S01E03: When facebook ads fight back

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda talk about their experience with Facebook ads, what they have already learned from past experience, and what plans they have to gain success in the future.

By next week, Sam and Matilda have deep dived into their money mindset, their spending plans, and the dreaded 'budget'. 

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing Formula Ads for Authors: https://learn.selfpublishingformula.com/p/adsforauthors

Mal Cooper’s Help! My Facebook Ads Suck: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YN78GC4

Bryan Cohen: https://bryancohen.com/

Matthew J Holmes: https://www.matthewjholmes.com/

Great Facebook page examples:

J M Miller: https://www.facebook.com/j.m.miller.author

Jennifer L Armentrout: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferLArmentrout

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books About Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mustering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Sam Cummings, here with my co-host Matilda Swift, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our Mastery Through Missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is all about Facebook ads.

But before that, let's do our wins and whinges of the week.

Matilda.

I very much like last week, I'm going to go for a win and a whinge together, which are not really writing related, so I'm still in my period of doing strategy and mindset work, and every single thing I read makes me go a little bit like further away from writing and kind of deeper into looking at things in myself, which is really useful.

But I'm glad this I've kind of got an end date on it.

But I'm also really, really glad and I've really appreciated the work because this week I lost a friend, a very, very good friend passed away this week, which has been really, you know, unbelievably sad.

But also, I felt very capable of dealing with it, which I would not have felt if I was absolutely in the hamster wheel of writing, if I had a deadline, you know, if I wasn't being kind to myself.

So it's really been, you know, hard and upsetting, but has definitely made me appreciate those, this like taking the time to work on myself and to not be writing.

So a sad time, but good and rewarding to see changes in myself.

So that was really encouraging.

How about you?

That's a very, very positive, nice way to look at it.

That's really nice.

My win this week is the fact that I had like the challenge of setting up our podcast hosting and getting the podcast broadcast on to all the channels, which I managed to do.

I mean, I'm sure that some of them haven't connected properly and I've got lots of tweaking to do, but I did that and I feel great that I have won against technology.

Finally, my win of this week is that technology did then kick me in the butt because I did a blog post and I also sent out a newsletter and I forgot to link the little blog post that I did in the newsletter.

So I was like, just doing these things separately, forget to bring them together.

So my win is me being silly and forgetting to be good.

Okay, well, that's understandable.

And I think so, I think we mentioned a couple of weeks ago when we first started, that we actually have weekly podcast meetings, but we also do a full day session once a month.

And one of the things we're talking about in our session today was putting together processes.

I think it is really good to notice what goes wrong.

And then make a note of that and then just say, I'm going to put a process chart together for this so that I don't keep having to think, did I put the blog link in or forget to even think about it.

So yeah, definitely that is the thing I'm trying to make a bigger priority in 2024 is making myself process documents so that I do not have to keep thinking of everything from scratch every time.

And imagining that future me has got an infallible memory and will always know exactly how to do everything.

All the 10,000 things there are to do as a new author.

So I think good to have as a reminder that it is important to put things in processes rather than try and remember it in the abstract.

Yes, my memory is shocking.

We're onto a very process related topic today.

One which is my personal nightmare in terms of remembering all the steps and because it also sneakily changes behind your back every time you look away.

So today we are doing Facebook ads and we planned this week to look at what we already knew and what we felt like we needed to understand more of to become good at Facebook ads this year.

We have talked about it a bit already today because we need to look at some things face to face and look at kind of what each other's done.

So we've talked a bit about this, but I think we haven't really been able to, we've kind of held off digesting everything and looking at our overall plan of what we know and what we don't know.

So it would be great if you can just give us an idea of what you do and what you don't yet know about Facebook ads.

So I have been working in marketing for a long time and I have spent many years wrangling Facebook ads.

I've luckily haven't had to do them for a year or so, which has been really nice.

But like you say, I logged back in this weekend to just like re-familiarize myself and try and see if I still remembered what it all looked like.

And Facebook have pivoted, thrown a load of new stuff in there.

Generous way of putting it, yeah.

And just made things seemingly three times more complicated.

And yeah, they're just always changing it.

They're always trying to tweak everything that they do.

So I used to run a lot of Facebook campaigns.

For some big companies.

And so I know how it looks.

I know the processes, which is like quite a great reminder that I should write the processes down, of like how you set up Facebook ads and stuff, because I know how to do that.

Like I've got, I probably have actually got training notes on that, on my work computer, because I used to write training notes for other people.

So I'm going to dig those up.

Yeah, so I know like how it works, what the system looks like.

The thing obviously that is the biggest hurdle, isn't just the stupid system that they've got.

It's trying to figure out what Facebook wants in order to serve a great ad and get the results that you're looking for.

And I've said this before, but Facebook, as much as I hate the company, and we should call them meta, I refuse.

It's not sticking.

No, it's not.

Facebook do want ads to perform because they want you to come back and spend more money.

