Episode 201: Facebook Ads for Authors with Guest Heidi McIntyre
Watch now on YouTube!
Coming Friday May 27th on Apple Podcasts & Spotify
It's often said that selling books can be harder than writing them. But many authors have found sustainable success running Facebook ads to market their books.
In this episode of The Best of Book Marketing, we'll dive into the world of Facebook Ads for Authors, covering the ins and outs of this powerful marketing tool with marketing consultant, Heidi McIntyre.
If you've consider running Facebook ads, you won't want to miss this episode!
About Heidi McIntyre
Always an avid reader, Heidi was inspired to write by her college professor who convinced her to switch majors to English. From then on, she harbored a secret wish to write a novel one day.
Heidi spent most of her marketing career as a consultant specializing in fresh produce where she worked with a variety of growers, commodity boards, and associations. Her marketing campaigns received multiple awards.
As an author and book marketing coach, Heidi understands the challenges many authors face, from the struggle to stand out in a crowded market to the confusion surrounding the latest marketing trends.
Books Mentioned
Sea Magic by Heidi McIntyre by Heidi McIntyre
A cozy read with endearing characters, forgotten love, and a touch of magic.
Inspired by the true legend of Maria Hallett and the notorious pirate Black Sam Bellamy, Sea Magic is a spellbinding tale of love, destiny, and the mystical ties that bind us all.
Connect with Heidi:
Author Coaching - marketing & launch assistance
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means Lainey earns a tiny commission (maybe enough for a coffee if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
Episode Resources
The Irony of a Woefully Inadequate Imposter Syndrome - Stark Reflections - Episode 416
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Note: next sections are mostly created by AI for your convenience - so please forgive any typos or inaccuracies!
Summary
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron discuss Facebook advertising strategies for authors with guest Heidi McIntyre. Heidi explains the basics of Facebook ads, including targeting, budgeting, and the importance of dynamic creative. She emphasizes the need for patience and persistence, noting that results often take two months. Key metrics include click-through rate (3-5%), cost per click (under $0.20), and conversion to sales. Heidi also highlights the use of AI for target audience identification and the benefits of running ads for multiple books. The discussion includes tips on optimizing ads and the importance of testing different elements.
Outline
Facebook Ads for Authors: Introduction and Updates
Paulette Stout introduces the episode, highlighting the focus on Facebook ads for authors and the guest, Heidi McIntyre.
Lainey Cameron shares her recent progress on her manuscript, mentioning the upcoming release to beta readers and the launch of the Best of Book Marketing podcast on Substack.
Paulette Stout discusses her re-editing of her debut novel, "Love Only Better," and her upcoming release of a short story from an anthology.
Paulette Stout shares her recent success in winning three book awards, including the North Texas Romance Writers Readers Choice Awards and the Hawthorne Prize.
Heidi McIntyre's Background and Expertise
Paulette Stout introduces Heidi McIntyre, highlighting her background as an author, book coach, and her expertise in Facebook ads.
Heidi McIntyre explains the basics of Facebook ads, including their appearance, targeting options, and the benefits of using them for book marketing.
Heidi McIntyre discusses the importance of understanding the Facebook ads dashboard, including the campaign, ad set, and ad tabs.
Heidi McIntyre provides tips on setting budgets, choosing placements, and using dynamic creative for testing multiple images and copy points.
Setting Up and Managing Facebook Ads
Heidi McIntyre explains the process of setting up a Facebook ad campaign, including selecting the objective, budget, and audience metrics.
Heidi McIntyre discusses the importance of testing different images and copy points to find what works best for the target audience.
Lainey Cameron shares her experience with Facebook ads, including issues with ad placement and the importance of testing to ensure the ad is reaching the intended audience.
Heidi McIntyre provides tips on scaling ad budgets and the importance of allowing the ad to go through the learning phase before making adjustments.
Targeting and Audience Insights
Heidi McIntyre discusses the importance of targeting the right audience for Facebook ads, including using best-selling authors, behaviors, and interests.
Heidi McIntyre explains the concept of the Learning Center and how it helps the algorithm learn which audience segments are most effective.
Paulette Stout shares her experience with using diverse images in her ads to reach a broader audience, including multicultural characters and interracial couples.
Heidi McIntyre provides tips on using AI to create compelling images for Facebook ads and the benefits of using dynamic creative for testing multiple options.
Optimizing Facebook Ad Performance
Heidi McIntyre discusses the importance of tracking key metrics, including click-through rate, cost per click, and conversion to sales.
Heidi McIntyre explains the process of setting up Amazon attribution to track sales directly from Facebook ads.
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron discuss the importance of looking beyond direct clicks to understand the overall impact of Facebook ads on book sales.
Heidi McIntyre provides tips on staying organized and managing multiple ads, including using spreadsheets to track performance and making adjustments based on data.
Successes and Challenges with Facebook Ads
Heidi McIntyre shares examples of successful Facebook ad campaigns, including the importance of persistence and testing different elements.
Heidi McIntyre discusses common challenges authors face with Facebook ads, including the need for patience and the importance of understanding the target audience.
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron share their own experiences with Facebook ads, including successes and lessons learned from testing different strategies.
Heidi McIntyre provides tips on how to improve ad performance, including revamping book blurbs and covers, and adjusting distribution strategies.
Heidi McIntyre's Coaching Services
Heidi McIntyre explains her coaching services for authors, including helping them find their target audience, develop marketing plans, and set up Facebook ads.
Heidi McIntyre discusses the importance of using AI to identify target audiences and the benefits of working with an experienced coach.
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron share their positive experiences working with Heidi McIntyre and recommend her services to other authors.
Heidi McIntyre provides information on how authors can contact her for coaching and additional resources, including her website and social media profiles.
Transcript
Paulette Stout 0:02
Hello everyone, and welcome to another amazing episode of the Best of Book Marketing podcast. Y'all are going to love, love, love today's show. It is an episode that everyone has been asking for since we started the podcast, frankly, like a year ago. So we are starting our second season, and I'm really excited to have a guest on that will be able to tell us all the things she helped me immensely with Facebook advertising. So we are looking forward to talking about Facebook ads. It's often said that, you know, selling books is harder than writing them. And I think those of us who've been through that can kind of say maybe yes. So we'll be going and we'll talking about that. So well, let's just get started with our quick updates, and then we'll get Heidi on stage. Lainey, you want to start us off with your updates? Sure.
