Paid advertising

[Cosmic Geoff]

Has anyone here used paid online advertising to promote their book? For example, Amazon pay-per-click advertising, Goodreads advertising, or Facebook advertising? And how did it go?

 

[G.T.]

If you are looking for strategies or examples of this join 20Bookto50k Facebook group. You can take or leave any advice you get there but the number of people participating will give you a good cross-section of authors, genres, etc and their success or lack thereof.

Personally, I have nothing to offer, hopefully I will release my first book in the next year. I will probably use amazon ads.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I’ve done quite a few with varying levels of success

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Not on Amazon, but I've run paid campaigns on Facebook for Kickstarter with varying degrees of success. Social isn't as lucrative as it used to be. I looked into google ads, but the price to get the keywords versus the price made from sales worked out at a loss.

Interested to know whether ads on Amazon works.

 

[Phyrebrat]

With the democratisation of writing over the last two decades, the amount of players in the game have increased massively meaning that in SM you may often (mostly!) be shouting into an echo chamber of other people, too.

I think a slow, dedicated focus on building an audience with a website with blog, engaging with other writers' sites (in your genre) and not rushing to develop a network, but making one that is authentic and valid for your needs.

It's interesting that Jo has had limited success as I'd have expected her experience to have been far more beneficial to sales.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

With the democratisation of writing over the last two decades, the amount of players in the game have increased massively meaning that in SM you may often (mostly!) be shouting into an echo chamber of other people, too.

I think a slow, dedicated focus on building an audience with a website with blog, engaging with other writers' sites (in your genre) and not rushing to develop a network, but making one that is authentic and valid for your needs.

It's interesting that Jo has had limited success as I'd have expected her experience to have been far more beneficial to sales.

Varying rather than limited

Bookbub pays back but is hard to get accepted. BookBarbarian covers it’s costs
Facebook ads didn’t work at all
Being in a bundle gave a nice one off payment but no lift in sales

The last few free promos I’ve done (with Inish Carraig only - Abendau has been limited) have gone well as it has been picked up independently by sites with reach - this comes from the review level. Not numbers but quality of review - but you have to have enough for that even to become a factor.

 

[tinkerdan]

A lot depends on how much money you have to throw away.

What I means by that is that reputable advertisers will tell you up front that there are no guarantees.

You first have to have a salable product of quality and even then--there are no guarantees.

So, before you decide how much money you want to put into it--remember, there are no guarantees.

It's a gamble.

Remember that line...

You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealing's done.

Well, when the dealings done you more than likely will be counting your losses, so you want to have a fair idea of how much of those you can endure.

And remember...

every hand's a winner,
And every hand's a loser,
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep.

I'm just say'in...

 

[Bowler1]

This is sort of the thread I am looking for, I think.

Marketing and my planned attempts are as follows.
There are very few groups on Facebook actually allow writers to shout out, but I found one that I will post to - science fiction writers and those who would be - membership is 1.1k, so limited. Does anyone know of other FB groups that might be of use.

There are quite a few science fiction book groups on FB, but these don't allow promotion on FB at least. I have joined another forum (needs must, sorry!) with the aim of shouting out, and I guess it can't do any harm. Does anyone know of useful forums for this type of self promotion?

Finally just to be clear, SFF is and always has been my only writing forum that I engage in, simply because it's the most friendly and supportive - respect to the Mods for achieving this.

 

[Tirellan]

This is sort of the thread I am looking for, I think.

Marketing and my planned attempts are as follows.
There are very few groups on Facebook actually allow writers to shout out, but I found one that I will post to - science fiction writers and those who would be - membership is 1.1k, so limited. Does anyone know of other FB groups that might be of use.

There are quite a few science fiction book groups on FB, but these don't allow promotion on FB at least. I have joined another forum (needs must, sorry!) with the aim of shouting out, and I guess it can't do any harm. Does anyone know of useful forums for this type of self promotion?

Finally just to be clear, SFF is and always has been my only writing forum that I engage in, simply because it's the most friendly and supportive - respect to the Mods for achieving this.

Try Fantasy/Sci-Fi Focus (FSFF) | Facebook

 

[Bowler1]

Nice one Tirellan, that's a group I didn't find on my searches. They'll get spammed for their troubles quite soon.