Facebook ads: Are they worth it?

I'm going to share with you my experience with Facebook ads. There are a lot of variables here, of course, and I'd be interested to hear if anyone has had a different experience.

I set aside $10 a few weeks ago to run several ads on Facebook and see what happened with book sales. I let Facebook do the bidding for me, so it only took about four days and my money was all used up. However, it was enough time for me to collect some interesting data.

I created three ads with these titles: Young Adult Thriller, Suspense Novel, Mom Fulfills Dream.

Each ad had a brief sentence summing up the book. One had a sentence from a reviewer, one had a summary sentence, and one had a sentence about the history of the book. The book ads had a photo of my book, while the Mom ad had an author photo. Beneath the summary was the price of $2.99. If anyone clicked on the ad, it led them straight to the Amazon.com page for purchasing the ebook.

I had a few expectations. I designed the ads around different target groups, expecting only certain people to like certain ads. I expected them to attract people, though. I also expected that if people clicked on the ad, they would more than likely be interested in buying the book, and do so at the purchase page.

In reality, the book ads attracted very little attention, receiving only one click each. This could be because a) there are too many books available b) it just didn't look that interesting to people.

On the other hand, to my surprise, the Mom ad with the author photo and a one-line history of the book's publication process, received nearly 20 clicks. This surprised me. But here's the thing. The 20 clicks DID NOT EQUAL SALES. I sold the same amount of books that I usually do. Believe me, I would've noticed if there'd been so much as a ten-book sale increase. So why did these people click? I believe these were moms who saw the title "Mom Fulfills Dream" and thought for $2.99, I was going to divulge with them how to fulfill their dreams.

Either that, or they were men who thought my picture was pretty and were disappointed when the click took them to an Amazon.com page for a book.

My final consensus was that Facebook ads are not worth it. Even with my targeting parameters, I either didn't hit my target audience, or they just weren't interested. It's possible that if I'd run the ad for longer time, people might have clicked on it more, but I don't think so. I don't usually start paying attention to an ad because I've seen it so many times, I start ignoring it so that  I don't even notice it's there. I did not see a return of my $10 investment, which is quite sad.

If someone else has had luck with Facebook ads, please comment to know what could have been done differently. I won't try again, but someone else might.

For more details information of Facebook ads, check out this information here.

Sibling Awe

Sometimes I think with longing of the days when I only had one child. I had so much time. I taught five classes every day, had nearly four hours set aside for writing, kept my house clean (okay, so that's debatable), and still doted on my son like crazy.

I felt like my life was hectic. Ha! I was young and naive. Even as I struggle with my three, I am in awe of my friends with four or five who do what I do and more.

Sunday I had the unusual experience of my 18-month-old daughter waking up from her nap two hours prior to my boys. For the first half an hour, I thought, "This is so easy! Just me and her." I started thinking that before I have any more children, I need to make sure the others are in school so it's just me and one child at a time.



After about an hour of me and her, however, I started thinking I needed to wake up my middle child so she'd have someone to play with! It was exhausting to keep up with her energy level. And as much as I love sitting on the couch and bumping noses and giggling, every time I'd try to get up, she'd pull me back down. Oh, she's a cutie.

But I had a sudden appreciation for siblings. They play together, they fight together, they entertain each other, and they bond together. And that definitely helps me keep my sanity.

Healing Sara

When I first submitted Perilous, I intended for it to be an inspirational Christian novel about four girls who had to learn to rely on Christ so they could heal for their tragedy. We ended up taking out the religious aspect and turning it into a thriller. No one could be more shocked than I that I had written a thriller. :)

While I am pleased with the fast-paced end result, some of these introspective, faith-building scenes were hard to let go of. Here is one where Jaci and Sara talk about what they've been through and how to let it go. This scene is especially poignant for Sara, who has the hardest time recovering from the kidnapping.

Jaci finished the dishes. Drying her hands, she picked up the lamp and headed for bed. She walked out of the kitchen and through the large parlor, past the brown piano and white pillars.

She paused as she walked past the back door. She thought she’d seen Sara out on the deck. She opened the door and stepped outside, allowing the lamp to light her way.
“Sara?”

It was Sara. Sara didn’t answer, just leaned out over the railing. Jaci hurried over, each step creaking as she walked across the old wood. “Sara, are you okay?” She remembered Sara’s response last time and felt dumb for asking.

