Facebook ads work to reach the elusive niche reader
by Barbara Morgenroth
Eight years ago when I began a second career as an indie author after many years in traditional publishing as well as television, my middle grade book, Impossible Charlie, was the only new book in its category.
Total book visibility!
By the time 2016 rolled around, things changed with the avalanche of indie books being published. Most books and authors are now inundated under hundreds of thousands of other books and authors.
The lament became one word: “discoverability”.
Up sprang book bloggers and book tours and promo sites, the Holy Grail being Bookbub. But the choices of who they accept are as mysterious as Amazon’s algorithms.
Authors grasped at any lifeline they could find and were largely disappointed.
I tried everything, changing covers, titles and blurbs. I got reviews, toured, and did everything everyone said worked. But…they didn’t.
Why?
My potential readers weren’t at Amazon. They were somewhere else.
Like Facebook.
It turns out Facebook ads work.
Pros—
- There are about a billion people on Facebook.
- Facebook targeting to reach your audience is precise.
- You don’t have to rely on anyone and (unlike Bookbub) Facebook is not going to reject you.
Cons—
- There is a learning curve.
- It can be expensive—although when compared to some of the Bookbub fees—it’s a bargain.
- You need patience, and you’ll have to do some work.
I’ve been advertising on Facebook for some months and my mailing list has increased by a factor of 6, going from a very small audience to quite a substantial one. This is good. It was easy. I’ve made back my investment. Win!
Starting Out
The mechanics of creating a Facebook ad are detailed at Facebook. The Facebook advertising guru is bestselling novelist Mark Dawson.
He offers three free videos at his site.
Watch them. Follow the advice.
When you have that knowledge firmly in place, your work really begins.
Ask Yourself Questions
There are questions you need to answer. Have a notebook handy and start taking notes.
- What books are like yours?
- Who writes books like yours?
- What are the interests of your audience?
If you write thrillers, you probably know exactly who are the top thriller authors. Is it James Patterson for you? Write it down.
If you write romances, maybe it’s Debbie Macomber.
Think of ten traditionally published authors who write what you write. Write it down. Can’t think of them? Go to Yasiv.com and search. Check on Amazon for similar books. Write down the results. (Yasiv.com is a fascinating tool. I’d never tried it before. And don’t forget Barb Drozdowich’s tip to check the also-boughts on your published books… Anne)
Whatever your category, do that.
Type those authors into the interests category when creating your Facebook ad, and use the audience that already exists for books like yours.
What if No Book is Like Yours?
Wait! What if you’re such an outlier there is no traditionally published author who does what you do?
That’s my situation. I have a thirteen book series in equestrian fiction, Bittersweet Farm, and there isn’t one famous author I can identify with.
I had to create my own niche.
Remember when I told you to think of interests your potential audience has?
I have a four-book coming-of-age series titled Bad Apple. It’s not really Young Adult–it’s in a little bit of a gray area. I looked for books like The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, finding a few that were close, but you want to be targeting about 250,000 people and S.E. Hinton didn’t bring me anywhere near that.
In my book, the main characters are musicians and have a band. I thought about current performers who are similar. After searching, I came up with a few and added them to the list. Facebook will try to help you by making suggestions. Use their help.
I thought of every element in the series and wrote the words down.
Facebook advertising is for everyone, every market, not just books. Every time you like a page or a post, Facebook remembers. (Creepy, I know, but so helpful now.)
Now that you have done your homework and know who your audience is, you want to ask what else would they like?
What Non-Book Things Does Your Reader Like?
Is your book is about musicians? Then what kind of instruments do they play? Gibson guitars? Pleyel pianos? Investigate.
Maybe your book is a romance about a clothes horse—so does she wear Jimmy Choo shoes? The brands of trendy clothing items might help. Make a list.
If you’ve written about a spy, do they use a Walther or a Sig Sauer pistol? What do they drive? What do they drink? These are interests you can target.
You’ve researched and now have your audience up to about 250,000 people according to Facebook. Maybe it’s too one-author, maybe you had to rely on other interests but you got it done.
- As a piece of advice, don’t target Kindle readers, it’s too broad.
- Follow the best advice from Facebook and Mark Dawson—or someone as smart—and create your ad.
- Use an eye-catching image that’s easily understood.