Lainey Cameron 0:55
So I have been on fire for the last couple of weeks with my writing, and I gotta show this because I'm so proud. I am all but 20 pages through this revision of my manuscript, which is the version of Book Two that will go to beta readers. So considering, those of you who listen to the podcast know that this seems to be the endless book that just keeps going forever because the universe keeps throwing roadblocks in my way, I am like crossing my fingers and hoping that I will actually get to the end of this version before I leave on Saturday for a quick trip to the UK to see some friends and so fingers crossed that maybe it's on a path to go out to beta readers in July after I tidy a few more things up.
Lainey Cameron 1:32
So this is kind of huge big deal. And I also got another thing done that I had talked about on the podcast that I wanted to do forever, which is, we are now live on sub stack with the best of Book Marketing podcast with a bunch of good articles. People are already interacting, giving us feedback. It's a great chance to ask us questions directly. We're both on there answering people, and we're already getting some really interesting questions. We already have a couple of ideas for future episodes, because we do the episodes you ask for. I mean, Heidi is here today to talk about Facebook ads, because it was our most requested topic. So we have lots of requested topics. We're going to do covers, we're going to do Amazon ads.
Lainey Cameron 2:09
We're going to talk AI, which is going to be a fun one coming up. So we definitely listen when you ask we provide. We go find the best experts, like we have today. And so that's really what's going on with me. I'm super excited between the new, new subset and getting the writing moving forward again. Life is good right now. What about you? Pilate, I'm
Paulette Stout 2:26
so glad to hear I'm very excited to get my clutches of the new book. It's your first book. Was so, so good. I know this one will be amazing too. Um, I am kind of deep. I'm like two thirds the way through re editing my first my debut novel, love only better. And I'm really excited about this. I put it off for probably a year and a half thinking like, oh, I shouldn't be going back. I should be going forward. And I'm like, You know what? No people are reading my new books. They want to go back, and I want to give them a good experience. And, oh, my God, my first editor did not have a semicolon that she didn't love. Like, it's just like you're seeing things, like you see it differently, like, you know, it's kind of like when you put a book aside and you go back, why did I write it that way? So I'm really excited for this freshened look that will come, and I'm just trying to figure out what's the best way to go through that whole editing proofreading process.
Paulette Stout 3:14
Also, I will be releasing a short story that I was part of my anthology that I co organize. I gave it a new name, releasing it. I was going to do it in print, but the print came out like a little too skinny, so I'm just going to do it on ebook, and then I might dabble with some AI audio, so we'll see how that goes. More about that before I finish up, just two other things. One, I'm really excited. Since our last episode, I won three Book Awards. So I got, I came in third place in the north Texas Romance Writers Readers Choice Awards. It was, it was really an honor to come in there in the women's section category. And then I was shortlisted for the Hawthorne prize both of my books. And this is something like, keep better track of your books, y'all, than I do, because I must have applied for one book last year and one book this year.
Paulette Stout 4:06
So I was actually competing against myself, and I probably, probably hurt my chances a little bit, because, like readers, my readers probably split with the two books. So that was prominent, wise, but very excited to be recognized by the Hawthorne prize. It was one that I, you know, kind of wanted. And then finally, I was listening to this amazing episode of The stark reflections podcast with Mark Leslie, the Fave it is on imposter syndrome. And I have never heard someone talk about imposter syndrome in the way he did it kind of like was a hint of what Camille was talking about in that episode, if you go back and listen to that, but it was just like, I feel so different about it, and something that I think plagues a lot of us. Episode 416, Stark reflections, podcast with Mark Leslie the Fave please. Folks, go check that out, and we'll link it in the show notes too. We know it's unrelated to Facebook ads, but you know, as we struggle. As writers, mindset is a huge issue. And you know, that's one of the things. I just thought it might be helpful for people to kind of check that one out.
Lainey Cameron 5:06
Oh, I'm gonna go listen to that one, though, because we had so much fun with Mark on our episode, like he was so fun. Oh, my God, he had his head is cracking up.
Paulette Stout 5:16
Okay, so let's welcome Heidi in we've got Heidi is always an avid reader. Heidi, it was inspired to write by her college professor who convinced her to switch majors to English. And from then on, she harbored the secret wish to write a novel. And her novel is so good, you know, see magic, really, really good, major first book anyway, I'm sorry I'm gushing. Heidi's one of my favorite people. She has rescued me my Facebook ads. So when we wanted to have someone on for Facebook ads, there was no one else I wanted to have on, but Heidi McIntyre, who is an author and a book coach and an amazing person. And thank you, Heidi, for joining us tonight.
Heidi McIntyre 5:59
You're welcome. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.
Lainey Cameron 6:04
Okay, do I get to start? Okay, here we go. So this is going to be so fun, because we have such a range of questions on Facebook ads, right? And we could jump straight into like, all the deep metrics, and which ones do I pay attention to stuff? And we will, because I actually ask our writer group that Paulette and I are part of that I host on Thursday night, and that was the big question they had. Like, all these metrics, I get overwhelmed, analysis, press paralysis, I don't know what to look at. So I promise you, we'll get there. But we also want to start with some broader questions for those who might not be doing Facebook ads yet, who might have, like, dipped their toe in it and, like, ran away screaming. And so we want to make sure that we start at the beginning. For those who are still at the beginning, at the beginning, and then we'll get deeper and deeper and more expert as we go. So let's start with just a really basic question of like, for those who haven't done Facebook ads yet, can you explain what they are? Where do they appear? And why do you obviously, you think they're very powerful, because you spend time helping authors do them. So like, let's go back to the beginning. What are they? Where do they turn up? Why do they work? Great.
Heidi McIntyre 7:04
That's a good question. Facebook ads show up, and it looks just like a Facebook post when you post in your regular page, except it goes to a much larger audience and you get to target. Who gets to see that through audience targeting as well. So that's what they are. They can be on Facebook, you can choose Instagram, and you can choose exactly where on those two platforms you want your ad to appear. You have a whole menu of options.
Heidi McIntyre 7:34
So that's how that's basically where they show up. And what makes them so powerful for me is two reasons. One, you get to expose your book to a much larger audience of possible readers, and you learn a lot of key intel about your book. You learn who your audience is, what they like to see, in terms of your image and your copy points, and you learn about their demographics, and you learn a whole wide range of information. So it really helps you to pinpoint your target audience, but it also helps you to reach a much larger audience. But Facebook ads aren't easy. It's a lot of trial and error in the beginning, and it's like learning a huge software program that has a giant dashboard from hell on it. But once you use it and you get comfortable with it, it can become a really amazing marketing tool.
