OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Generally, I'm a fan of free marketing like blogging, social networking, podcasting and video creation. All these things take time but are free or very cheap. But sometimes, there is a place for paid advertising, especially around the time of a book launch and I'll be using Facebook for the Pentecost launch.
A few years ago, Google Adwords was all the rage but now the keywords are so expensive as to be crippling especially for authors who don't have much budget. So, in order to create targeted advertising to the smallest budget, you can now use Facebook advertising for your book so I thought you might like to know more as well.
You may have seen adverts on the sidebar of your account and increasingly, there are books and audio-books advertised. Before Christmas I decided to spend $50 to increase the number of people downloading the free chapters of Pentecost. I had been given some free credit to be used within a short amount of time, so why not try it? The advert is shown left and below are some tips to help you.
Decide on your target market.
The truly amazing thing about Facebook advertising is that you can target your demographic. This will impact the number of people who will see the advert and also how much it will cost you. You need to decide on country, city, gender, age range, likes and dislikes and you can go down into further splits. As you change the demographics, you'll see how many people the advert could be shown too. The more specific you can be, the better your chances an ad will have an impact.
Demographics for my advert using those who 'like' James Rollins
Create a targeted headline.
You can see on my advert above that I had a headline referencing James Rollins. I think my thriller is similar to some of Rollins' books and so I targeted his fans in the demographics (i.e. people who ‘like' James Rollins). The headline meant that their eyes would be drawn to it as they had already expressed a preference for his books.
I could have also used the same advert with the headline “Like Dan Brown?” and changed my demographic accordingly. It's incredibly important to target the market like this or you'll be wasting clicks. There's no point in advertising a romance novel to James Rollins fans! So think about how you can target a market. For example, a travel book about cycling around the world could be marketed to people who like ‘mountain-biking' or ‘travel'. Which is more specific?
You can also split test ads i.e. create several versions with different headlines or text and then rotate them. Check to see which performs the best and then use that to continue the campaign with. Tim Ferriss (NY Times bestsellers 4 hour work week and 4 hour body) used Facebook advertising split tests to decide on his book titles.
Use a compelling image and text.
There are only a few lines of text available in the body of the advert so make it count. It's very restrictive around what you can do e.g. you can't use all capitals or unconventional punctuation. You also want people to click so you need to word it in an enticing manner or make an obvious call to action e.g. click to buy now. Lorna Jane is a fitness-wear company for women and had a great advert that increases the number of fans for their page as well as promoting a competition. The call to action is very clear.
Great idea to increase fans and also promote the brand
You also need an eye-catching image so people even look at the adverts. Make sure your book cover looks great as a thumbnail size image. You'll also need a specific landing page i.e. where people go when they click. This could be your Amazon buy page or a webpage specifically for buying the book.
Decide on your budget and length of campaign.
The number of Kindle 'likes' there are in the main countries for Kindle book sales
You can control how much you spend and how long you want to run the campaign for. I used $50 maximum over 7 days for the free download. For the Pentecost launch, I will probably invest $200 for 1 week in order to boost the numbers of books sold. I may also primarily target Kindle owners who generally read voraciously and can instantly download a sample. You can see the numbers on the left. Playing around with budget and targeting is a big part of the setup. Otherwise, it is very simple.
Make sure you set an end date on the campaign or the money will just keep going out!
In the week I ran the campaign, I had 60 clicks from the advert and 34 downloads of the first 3 chapters of Pentecost which cost me $40.19 (but it was free as a had a coupon). I will do some more specific measuring when I have the book available for sale but if all 34 had bought the ebook for $2.99, I would have made a small amount of money. Given the very small margin for books, it's not a surprise that there aren't more books advertised. But I think for a specific launch period, it's definitely worth it to raise awareness to try to spike your Amazon ranking which in turn can get you more sales.
It's worth looking at the demographics even if you aren't going to sign up for an ad campaign. You'll get an idea of how big your market is anyway. You can access Facebook Ads here and they have plenty of help.