- Keep the pitch succinct. Mine are usually under 25 words. I think of it as a billboard on the highway. The driver is going past at 65 mph and they have to get it at speed. They’re not going to read a paragraph. What they’ll do if it’s too long is forget about it. Next!
- Grab them. Make them want to click.
Patience Pays Off
If you turn on your ad and expect instant results, that’s not going to happen. It takes about a week for Facebook’s algorithm to learn your audience. The more people who click, the smarter it gets.
Be patient. If after two weeks, you have disappointing results, ask why your ad isn’t intriguing the thousands of people who it’s been served to. It’s probably not Facebook, I’m sorry to say, it may be something about your ad, the graphics, or the book.
Try again. Keep trying.
Use all your creativity to find your audience.
You can do it. Facebook will help.
by Barbara Morgenroth @barbmorgenroth July 24, 2016
What about you, Scriveners? Have you tried Facebook ads? Do you know where you’re most likely to find your audience? Do let us know in the comments if you’ve found one place that’s especially welcoming for a particular genre.
This week Anne continues her poison series with a post on the much-mythologized plant, mandrake. And she’s visiting the Insecure Writer’s Group with a post on Do Authors Need a Blog?
Barbara Morgenroth
Barbara sold her first novel to Atheneum when she was 24 and never looked back.
Eight books later, she moved on to television where she became one of the youngest head writers in the history of daytime television.
She is also the recipient of a Writers Guild of America Best Writing Award for her work on One Life to Live.
Barbara has written romantic comedies, mysteries, Young Adult and equestrian fiction.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
It’s on SALE!!
Not Low Maintenance
by Barbara Morgenroth
Only 99c on Amazon for a limited time!
Viva Miller can find the perfect match for anyone.
For herself, not so much.
After catering a much talked about Blood and Guts hunt breakfast, Viva is slapped with a defamation of character lawsuit by her ex-boyfriend, David Resnick. She can’t afford to be taken to court especially not when the opposing lawyer, Joel Bernstein, is the hottest (in every definition of the word) attorney on the east coast.
The return of vile David into her life, fully reinforces Viva’s decision to swear off men, but that an unlikely outcome if Joel has anything to do with it.
Can a food stylist turned expert matchmaker find love with the man who is trying to sue her for everything she’s worth?
What happens when David turns up dead and Viva is the prime suspect?
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
Please note: I try to vet all the contests and opportunities I list here, but I may miss something, so always read the fine print, especially when it comes to copyright. Don’t enter a contest that takes rights for non-winning submissions, or asks for ALL rights, rather than first rights. More on this at Writer Beware.…Anne
THE SUNDAY TIMES SHORT STORY AWARD NO ENTRY FEE Any story under 6,000 words. Five shortlisted runners-up get £1,000. First prize worth £30,000. The Society of Authors is the sponsor. Author must have previous publications in the UK or Eire. Deadline September 29, 2016.
Bartleby Snopes Dialogue-Only Story Contest. $10 FEE for unlimited entries. Write a story under 2000 words, using only dialogue–no tags. No other restrictions. Prize: minimum of $300, more with more entries. All fees go into the prize pot. Deadline September 15th.
Call for anthology submissions! Wising Up Press is accepting submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction for their “Kindness of Strangers” anthology. Prose: 5,000 words or fewer. Poets may submit up to five poems. They accept simultaneous submissions and previously published work. Deadline Sept. 1st
MYSTERY AUTHORS! We found a list of 15 small presses that specialize in mysteries and do not require an agent for submissions. It’s compiled by Authors Publish Newsletter.
ROMANCE AUTHORS! Here’s a list of 31 small presses that specialize in romance and do not require an agent for submissions. Also compiled by the Authors Publish Newsletter.
25 PUBLISHERS YOU CAN SUBMIT TO WITHOUT AN AGENT. These are respected, mostly independent publishing houses–vetted by the great people at Authors Publish. Do check out their newsletter.
I’m breaking down under the constant torture! Could be time to come down from that snooty artist garret and try to… gaspity-gasp… advertize. Soon. A little. Thanks Barbara
One thing that really resonated here is finding that target audience. I’ve recently had some advice that re-positions my work (normally about as far out of vogue as you can get) to a more precise audience. I was pushing primarily on the local front, but the idea of doing this research and then advertizing could be successful.
