Hello, hello! My curious hamster brain is back! This is lengthy and perhaps not very well organized (apologies), but if anyone has insights, I would be eternally grateful! Preface: I'm having a serious issue this year (2026) with my books almost completely falling off a cliff 2-3 weeks after release. In 2025, books in the same genre lasted 2-3 *months* before dipping, never crashing. **And I didn't run ads or have a newsletter last year.** This year, I'm running ads, and I have a newsletter and even a street team, and my retention has tanked. (I'm KDP exclusive, if that matters.) I'm not reaching new readers! About 90% of readers who claimed my most recent release's reader magnet inside the book were already on my list, vs. my previous book from a few months ago, where that many were new subscribers. Trying to reach new readers and expand my "portfolio": My first pivot will be a subgenre switch to test the waters: I have a PNR novella coming out next week that I'm excited for and will introduce a new universe I would love to write much more in--if it actually sells. My pre-orders are rather abysmal for that title, and it's depressing. But I digress. Ads situation: For my current big series, I'm running ads that are doing well ROI-wise. I have ads running for the newest book and the first one. I have 4 different versions running to test the creative (2 for each book), each with the same audience and budget, and they're all doing about the same. No strong outliers at this point yet, but I'm tracking. My ad spend is only $10/day for each of those 4 ads. I don't know if spending more on ads in general, or more on fewer ads at a time, would be better for results, or if that varies and I should just experiment with it. 😩 My hamster brain has me on a hamster wheel, trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong and how to fix this 😅 Thanks for actually making it through this post! And gratitude sent to anyone willing to share thoughts, good, bad, ugly, or fluffy-adorbs! 🫶

An author who I consider rather successful told me this morning that when she (her assistant, actually) sends out her newsletter, a few days later they'll send the exact newsletter out again to everyone who didn't open it the first time. They just change the subject line. She said that 30-65% of the people who didn't open the newsletter the first time will open it the second time. I thought that was wild! Has anyone here done this? Did/do you see similar results? I was thinking about trying it.

Facebook moved this around, but if you go here, click "All Ads" in the dropdown, & type in the page name of whoever you're spying on, it will show you all their ads, for inspiration on what's currently moving the needle for creative 😊😊 https://facebook.com/ads/library

Hey hey, y'all. This video is in the MiniBootCamp, but I'm just posting it too here 'cause I'm new to Skool and Lee had to teach me where to find it 🤣. But it's also under Classroom check out all the vids in the MiniBootamp. Or watch this here, and/or look at the .pdf in the first comment for an easy accessible lesson on demystifying FB ads.

Hi everyone! I was going to post this in the Mastermind FB group, but I really appreciate the smaller group here and the sense of community. I hope it's okay if I seek input! For anyone who has changed their covers (this would be my first time), did you do an ad test to choose a new one? And was there any trouble if the cover at retailers was still the old version while you ran the test? I hope that makes sense... There's been a swing in cover design format in my main subgenre, and I want to go with the flow, but I don't know if I should just dive right in with a new cover that I choose, or do a test between a couple of new options, or... well, you get the picture. 😅 This is my first rodeo, so any input and opinions are so very welcome and appreciated!! 🙌