Have you tried Facebook advertising for your book? Does it sound like something you could use? Please let me know what you think in the comments.
Christy Dorrity says
May 20, 2011 at 2:18 pmThanks Joanna for the information about adverstising on Facebook. I’m going to try it out.
Mark McNees says
November 25, 2011 at 9:20 amHey Guys,
I was wondering if anyone has had any success with a FB ad? I have a very targeted ad for my book (Immersion: Live the Life God Envisioned for You) and have been receiving clicks, which go directly to my Amazon.com book page (http://www.amazon.com/Immersion-Live-Life-Envisioned-you/dp/1460967704/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1322234321&sr=1-1-spell), but I am not converting the clicks into sales.
I was wondering if anyone has any insight or experience that has reaped success?
Thanks,
Mark
Joanna Penn says
November 25, 2011 at 9:24 amHi Mark, I personally found it didn’t work for me either in terms of number of sales to clicks. Have you been very careful with your selection of a target audience?
If you have a budget for advertising, perhaps try http://kindlenationdaily.com/ which have a range of options and I found that very effective for my launch, although others have found it variable as well.
Mark McNees says
November 25, 2011 at 10:01 amThank Joanna,
I will check out kindlenationdaily.com
Thomas L Goss says
January 14, 2012 at 8:07 pmThanks for the post, I’ve begun exploring fb ads for my new book, that way I can look for those who might enjoy cosmic love poetry and sci-fi angst! 😉
Nick Thacker says
February 8, 2012 at 4:35 pmHi Joanna;
Thanks for posting this–I’ve been following your latest release, and I can’t wait to start reading Pentecost! I’m about to launch my first thriller (after the copy editor has his way with it…), and FB ads were one of the things I was/am interested in using to get some targeted clicks through to my newsletter sign-up.
Also, I was curious about your strategy behind the “blog tour” idea–mind if I send you an email to follow up?
Thanks in advance!
Nick
Joanna Penn says
February 9, 2012 at 2:06 amHi Nick, thanks and I hope you enjoy Pentecost. I really didn’t find FB advertising to be that great for the book. I got much better response from paid ads in Kindle Nation Daily and Pixel of Ink which target Kindle readers. You’re welcome to email and I can direct you to other resources. I’m also doing a webinar tonight which include a lot on book marketing – 21 ways to sell your book online if you fancy coming or getting the recording.
http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/savvy_book_marketer/how-to-promote-your-novel.html
Jim Rollins says
March 3, 2012 at 10:44 pmHi Joanna,
Enjoyed your blog entry. Very interesting comparisons too
Jim Rollins
Joanna Penn says
March 5, 2012 at 2:25 amI’m very excited to have you on the blog Jim 🙂 I’m glad you enjoyed.
Kay Hassan says
March 30, 2012 at 9:35 pmThank
I have not tried sample chapters yet I am wondering if it works or not.
J. Thomas Beaton says
April 24, 2013 at 9:53 amJust a quick question here – would anyone suggest directing people that click through on Facebook ads to their own site for a free download of chapters (after filling in an email grab form)? Or direct them to somewhere like Amazon for this. Do you anyways email addresses of those that click through even if they go to Amazon buy?
Also – can anyone give in a “twenty words or less” what I want to set the CPC at and why one would WANT to set it high or low?
Apologies if this is mentioned above. I read through but did not see it and am otherwise drowning a little in the information available.
Joanna Penn says
April 24, 2013 at 10:57 amThere’s more detail in this post http://www.lindsayburoker.com/advertising-ebooks-2/does-facebook-advertising-work-one-authors-experience/
but no, you don’t get emails – I think directing people to your site is a good idea, but overall, I think you’d be best off using BookBub or other paid email marketing than facebook which hasn’t had great results for authors http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2013/04/06/paid-promotion/
Gerald Greene says
May 9, 2014 at 3:04 pmEnjoyed the post Joanna. Wondered if you used the Facebook Power Editor and if you sent clicks directly to your Amazon sales page or to your own site?