Sara shook her head. She took a deep breath and stood tall, straightening her back. Jaci put an arm around her.

"It’s okay, Sara. Whatever’s wrong, you can tell me. You need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk, Jaci. I feel so alone. I’m so frustrated. So angry.”

“Sara. We love you. We’re here for you, even if you never say a word about anything, we care. And Heavenly Father cares.”

Sara shook her head. “I don’t feel Him. I don’t think He cares.”

Jaci held back a gasp of surprise. After their escape, and the old man's rescue... “How can you say that?”

Sara laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. “You go through what I’ve been through and you’ll know how I can say that. How could he let that happen to me? What did I do that was so wrong?”

“Do you still pray, Sara?”

“Do you?”

“Of course. Why would I stop?”

“Well, of course I am too. I just don’t feel anything in response. My heart, my soul, it’s empty. It’s like it’s been taken from me.”

Jaci squeezed Sara's hand. “The Savior will take away your pain. Let him have it.”

“I’m waiting.” Sara reached up and brushed away the tears. “Maybe I just don’t have enough faith.”

Jaci wrapped her arms around her. “Sara. Give yourself some time. He will take your burden from you.”

“He’s taken everything else from me,” she sobbed into Jaci’s shoulder. “He may as well take that too.”

Kindle Forums

You know how you need money to make money?

Sometimes it seems that way with books. You need to hit the top 20 to stay in the top 20.

And we're all looking for the answer to get into the top 20.

While promoting ebooks, I've heard a lot of people mention the Kindle forums. They say it is a good place to interact and promote and share information about your book.

I'm not much of a forum gal. I was when I was younger, but I don't seem to have the spare time like I did then (what happened??? Oh yeah I got married and had three kids). Still, I made an account and joined the Kindle forums.

I've been there once. I was a bit overwhelmed, to be honest. And maybe I realized that I could easily--easily--spend all day in there, reading posts and commenting on them.

But I've decided to give them another go. I'm going to start chatting it up on the Kindle forums, all with the ulterior motive of enticing people to want to read my ebook. My goaL: get to the top 100. Okay, stop laughing at me. Not all of your goals are realistic either. I have to aim high!

Wish me luck. But before I get started, anyone have any advice? Is anyone active on there? Can you give me some tips of what you do?

School Nightmares

I get to the end of the semester and realize there was a class I never went to.

Or it's the middle of the semester and I remember that I dropped a class and signed up for another, but I haven't gone to the new one.

Or I get to my final exam and see that I studied the wrong material.

Or the year ends and I failed half of my classes because I didn't turn in my homework.

One time, I left my baby in the classroom and when I went back she was gone.

It's been almost ten years since I graduated from college, yet these dreams still plague me. Rather frequently I might add. And they are so real, that when I wake up and realize school is behind me--far behind me--I can't even describe the relief I feel.

I know other people have these nightmares. So why? Was school such a tramautic event that it left this  dark shadow on my psyche? Is this a form of PTSD?

One thing's for certain. I am so glad I'm done.

VHS vs. Netflix

Remember those?

When I was a teenager, I was absolutely crazy about Star Trek. Like, obsessively crazy. Every week when the show came on, I set up the VCR to record each episode. I carefully edited out commercials. I recorded these so that during the week I could rewatch the episode as often as I wanted. I could get six episodes on a VHS, if I used the worst-quality recording (which I did. I was buying the videos). By the time I went to college, I had almost a dozen recorded VHS.

If only I could've seen the future.


I no longer have a VCR. I don't own a VHS. I have no idea what happened to those. And you know what? It doesn't really matter. Because now we have things like Netflix, with instant streaming from the internet. Yesterday, I turned on Netflix streaming while I took down Christmas and cleaned the house.

I got through all of season one.

Ah, what fun. And if I'd only known, I could've saved myself a lot of money as a teenager.

The Best of 2011

My blog has had a bit of a regression in popularity. I do not mind it, really, since it's my fault for not spending more QT with my blog.

But still, you readers continue to visit me and see what's going on, and I appreciate that. So here are the most popular posts of 2011, based on visitation stats. If you haven't read these, here's your chance!

10. Book Signing Gone Wrong
9. Signed Contract
8. Christmas Cookies
7. Ebay Addiction
6. Ripped off by Goodwill
5. Placement is Everything
4. Dirty Dishes
3. Romance and Lemons
2. Advent to Christmas
1. Preteens and Perilous

Happy New Year!