Paulette Stout 8:32
So can you let us know a little bit? Because talking about that crazy dashboard now y'all a lot of it you ignore, but there are certain parts of the anatomy that you need to know about. So can you just tell us a little bit about the three kind of tabs and the organization? You know we talk about campaigns and ads and segments. Tell us what those are, please.
Heidi McIntyre 8:57
Yes, there's three parts to it. The campaign is what it says. It's the umbrella. It's the overall campaign for your advertising. And that's the area where you're going to enter into when you start to launch your ad. And what you're going to do is you're going to pick your objective. If your goal is to sell more books, you want to pick traffic. You also have the option of picking a budget in that section. I don't recommend it, because that is really meant for dividing up your budget among multiple ads. So if you're just starting out, I wouldn't start the advantage plus budget in the campaign. Then it's going to take you to the ad set.
Heidi McIntyre 9:35
This is where you're going to go a little bit deeper, and then you can pick your budget. I recommend a daily budget. It's going to give you lots of different options. I would go straight to the daily budget for that. It's also going to allow you to do to choose your audience metrics that concludes their demographics. It could be, for example, you, if your book is geared towards women, you'll pick. Women. You can pick an age group. If you know who your target audience is, in terms of age, you can select that if you're just starting out, I recommend you do 18 to 65 and then you'll narrow that down over time. And then you can pick their behaviors and their interests. For example, if this is an ebook. So you can select ebook because that's what you're promoting. You can select readers or reading as their interest. You can select things like Kindle or Amazon Kindle to help you sort of narrow things down even more. And then if you have comp authors that you want to include, you can include those too. The problem is, Facebook has gotten so general these days that the issue is really around. You can only really choose larger authors.
Heidi McIntyre 10:48
So you can, yeah, because that was really coming in. So, so basically you can so, so only like the top, best selling authors that have been around for a long time will be in that system. But if you have those, then definitely you can use them, because readers who like their books, if they're similar to yours, will like your book as well. Yeah.
Paulette Stout 11:16
So one thing to just keep in mind, folks, for people who have done both Amazon ads and Facebook ads. Facebook will spend your money, y'all so if you set a budget for $5 $10 whatever, that money will be gone at the end of the day. It's not like Amazon, where you put a budget for like five or $10 they never spend your money. They will spend your money.
Heidi McIntyre 11:38
That's a very good point. I like to start with $5 a day, because you can level up as as the ad improves. You can do better and better. If it's not working, you can pause it and start over again, so that way you can kind of control the budget, and you're not putting all your money out there at once. The other part of that is you get to choose your placements, and you it's going to try to drive you to advantage placement. It's going to hide what's called manual placement, so you have to search for it, but you but it's in there, you just have to hit Edit when you hit placement, and you'll see manual placement. That's where you get to pick where you want the ad to go, on Facebook and on Instagram, it's going to put up weird stuff like audience, network and messenger and things like that. You don't want to be in those areas, but you can pinpoint where in Facebook you want to be. You definitely want to be in the feed for both, for sure, but there's lots of other options on there. And then it's going to take you to your ad. Oh, and that's and also in the ad set, you can choose what I call dynamic creative. There's a button you can turn that on. The benefit of this is you can test multiple images and multiple copy points at the same time, and that will save you a ton of time, because you might have to do four or five ads before you figure that out. You can do that all at once in one ad. So once you select that, you're going to go straight to the ad itself. In the ad itself, it's great because you can upload multiple images, I recommend only doing three or four. If you upload like, eight to 10, it's going to divide up the response to the point where you're not going to tell what's working and what's not. And then you can do multiple copy points for the ad as well in each section of the ad. And then you also can, once you set your start date for the ad, you can hit publish. But if your start date is not when you're ready to hit publish, I recommend you wait until the start date begins, because in many cases, Facebook will go, Oh, she hit publish. Let's go. And whether your start date is next week or the next day, it'll automatically run it through the program. So that's really
Lainey Cameron 13:46
Yeah, and a question based on what you said, because you said a couple of things. And we've got a question here for cat from Catherine Matthews, who's asking about posting on Facebook and Instagram, and you recommend doing both. And I'm going to expand that to say you talked about the range of places that your ad can turn up right? You can put it in direct messaging. You can put it on the side of the page. There's like, there's like, 10 different options, I want to say, for where it can turn up, including an Instagram direct messaging and Instagram chat, and Instagram stories and Facebook stories. So like, what do you recommend? Should you try it all and see what works? Are there certain things that you would say, like, no, just start with the posts in the core feed, like, like, what do you recommend for another a lot of experts will
Heidi McIntyre 14:25
tell you to start with the core feed, but I do. I have two audiences for my book. My primary audience is on Facebook, and then I have a younger audience that's on Instagram. So I want it and I want to add a few more spots to that. I'll add things like the the reels or stories, or, you know, additional areas where the post will show up, as long as it's not some kind of business network or something else. That makes no sense, because I want to get more expansion on Instagram, but you can try it with the feed, see what happens, and then add more to it and see what happens over time. Because the best thing about Facebook. Ads is to constantly test everything, every part of that ad, so you know exactly where you should be once you get to the point where you really have a lot of good information to be successful,
Lainey Cameron 15:12
I'm going to add test to make sure it actually did what it said it was supposed to do as well, because being based outside the US, I've had a lot of problems that I will choose a US audience, and then it runs my ad in Nigeria, and it's like, I go back and I look, or it runs my ad in Mexico, because I'm in Mexico, and it knows my IP addresses in Mexico, and it runs my English ad to Spanish speakers, even though I'll go back and look at the ad and it very specifically says US only.
Paulette Stout 15:39
I have never heard of that. Wow.
Lainey Cameron 15:41
Test, not only to make sure to see how what you're doing works, but also test to make sure that what you thought you were doing is actually what happened. Because I it's glitchy on that. I'll tell you.
Paulette Stout 15:52
Trust but verify.
Lainey Cameron 15:54
Weird international zone. The other question I get a lot is it's so much easier to do boosted posts, right? Like I just boosted on Instagram or Facebook. I know I get more capabilities if I do ad manager, but it's a head exploding interface to work out how to use it. Is it really worth it doing ad manager versus doing boosted posts?
