Facebook boosted posts

I have done something with marketing that I have not heard other self-pubbies using. I got the idea from my daughter, who did fundraising for a while. She found that boosted facebook posts are very powerful ways of getting the word out. I have found them to have a real reach.

I have a website that gets about 100 to 200 visitors a month, and a facebook author's page Lewis McIntyre that shares my personal friends, and authors that I have picked up, about 400.

My challenge was to break out of my immediate circle of friends to reach people who have never heard of me or my books. So what I did was to construct a post on my author's page, share that with my circle of friends, then promote that page via the "Boost this page" button. For $25 that page is distributed to 7-15K people for a preset period, and you get a count of how many reached, and how many liked and shared your post. You also can answer questions they ask about your book.

Last month I boosted the page, and kept extending the boost. I eventually spent 250 dollars, but when I quit, I had reached 67,000 people and I saw some sales in Australia. I then offered a free Kindle download, with very rewarding results. That cost me nothing but money I wasn't making in royalties, but put E&D in the hands of many, many people.

This month, rather than continue to boost the same thing, I took some historical facts important to the book and expanded on them, to emphasize that these were historical facts, not just fantasy on my part, being careful to not discuss exactly what role they played in the book. (Partly due to a snarky review on Amazon that questioned whether this was more fantasy than fact, though he still thought it was a good read and gave it three stars, about three times as many as he gave in most of his other reviews. )

The first educational post was Roman Indian Ocean maritime trade, which was actually modern in scope and in fact an important part of their state budget. Then I ran another on the village of Liqian in China, very significant in the book, which some believe was the resettlement site of a few hundred Roman soldiers in China, Carrhae survivors. That is a controversial fact, but still a fact, and scientists are doing DNA and archaeological work there to prove or disprove it.

So for $300 total, I have reached almost 100,000 people, got many favorable responses, answered questions some had, and for those who liked the post, I invited them to like the page so they will receive future updates. Like most advertising you never know how much is due to this boost, or to something else, but sales continue to be encouraging.

I would like to know if anyone else has tried this, and I would encourage those haven't to do so.

 

Wow that's a lotta exposure for just $25. Cool.

Did your author page see much rise above 400?

Also, what span of time are you talking about, for the 67000?

 

Are you keeping track of your income and expenses for this project, Lew? I know you're taking a long-term approach and are willing to spend some money in order to get exposure, etc., but I hope you'll be willing to share your overall profits/losses with us at some point. You're doing a great job of being optimistic and explaining various aspects of your adventure, but I wonder if it may be creating a more positive overall impression than what's born out by the numbers.

I know we aren't supposed to ask people about money, but you've been really open about some of the financial aspects of all this, so I'm hoping you'll be as open about the big picture finances. I think it would be really valuable for people considering self-publishing.

 

You are correct, @BayView, I am losing money overall. However, my sales, which were beginning to flat-line at the end of March, looking like it was going asymptotic toward some final total sales (my circle of friends all had already bought one), began selling at several books/day (all on line formats) on April 1 and have continued. I sold as many books in April as I did in the previous two months, which were primarily sold to friends. I am getting sales in Europe, Britain (about 1/3 of April sales) and Australia so I am definitely outside the circle of my friends, which was my goal.

Being an analytical engineer, I am keeping a daily spreadsheet of sales, and converting KENP data to books read, as E&D is 1150 Kindle pages. And I am keeping track of what it is costing. I am definitely paying much more for advertising than I am earning, but I can definitely see an effect that is not wishing and hoping, but selling to people that never heard of me or my book. I will probably continue to absorb the loss until sales start to fall off. I am hoping there is a critical mass out there, when the book will get visibility just by its sales, but I don't know what that number is . The biggest drain, however, is on my time... it is very time consuming!

@Tea@3, it took about 3 weeks to reach 67,000 hits on the FB boost, at a price tag higher than I want to do again. However, that boost ended just before I launched a free Kindle download at the beginning of April which also did very well... perhaps the boost prepped an audience? The webpage is not doing much. It is as hard to promote a webpage as it is to promote a book, maybe harder. I am looking at search engine optimizations to make this come up on google searches for Rome, China, ancient history, historical fiction etc. Right now, unless you look for Lewis McIntyre or the Eagle and the Dragon, you probably won't find it.

 

I boosted the whole page at the beginning of May, which got a lot of exposure and likes, but I didn't see much change in sales, slowing down a bit but still brisk. I boosted another historical vignette on ancient Bactria, and a reboost of "Come, Follow Me," which has been lagging far behind in sales due to E&D getting all the marketing attention. Both got a lot of reaction, with CFM picking 1000 likes of the first 4000 reached, but waiting for this to show up in sales (just 24 hours into this boost). I learned how to target countries, UK and some European countries, Australia and Canada which are my (diminutive) 3rd and 4th largest international markets, and India and China, since they figure in the book. It is neat to carry on an FB conversation with an Indian who is amazed that any American has ever heard of King Kanishka as I did this morning! My page has acquired several thousand likes and about a hundred shares.

 

My last boost ran out on May 14, and intentionally let it go without boosting for a month. I track daily sales in Excel (all formats, Kindle, KENP and paper) and got a bit of a peak after a BookDaily blast on June 1. Generally, however, the trend was generally down after May 14, and culminated last week in a four day dry spell with almost no sales, my longest since launch in Feb. Started my next FB boost last night, watching to see if I get the expected results.

@BayView, yes, the advertising is not paying for itself, but the sales are quite high, and definitely correlated to the ads... sales, not just reach. I am going to do another free Kindle download at the end of June, and @BayView, if you don't mind, since you are both prolific and successful with good rankings, I would appreciate your advice on getting the best bang for this.

 

I expect to lose money to generate sales. Having a high ranking is key to showing up quickly in an Amazon search, and not be on page 27 of a topic search and we are definitely getting there. There is a critical mass out there when the book will begin to sell itself. Most self-published authors don't reach it, and I probably won't either, but it is fun to try.

 

I don't know where I am going but the journey is fun.... and lots are buying E&D!

 

I have no advice whatsoever - I do hardly any marketting other than writing more books and doing what my publishers set up for me.

I think it definitely used to be easier, at least for me, to get the higher Amazon rankings - the KU juggernaut has really hurt books that aren't in KU, and my books from publishers aren't in the program, so... they don't get the rankings they used to. And then when I self-publish I generally enroll in KU but I do no promotion, so those books don't do too well either.

Fun game?

 

Maybe if you self-publish and don't enrol in KU and don't do any promotion, reverse psychology will work and it'll be a bestseller.

 

Thanks, @BayView and @Tenderizer, yes it is a fun game. At my age (69) you have pretty much done everything enough times you don't won't to do them anymore. This is all new to me and it is a great feeling. KU is a real plus for me... not only does it account for about half my Kindle sales, but I get twice as much (currently 0.4 cents per KENP) that I get twice as much as I do for a royalties on a regular download.

 

during the month long ltime off from boiosted posts, may sales fell to their lowest since launch, with peaks after a BookDaily push. Back to boosting and just finishing a free Kindle giveaway tomorrow. The last one generated a major uptick in sales that made April my best month ever, so we will see if that repeats.