I thought I’d share my stats from the social media ads and the results from those ads. Many indie authors are asking (not me personally), but want to know which method(s) of advertising works and what have been the results.
Since I can only speak from my experience, here is what I have done and the results I received so far.
I chose to use Facebook Ads as they have been an excellent way for me to cast a wider net and reach readers all over the world. I find this method to be user-friendly as well as budget friendly.
The screenshot above is showing the results of the Facebook Ad I placed one week before the Kindle Promotion was scheduled to start. I set a budget and didn’t use it all, which is a good thing. The $10.76 that I did spend, over 1,200 targeted readers saw the ad, of those readers 318 engaged by “Liking/ Loved” my post/ad. I sent an invite to half of them to follow my Author page. Why not all of them? I will, but due to Facebook cracking down on users “liking” too many posts in a short period of time and “inviting” too many users to their pages I didn’t want to risk having my account locked while my promotion was running. Now that it’s finished I will go back and invite everyone and let them decide to accept or decline.
During this week of promoting, my Author page jumped from 104 followers to 147 followers.
I also placed an ad on Twitter, here is a screenshot of those results.
Sorry, I’m not at all as tech savvy as I’d like to be. I’ll do my best to explain the tiny print in the screenshot above.
Starting Date: March 7, 2019,/ Ending Date: March 16, 2019
$35.00 was my total budget, I spent $20.00 in total.
My ad was seen by 3,853 Twitter users, 5 of them clicked on the ad at the cost of $4.00 per click from a $5.00 per day budget.
Twitter ads have not been as effective, and that’s probably due to my lack of experience and tech savviness. I don’t find that their ad set up is user-friendly. Sure the ad has reached over 3,000 people, and I gained a few followers which lead to a few retweets from that, but I don’t think the ad performs better than Facebook. Again, it’s just my experience, and I am by no means an expert on social media ads.
With that said, here is a screenshot of the results from this weekends Free Kindle promotion.
I did try to make the image larger, I apologize for being a noob, resizing images still escapes me. The image shows KENP Read (Kindle Ebook Normalized Pages) Those that opted to get the Kindle Unlimited version over the Free Kindle version, I can see how many pages have been flipped/read/swiped, and I earn a fraction of a percentage from them.
KENP Read, 270 pages. FREE Units (Free Kindle downloads from the promotion) 71. While the free promotion has ended, seems Amazon/USA is just now showing the Kindle (paid version) for $0.00, way to be tardy to the party. Maybe they decided to extend the promotion on their .com platform to make up the hiccup during the promotion. If it still shows FREE, you may as well take advantage.
The last Kindle Free promotion in August 2018, resulted in 37 downloads, this recent promotion just about doubled the number of downloads to 71 + 1 Kindle Unlimited. What’s different this time around is that my book ranked in two different #1 spots on Amazon’s Best Selling List.
Amazon/USA #1 Best Selling Free/Sexual Abuse
Amazon/Canada #1 Best Selling Free/ Abuse & Self Defence
My book also ranked #9 on Amazon/USA Free/ Memoirs
I’m very proud of reaching that milestone and having written a book that has made a Top 10 List of Best Sellers. Sure it’s not the NY Times, or Oprah’s, but I can officially say that I am a Best Selling Author. Having done so with a non-fiction/memoir that isn’t associated with a celebrity or not having made headlines is a pretty big deal.
I want to take a moment to thank all you that have purchased a copy of Breaking the Cycle of Abuse: My Journey from Victim to Survivor, as well as thank all of you that took advantage of the free promotion this weekend. I truly appreciate your continued support. Your support doesn’t just include paid sales and royalties, it includes engaging with me on my various social media platforms, this blog, your word of mouth recommendations, supporting survivors and leaving a review.
A published book that doesn’t get promoted will only sit and go unnoticed. Getting noticed takes time, hard work and a daily effort to engage with readers, other authors, book reviewers and you have to set money aside to pay for services that will help to get your book in front of readers. Having a self-published book doesn’t mean instant sales. Go to where the readers are because not all authors are readers.
That is my advice for indie authors.
Again, a Big Thank You to those that have helped to get me to this point, it’s a massive leap from where I started one year ago.
The newest Best Selling Author, Hannah
*** Note to self and others, using the screenshot option works great, except the time that the picture can be viewed is limited*** Live and learn I suppose.
Reinbeck Studio, Creative Space 