Heidi McIntyre 16:16
I think it is. I think it boosted posts is good if you want to dip your toe in the water and try it and say, Okay, this is working. So I may want to go deeper. I think the intel that you get from Facebook ads, you don't get as much from boosted posts, and you really need to have that those testing programs in place, like with dynamic creative you can't do that with boosted post. If you do, though, want to test with a boosted post, make sure your retailer sales link is in the copy, because it'll just take you right back to your Facebook page. And so you want to make sure all those things are in place, but it's the very similar program to do a boosted post in terms of the ad platform. It's just they set it up in a way that's easier to read without having that giant screen in front of you, but that maybe will give you some comfort for when you're ready to actually go to the ads manager. But I would look at it like you're learning a software program. It feels hard and wonky in the beginning. It can be a little painful, but then after you master it, it's yours, and you can do a lot with it.
Paulette Stout 17:20
Can I build on that? . Yeah, it's the dashboard is like a shit show, y'all, it's, there's a lot on there, probably gonna get like explicit, now, sorry, sorry, gods.
Lainey Cameron 17:34
Don't - I noticed our entire podcast is rated explicit. So we're gonna...
Paulette Stout 17:38
Oh really?
Lainey Cameron 17:40
Okay, on Apple, we're explicit, okay
Paulette Stout 17:42
Okay, but it's like most of it, you don't even have to, you ignore most of it. It's almost like, you know, using like Excel or Word or Google Docs, even like most of this stuff is there, and you just don't even touch it. And it's the same with Facebook. So if you, you know, follow the guidance you're going to discuss tonight, or if you book a coaching session with Heidi, you know she'll show you like, Look at this. Ignore everything else, and then it makes it much simpler. And those insights and the kit flexibility with the targeting, and you just don't get any of that with a boosted post. Yeah,
Lainey Cameron 18:13
actually, our question, I'm going to put it in here, because it's exactly what we wanted to know, is, how the heck do we learn ads manager, because it is. It's like the VCR problem, right? Go, rewind to them when we had VCRs and we only ever used press, you know, play, rewind, fast, forward, stop, right? But there were, like, 100 other controls that you never touched. You never really need to know what they did. How do you work out? What are those five things you really need to be doing in ads manager, and what are the 95 you can ignore? Like, is there a recommended resource to learn. Do people need to get on with you?
Heidi McIntyre 18:42
Like, yeah, I look at two things. Two main metrics are the key for me on the ads manager platform. One is the click through rate, which multiplies the number of impressions by the number of people who clicked your on your book. So an average click through rate might be, in the beginning, might be three to 5% across all industries, the average click through rate is actually 1% but with books, it can be closer to three to 5% you may start at a lower two to 3% as you're getting up and running. I prefer anything above 8% but I've doing it for a while, so So that's what you want to look for. The other metric is the cost per click. Because the cost per click should be around 20 cents or lower, it can be a little bit over, but you don't want it to be like 50 cents, for example, that means your ads not efficient, and they're having to put it out to more people to get people to react to it.
Heidi McIntyre 19:41
So those are the two main metrics I look for. There's another metric that's not on the platform, and that's if your ad is converting to sales. And what you can do there is, if you're if your retailers page is Amazon, for example, Amazon has what's called Amazon attrition, and you can set up your ad. And attribution. Sorry, and you can set up your ad attrition attribution. I think attribution is much better. You don't want attrition. You want attribution. So what you can do is you can go through the Amazon ads dashboard and you can set it up there. You're basically going to, you're not going to where the ad section is. You're going to, there's a little graph in there, and it's called measurement and reporting, and that's where you'll plug in all your information.
Heidi McIntyre 20:30
You'll plug in your book, you'll plug in Facebook, and then it's going to give you your your face, your Amazon link on your page, your retail sales link with a whole bunch of information attached to it. You'll plug that in as your retailer link in the ad, and then it's going to be able to give you a ton of information. It'll tell you how many sales came directly from your Facebook ads. It will also tell and you can set one up for each ad so you don't have to do just one for everything. It'll tell you your if you're in KU, it'll tell you the page reads. It'll give you a summary of what you earned in KU from the Facebook ad as well. And then it gives you a lot of other information about the number of people who visited the page, and it gives you tons and tons of other stuff that you might want to be interested in. So it's it's a win win, when you look at it that way.
Heidi McIntyre 21:25
Because if you have multiple things happening, like a tour or a giveaway or other stuff, and you want to know if the ads are working, that's the best way to do that. So those are the three things, just two items on Facebook. What I do is I have a little spreadsheet where, once a week, I plug in things like the number of clicks, the number of impressions, the seat, my click through, rate and my cost per click, and then I just plug in my sales and my KU page reads, and then I continue to track it that way as well. But it's not it's not that difficult. You can ignore all the rest. There's a lot of stuff. It's going to try to get make you interested in doing. It's going to have big names and big things you can do, like, you know, with audience copying and things like that. In the beginning, you don't need to do any. Need to know any of that. You can learn that over time if you're interested. But it's really to me the basics. I've tried a whole bunch of different stuff on there, and the basics are what works the best.
Paulette Stout 22:27
So we have a comment, and that's a question I've had as well. Heidi, about, have you noticed a difference in AD effectiveness since we've had this kind of exodus from Facebook and meta platforms? I know that I used to get way higher click through rates of my ads, but I was getting, like, on some of them, like, ridiculous click through rates, and they definitely I ended up shutting mine off. I'm going to start again soon. But what have you noticed in your yours and your clients? I
Heidi McIntyre 22:55
haven't noticed a big difference. There are certain time periods where it's harder to run ads, like during an election campaign, it's just, it's difficult to get in there. Also holidays, unless you have a holiday book, it's difficult to get in there. I think it's just, I think there's a lot more authors on Facebook, so it's getting more competitive, and I think that has a lot to do with it. Facebook has taken a while to get up and running with AI. I think it's doing better and better and better. So over time, I think we're going to see that improve. I think part of it was the AI was trying to get into the algorithm, and it it made it more difficult for a little bit, but I'm seeing it get better every day. So I think that's a that's that's how to do it cool. And
Lainey Cameron 23:43
the next question we had for for you is budget. So you talked a little bit about setting like a $5 budget. Is that $5 per day in total, $5 per ad, and how do we think about scaling it up? Like, when do I scale it or do I just keep it there at that $5 level?