Can I ask a question about that?

Because I think people often talk about this, Facebook ads are designed for high-worth things, high-value things, and that we are probably the advertisers putting on the lowest value items on Facebook ads.

So, do you agree with that?

Or do you want to debunk that, that you think Facebook ads, Facebook wants us to spend money, even if we're having things with very low margins on there?

I think Facebook wants low margins as well as the big margins.

They want all the money.

That's the thing, they just want all the money.

They're not saying, oh, we only want money from the people who are spending thousands.

They want your 20 pounds.

They want it all.

So, I do think that...

And then they set up to work for people like that?

Yes, yeah.

You will get results even...

The ads that I've done in the past, I've only spent 20 pounds, 30 pounds, probably maybe like 60 pounds max, because that's something we'll talk about in the future.

I just don't have the budget or I never allocated myself the budget for that.

I was just doing it as spending as though I would if I went out shopping.

And I was like, well, I feel like spending 50 pounds today.

So and I was getting results.

You know, like I was getting the results that they were saying I was going to get.

What those results mean obviously is different to everybody.

I was getting the clicks, I was getting the impressions.

Was I getting the sales?

No, that's I feel like the actual rate of return is something that you that you need to build up over a long period of time.

So I've said this to Matilda today, that Facebook ads don't work, in my opinion, when you're dipping in and out.

They only work if you...

That's my technique.

Yes.

But I think that's a lot of people's technique, especially in the authors, you're trying to do so many things all at once, that you're writing, you're editing, you're on social media, and then you think, oh, I should run a Facebook ad for this one thing that I'm doing.

I've got a book coming out.

I'll run a Facebook ad for that specifically.

And then when it's done, it's done.

No more Facebook ads.

And we are doing ourselves a disservice by doing that, because Facebook, the whole platform, the ads platform works like a credit score sort of system.

So the better your account looks, the more consistently you spend, the more you're building your audience, the better you look to them.

And the more the system works for you.

And that's like how what I've seen doing ads for other people is that they never just did one ad and left it.

They did ads continuously, and each ad built up, got better results as they went along.

So like when I used to do the stats for them, you could track the stats over the year and see that every month, the stats go up, because they were consistently pouring into the system.

And as much as I hate the idea of spending money all the time on ads, I do think that you have to have a consistent ad plan in order to actually get a return.

What return you want is obviously for you to decide what is worth spending money and what result you get.

So if you're looking to make sales from it, and you're only getting a small percentage of sales from a big-ish spend, it's down to you to decide whether that is worth it.

Which I know this is what you've had.

So do you want to say, what have you done on Facebook, and what have your results looked like based on your spend?

Yes.

In fact, I might even start further back than the actual adverts themselves.

So I think you're right in that India Authors are always trying to balance the 10,000 things you could be trying.

And the most expensive one of those is usually ads, because there's all sorts of different, almost like philosophies that people ascribe to.

And you get people who are just like, yeah, put in $5 a day and then when it works, scale it up or start with $20 a day, because otherwise Facebook won't really kick your ad going, kick it off or put any energy behind it.

And then when you don't see much traction, then you think, I'm just throwing money away.

And I've done a bit of trial and error on it, and I've figured out a few things, but maybe what I should do is go away and do an ads course.

So then I've done that and I've done various ads course.

So, and the ads course I think are useful, but I think there's now, and there's lots of ads, useful ads information out there, and there's lots of people who have had great success.

People will say like, oh, you know, you've read Mal Cooper's book, but you know, that didn't work for me.

I know it's worked for a lot of people, it didn't work for me.

What you should do is try the Matthew James Holmes course.

And then you'll find someone who said, oh, you know what, I did that and it worked for a year, it was fantastic, but then it stopped working.

And so I switched to the, you know, Mark Dawson's Ads for Authors course.

And you'll find people who are really strong proponents of lots of different ad systems, who are like, no, you've got to do it this way, it really worked for me.

And then there's Brian Cohen's, I think another big ads guy.

And they're all really different, right?

They all have phenomenally different tactics and different ways you measure things and how much you have to measure things and how much you have to iterate things.

And so you think, I'll try one method.

So I've done all of these.

You try one method for a month and you think that's given it a good try.

And I can't quite make it work.

So I'll try a different person's technique for a month.

And then that doesn't work.

And you think, well, what I might do actually is just turn off the ads for a month and see what the effect is of like the tail.

And then that's interesting and it's useful.

And it all feels like you're learning things.

And I love learning.

You know, I think it would come to no surprise to anybody who knows me that I have done the, you know, strengths for authors.

I've done the Clifton strengths.

And almost all my top techniques or my top strengths are learning related.

So I actively enjoy learning.

So when I do Facebook ads, part of what I'm doing is like trying to figure something out.

So it doesn't necessarily, it feels like I should be learning something.

So I feel like I keep getting closer.

And then when I can't do it, I want to try something different, which is really the opposite to what you're saying, right?