The main problem for me, I think is that I’m a day-job dilettante and there’s no way I could support any sort of steady ad budget. If I just try one and it doesn’t work, then I’m pretty much out of gas. I don’t have two novels in the pipeline at all times, and I don’t think I would if I won the Powerball- I’m simply slow! But maybe, as an experiment… something to think about!
Hi Will. Facebook can be expensive. I’ve heard of people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars but they’re making literally millions back. Don’t spend what you don’t have. Start small. $1 a day. Always see if your ad works before investing more money in it. You’ll be fine.
Barbara, Thanks for your savvy guide to FB advertising. Thanks, too, for your step-by-step how-to about creating your own niche. Especially helpful to those of us who don’t fit into any easily definable niche!
Thank you, Ruth. Indie publishing enables us to write anything we want and find an audience for it. It might take work, but it’s possible. We can now see the end of “off-genre” being a bad thing!
Unlike Bookbub, they won’t reject you – funny!
If I were on Facebook, I’d be willing to try an ad.
Alex, in 6 months or a year, something else will come along and you can jump on board that.
Really helpful to know that someone has had success with this! I’m a career marketer, with an ad-writing background. I’ve tried Goodread ads, and found them not worth the money. (Actually, the only thing that has worked for me ad-wise is Bookbub.)
Part of the problem, I fear, is that I’m not self-published. If you are only making 8% royalties, it’s hard to get an ad to pay off, if you pay for it yourself. But many thanks for this, Barbara! It is definitely worth considering.
Hi Melodie. I’ve never heard of anyone who found Goodreads ads viable. If you can afford Bookbub, you can easily afford Facebook ads. As I said above, start small. $1 a day. See if that works after giving it a couple weeks. Don’t be impatient.
Perfect timing for this! My project for this upcoming week was to learn about FB ads. Thanks for this information and links, Barbara, Anne & Ruth. I’ll let you know how I make out 🙂
Thanks for having Barb here to share great FB ad insight. I’m off to check out the link and videos. 🙂
Do your homework/research. Facebook has lots of resources. They want you to succeed. Don’t take advice from hucksters ;-).
Thank you so much Barbara. You can be sure I do. And Anne’s blog is always chock full of reputable and valuable advice. 🙂
Fascinating. I hope to refer back to this post once I have a book (as opposed to a story or two in an anthology or two) out in the world. Thanks again.
You’re welcome. Good luck!
This is fascinating. I must admit I never considered an ad on Facebook. But, I know all the ads I see are geared toward me (and you are right, kind of creepy) but, why not be on the other end? I’m picturing it now… Ha!
You can gear your books exactly to what you imagine your audience is. This is an enormous help.
All of this is very interesting, but I’m still at the confused stage with Facebook ads. If I’ve pushed anything, I’m billed on PayPal AFTER I see what the cost is. I’d like to find a place to check the cost first. It’s important I have enough money to cover it in my bank account. This was an interesting post and I have printed some of it off to keep. thank you.
You set the budget. $1 a day or $10 a day (or whatever you want). When you’ve done all the advertising you want, you stop running the ad. It’s not confusing, it’s not a surprise. It’s just simple math. So simple even I, math-challenged as I am, can do it. 1 x 14 = $14. 10 x 14 = $140. 10 X 30 = $300.
Good luck.
I’ll have to play around in advance to figure out how to set the budget. I seem to just push buttons and I’m charged so quickly, I have no control on it. I’m sure it’s just something little I’m not doing right.
Fascinating and specific advice– thanks so much. My debut novel will be published this year and I’m definitely experimenting with your suggestions.
Thank you!
How exciting for you! Best of luck with your novel, Lori.
I’ve used FB for ads on my last novella. Didn’t get much in the way of sales, but did get something in visibility. I think it works best with new stuff as opposed to old. And they definitely enforce their T.o.S when it comes to books covers.
I created a mini-photo album of my covers one time and tried to boost the post, but got rejected because one of my covers was too risqué and violated their policy on nudity (which I found to be seriously hypocritical based on pages of photographers/models that I follow).
G.B., to someone who has never heard of your book, it’s new. I’ve had very strong response to book 1 in my series and it’s 4 years old. If you’re not getting the response you want, the wisdom is always to change the ad until you do.
As for the nudity, yes, Facebook is strict on their requirements. You chose to follow the photographers and models who may be partially nude. Your ads may well be served to someone, a child perhaps, who hasn’t chosen such material. I don’t find that hypocritical but rather intelligently sensitive to what could be assessed as offensive.
