The great experiment

Big news everyone! I have entered the world of advertising. I have jumped off the deep end and have taken out a Facebook ad for my book. When I was researching using Facebook ads for ebooks, I didn't find anything. No one had good or bad experiences to report. So, here I am, everyone's guinea pig. I have plunked down the bucks and am awaiting results.

Here's the deal. You set up a FB page for your book and then you go through their menu to say what you want your ad to say and who you want it to go to. And then, the rest is magic. Or something. I'm not really sure what it looks like to people who get the ad, but the idea is that the ad makes them want to click your page. At least that is the goal of Facebook, because that is how they get paid. My goal is for them to click to my page, "like" my page, and buy the book.

And the $60,000 question is: Is that happening?

I can tell you that since I put the ad up two days ago, I have had 76 new people "like" my page. But I have not sold a single book. At least, not on Amazon. So, it's nice to be liked but, to coin a phrase, show me the money.

My husband thinks that these "clickers" may be fake. He thinks they are Facebook "plants". I suppose that could be. They certainly have interesting names.

Of course, I must keep in mind that has only been two days. So far, though, I have spent $31 on advertising and my benefit is $0.

On the awesome side of things, when I looked at my Amazon sales, I found out that I sold a book to someone in the UK. I think that is mighty exciting. I've jumped the pond. My book is being read on two continents. Woot!

So... in summary, if you are dying to find out whether or not you should take out a FB ad for your book, I have to say, I'm skeptical, but stay tuned.

How do you like your books: Virtual or Actual?

I can't decide if this picture is creepy or just awesome.

But I digress. So my mother thinks that I should run a bunch of hard copies of my book to sell. How I should sell them, I'm not sure. Door to door with them in a big suitcase? On the street corner, while wearing a banana suit?

Keep in mind that my mother also thinks that the Point Defiance Zoo has a wooly mammoth and that the YMCA doesn't allow women. So she is living in a different world.

This does present a quandry to me, though. I thought that epublishing was the greatest because it was free and instanteous. But so many of my friends don't have access to ebook technology. And that makes me wonder how big of an audience I am missing by just epublishing. Nooks and Kindle sales are growing but lots of people don't have them yet.

But if I made a hundred copies of my book, how would I get them out of my garage? And if someone ordered one, I'd have to go to the post office. I hate the post office.

I don't have an answer to this. Perhaps I am just too lazy for this option. But I do know that virtual or actual, hot guys from the books you read, possibly Edward Cullen or the guy with the abs, will come out of the page and give you a hug.