You're saying like, yes, just pick a technique and then just pour the money trickling, trickling down the drain for a while, which feels so disempowering.

I don't want to say it's trickling down the drain.

That's how it feels, because it feels like you're not...

It does.

It feels the opposite to the traditional technique of...

Yes.

I mean, I suppose that's the thing with any kind of ad that you run, no matter what, it's always a gamble.

And it's like in the Orna Ross course, I know that she said that it's kind of, how much can you afford to gamble is important.

And again, that's like a topic that we'll cover in the near future, talking about our own finances and stuff.

But I definitely think with Facebook ads, and like with a lot of things in general, I don't think giving something a month is enough.

I don't think you're going to get the right amount of data to look over after a month.

I think you need to have two or three months of something quite like solid in its build.

So rather than doing like loads of different types of the same ad, like I know that you've said that you, you basically did like several iterations of the same ad to see what worked, but you couldn't understand the stats that you were getting from it.

And I would do like ads with Dynamic Creative where I would do it for a week with what I wanted Dynamic Creative and then pick the most effective from that and like reiterate that.

And so when I say that, I mean, like make different versions of that same advert and change the copy and the picture just slightly and make different versions of it.

And then suddenly that wouldn't work or I would think I've picked an audience that actually having looked at the stats, it seems like really this one niche part of it is working.

So then I will borrow down into that, which does feel like productive, right?

It feels like, okay, I don't want to keep spending, you know, 20 cents per click, maybe.

I don't want to keep spending 20 cents per click when everyone's saying you should be getting down to 16 cents per click to make it economically worthwhile.

So I'll pick the ad that's getting 16 cents per click and I'll drill down into that.

So then hopefully I can get even lower for everyone says video ads are working.

So I'll try that.

And it just feels like I am chasing my tail because I don't know enough.

And so I think I'll...

I'm just guessing.

That's what I feel like I can do.

You're putting a lot of energy into something that you don't understand enough.

And I don't think that that's ever going to be.

I mean, some people do that and they get success.

But I think much like in publishing, some people send out a book to an agent and they get an agent immediately.

But that's not the rule for everyone.

And like with the ads courses and stuff, like you say, there are so many ads courses, and every single person is saying something different, which means that there's not just one set way.

You have to figure out your way.

And you can learn things from other people, like tactics and stuff.

And you can figure out the best way to, like, the best formats or the best ways to look at the figures afterwards.

But I think for your ads, for yourself, it's something you have to build up from, from scratch.

And you have to see it through for a longer time than a month.

And I think you also shouldn't be doing the same ads, but like, slightly different variations.

I think you should be running very succinct ads where you can tell what the stats mean for that ad in particular.

And so if you're doing an ad where you're trying to get people to go and buy something and you've got six ads, all trying to get somebody to buy something, and the figures and all the stats and stuff are all just like gobbledygook.

You don't know what it means because you're trying to compare them all, but what are you comparing them against?

I don't know if they just think it's like, it seems very busy and difficult.

I think it's easier to understand one ad at a time and not try to compete against yourself with six ads doing the same thing.

What do you do if, so I think because a lot of people are coming from no marketing experience and I've worked in marketing before, but really old print marketing, like I've made brochures and leaflets from the days of print.

Yeah.

And I think the reason why people, and the same for me, want to follow a course is because you can think, well, I don't want to become a marketing expert.

That is not why I'm getting into this.

I don't want to become a digital marketing expert.

What I want to do is take someone else's distilled knowledge and apply it and tweak it to suit my needs.

And I'm definitely prepared to learn from different versions of it and try different things.

But I am not expecting it to take months of becoming a digital marketing expert, so I don't have a clue about where to start.

So if I were just going to start, I think doing the courses has been useful because otherwise, just the Facebook Ads platform is a nightmare enough.

So things like it's expensive and it is time consuming to do, but I think the Ads for Authors, the SPS Ads for Authors course is such a good walkthrough.

You can find free content, but I think it is, you need something to show you like, where do you click?

Even today, both you and I went back into Ads platforms, we're both like, which of the three different things that Facebook calls Facebook Ads is the right link?

Yes.

So I think it's useful to do an Ads course to do just to yeah, just to figure out like where we're supposed to be clicking.

Yes, I think the actual interface is a hurdle.

Yeah.

Personally, for me, what I'm going to start doing is, because I was looking through all the new stuff that Facebook have.

Like you say, there's three ways to look at it.

Three ways to get in.

You've got, let me have a look and see if I can load these pages because my internet is super slow on my laptop.

I can't even look, I just, oh gosh.

It's, yeah, you've got like a campaign center, you've got your business center, and you've got like something else.

Like, I don't even know what the other thing is.

Your business suite, oh, there's all like, and it all does different things and it all says different things.

I learned that one of the things that you clicked will take you through to their new automated ads section.

That's not an immediate thing that you can see when you just go through to like your normal ads manager.

So they have, yeah, they've made it super complicated.