Good luck going forward.
Just thought of a silly question: is an ad different from creating a post and boosting it? I often create posts on my author’s page and boost the post to a targeted audience.
Yes, quite different. An ad is an advertisement and a post is comprised of thoughts you had. A boosted post only goes out to a limited number of people. An ad has an audience of many thousand people to reach. A boosted post is generally considered to be a poor use of promotion money as it will reach people who probably already know about you. If you are using a boosted post to make sure the people who have liked your page get notified of a release for example (assuming they are not on your mailing list) then that’s helpful. A well-done post can reach 1000 people anyway so it’s not something I do. But if you like doing it, it won’t harm anything.
I also have not used ads yet but have experimented with boosted posts. Re boosts only going to people who already know you: I can see how that would be the case if you select it to target your friends or friends of friends. But there are other options to broaden it beyond people who have liked your page. Using this option plus various search terms opens up the boost to thousands if not millions of people.
Extremely useful advice. Thank you very much for sharing. I’m at the beginning of my writing career and am open to all suggestions and tips – soaking them up like a sponge 🙂 Wishing you a lovely week.
You’re welcome. I hope you have a productive writing week.
Thanks so much for the info, Barbara!
Being the author of a large (760 pages) novel, finding ways to get people’s attention drawn to it are difficult. Fiction seems to be one of the hardest genres to promote. I may try a FB ad or two now after I get up to speed on the information that’s provided here. Thanks for helping!
Both nonfiction and fiction have their upsides and downsides but people have great success with both. Good luck!
Great details here, Barbara. Thanks so much for explaining this process. I’ve only experimented with one boosted post, but have been hearing from all over that FB ads are the way to go. Now that I’ve dipped my toe in the pool (or shoved aside my dislike of FB), I guess it’s time to up the ante–slowly, as you say. My Queendom for a Click! 🙂
Keeo the ad simple. Limit the text to no more than two short sentences–25 words or less. Have an eye catching graphic and you will be well on your way. Good luck! (You will like Facebook much better when it proves useful)
I’ve been experimenting with FB ads lately and have had success with my tests. I learned the hard way to do $5 tests before going big.
My best advice is to check the ads of your genre and see what appeals to you about them and what doesn’t. I was writing my copy in third person POV but then started writing it in first (like my books) and had success with that. I’ve also learned to include retailer links in the ad. I was originally directing people to my website page, but I got significantly more pre-orders by linking the ad to AMZ and including all the other retailers in the description than when I linked it to my website.
Stina–Thanks for stopping by and thanks for that great info! Ist person vs. 3rd can make all the difference and taste does vary by genre. I agree that I get more sales with any ad with links to retailers than links to the website. Thanks for some excellent tips!
Barbara, thank you for this informative post. It’s a keeper. Thank you, Anne, for always providing excellent content.
Tracy–Thanks for stopping by. Barbara certainly taught me a lot with this post!
My pleasure, Anne. And Barbara taught me a lot as well. Now to implement the ideas. Have a super rest of the week. 🙂
Thank you both for your very kind words!
I’ve been running FB ads for about a year now (thanks to Mark Dawson’s webinars). Unfortunately, after the publishers take their piece, I make very little. But that’s okay with me. With only two novels (not counting my non-fic) I’m still building my audience. Discoverability is more important to me, especially since I’m not losing money.
Sorry. I pressed send to quickly. I meant to add: This past spring I combined my books into a carousel ad to cut down the costs. They work, too! It’ll be interesting to see how this affects my bottom line. Fingers crossed!
Good luck. Many people are finding the summer months slow so I expect things will be picking up within a week or so. It’s always good to build your audience. Then if your situations should change, they are a constant.
See, this is why I always exempt Anne’s emails from my weekly email purge. Perfect timing! FB ads just rotated to the top of my to-do list, but Dawson’s course isn’t open right now. I thought he might have a book on it, but apparently not. So thank you, Barbara, for summarizing what I need to know to get started on this. I’ll check out the videos and giddy-up 🙂
Lissa–I plan to use FB ads for my next launch. They sure seem to be working for some authors, like Barbara. Best of luck!
Good luck, Lissa! Keep the ad short and easily understood. Have a great image that tells the audience what they need to know. Even still I’ve had people say “I saw the ad about 6 times before I clicked on it.” It might take a while. Be patient. (You, too, Anne!)