Facebook Advertising Tips

AlexisRadcliff

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Is anyone out there able to point me towards a comprehensive thread or guide to get you up and running on Facebook advertising for self-published authors? What are your own experiences?

I have some experience playing with Google adwords from other work, but it would be great to get a crash course in what's working and what isn't fro FB from someone who's played with it a lot before I jump in later this summer.
 

JalexM

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Is anyone out there able to point me towards a comprehensive thread or guide to get you up and running on Facebook advertising for self-published authors? What are your own experiences?

I have some experience playing with Google adwords from other work, but it would be great to get a crash course in what's working and what isn't fro FB from someone who's played with it a lot before I jump in later this summer.

http://www.selfpublishingformula.com/

He's about to release one for sales in a few days as well. He's methods have worked really well for me.
 

WriterBN

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It' seems to be one of those "it depends" situations, as with everything else in marketing for self-published authors. Works well for some, doesn't work at all for others. I haven't tried it, so I'd be interested in hearing your experience.
 

Chanda

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I'll be following this, too. When I was looking to do an advertising blitz on my first book, she told me to steer away from Facebook ads because most of the time, they don't work.
 

JalexM

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I'll be following this, too. When I was looking to do an advertising blitz on my first book, she told me to steer away from Facebook ads because most of the time, they don't work.
I disagree after following certain methods, it just takes time to create the perfect ad and targeting audience. The only thing I suggest is waiting until you have some reviews to help people make a decision, they're less than likely to purchase a book if it has little to no reviews.
 
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andiwrite

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That is the bigger question then -- How the heck do you get reviews? I got a number of good reviews on blogs, but none of them posted to Amazon. I'm not sure if there's some trick to this or if it just takes time.

I've also been debating doing Facebook ads. I wonder why they say they are a waste of time. Facebook seems to be the one social media site that almost everyone is constantly on.
 

WriterBN

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I wonder why they say they are a waste of time. Facebook seems to be the one social media site that almost everyone is constantly on.

Probably because pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has the lowest conversion rates of all forms of advertising. Given that the typical e-book price is $2.99, and the royalty on that is around $2.06, most people who try FB advertising for e-books lose more money than they make.
 

Interfaced

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I've been starting to hear more positive chatter about Facebook advertising - as it's always been something that I've presumed to not be cost effective. Definitely something that I'll look into again more closely, as maybe something has changed in the past 12 months with their tools and targeting algorithms.

Thanks for posting this thread, as it's timely to my promo interests also. I'll report back with anything interesting that I find or learn from doing.

On the issue of how do you get reviews, I've always thought that a simple quid pro quo arrangement with a few of us here on AW should work out well shouldn't it? I'd be happy to provide a sale and a review for anybody who would do the same in return...(it would be an honest review, but I wouldn't post if it would be less than 3-stars)
 

WriterBN

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I'm hopefully going to try Amazon ads instead.

Some suggestions:

  1. Try both product targeting (which lets you target individual books) and interest targeting (much broader, but it includes ads shown on Kindle devices, and allows extra text in your ad that you don't get with product targeting).
  2. Start at the lowest possible bid amount ($0.02, I think) and slowly ramp up, so you don't blow your budget overnight.
  3. Keep in mind that the reports for clicks and pageviews are delayed by several days, and sales may be delayed by weeks, so allow for that lag when making changes.

Good luck!
 
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Dragonwriter

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I have had good success using the Self Publishing Formula process (mentioned previously in this thread). The course is very helpful and easy to follow (there's a free version with the basics, and a paid version which opens up periodically that goes into a lot more detail, as well as a Facebook group you can join so you can ask questions of others and get some really good, helpful advice and feedback).

I'm running two ads right now: one for increasing my mailing list (it's gone from 10 people to over 1,300 since early December, and continues to grow) and one for selling my box set. My ROI for the box set (as measured by Amazon affiliate tracking) has been good so far (ranging from a low of 2% to a high of over 700% per day, hovering around 150-200% per day).

I do think it depends a lot on the genre, though--some genres do better in FB advertising than others. The two "rock stars" on the FB group are both thriller writers, and Romance seems to do well too. My genre, urban fantasy/supernatural thriller, does well but not as well as those two.