And like the ads manager is just a pain in the butt anyway, how it's all laid out.

So even, yeah, like it's just a crazy thing to look at.

And they're constantly A B testing things with like different users.

Yes, they are.

And it's, and it is just nuts.

One of the things that I'm gonna give a whirl in February is trying out their new automated ads thing, which is their AI driven ads.

Like, rather than trying to figure out how to set up an ad, it's really actually like looking at doing it myself and stuff.

You do it all on one page and it's super simple.

And what it'll do is it'll let you do like six ads and will, you can just like run it like for however long, I'm just going to run it continuously with a daily budget.

And it will then pick the best serving one for you, and then just show that instead.

And I'm just going to do that.

No go on.

Yeah, so I was going to say, is that, so currently you can get Facebook to do, or definitely in my experience, I haven't done ads since sort of the last quarter of last year, which already feels like a long time ago in Facebook terms.

When I was doing it, they were sort of trying to bring in more automation in terms of audiences.

So AI is trying to control finding the right audience for your ad.

Is it just that, that they're doing, or are there other things that AI is controlling now?

Um, they, it looks to me like AI is mostly just in control of the audience.

And they're going to build an audience and figure out like which ad is the best serving one.

Um, I don't really know much more about all the stuff, the AI stuff that they're using because I haven't fully looked into it because it's a pain to read.

Like, it's such a pain to read.

And I really, I learn by doing so.

My plan is just to start using this, what they're calling automated ads.

Um, and using their information, they'll tell me what my clicks should be with my budget.

And just going to run it for a bit and see what kind of traction I get.

I'm not doing a specific, like buy my book ad because I don't think my account is there yet.

Um, something that Facebook loves is to have an account that looks legit, like you've got a great audience, you've got an audience that interacts.

So I am going to spend a bit of money trying to build my Facebook page audience and find people who-

You mean like the number of likes you've got for your Facebook page?

Yes, yeah, like followers for my page.

And try and build that up to a slightly higher number of people who interact at the moment, as all indie authors know.

It's just family and friends.

A lot of the time, which is great, but that isn't helping because they're actually not reading anything that you're doing and they're not clicking through your links and buying stuff.

So my biggest hurdle this year really is finding my audience online.

Because I am coming from somewhere who I don't have an online audience.

I haven't built one up.

I've been a very bad indie author.

And I've just been throwing books out like, take these and read them if you will.

But I've not really been desperately trying to build that audience.

So I'm going to use Facebook ads to the automated ads to try and build that.

And then once I've got traction, I'm going to start just doing specific ads on Facebook rather than doing loads of different variations of stuff.

Because I'm not at that point yet where I can test loads of things.

Because to test loads of things, you have to have the time, you have to have the money, and you have to have the willpower to try and figure out all the stats.

Like you say, I don't want to be a Facebook ads expert.

I do marketing in my day job.

I don't have the capacity in my brain to do that more.

So I just personally just want to figure out very simple things that work well for me.

And that's where I'm running.

Yeah, that is really helpful to think about.

And I think not even vaguely something that I have heard before.

I think, and I think very much because the new authors want to see immediate return for investment.

So the idea of spending money to build your Facebook page just feels like you're spending money to help Mark Zuckerberg, who does not need it.

But do you have, and also I think like, there's no sense of a good metric.

So I certainly don't have any other good metrics.

So I don't know what a good page would look like.

I literally just have a page because it's what you do.

You can't run ads without a page.

So I have a page for that reason.

I have a page because I wanted to claim having a page rather than someone else.

Yeah, not good reasons and it's not there.

And I don't enjoy, I don't really enjoy Facebook.

I really like Instagram because I like graphics, like visuals.

I don't love the interactivity that I think Facebook expects.

And I think there are lots of really good, fun communities for Cozy's already.

And it just feels a bit like, you know, I've joined groups, I've joined other Cozy collectives doing pages or groups, trying to make them interactive and fun.

And it just feels like shouting into a void sometimes.

So yeah, do you have a...

It's really helpful to think about, though, using your page and building up sort of a credit score from that page as a way to get Facebook to sort of give you the almost like better rates on your loan, right?

Better rates on your ads.

Yeah.

And like preferential treatment, because you've got a better credit score.

So what would you say is like, do you have any specific goals in mind for getting your Facebook page a better credit score?

Definitely building how many likes I have and like how many people are interacting with my posts.

I do have my Instagram linked up to my account and I cross pollinate there.

But I do know that my Facebook audience is different to my Instagram audience.

I definitely have two separate audiences there and I am aware of what to expect from both of them.

So I think that's like a really good thing to spend some time thinking about is like if you do have a Facebook page or you're trying to build a Facebook page and you have an Instagram account, which most people do, those two audiences are not going to be the same audiences.

I do find them completely different.

So I need to like I know who my Instagram audience are and I know the sort of things that they want to see.

Like I don't get great return on that either, but it's harder to get people to click through from Instagram.

