We had a great show tonight with Michael Cooper, the author of HELP! My Facebook Ads Suck and also a science fiction author writing under M.D. Cooper. He’s been experimenting constantly with Facebook ads and had some amazing advice, a lot of it different from what we’ve heard before (Lindsay, who hates Facebook ads, is tempted to give them another try!), and the proof is in the pudding. He went from very modest sales to having months where he made $25,000+ from his science fiction novels (and no, he didn’t spend $30,000 on Facebook to make that much — Lindsay asked).
The show was so jam packed with information that we’re not going to attempt to touch on everything in the show notes here, but here’s a little of what Michael talked about:
Why you should never use your book cover (or any text at all) in the image of a Facebook ad.
Michael’s spreadsheet to help you figure out the read-through rate in your series, how much you’re earning per customer you get into your funnel, and how much you can afford to spend to acquire a reader.
Why you should start ads at $5 a day max and only increase the spend if they prove they’re doing well.
Creating a fan page to launch your advertising campaigns from instead of a business page.
Using Books2Read as a place to direct readers if you’re creating ads to appeal to readers on all platforms and not just sending them straight to Amazon.
Why Michael isn’t a fan of using Facebook ads to build a mailing list — he sends people straight to buy his books.
Doing long-form sales copy rather than simply creating a short snippet.
Why you should create different ads for different countries instead of just targeting all English-speaking countries.
Why Michael prefers to run ads on 99-cent or full-priced ebooks rather than permafree titles.
Creating character-based ad copy to appeal to female readers versus more plot-based copy for male readers.
Elle Casey is not just a NYT and USA Today bestselling author–She’s also an extremely prolific writer. She averages a release rate of one book, about 85,00 words, a month. You’ll want to check out this podcast to learn how she is able to manage such a rate of releases. But it’s not just her speed that is impressive. Elle Casey has worked in many different genres under the same name. She has advice on how to use the same name and publish in a variety of genres without confusing readers.
“The more books you have the more work that goes into the promotion, the organizing of the front and back matter, responding to fan mail…” — Elle Casey
Here are some notes!
Elle Casey is a former attorney and teacher. Now she’s a New York Times bestseller and USA Today Bestseller.
She’s a prolific writer—averaging one full length a month while writing in multiple genres. Her novels are about 85,000 words each, except her science fiction series.
Elle was working as a teacher of legal English in France. She wasn’t sure if writing was for her—at that time. She’d thought about picking it up when she retired because of the difficulties and possible rejections of a traditional path. But after learning about self publishing she decided to get started.
She sold 50 books in the first month—a lot of them were bought by her mother but some strangers did buy them and leave reviews, which is what encouraged her to go on.
Genres that Elle has written in include: Action/adventure, urban fantasy, fantasy, sci-fi, romance.
Soon after beginning she was able to write full length novels quickly. The added bonus of a writing community helped steer her in the right directions as she built her business to increase her success. She was soon writing so prolifically that she was able to quit her job as a teacher and write full time.
With these particular struggles, Elle found it useful to hire a full time assistant last summer which has really helped her with her career. Things that her assistant does include keeping track of non-writing things and talking to fans. It helps that they live nearby so they can work together in person.
She admits that she can be a “lazy” person (and often would rather ride a horse!). Elle says that she can leave things off to the last minute. She works better under pressure. Her writing pressure has changed a little now that she has contractual obligations with Montlake Romance. She has found it difficult to work from series to series once she has to break away from one to work on another.
Elle says that the biggest difficulty in ‘genre hopping’ is that it can be difficult to brand herself. However, she also says that going from genre to genre can help her keep her writing fresh. Her covers help designate the genres of her books.
Despite science fiction/fantasy having a smaller number of readers compared to romance, she feels that she can only reach a small number of romance readers while she can be seen by a much higher percentage by science fiction/fantasy readers. She also sees science fiction as the “next frontier.”
Elle’s opinion is that KU is good for new writers who are trying to get their name out, but bad for a long term career. She feels like KU can devalue books. She hopes that one day writers could stand up against KU.
