Advertising: What works?

I experimented with Facebook Ads a month ago. Tomorrow (Monday) on the Magic & Mayhem Writers blog, I'm posting about how I set up the ad campaign and then next week, I'm posting my results. Quick preview: I like Facebook Ads, but they can get expensive quickly.

I'm planning on also trying out Google Adwords since I received a $100 credit when I signed up with my hosting company (GoDaddy.com). Not so sure how that will work, but I'll post my results on it as well.

If interested, here's the direct link to the first part of my Facebook Ads experience: http://www.magicandmayhemwriters.com/do-facebook-ads-work-for-authors-part-1-set-up/.

If you have physical copies to give away, have you thought of creating a Goodreads event? I held one for a give-away and had a metric ton of entrants (many of whom put my book on their TBR pile and/or bought it after they didn't win) Go to 'explore' and 'giveaways' and you can create a giveaway. Then promo the heck out of it! Is free too.

Hi Grady,

The quick summary is that I spent $76.66 over about 2 1/2 days to gain a total of 62 new likes. That comes out to around $1.24 for each new follower. I guess it's not a terrible number, but lets say I ran the ad for a week. That would be $125 and maybe 120 likes. My problem, though, is that I like Facebook ads so much, I'd want to run it continuously. LOL

Of course, I could just set my daily limit lower and have the likes trickle in over time.

One thing I wanted to mention: Facebook recently changed its Terms of Service so that it has zero legal responsibility when it comes to contests run on FB pages. Technically, if they find out you're running a contest, they can close your account. And if any contest entrants gets mad or annoyed and decides to sue, you're completely liable. Historical romance writer, Ashley March, summarized the changes here: http://www.ashleymarch.com/blog/?p=1439

Just letting you know. Ashley's now using a 3rd party ap to do FB contests, but I'm pretty sure it cost a little to run them.

IdiotsRUs has a good idea with the GoodReads giveaway. I haven't run one yet, but I think it definitely helps to have people add your book to their to-read lists.

Sandy

For those interested, here's the direct link to the results of my Facebook Ads experience: http://www.magicandmayhemwriters.com/do-facebook-ads-work-for-authors-part-2-results-2/#comments. I've posted the total cost, the number of impressions, clicks, and new likes.