Heidi McIntyre 23:58
Yeah, now it's $5 per day, per ad, you can set $10 per day. The what happens with the $5 compared to the $10 is the $5 it's going to either way, it's going to go through what's called a learning center once you publish your ad. And what the learning center does is it's going to it's going to allow Facebook to test it in different areas to see what works and what doesn't work. That can take a few days with $5 a day. It'll take a few more days than $10 a day, for example. But if you want to maintain a budget and start out, I always started with $5 a day, and then it's easy to level up. You want to be careful with you level up in the very beginning, I did the $5 a day, and I started to take off with my sales, and I got so excited that I went, I'm going to double it. And I went to 10 bucks a day. Totally crashed the system. What happened is it sent it right back through the Learning Center, and it took me two weeks to get to that place where I was so excited about being. So that was a lesson that I learned. So you don't want to level up to more than 20% of the value of your ad, and you want to do it slowly, once a day over time.
Lainey Cameron 25:11
So if you start at five, you do five plus 20% basically,
Heidi McIntyre 25:15
Yes
Lainey Cameron 25:16
Kinda like training for a triathlon - same thing 10%
Heidi McIntyre 25:21
yeah, and every day. You can do it once a day, but no more than once a day. Got it.
Paulette Stout 25:27
It's little increments. That's good. So one of the things we hear a lot about, which I've taken lots of different Facebook courses, and a lot of them, you know, certain genres, you know, have different behaviors and things. I wonder if you notice anything about certain genres doing better on Facebook ads than others?
Heidi McIntyre 25:46
I think it's it's more dependent on who's setting up the ads than the genre. Although, if you are in like a main genre, like romance, for example, example, you're going to reach a wider audience. Same thing with fantasy or mystery thriller, things like that. If you have a more niche audience, it might take a little bit longer to hone in on that target audience, but what you'll learn from setting up and testing your ads, you'll be able to hone in more and more over time.
Heidi McIntyre 26:15
A lot of authors tend to lose patience in the beginning they see like the first two ads didn't do great, so they're out of there. It really takes about two months before you see results, and you're testing different things at different times. So you want to maybe think about having 100 $150 budget so that you can be testing something for several weeks. If you test it for a week, you definitely don't want to touch an ad after the before five to seven days, because you want to make sure it goes through the Learning Center. It can continue to go up and up every day, and you don't want to get in the middle of that. But after seven days, if it's not working, you can pause it and start over and try a new one.
Lainey Cameron 26:55
I have a question, because you've mentioned it a couple of times. What is the Learning Center?
Heidi McIntyre 27:02
Yeah, it's like school. It's like Facebook, school, yeah, that's what they call it. It's just really how the algorithm learns about who will connect with your ad, who will connect with your image, and who will connect with your copy points. That's basically where it is. And I always tell people, when you develop an image for a Facebook ad, you want to make sure you make people feel something with that image, because you really want you're basically what you're doing is stopping the scroll you're getting them to just as they're scrolling down in their feed, they'll stop suddenly and look at your image. It needs to be compelling. And some ads work with the book in the image, and some don't. So you want to test both those different options too. So I think that's really important as you look at images, AI is great for that, because you can actually recreate a scene from your book using AI graphics programs that aren't that expensive. They charge a monthly fee. I usually Leonardo. Some people use mid journey. There's plenty of programs out there that charge maybe a 14, $15 monthly fee to to have a large to be able to use a large number of graphics on a monthly basis.
Paulette Stout 28:16
So two things on that point on the AI images. One, if you have Canva pro, you automatically get, I think it's like 450, 500 credits to make AI images as part of your thing. And that resets every month. Also, if you have, if you stock photography, through deposit photos, you have unlimited AI image creation. That's part of that. So there's, there are ways to kind of do this affordably, but like we really need, let's hone in more on the image issue. Heidi, because I know that, you know, they've taken a lot of some of the demographic things that used to have in terms of like race and religion and political, yeah, they've taken that out. But talk a little bit how the image can help compensate for some of the targeting that just from what the algorithm does, definitely.
Heidi McIntyre 29:07
So for example, if you're writing a Christian book, and if you have a woman on your book wearing a cross around her neck, a cross necklace, then that will connect people. Because what the algorithm does is it scans the entire image, and it looks for things that it can connect it with other people who have similar interests. For example, if you are writing, or if you have a romance novel that's with the golf pro as your main character, and you have a golf course in the background, it's going to scan that and it's going to connect your ad to golf enthusiasts who are also reading books, you know. So those are some of the things that it can do. So that can help you as well. You can also put copy points on the ad that can narrow that in so you can highlight certain things that you can use to compensate for that. And you want your copy points to be a little bit of a hook, but it can be a review quote that ties in some. Those key things that you want the the user to know, the visitor to know about.
Paulette Stout 30:06
Yeah, and I think that's been really helpful for me with the image, because my books have had, like, interracial couples and, yes, multicultural characters. And I am getting, you know, just from seeing who's responding to the ad, you know, I'm getting people of color responding to my ad, I can't target that, but because I use black women in my ads, or I use interracial couples, I'm getting different communities of people on Facebook. So I find that to be really helpful.
Heidi McIntyre 30:33
Yeah, and part of the reason why it's becoming more general is they want the algorithm to pick that up and run with that. That's the real reason it wants the algorithm to work at into the system more. But you can work it to your advantages, and with dynamic creative, you have several options for your copy points, for your headline, for your primary text and for your description, so you can weave those in to all those different options and see where consumers pinpoint where they like to what they like to see along with that image.
Lainey Cameron 31:04
That's great. And what I'm what I'm hearing from you, Heidi, is there's a lot of flexibility, right? We can test different images, different headings, different copy points. Is Facebook advertising for everyone, or is it realistic that like for some types of books and some types of authors? It's really just not a fit and not something they should focus on.
Heidi McIntyre 31:23
I think I recommend that everybody should try it once to see if it works for them, and it requires some persistence in the beginning, but I recommend that you at least try it and see if it works. I don't think there's someone I can't look at somebody and say Facebook ads wouldn't be good for you, but you have to have a lot of persistence. You have to have some time and energy that you have to devote to it. You have to be able to pull like start with 10 images and test them one by one, and you have to be able to work through your copy points. But when you do that, those images you can use for your social media, because you know they already work. You can use it for your website.
