Ads Don't Work

Ads probably work if one has enough money to play around with, but even then, there likely won't be a net gain once the results are tallied. I'm a fan of David Gaughran; his tutorials are comprehensive, and there's no better teacher to dissect the various ad sites. The (my) problem is, he starts out with a mindset of spending...not just minor spending, but spending a nice chunk of cash. I will point out, however, that he is sympathetic to those of us who are poor.

That said, I've now managed to watch almost his entire Facebook tutorial, and I've decided not to plunge in. Clearly, Facebook ads can quickly become a money suck, and you have to pay to play, at least to play successfully. If I've learned anything from my promo blitz, it's that ads don't work. I'm sort of like the gambler who keeps upping the ante to make up for his losses, until before he knows it, he's in trouble with the mob. (Okay, I watched too many Sopranos episodes.)

My mindset in making a lot of small buys was that it was better to spread things around than to plunk a hundred dollars down on an expensive ad that was probably a loser, too. Why the two techniques would be any different, I can't say. All I netted from those promos was a reality check. One site managed to sell three copies. That's it. 

But like the compulsive gambler, I almost bought an ad for another site, until common sense kicked in. Maybe I should have knocked down my price to ninety-nine cents, but it's too late now. I'm locked in until all my promos have run, and really, it wouldn't have mattered. I've pushed cheap books before with similar results. I'm somehow not tapping into the right market, but I don't know what the right market is, or if there is one. My stupidity was in not understanding that people subscribe to these sites for bargains. They don't show up to find the next bestseller; they want cheap. Cheap and crappy beats a dollar more and good. A book is something to kill time, like watching a boring TV show. Good writing only matters to writers. 

I can wait a month and reduce my book's price to next-to-nothing; then maybe buy a BookBub ad, but I probably won't. The novelty is already wearing off. I'm getting further away from my story, and now it hardly matters to me. It hasn't even been two weeks since I published, yet my enthusiasm has dwindled to nothing.  

I dreamed of ending my writing career with a bang. This was the one! 

Oops.