Do Facebook adverts sell books? The answer depends on who you ask, but my queries to a group of authors revealed that a significant number of them felt that Facebook advertising was an important part of their marketing efforts. Like with any advertising system, you need to learn how best to use it before you set up your first advert or you may be disappointed, but luckily there are many people who offer assistance to authors who want to take a journey into Facebook adverts.
Effective Facebook adverts
- Target the books audience precisely,
- Have compelling ad copy with a strong hook and clear call to action,
- Have a professional quality image or video,
- One click sends them straight to where they can purchase your book.
Of course, even if a reader clicks through from Facebook to your book’s product page (on Amazon for instance), they may not actually purchase your book. Your book product page needs to also grab them. So your book needs a profressional cover, your blurb needs to grab the reader, and the more reviews you have on the product page the better.
Targeting
Knowing who will enjoy your book – your target audience – and where they hang out is the first step in any marketing plan. You need to know who you’re talking to. The clearer you can be on this, the better. Age? Gender? Where they live? And, most important, what interests do they have that relate to your book? If you can target people whose interests align with a theme or topic in your book, that’s the best way to connect with them. If you have dogs in your book, you can target people with an interest in dogs, for instance.
Ad copy
You need to give the reader a reason why they should read your book. What will it do for them? Uplift them? Educate them? Entertain them? Marketing gurus have formulas for writing good ad copy down to a fine art, so do an interenet search on ‘How to write adverts for Facebook’ or something similar to educate yourself. This link will take you to one example of a helpful article on the topic.
If you’re sending the reader to Amazon and you’re targeting worldwide, then it’s best you have a global link that will send the reader to their local store. We give AIAP authors a global link for their books for this purpose.
Quality image or video
Canva is a common graphic design resource that authors use to create social media and advertising images, but if you’re not artistically inclined to visual arts, even with a template you can still make something that doesn’t look good, so if you can afford professional images, that’s the best option. If you create something yourself, note that you can’t have more than 20% text on any image for a Facebook advert and there are specific sizes needed. You can find all these specifications on the internet, of course, but it is easier to get a professional to create something for you specifically for the purpose. What you want is something that will stop people scrolling. Short, eye-catching videos do well.
How to set up a Facebook advert for a book
How to write adverts that sell
What you say in your advert is, of course, really important. It can make the difference between people clicking through or not. Marketing people know about writing good ad copy better than I, so I see no need to reinvent the wheel on this matter. Just click through to this Social Media Examiner article on Writing Facebook Ad Copy That Converts
Do Facebook adverts sell books?
They do for some people. Whether you are one of those they work for depends on many factors, but you’ll never know unless you try. Just make sure you have an eye catching image, watch the above video and read the article on writing good copy before you go ahead.
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I use Facebook to add to events where I appear, using their logo and info on half and my cover and info on the other half of a landscape format. Many events do not have a viable advertising budget. If I boost posts on my author page, historical event managers love it.