The only way that she can write a novel a month is by setting a goal of 85,000 words. She has been using Dragon Dictation to help her write 20,000 words in a day with Dragon. Writing this many words on a keyboard results in ice on her wrists. She had tried Dragon twice before, but after joining a Facebook group that had lots of tips she decided to give it a try. It’s been a great way for her to revolutionize her writing.
She finds outlining to not work very well for her, although she will try writing an outline in one-line outline. Elle has a game plan with her writing — but says it is very fluid!
When asked what she thinks is a common mistake with writing in various genres is that people pick up too many pen names. It’s not just the books, but dealing with all the social media, the marketing, the branding. Instead, by making things as clear as possible through the covers and the description, she hopes that it will clarify things for the readers.
She tries to do a BookBub advertisement once a month because of how large her catalogue is. switching genres you can be in BookBub more often. Although she used to do Facebook advertisements but they are no longer as easy.
Elle warned people that giving away too many books can lead to certain expectations by readers. Some readers can get demanding that they get free books or else they will go to other authors. Give away first—Then have them buy the rest.
She sends on email a month to her mailing list. If she does not have a new release then she sometimes promotes a friend’s book. She is careful to give appropriate headers in her mailing list regarding her genres.
Check out Aesta’s Book Blog and how she gets engagement on Facebook. She is a great example of how to maximize your Facebook influence.
Elle has found some crossover readers throughout her series. She didn’t have a lot of expectations, but she’s finding that more and more readers are trying something else for the same sort of writing (laugh-out-loud).
Her opinion is that finishing a series before moving on to another project can be advantageous because readers—including herself—sometimes wait till an entire series is released before picking it up.
Different groups of people are attracted to different types of genres. On her street team Facebook page she sees people of all ages discussing what they love about her book and it’s not just about the specific genre but also about the unique style of her writing.
Elle wishes that she had been more sophisticated in her branding from the beginning.
Find more about her and her books at ellecasey.com. She has links to purchase her books on a wide variety of retailers… And information on free leaders.
We chatted with indie thriller author Mark Dawson today, someone who found success before he started tinkering with Facebook advertising, but who then really ratcheted up his sales and earnings by figuring out what’s working over there. He now runs a course to help other authors and has several free instructional videos up at Self Publishing Formula. If you like what you hear in the interview, you may want to check them out.
Here’s some of what we covered:
Setting up advertising campaigns versus running boosted posts (Mark doesn’t bother with boosted posts)
Sending people directly to Amazon to buy books or, even better, sending them to a mailing list sign-up page and giving them free books (i.e. your starter library or series starter) in exchange for an email address (never advertise just for likes to your Facebook page)
Setting a bid price for ads versus letting Facebook choose in order to optimize clicks
Choosing a target audience (i.e. as a thriller author, Mark targets fans of Lee Child) based on interests that are likely to make them fans of your work
Does it matter if you’re in KDP Select and your books aren’t available everywhere? Will fewer of your clicks convert?
Do certain genres perform better than others with Facebook advertising?
How much can a new author just jumping in expect to spend?
Using Chrome and the Facebook Power Editor for greater control over your ads
Taking your existing mailing list, importing it into Facebook, and creating an all new custom audience to target based on the interests of your current subscribers
Advertising consistently, day-to-day, versus just advertising when you’re doing a book launch or a sale
Tips for making it work even if you’re in a small niche without any big-name authors to target
Today’s show is dedicated to Facebook marketing. How do you use the popular social media platform to sell more books and keep current readers engaged? We took turns answering questions, based on our experiences. We may not be gurus, but we’ve all been on Facebook as authors for 2-4 years, and we had quite a bit to say!
Here’s a little of what we covered:
Separate author page or personal page, what’s best?
One page or one for every series?
How do you get readers to find you and like your page?
How important is interaction, and how do you get people to engage with you?
Facebook advertising, pay-per-click and boosted posts, are they ever worth it?
Groups, can they help with anything?
What about events?
Has there been a decline in the effectiveness of Facebook over the years?
What’s the future going to bring, and how will it impact authors?