Advertising/Marketing for Indie Authors

 

Up until a few weeks ago I was paying $50 to have Facebook ads/banners created. I am not great at graphic design, so I didn’t think I’d be capable of creating my own. But when I saw how much I could purchase images from shutterstock.com (5/$50), I decided I needed to create ads/banners/teasers on my own.

This information is probably old news to most, but if I can even help 1 person I’d love to share what I have learned. After a lot of research I discovered canva.com. This website is amazing. The price for each ad/banner/design is between $0-1. Hmm. Free/$1 or the $50 I was spending before–not a tough decision. I can create so many different ads/banners/teasers.

I spent a lot of time playing around with it, and I am still learning, but here are a few sample ads/banners/teasers I have created. Just note- be careful for the ratio of text to image for Facebook ads (I am sure most are aware of their stringent – no more than 20% text rule)…

 

A lot of the above are teasers & are used mostly for Twitter or blog tours (the ones with a lot of text, that is)… I like using quotes on these images since you’re limited on how much you can type in a Twitter post.

A couple notes on advertising:

-I am releasing the 3rd book in my series at a preorder/new release price of only $0.99. Another successful author I know does this, and I was originally hesitant, but I realized the genius in it… 1) Having an extract to my book in the back of the others with a note about the price = A lot more preorders than I got on the other books. 2) I can use all of the wonderful email marketing companies for this book even though it is a new release (as long as my previous books meet the rating requirement). I already have 3 companies lined up the week of release (and the rest cannot be submitted until the sale is within 30 days). I had a lot of success with bookgorilla, booksends, ENT, and myromancereads on my previous marketing campaigns for books 1 & 2- so, I’m hopeful for this book.

-Facebook Spending… I have only spent a few dollars here and there, but every once and awhile I’ll do a $20 ad. What I discovered is I get the same amount of clicks on a $5 ad as I do a $20 ad. As for using the Ads Manager versus boosting a post… With Ads Manager I stopped allowing Facebook to put the ad on Instagram/Right hand side/3rd party (why?- Well, I was getting charged $1 or more per click on Instagram/Right-hand ads)–which is nuts… And I’d get a TON of click on third-party ads (but the conversion rate was SUPER low). Whenever I only had the mobile/desktop option selected–> Most clicks–>Most conversions (least amount spent!)

Boosting a post- interestingly I get a lot of likes/shares/comments (less clicks on the link though!). So for the last $3 ad I boosted on my page, I had 20 likes/5 page likes/9 shares (all within a few hours)… But less sales than when I used the ads manager (which usually results in 1-3 likes though)…

Okay. So there is my 2cents in all of this. I am not sure if it helps. I do notice though when I run an ad during the week only– the sales mostly appear on the weekend. My guess is they download a sample, read, then decide to buy. Have my results been successful with Facebook ads? If I spend $20, I usually make between $25-40 (so there is a profit of $5-20, but then when I do not advertise the following week, I see steady sales, so my hope is those customers have bought the next book).

PLEASE SHARE ANY WEBSITES/SUCCESSES/TIPS HERE. THANK YOU. And be sure to add a LINK to one of your books on the market!