Well, what do you think?
That’s the final ad.
And I mean that. Final. I’m frickin’ done! I hit ‘submit’ on FB and Amazon about three seconds ago because if I had to stare at them any longer I was going to go insane.
Yep. Second guessing myself all over the place. The placement on the ad. The colors of the ad. The wording on the graphic. The text of the ad. The “target audiences”. The….AHHHHHH!
By the time I hit ‘launch’ part of was telling me what a shit writer I am and why am I wasting a $120 on the utter fucking shit!
I hate that.
It’s hard to overcome.
Hard to shut it up once it gets to shouting.
But I managed it so, yay, go me.
I did not go with a BookBub ad. I didn’t like the size or the placement on their site. I don’t know what the newsletters look like but, eh. I skipped them.
I futzed with so much stuff to create my “target audience” on FB, Amazon and BookBub (which has a nice interface). In the end, for my “target audience” I chose people in the US, UK, and CA between 20 and 60 years old. Then the fun really began. Holy shit!
For FB I ended up with:
Interests: Reading, Kobo eReader, Amazon Kindle, Romantic fantasy, Fiction books, jr ward, George R. R. Martin, fantasy books, xena warrior princess (wink), E-book readers, TV fantasy shows
Life event: Friends of people with birthdays in a month
Amazon…isn’t letting me see it. However, I think it was JR Ward, George RR Martin, Veronica Douglas, (some other woman who seemed popular) and then fantasy, epic fantasy, romance, and blah blah blah.
I went with CPC (Cost Per Click) and, at least one of them, allowed me to narrow the ad to people who were actually likely to click on it. That’s nice, right?
While on FB (who will handle Instagram for me) I realized if I shortened the time span of the ad I might make out better.
Devious little thing.
People are strange.
So, I thought, if the graphic says “August 4th-August 25th” but they don’t SEE the AD until August 11th, it might spark a tiny sense of urgency, a bit of FOMO, if you will. So the two ads will run August 11th to 15th. In doing that, I could up my “bids” and “daily budget” and still not overspend anywhere. That will make me more visible that business week.
I thought about starting it on the previous Friday but I’m wasting money on Saturday and Sunday. The two worst days for advertising on Ye Olde Internet because, outside of work, a lot of people like to go out and do shit. BUT, they love to cruise the internet at work.
So hit them with their 10 o’clock coffee on Monday morning and don’t let up until 5 o’clock on Friday. Or you know, midnight on Friday.
Facebook was kind of a nightmare. That happens every time I try to run an ad instead of boosting a post over there. I had to cancel one, well, wait. I had to research how to cancel one and then find it. I had to do that because FB just wouldn’t get rid of the original graphic. I’d upload the new one, “delete” the other one and oooops there goes the new one.
Whatever.
I started over.
In uploading the updated graphic (above) I realized it would let me do those neat little videos. So I really really really tried to upload a couple. They seemed to go fine. But…they just disappeared. They never once showed up in the files so I could select them and use them.
Oh bother
Oh well.
This is what you will see on FB and Instagram
The full text reads:
Ares & Alena share a love that defies Gods, fate, and ancient grudges. Their passion unleashes betrayal, desire, rage, and redemption from Olympus to the Celtic moors. Get this novel and ALL novels in the OF WAR Series for just $0.99/each August 4th-August 15th on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and More. 2023 Readers’ Favorite Award Winner!!!
The ad link will take you to Kindle. Also buy on
iBooks-https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-heart-of-war/id6444368685
Kobo-https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-heart-of-war-5
B&N-https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-heart-of-war-lisa-beth-darling/1101008245?ean=2940166680365
Amazon does not give you a lot of room to work with. This is the final ad for them.
Yep, that’s it.
I like that the rating shows up. I could get it to do that on FB too if I ditched the graphic.
Book Cave, which will run the ad from August 4th through August 15th also has no wiggle room. This is it.
It won’t run with the cost line…I hope.
Anyway, I did recently earn $50 for editing a children’s book so that paid, mostly, for the Book Cave ad.
I gave $60 each to FB and Amazon for those 5 days. FB actually said I’d get at least 104 clicks per day. That’s a hell of a promise. We’ll see.
I just shelled out $124 in advertising across 3 sites. Yeah, I know it should be more like $1,240…ok? I don’t have that kind of cash to futz around, I’m very lucky I found this much to eek out of a strained budget.
If you see it on FB or Instagram please give it a ‘like’ a ‘love’….a share would be so awesome. Say something to encourage others to buy it. A little support, please. Help me boost my ‘visibility’.
Ok, well, now that it’s all over but the shouting, that nasty little you’re-not-good-enough voice in my head has gone back to bed, I guess we’ll revisit the issue around August 16th or 17th when I can tally up my sales (she said with laughing hope).
Lisa Beth Darling 