Heidi McIntyre 32:04
You can use the copy points for your newsletter. You know. You can use them in multiple locations, so the learnings that you create will help your content marketing, too, but it requires persistence, time and effort. I have one client who she wants immediate results now, and she just doesn't want to, like go through the process, and so it's definitely not for her. But for most people, they'll at least try it and see if it works for them, if it doesn't go ahead and Boost Post and do other things too. And some people, you know, use Amazon ads work better. Some use BookBub ads. I've tried all three. I can't get the results from the other two that I can get from Facebook, but it's the learnings that really helped me as an author.
Paulette Stout 32:48
Question here in the chat from Catherine, she said she's been told that you should only advertise one book, but if you have two books that are very different from each other, you think it's worthwhile to run ads for both
Heidi McIntyre 33:01
Yeah, I don't. I think I would. I would separate the ad sets and the campaigns one for each book, but you can run as many as you want. I know some. I know some authors like Sky Warren, who's one of the experts in Facebook ads, and she believes in starting and running multiple ads, and she also believes that authors should start with the beginning of the series. If you have like, five books out in your series and you're just starting, you might want to start with the first book. See what works, because you'll get the read through as you're testing it too. And and she recommends that you run multiple ads on your books in the series, or multiple ads on a books period. It's interesting because her most successful ads are actually an intro book that she provides to her series for free. And that is the most profitable because people read through, read that and then read through the whole series.
Lainey Cameron 33:57
And we have another interesting question, kind of going back to that image question and testing different images. Leslie's asking us if you can do like, a brief book scene or a trailer, like a video rather than a static image. Is that a good idea? And is there like, an ideal time, like, length? I know it's in the seconds, but like, Do you have a recommendation when it comes to that?
Heidi McIntyre 34:16
I would be quick. It should be quick because obviously, you know someone's scrolling, they're not going to sit there for several minutes. So I would do maybe a 20/32, at the most, just like anything else. But you can test it and see what works. I've had clients test longer trailers. They didn't work as well as the shorter ones. So you can do that too. If you want to just be on Instagram, you can set that up and test that as your Instagram story or your reel, or however you want to do it. So yes, I would try everything I you know, it's the more you test and try, the more you're going to see how it works for you.
Lainey Cameron 34:58
Shall we do our little. Sponsor segment here are we?
Paulette Stout 35:02
Very exciting. We have a new sponsor. Y'all
Lainey Cameron 35:04
We have a new sponsor, and it's one that's really close to my heart, and you'll understand why, as I describe it, and why I'm the one describing it. So some of you know that I live in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, which is a beautiful colonial town, very safe, has direct flights from more places than you would expect. And Lynn golodner, who is a Detroit based author of 12 books and a writing coach and a retreat leader, is leading a retreat here in San Miguel de Allende in January next year. It's from January 17 to 24th I think they only have two spots left already. It's sold out really fast. It is fabulous. Because not only are you staying at one of my favorite hotels, it's called Casa de la notche. In fact, Lynn reached out to me and said, like, if you could hold a retreat anywhere in San Miguel? Where would you do it? And I said, this place. This is where you want it to be.
Lainey Cameron 35:52
So it is this beautiful guest house with all of the space and these courtyards and these open outdoor areas where you can write, you're right in the center, where you can walk outside into these gorgeous streets and see donkeys and rooftop bars and just beautiful, beautiful town. It's going to be so inspiring. And not only do you actually get together, you write, there's a welcome dinner. They're including excursions, which is really cool. They're going to take you to the city of Guanajuato, which is gorgeous. They're going to take you to the hot springs to go relax. You're going to do a Mexican cooking class. You're going to go dine on the rooftop restaurants. Here. You're going on Scenic Mountain Heights. You get hikes. You get to visit the botanical gardens. And, of course, your writing.
Lainey Cameron 36:31
You have one on one with a writing instructor to talk about your writing. There are some sessions and workshops and pretty much everything from your airport pickup to your hotel, and the excursions, it's all included, and many of the meals as well. So it's kind of amazing. It's like all you have to do is get yourself to San Miguel, and then you're sorted. It's basically, you don't have to plan your whole trip. You just get yourself here. We've already selected the best hotel. I'm not part of running this thing, just I happen to live here and I love this town. I mean, I'll tell you that I have traveled all over the world, right? I was nomadic for nine years, and this is where we chose to settle in the world of all the places we could have gone. And so this town is magical.
Lainey Cameron 37:10
Some people believe that it is built on quartz and that it has crystals, and that's why it has a very special energy, if you're into that kind of thing. What I will tell you is that it is full of writers and creatives and artists, and it is probably one of the most creative towns in the world, and it's small and you can walk around and it's safe and it's beautiful, and January is perfect weather because it's not too hot. This is actually really hot right now. May we're at 90 degrees January. I think it's going to be like 75 to 80 the whole time, dry climate, not humid. Gorgeous. Anyway, I can't say more about the if you're looking to treat yourself to a writing retreat in 2026 go check this one out. We'll put it in the in the pages. But if you search for Linda Ladner website, it's right there on the website. If you've ever thought of it coming to San Miguel, I'll hopefully get to join a little bit of this retreat as well. It's fabulous. You're not going to make a bad decision here. You're going to have a fabulous have a fabulous time. And I'm even kind of jealous, which is kind of ridiculous,
Paulette Stout 38:05
because I live here. So yes, look for honors website, and we'll put it in the show notes too. So if you can't find it, you'll be able to get the link there. So yeah, thank you to Lynn for sponsoring the podcast. So yes. Now we will dive back into our questions. We talked a little bit about the targeting a little bit, but if you could dive a little bit more deeper Heidi into like, the types of things that can be targeted and how you can find good audiences, and if there are any specific like audience sizes that we should be targeting once we kind of have all our major and minor demographic. Things selected. Sure,
Heidi McIntyre 38:44
for me, what helps and what I recommend to authors is they do a lot put a lot more information when they first start with Facebook ads, because you want to feed it with as much information as you can. There are other experts, like Matthew Holmes, for example, who doesn't put anything in the targeting at all, adjust the demographics. I don't. I tried that in my ad tanked. But I think, you know, you can train the system. So say you're targeting targets in the beginning. 30 million always has these huge numbers, but that's that's typically a small, smaller or mid sized audience, like 20 to 30 million people. Over time, you're going to want to expand that out. So you're going to want to take out items in that target. And it's the items that I talked about you can use. Not only can use Can you can use best selling comparable authors and behaviors, but if your book is in line with a series like my book is very similar to ghost whisper in terms of, you know, cut, you know, the way that, the way it works with an antique store and items that come in and it's paranormal. So I use Ghost Whisperer in my targeting. You can use movies that are similar to your books. You can use all kinds of things. So you want, maybe, you want to maybe broaden. That out and think about what you know, what are different ways you could just describe your books in other venues, and then over time, you can slowly scale that down, so maybe in the end, your end, you're just doing reading as a target and ebooks as a target. So that's what I recommend. You want to train the system. Once it's trained, you can scale back on that.