Facebook is a place where people are more likely to click because a lot of people use Facebook on desktop.

They do use the mobile app, but again, because links are there and easy to click, it all happens a lot easier than clicking links in Instagram.

I need to make sure that my Facebook account is verified as a business, because they really want to see that, that you've ticked all the boxes of a business, put in a great profile.

Can I check if that's one of those secret back end pages that you have to Google to figure out how to verify my Facebook page as a business?

You should have access to your business suite.

That doesn't ring a bell.

I've definitely been there at some point, I don't know where it is, but I've...

Yeah.

It's one of the three options now when you go into Facebook.

When you go on to your menu, there should be access to a business suite.

And I 100% have not spent a lot of time in there because I always was just in the ads section.

But you can do a lot of things in your business suite that is like...

Sadly, they don't give you a credit score, which I wish they would.

I wish they would say what your account needs in order to be seen as a good person.

But they do want to see all the boxes filled in.

They want you to have a registered address, a bank account attached to it.

They want to see people liking your page, people interacting on your page, like anybody would who is going to be working with you.

They want to see that you are a legitimate person.

Their computer system, like the algorithm will work better if it thinks your account is in the green, like if you're ticking boxes.

Because the more you're providing it, the more it has a sense of like, yeah, this is where you belong in terms of, this is what the AI will do with you.

Yeah.

And then you can either like use the audiences that they provide you, or you can build your own audiences.

And that's a whole other fun game to do with Facebook ads, is what audiences you're using, and like what copy you're using.

But that's all, it's like, really the first thing that I think anybody should be doing is trying to make their Facebook page a living, breathing entity.

It's part of your brand.

And if you're using Facebook ads, you should be using your Facebook page.

You can't just dip in and be like, oh, I'll throw some money here and expect results.

Because like-

I'm so annoyed that I've not heard this before.

I mean, I'm really, really grateful to hear this.

Because I think coming from someone who has done Facebook ads for, you know, higher value items, you know, and has treated it in a professional manner, which is, you know, not saying that indie authors don't do that, but I think a lot of indie authors coming from an incredibly different perspective of like, I just want to do this one incredibly small niche thing, and that is get people out of Facebook to Amazon.

But I think coming from someone who has seen it more of like part of a marketing and advertising portfolio, thinking about it in a long term way, with a...

It is a long term.

Yeah, that's not fun.

I know.

It's not fun.

Yeah.

You have to look at it with as much love as Instagram.

You have to, you do have to nurture it.

I'm sorry.

I am sorry.

I know.

No, this is the tough love that I needed.

And this is definitely why I think it's such a good topic for us, because we are coming from such different perspectives of like, I have only looked at it from the Indie Author courses, Indie Author Whisper Network perspective, and you are coming at it from a professional advertising perspective and a marketing perspective.

And like Facebook ads was part of that.

Can you just talk us through then timelines?

Because I have very much done the one month on, one month off, try this, go in and out, get annoyed and things, come back out again.

Can you talk about timelines that you're planning for?

How long you'll spend, you know, getting yourself your credit score up, and how long you'll spend trying different ads, and then when you might expect to be seeing a more positive return on investment.

So my intentions for February is to start doing automated ads, continuously on a daily basis with like a small budget, two pounds, two pound fifty a day, because I know I can afford that.

It's effectively buying a coffee a day.

You have to try and think of like, how much would you spend like on something frivolous?

And just, I'm sorry to say, stop spending things on things that are frivolous and start putting it into your business.

I say this to myself, this is like tough love for myself.

So I'm going to run a continuous ad that is going to encourage people to like my page and try and really build up my Facebook audience and interactions and stuff.

So I'm going to do that for the whole of February.

That's basically my whole goal in February is just to build my audience on Facebook.

And once I have like, I don't even know how many followers I have, which is terrible.

I know it's not-

How many would you like to have?

What would feel like a good healthy number for you?

I feel like in order to start making money, like over 2,000 would feel like-

Okay, I'm miles away.

That is good to know because I have really just done nothing.

I just very incidentally get followers.

Yeah.

Let me have a look and see.

I'm the same.

I instantly get followers and sometimes I'm just like, where do these people come from?

I have no idea.

I have probably less than-

I've got 114.

So just to be transparent, don't ever be scared about low numbers.

I'm the lowest of the low.

I'm such a tiny person.

I think I'm like 320.

And I have run ads and I have invited people who have liked my ads to like my page.

And I have got free books on there and I have joined collectives and I'm still at 320.

Because I have done nothing to purposefully grow that.

And if 2000 would feel like a healthy number, then that feels really good to have that as a goal in mind.

Yeah, I think, I mean, and that's just a pie in the sky number.

To me, 2000 seems like you've crossed over a 15K line.

And I'm just saying that as like, in my mind, that just seems like you're in into the next ballpark.

It might not be true, but at least if I set myself that goal and I get there, I can see if that is a legitimate thing.

