When used correctly, Facebook ads are a powerful tool for expanding brand awareness for your book.

If you have a recent release that hasn’t received many orders or want to give some life to an old release, Facebook ads could be a great way to do this. That’s why I wanted to chat about Facebook ads and how you can utilize them to help you reach your ideal readers and sell some damn books!

1. The Less Text, the Better

Facebook will reject your ad if more than 25% of your ad is covered with text. That means the less text, the better. This is the perfect opportunity to master your book’s elevator pitch, a one to two-sentence description that sums up your book. Your elevator pitch should give people enough of an idea of what your book is about and encourage them to read it without giving away too much.

Here’s an example:

When her mother is abducted, Clary Fray must trust a boy from a world of angels and demons to save her.

2. Create Video Ads When You Can

Like on social media, video content is king with ads, too. Make your Facebook ad a square graphic (like on Instagram), but then include text animation or have your book float in to make it a video. It reaches and catches the attention of more people.

3. Keep the Ad Copy Short and Sweet

Similar to the text on your ad, your ad copy (the text below the ad) should also be quite short. I recommend one to two sentences at the most and then a call-to-action that gets the reader to click the link to your book’s Amazon or other buying pages. Ad copy elaborating on your ad text works best.

Here’s an example using the ad text above:

Follow Clary as she discovers a hidden world beneath her own, one of angels, demons, and Shadowhunters to save her mother. A hidden world that she quickly learns she belongs to.

City of Bones is now available! Click the link below to read it now.

4. Identify Your Ideal Reader

Now that you’ve created your ad, it’s time to identify your ideal reader. The great thing about Facebook ads is that you can get specific with your audience.

First, I want you to grab a pen and paper and answer the following questions:

• What age group is your book targeted?
• What other books/authors similar to mine/me would they enjoy or be reading?
• What jobs do my ideal readers work at?

Now that you have a good idea of your ideal reader, go onto Facebook Ad Manager and start inputting your ideal audience. When you’ve used your answers to the questions above, you can check what it recommends for people to target and use your judgment about whether you should target those people, too.

When you’re finished creating your ad audience, look at how many people it will target per day and how many link clicks it anticipates you will get. Unless your book is very niche, it should be in the few thousand, if not close. If your audience reaches fewer people, play around with the target audience a little more until it reaches a high number of people.

5. A Few Dollars Goes a Long Way

You should not be investing hundreds and hundreds of dollars into Facebook ads. A little goes a long way. I don’t recommend spending more than $6 per day. Especially when starting. I have ads running where the daily ad budget is only $2, reaching hundreds of people per day!

6. Run Your Ad for At Least 1 Month

One Facebook ad won’t sell your book, but the first is the most important. The first ad helps give you an idea if you’re targeting the right people, using the right ad, or spending the right amount of money.

Use the first ad as your test ad and run it for at least one month before reaching conclusions. In that one month, change the ad copy, graphic, audience, budget, etc., until you finally figure out what sticks. Then, you’ll be able to use your findings in future ads.

Those are 6 tips for running a Facebook ad that actually sells books. I hope it was helpful!

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