I’ve been sending Facebook members to a book Facebook fan page as I understand Facebook charges less that way but have not had good results.
Asim says
October 29, 2014 at 4:20 pmHi Joanna,
Wonderful article written. But again the problem is in conversion to sales. Do you have any idea of marketing book. I have produced quite a good book, that must have attracted a lot of customers from US and UK at least but I am not having any success in this regard.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JDJA3DI
Joanna Penn says
October 31, 2014 at 8:18 amThis is an old post Asim – from 2011. I don’t use Facebook for book marketing these days, so please search specifically for help with Facebook marketing within the last few months. Facebook changes their setup so often, it’s hard to keep up!
Valerie says
June 22, 2015 at 11:32 amI was browsing FB and an ad, similar to your concept, appeared. They were able to include some great sales copy because the debut author (who’s book is now #44 in it’s genre) wrote a FB post with the content they wanted. Then instead of clicking boost post, they went to the advertising section and used the post but with clicks to website. That way they could have a long entry and really entice readers. Strong headline and sales copy directly related to another offer (same genre). Huge difference in the amount of copy you can include and it’s placement, the small text block limitations don’t apply.
I bought, and at that time he had 5 reviews and was nowhere ranking wise… a few days later popped up to #44, then he added a 99¢ special. My guess is that he’ll hit the NYT list in short order. (it was a fabulous novel)
Andy Peloquin says
July 26, 2016 at 1:33 pmJoanna, would you recommend running an FB ad on the days LEADING UP TO the freebie/promo, or during?
Joanna Penn says
July 27, 2016 at 1:03 amI do a few days before to get things moving, then during and a few days after as well. I’ve got a BookBub coming up on a boxset and I’ll be running Ads for 3 days prior and a couple of days after to boost the signal.
Bob Newbrook says
August 2, 2016 at 12:11 pmHello Joanna. I recently had a short non-fiction novel published with Authorhouse entitled ‘When Will We Ever Learn’. The book moves through relationship phenomena, some personal experience of how the mind works and how I incidentally became interested in Buddhism late in life. It ends very differently than it begins.
In sum, I’m hopeless on computers and would like to ask if you could assist in marketing through all the social media outlets; on a business sharing basis, of course.
Regards, Bob Newbrook.
Joanna Penn says
August 3, 2016 at 1:31 amHi Bob, Please read this post about the publishing company you have used: https://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/author-solutions-and-friends-the-inside-story-2/ and I’d recommend checking out these posts http://www.thecreativepenn.com/publishing/ for how to avoid pain next time.
Also, I don’t do marketing for authors, I AM an author 🙂 I just have info about what I have done and interview people on the podcast etc. I have books and courses but I don’t do it for people. Start here for ideas: http://www.thecreativepenn.com/marketing/ All the best!
Andrew Schwarz says
August 27, 2016 at 10:23 amHi Joanna, what size was your ad? Can you tell me the specs you did in photoshop to make it?
Thank you,
Andy S.
Joanna Penn says
August 28, 2016 at 8:39 amYou can find templates at canva.com for all ad sizes – I don’t use Photoshop 🙂
Bran says
September 8, 2016 at 5:00 amDo you know of any how to page that takes you through, step by step, the creation of a Facebook ad? I have an ebook on Amazon and every option I try on Facebook ads seems to want to create a catalog and sell it through a Facebook shop. I jut want one of those ads you see down the side that will take people to my book on Amazon but I can’t find how to do it.
Joanna Penn says
September 8, 2016 at 5:26 amFacebook themselves have great help – https://www.facebook.com/business Just follow their tutorial.
Bran Chadwick says
September 8, 2016 at 10:02 amThank you 🙂
J.T. Joseph says
November 24, 2017 at 12:41 amI noticed there are online $50 coupons for FB ads and I was wondering, if Facebook had certain price ranges. For example, Can I do $50 for 1-2 months? How effective are these ads for debut authors?
Thanks, for the information.