Like I'll get more traction on stuff if I hit that number.

If it's 5,000 people, then I'll keep trying to build on it, but I'll probably then start layering other things.

So once I get to 2,000 people, I'll feel better about putting money into ads.

And you can start like, probably at that point, we'll have a better process and system in place, where it won't feel like I'm starting from scratch.

I'll feel like, oh, I know what I'm doing now.

Let's add something else on top.

Because I think that if you're not doing it consistently, it's confusing every time you log on to it.

So you have to really build up your base and get to a point where you feel completely comfortable dealing with it on a regular basis before you can start trying to tweak things, because it's just so complicated.

So don't be scared to start small.

Where did that button go?

Yeah, it does take a long time to get really au fait with the system and feel like you are now capable of tweaking things.

Like, oh, I remember this last time, but maybe I'll click this other box instead and do some investigating into doing ads this way.

I just think things are always better if you've got a really good grasp on the basics before you start trying to be a little bit cheeky and trying to tweak the system a little bit.

And it's so much better to understand what you're tweaking.

And can I ask a question then about, and I feel like this is a stupid question, but I really want to ask the stupid question.

I'm sure a lot of people are thinking it is like, what does an advert look like that is just driving people to your page?

It's just an image, some copy.

And then underneath that, it says, like this page.

It's just inviting people to click like.

So what do you feel like is the offer there?

Because I feel like when I'm advertising a book, I feel like the offer is, you get to read this crazy mystery.

Because that is what I like.

So I know that I'm advertising quaintness, I'm advertising coziness and sort of mystery and charm.

And I'm trying to build up that sense.

Advertising my Facebook page, the place is like a tumbleweed, dull space.

Then this is really going to tie in a lot with something that we're going to cover off soon, which is our brand.

So Facebook is you.

Like your Facebook page, whilst obviously being a portal to like buying other stuff, like buying your wares.

It's a place where people should get to see you and interact with you.

And because we're human beings, we're not a brand.

Well, I know we're like, we're going to talk about brands and stuff, but it's not like I'm not a business without a face.

The whole point of Facebook and Instagram and everything that we do is like we sell books, but also like, aren't we also points of interest?

Don't people want to join our cool, like join my cool gang where I talk about young adult books and like what I'm reading and like all the books I'm working on and these like cool, weird, quirky stories where like everyone seems to die.

You know, like you're trying to find those people that love going on Facebook and commenting about the books that you're writing.

And they want to talk to you about it.

Before starting these like, and this is definitely a good question.

This is just me pointing out the obvious.

Step one before reading these ads is like, actually make my Facebook page interesting.

And then-

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Rewind it from right back to the start of this.

Make sure your Facebook page has got a picture of you.

You should have an about page.

And it should be like what your brand is.

So mine says, Indie author about all things, YA, magic myths, monsters, coffee addict, self-appointed national treasure.

So that's me in a nutshell.

Yeah.

It's just how I think of you.

Okay.

I got that from Dawn French because she put on Instagram recently that she was a national treasure.

And I was like, do you know what, Dawn?

I'm a national treasure.

I think I might be a national treasure.

Yeah, you could be a national treasure.

Pointing to the national treasure club.

Yeah.

I've got Mr.

National Treasure behind me.

Oh, yeah.

Nicholas Cage.

So, yes, definitely you need to have a good picture, a bio, your website listed.

I'm just looking at mine because I know I have been through and tried to tick things off.

And like, just make it look like you're a person who's posting interesting things.

So, what I tend to do is I go and follow a lot of authors that I like and not just indie authors, I mean like mainstream authors and see what they're posting and see what people like interacting with.

And I just try and do that same.

I haven't done it in a while because I like took a break off Facebook to like try and do Instagram and TikTok, talk about those later.

Yeah, like I just like I have personally tried to be active on Facebook and I will be trying to be more active on Facebook over the next month.

And making it look like it's a well used account, where people can expect to see things on a regular basis.

Because that's what I'd like if I when I go on to other people's authors' Facebook pages and stuff, I will look and see like the last post.

And if the last post was a while ago, I kind of feel like this account isn't active.

So what's the point of following?

So you want to show people that you're posting things in there regularly and you want to be posting interesting things that are effectively the things that you're posting on Instagram, but maybe just with a little bit more info.

Do you have an example of a Facebook page that you've seen that you thought has done well?

Off the top of my head.

Let's have a look because-

And if nothing comes to mind, we can put something in the show notes.

Just because I think I do treat mine like a page, like it's a website page and it's just got factual information on there.

It feels static and I don't treat it.

I think I see pages in groups as different and mine is objectively boring.

I would not want to visit it.

Okay.

I'm going to shout out one of my indie author friends, JM.

Miller.

And she writes young adults.

She's done some romance, she's done some contemporary, she's done fantasy.

So she dips in and out of different genres, but a great writer and she's absolutely lovely.

She's got over 4,000 followers.

And she posts things that are completely just her personality, which I absolutely love.