Paulette Stout 40:25
Okay, so that's super interesting. Talk to me a little about because you can run Facebook ads everywhere in the world. So talk to me a little about the international piece. And should you, you know, kind of pick multiple regions, or do you recommend doing separate ads for different countries? I
Heidi McIntyre 40:41
most experts say this too. I recommend separate ads for each country. And say, you want to expand your market into the UK, you can do an ad directing UK readers to your UK amazon link, or whatever your link is, and what retailer you're using. So that's that's how you would set that up. It's the same thing. You use the same images and and all the rest and the same targeting concepts that we talked about. You may want to look for UK authors that can that are comparable to your book too, because they may be interested in that audience. You can do the same with Canada. There was a woman in my author group who too did, who did really well in the UK. She opened up a whole segment to her audience, and so I definitely would test that as well. And you can do that with BookBub ads too and things like that. So it's great that you have those options. And
Lainey Cameron 41:33
can I pop in here with one more question from our audience? I love that we're getting so many audience questions today. Dency Webb is over on Instagram watching us, and dancy asked, is Amazon attribution only for self published authors? So, like, if you're with a small publisher, can you use Amazon attribution?
Heidi McIntyre 41:49
I think it's for everybody. Yeah, I don't. I don't think it's just for self published. I think they can. They should be able to. I'm self published. I haven't tried it. I haven't seen a publisher try it, but I'm sure they can.
Paulette Stout 42:03
I feel like I heard about a year or so ago how some of the Amazon ad dashboard options were getting opened up for people who were with small press publishers, but that's something that you can explore at NC and see if you have that or talk to your publisher to see if, you know, even if you can't get into the dashboard yourself, you might be able, they might be able to provide you with an attribution link that you can use in your Facebook
Heidi McIntyre 42:29
ads. Yes, definitely.
Lainey Cameron 42:33
So we've talked about lots of different metrics, and you have multiple creatives and possibly multiple, you know, copy points and titles on the ad, and you've got these different metrics, metrics that you're managing. How do we stay organized to manage and optimize all of this? Do you have a recommendation, a recommended approach that you use?
Heidi McIntyre 42:52
Yeah, if you, if you So, if you launch a dynamic creative ad, you'll have the metrics that I gave you, so you'll have that on your spreadsheet over time. You What you do is on the platform, you can actually break it down. So you can click on a link that says that allows you to break down the image. For example, it'll show you the four images. It'll show you how many clicks got on each image, total and how many impressions. And we'll give you some other metrics on those too, so you can see that right away. Just as a glance, you can go, Oh my God, this image has gotten most of the clicks. That's the winner. Same thing with the copy points as well. You can break down the headlines and the primary copy and the description to see what's working and what's not working. And you can do that at a glance, and then you can put those notes down on your spreadsheet, but it's become so obvious once you break it down and take a look at it.
Heidi McIntyre 43:48
One thing I would note, though, with dynamic creative if an if one image gets out of the gate and does really well this, the algorithm might suppress the other images. So if you have one image that's that's doing fantastic, and another image that's doing good, for example, I would break what I did was I had a feeling about that second image. It was like an intuition, so I broke it out into two separate ads. As it turned out, that second image that was good but not great, took off on its own because it wasn't being suppressed by the big one, and it actually lasted about eight months, which never happens. Typically, the ads will last maybe 30 to 60 days before they'll start to scale down. This one lasted eight months. It was my golden egg. It sold a ton of books, and it was great. And that's how it works, a small percentage of your images will be the golden egg, but once you find it, it's your sweet spot. So
Lainey Cameron 44:48
it sounds like you're saying mostly the Amazon ads dashboard, but you also have a separate spreadsheet that you use to track things or to note things as well.
Heidi McIntyre 44:58
Yes, because you want to, you want to be able. To go back, if you're if you're doing five ads later, a month or two afterwards, you want to go back and say, Okay, well, how did add one perform without having to go through the whole dashboard to see it? And it just makes it easier, because you're only looking at like, two or three items on the dash, on your Excel spreadsheet, or whatever spreadsheet you use. And so it helps me to at a glance, to be able to say, Okay, this is how I'm doing.
Paulette Stout 45:27
And also you'll be able to see trends over time. So for instance, yes, like Heidi and I were doing tests on my ads, and it just turned out that the ads that had no words on them were just doing way better than the words than the book, the ones that had pictures of books or headlines or testimonial quotes, like the ones that were just plain, people did really well. I heard from when I was in the mark Dawson class about it, saying, like, people sometimes think it's a photo of someone they know, or like it just like it's sometimes it they don't realize it's an ad originally, you know, but it makes them stop and they don't realize it's an ad. You kind of get that little bit of a few second boost on that?
Heidi McIntyre 46:03
Yes. Because if someone stops to scroll and looks at it, that goes right into the algorithm as an impression, if they go above it to the primary text and hit the you know where it's the Read More link that goes into the system, it gives it more value, if they then do the shit the Shop Now, or if they like it, and send it to their friends and family. All those things go into the algorithm and help boost the ad is
Paulette Stout 46:29
there. It also helps them know who are the people that are clicking, and they give you more of those people
Heidi McIntyre 46:33
Exactly. That's exactly right, because it's good. They're going to want it people to that are like you, that have your same interest and do the things you like to do. Be interested in that ad.
Lainey Cameron 46:45
You're You're making me wonder something which is like in BookBub, they do a nice job on if you go to the BookBub, author portal, insights.bookbub.com, they actually show you like what successful campaigns and successful ads that have run there look like. Is there an equivalent thing for Facebook where you, yes, there's actual Facebook ads look like.
