Can Facebook Ads Help Self-Published Authors to Sell Books?

SHOULD I BUY FACEBOOK ADS?

A few people have advised me to buy Facebook ads to help jumpstart my new book writing endeavour - especially now that I have finished the hot and sexy Infidelity. So, my advisers tell me that Facebook ads will help drive people to my e-books and paperbacks on Amazon.com and Kindle, help me become an Amazon bestselling author in no time flat. None of these people actually bought Facebook ads, btw. But they assure me it is a good idea if I bought Facebook ads. Can they be right?

I am a little bit skeptical.  I have been doing research on this and it is mixed at best.

I DID A GOOGLE SEARCH ON "FACEBOOK ADS TO SELL BOOKS" 


If you Google "How to Use Facebook Ads to Sell Books," as I did, you will get a healthy return of great websites and posts such as:

• How Authors Can Use Facebook to Sell Books - digitalworld.com
• Successful Book Marketing Using Facebook Ads - the creativepenn.com
• How to Use Facebook ads to Sell More Books - authorscrib.com
• Facebook Advertising for Authors - Selfpublishingadvice.org

There is this one article Why Facebook Cannot Help You Sell Books by Michael Alvear for Digitalbookworld.com. One quote that I particularly remember is this one:

Let’s review: Facebook shows your posts to less than 16 percent of your fans, and you have to pay to reach the other 84 percent. And even if you do, only two-tenths of 1 percent of the people who see a post about your book will even click on it.
Facebook gets you closer to book sales in the same way that jumping up and down gets you closer to the sun

I really got very nervous when I read that. This guy sounds experienced with this stuff and he really thinks that it is a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME to buy Facebook ads to sell books.

As I continued my research, I read the following by a guy named Mark Dawson, "Facebook is the single most powerful marketing and promotional tool that is available to authors, be they traditionally or self-published."

Hme...what does he know that Alvear doesn't. The article goes on to talk about some staggering sums he spends on advertising, like nearly 4 grand per month! This guy is not talking about folks like me who are just breaking into the business and are "virgins" with this marketing stuff.

I think the best advice I read was this by authorscrib.com:

Facebook Ads aren’t meant for selling low prized books like the common $0.99 and $2.99 books on Amazon. If you are still thinking about using Facebook ads to help you sell more books, you can do so NOT by directly selling using Facebook Ads, but using it to build your mailing list by offering something in exchange for your target book audience’s email and name and draw them into your sales funnel where you can finally sell them your books through relationship based email marketing.

CONCLUSION

OK. I think I get it. I will not be buying any Facebook ads not even for Infidelity.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=infidelity%2C+by+marion+lewis