

Summary

A fabulous book which I 100% recommend.

Do you already have a nonfiction book and a funnel? Read this book and implement Alex’s process to the T.

Do you have a book and a business, but they are very loosely connected? You are missing out if you don’t leverage Amazon ads. Your book gathers the digital dust, and it could’ve brought you business. Readers of your book make very warm leads. In comparison to cold leads, they are blazing hot. I have no funnel worth mentioning, and still I got plenty of business via my books – I got hired by my readers at least half a dozen times and made thousands of dollars.

Don’t miss out, read Book Funnels and apply the process.

The more products and services you already offer, the more you need to read Book Funnels.