So she loves books, she loves crocheting, she loves memes and stuff.

And she'll post these to her account.

And she is quite regularly posting.

She's posting deals that she's involved in and stuff so people can go and click free bookse and stuff.

She's got things on there.

And I always see her posts and think, oh, she is really on it with her Facebook.

I think there was somebody else that I used to see a lot of.

I haven't really scrolled through Facebook in a while on my page.

So we're talking about, I should be doing this.

I haven't probably started yet.

Let's see, what other people?

Not off the top of my head.

I mean, I do follow a lot.

But even things like, and what I love to do is look on publishers, web publishers, Facebook pages, and see the kinds of images that they're posting for the books they're trying to sell.

And I think that that's quite a fun way to see what actual publishers are posting, the types of, like, the colors that they're using, the copy that they're using.

Because publishers obviously going to get a lot of interaction because HarperCollins is a big account.

So if they've got somebody in their marketing team making these graphics, then maybe I'll try making these graphics because, like, if they're doing it and they're at the top of the game, then it's a great place to just kind of steal some ideas.

And I have really focused on looking at ads, because that's what I think of as Facebook's tool to do.

So I really like, and I think not everybody knows about this, the Facebook Ads Library.

So you can either just Google Facebook Ads Library and then go in there and search for anyone you want to.

It's a slightly complicated way to do it.

So just Google how to do it, like how to make sure you're checking the right sort of ads at the right location.

But you can just look at the library of anyone you want.

Also, if you go on someone's Facebook page, you can see if they are running ads, you can click through to see their ads.

And I have really focused on that, and I had not really thought about actually just looking at what's on their main page.

And this now sounds so obvious.

I think it's because people complained a lot in the Indian author world about like, Facebook's become really pay to play, nobody shows your posts anymore.

So then it sort of feels like posts are redundant.

But obviously not, it's a social platform.

It's a social platform.

What are we going to do?

What are you going to do?

You're running a Facebook ad that says buy my book.

How many people are going to click on your profile first?

Because personally, that's what I do.

I click on someone's profile like, oh, who's this?

What other books do they have?

And I'll go to their Facebook page before I click a link to go anywhere.

So you need to have that landing page, like your bio and stuff.

It needs to look like the person, like you're a trustworthy person who's selling something good.

Ads, I don't, I mean, this is just coming from me as somebody, like how I interact with ads, but I don't just click an ad willy nilly.

I will always, I bet, oh, that sounds really interesting.

Click the profile.

Yeah.

I wouldn't trust me.

I don't know.

Because if I clicked into, I think if I clicked into the advert and I would see like, oh, very rare posts, so they're just reposted of Instagram, that doesn't feel authentic, trustworthy.

There's not really real human there.

And there is, and I'm just not showcasing that.

Yeah.

And that's such an easy thing to remedy.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's not easy and not fun, but it's doable.

It is doable.

It just means instead of scrolling on Instagram for hours every night.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good.

Just maybe spend a little bit of time scrolling on Facebook and finding similar authors to you and posting things that you might post on Instagram, post it on Facebook instead.

Definitely links to your books, links to your emails, subscribe.

Just like you're doing with everything else, you've got all the content, you know the content that you're trying to put out, just put it on Facebook as well.

Yeah.

That seems very doable.

I can't believe I'm here being a pro Facebook person here.

So this is very anti-media.

I'm usually like, I hate Facebook.

I hate Facebook as my personal profile, but I love Facebook for my business profile.

Yeah.

And I think it, you know, it's pretty commonly assumed that you're either doing Facebook or you're doing Amazon and really want to focus on one.

I definitely heard like focus on one for a year and then try the other one.

Like it takes a long time to get used to the platform of your choice.

And I would say, I, Facebook feels an easier place to start because it is at least a social network that you're engaged with in some capacity, presumably, or you have that in your life.

Yeah, I think I have been on Facebook now for 20 years.

Yeah, it feels a long time.

But like I'm familiar with it.

And so I think it feels like a place where the concept of advertising and becoming a digital marketing, at least somewhat expert, feels more doable.

And if if step one to that is like actually have a more believable presence on Facebook, have a more authentic presence on Facebook, that actually maybe makes it feel a bit nicer.

And then to go from there to sort of scaling up to then gain more authentic engagement on Facebook.

And only after that start advertising, that feels less like a cold, hard advertising task.

It's a very warm advertising task, in my opinion, because Facebook is a place where you can build your community and interact with people.

And I think it's like a slept on thing.

I think people are like, Oh, Facebook's over.

Unfortunately, because Facebook managed to build this ads platform that everybody uses for businesses, you can't afford to look at it like you can't afford to say Facebook's over because they are dominating the ad game.

So it's silly to say that it's not a viable place.

And that's yeah, that's me on that's me on Facebook.

I'm just waiting for my check from Mark Zuckerberg.

I mean, that is a good promo.

