More thoughts on using Facebook Ads as Market Research for Ebooks

In the post below, I talked about the cost-efficiency of utilizing Facebook as a way to test titles or concepts for an ebook, in my case Nine Romantic Stories.  To review, you can set up a campaign for as little as $5 or $10 a day, and once you've established one ad, you can "Create a Similar Ad" (the type is tiny, but you'll see it below the ad.)  From there, you can set up similar ads.

Now, as I mentioned Facebook has unusual and intriguing targeting abilities from an author's viewpoint. Yes, you can target cat lovers or dog lovers.  And that's fine if you're a nonfiction author.

But what about fiction writers?  How can Facebook targeting help them?

Most authors know the general age of their target.  Nine Romantic Stories is intended for women who are past the vampire lust stage, and with as with all literary fiction, it is a given that readers are college educated.

So what else is left?

One ways to market books is to compare one author to another.  Amazon reviews have compared my book, for example, to Isak Dinesen, J.D. Salinger and even Nancy Mitford!  That is a wide range, to be sure. But we often find books because people tell us, if you like X, you'll like Y.

So, for my new test, I set up different targets for my ad (using the copy that I developed from the first campaign)   I use the SAME copy for each ad within the campaign (remember, one variable at a time), the SAME "cost per click" and ONLY varying the author.  On Facebook, I can target "Jane Austen" fans, Salinger fans, Dickens fans, you name it.  I learn how many people "like" a particular author-- and it's a great way to target.

I'll let you know how it goes.  

Using Facebook Ads as Market Research for your book

I had learned from a fellow writer and strategist, Earl Wilcox of Plannerzone that Facebook offered interesting opportunities -- at very low cost, even as low as $5 a day, to test different titles, concepts, what have you-- if you specify that you pay for the "click" and not the impression.  It sounded like fun.

Using Facebook advertising, I learned a huge amount in a short time, for about $30.

It's easy to target with Facebook. You can target women who like Chopin and who own a Kindle.  You can target cat lovers, dog lovers, farmers.  You can specify country, even region.  I decided to target women U.S. 25-64, college graduates, who express an interest in literature.  My  "target group" shrank to about 860,000 women out of all Facebook users.  So, that was useful data in itself.  (I would advise all authors to try this exercise.)

But then the fun began.

I created a baseline ad and let it run-- I decided to pay $1 a click, but that depends on the size of your market.  (Niche markets are pricier by definition.)  I limited spending to $10 a day.

My ad got zero clicks, so I paid $0.  Obviously, my language was a flop.  Zero isn't good.

Using Facebook's "Create a Similar Ad," I took the same ad and on Facebook's advice, I created a slightly modified version.  Facebook suggests varying ONLY one thing for each new ad.  I changed the headline in Test Ad #1. Then I changed the target (same copy) in Test Ad #2, and so on.  I had 5 ads running for the same campaign, all for $10/day -- and let Facebook optimize them for clicks.

Without boring you with the details, I found that one ad got 30 clicks, and the others almost none.  What did I do in the Test Ad?  I used language that an Amazon review had used in describing the book-- I merely copied her phrase, "Like an old Hollywood movie."  That was also a good lesson!

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Nine Romantic Stories and Building Platforms

So, I've (after some mechanical difficulties with Kindle Select Publishing, I have uploaded my first story collection to Amazon.  You can download a sample of it at Nine Romantic Stories: Carla Sarett: Amazon.com: Kindle Store:

This book is a marketing experiment (or what's called platform-building experiment) of sorts.  For starters, it's shorter than a full-length story collection, so I've priced it at a dollar.  My thinking is (although I could change my position) that it's less of a commitment, and maybe some brand-new readers will find me.  Or maybe not-- I'll see.

The other part of the experiment is to play around with tags, categories and different forms of advertising to see what works in the new world.  I've published almost all of these stories, so it's not as if readers can't find them elsewhere.  But can ads through Facebook, Kindle Nation, and Google Adwords make a difference?  In the next few weeks, I'll be trying each of these and reporting back on what's worked and what's flopped.

In the meantime, hope that some of you will splurge for a dollar!

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