Yeah, I think but also I think it's so refreshing to kind of have a new way of thinking about it because I had just felt so frustrated and I had felt like, well, I've tried it.

I've tried all the things.

And I think all the things like all the ads courses and all the ads books, they are, I think you're right.

Like they are working for some people sometimes because they hit on like the one that works for their particular type of book or their particular type of advertising strategy.

And you think, well, maybe they've just got a big platform.

Maybe they've just got a naturally big audience already and they haven't even thought taking that into consideration.

That's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So no, I think having done all the things and having seen, you know, no success really beyond like making back the money I put in feels, has felt really just like I've got no idea what the next step is.

And now it feels like, okay, I can actually go back several steps and like, I've missed out some key things.

And now it feels much more doable and like a good project for 2024.

And like I can try and make some serious, significant steps.

Yeah, so that is really helpful, incredibly useful for us to look at.

What are we looking at next week?

So next week's topic, we have decided to do money and get honest about it.

So yeah, we're going to look at finances and how we view money and how it affects our lives in so many ways.

And do you have any thoughts on that already?

Like, are you looking forward to that?

I am.

I think it's interesting.

We've talked a bit about this in a few of our monthly meetings and sessions before we start the podcast.

I think this is another topic where we're coming at it from really different perspectives and that we'll be able to kind of bring different aspects to it, different ways we think about it.

So I think it will be really useful.

My current perspective is what I want to think about for next week is I want to make myself a business loan, which is I think we talked about last week or the week before, is the kind of profit first idea that Orna Ross was talking about with her Go Creative Planning system.

I want to really think about a profit first mentality.

And I have got savings that I have specifically saved up in order to invest in my business, but they just sort of sat in lots of different accounts.

And they just dotted around accruing interest while I wait to know what to do with them.

And then anytime I have a business expense, I will spend it if it seems reasonable, or not spend it if I'm feeling like, oh gosh, I just fixed something in my house, so I can't spend money on Facebook adverts.

Those two things are not connected.

I need to treat my business like a business, make myself a business loan and figure out what that's gonna be and what I'm gonna use it for and how I'm gonna keep myself accountable.

So yes, big thoughts, big decisions in a space I really hadn't been ready to make a decision in or hadn't really had any push to make a decision in.

So I'm really looking forward to doing that over the next week.

How about you?

Yeah, same.

I think it's one of those things where it's always on the list, like figure out money.

And then every time you look at it, you think, I'm not gonna do that today.

I'm gonna do that next week.

So I'm really looking forward to, I mean, like you say, we're coming at it from two different places.

So I don't even have a business account set up.

So I don't even have that separation in my mind of my life money and my business money.

And I think that if I can figure out that and think about, I don't think I'm gonna be doing profit first straight away cause I'm still, I feel like I'm kind of like just a bit too far away from that to have that in my thinking at the moment.

But yeah, just thinking about what it means to have like a separate business account and how all of that works for me.

And also think about my money mentality in general.

I think that'll be really fun conversation to have because I know that that's a weird, unspoken thing that everyone has about money.

And I really want to talk about it with you.

Yeah, and actually I hadn't got the list of things to think about, but I have been reading a lot of books about money mindset and abundance and trying to figure out a way to change my mindset about money.

And yeah, I will try to make a list of books I've been reading and thoughts I've been having.

I don't think I'm making any meaningful change in my mindset towards money, so that is feeling really frustrating.

In that I think I do want to read these books about like abundance mindset.

I feel like, yeah, I should have all the money.

I deserve this.

And then the next day, I'll find myself doing something like there's absolutely just my regular behaviour, like a real scarcity mindset.

Yeah, behaviour.

And I just don't, I'm finding it hard to change my perspective on money.

So I think it will be really helpful to have that as part of the conversation.

Yes.

Yes, very much so.

Well, this is a nice long one.

Sorry everyone.

Yeah, it has, but it's been really useful as well.

Like I think we have really, I mean, really trying to like upend the received wisdom on Facebook adverts.

That's a long topic.

So, but incredibly useful.

And I hope that anyone who's listened to us has really had a chance to like reframe any thoughts on adverts, which I have.

And now I feel like I'm going to take the next week just sort of getting over this conversation.

You can think about it with such excitement now.

Yeah, I can, and I, yeah.

Yeah, I no longer feel depressed.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

I feel like we're ending the same way as always, just like 10,000 thoughts buzzing in my head.

I need to get off and write those things down.

So yeah, thank you for, yeah.

Thank you so much for sharing everything that you know from a really different perspective and just giving people something to think about that is not the same like, buy this course, spend all this money, try these things, otherwise you're a failure.

This feels very manageable and encouraging, and it's been really helpful to talk about.

So thank you so much and I will look forward to speaking to you next week.

Yes.

I look forward to that too.

Okay.

Goodbye everyone.

Goodbye Matilda.

Bye.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

Stay tuned for our next episode, and don't forget to subscribe to learn how to write your way to financial success.