Heidi McIntyre 47:05
there'sactually what's called an Ads library, where you can go in and you can plug in like a best selling author name and look at all their ads. You can click in your genre and look at all their ads. I don't think it tells you what's the best selling ones. It doesn't provide metrics, but you can see what some of the best selling authors are doing, especially in the authors who do a lot with Facebook ads. You can always evaluate things like that, but it's a great tool if you're just starting out and you're not sure what to do with images, the ad library will give you a ton of ideas, because you can actually look at what other authors or publishers are doing in your genre.
Paulette Stout 47:44
Can you make sure you give us that link? Heidi, yes,
Heidi McIntyre 47:47
I will. Yes, I will definitely give you that.
Lainey Cameron 47:53
And we talked about metrics, and you kind of listed off the top three that you think are important if you went down a level to like the second level metrics. What would you look at beyond that? Or would you say, we don't need to. I don't think
Heidi McIntyre 48:05
you need to. You can, like you. There's things like, obviously, you want to look on the total number of clicks and the total number of impressions and things like that, even though the click through rate will divide that up for you. You can, you know, there's, there's lots of things you can do, frequency and things like that. I you know, and you can learn about it tells you, you hit the info button and it'll tell you what each of those metrics are. And I've looked at all of them, and I keep coming back to those two for me. But if you're super analytical and you want to look at and research more, I recommend you do that in the beginning. I would hone in on those two so it's not so overwhelming over time, you can add more to your mix.
Paulette Stout 48:47
And like, as you have run ads longer, I think that frequency is helpful. It can kind of let you know when your ad is just keeps hitting the same people over so basically, it's usually, like a one point something and like, it's, you know, sometimes it can be a little under one, but it's if you start getting kind of high in the frequency, it feels like maybe you've exhausted your audience a little bit. Is that? Is that a fair statement? Heidi, or
Heidi McIntyre 49:12
Yeah, and what happens is, and that's why, if you have multiple books, it's really good to do Facebook ads, because there's only so much that you can show your book, you know, over time, for months and months at a time, it gets you're you're wearing out the system, even if you go to a broader audience, so you might so what I tend to do is, because I only have my first book out, I'm getting ready to publish my second book, I'll stop it for a while and then come back into it, and then it's a new and then it's fresh when In the very beginning, also, when you launch your ad, it might take one to two days for it to get approved by Facebook. After so many weeks or months of doing it, it takes an hour. So you sort of get rewarded for doing more ads, which is really good, because I. Yeah, today you might want to wait till two days before you're ready to launch it, before you set it up and publish it.
Paulette Stout 50:08
Cool. So I think one of the things so talk to us a little bit because I know that we have all these data points we're seeing, but not everybody who you know buys your book has clicks. So talk to us a little bit about like, looking beyond the metrics, and how can you kind of intimate the success of your ads, even if it doesn't translate in direct clicks because people have other buying behaviors? Well,
Heidi McIntyre 50:32
if you're at a point where you're getting lots and lots of clicks and you're not getting sales, you need to look at your retailer sales page for sure. There's something up with your packaging. It could be your book blurb, it could be your cover design, or it could be both. So I've had this happen for authors where we had to go back in and completely change both of those things to improve the results. A lot of authors are so connected to their blurb, they're like, it can't be my blurb, it can't be my cover. But if you're getting clicks and you're driving people there and they're not buying there's something there that's not hooking them in, because that's really where you close the deal, for sure. So I would definitely take a look at that.
Heidi McIntyre 51:13
In the beginning, I had to come I had that issue. I had to completely revamp my book blurb. When I did, it was like, boom, it started to work. And I think that's another benefit of Facebook ads, because that's what you want to know. If you're a debut author and you're launching your first book, you want to know if the book blurb is not 100% on point, or you want to know if there's an issue with the book cover. And the way you can test the book cover is put the cover on your ad with and then add some other images into your dynamic creative and see how the cover does too. So that's another way to test it as well.
Paulette Stout 51:48
I think you can also input your distribution strategies. For me, I was getting a ton of clicks, and I wasn't getting sales, and I just kind of had this inclination that my buyers were probably Kindle limited readers, and I wasn't in Kindle Unlimited at the time, and it made my that's why i Okay, let me try this. I'll pull my books, my eBooks, down. And I went into Kindle limited, and then they, all of a sudden, the ads were converting, you know? So it's like, it could be pricing, it could be the distribution, if you know your subscription or not. So there's lots you can learn from the ads, yeah, beyond just that number. You
Heidi McIntyre 52:24
know, that's a really good point, because if you if your book is on sale for 99 cents, and you're going to get more clicks for that, but if you are on Kindle Unlimited, you can say and your headline free with Kindle Unlimited, you'll get clicks for that as well. So all those things go into it are part of the process and part of the learning curve.
Lainey Cameron 52:42
One of the things that I've heard from authors who've run a lot of Facebook ads is they don't only look at the ads metrics. They look at their Kindle, KU Kindle, a little bit of KU dashboard, and they look at their overall sales. And that was kind of a little bit of what we were asking here is, like, Is that a fair way to look at it like, like, like, we have the impression that not everybody is going to click on the ad. Some people are just going to go, Oh, that looks interesting, and go over to Amazon separately and buy the book, or buy the, you know, get the book on Kindle Unlimited. How much weight do you put on that? Like, do you think that's fair to consider just looking at general sales at the same time?
Heidi McIntyre 53:15
Yes, yeah, you can. I mean, I think the attribution link is going to is only gonna, you know, work for people who actually click on it and go to the Amazon page and do it. There are a lot of authors who go to their Kindle and look up the book and just purchase it on there, or purchase it in other areas, and you don't get to see that. So if you're seeing other sales come in and you're not doing any other activities, you can be sure that that's probably due to that reason. And there is some of that as well. That is a real thing to take into consideration. So you want to look at your dashboard too and put those numbers align those numbers with it. And I do that as well with mine. I
Paulette Stout 53:54
think a lot of my library audio is came from my Facebook ads, because unlimited and my audio books are at the library. That's where people could get the books for free, you know, with their library card. So there's all these different like interconnected ways where your your ad success can show up in different ways. Yes,
Heidi McIntyre 54:15
yes. I think that's great
Lainey Cameron 54:18
store. Go ahead. Go ahead. No,
Paulette Stout 54:21
it's gonna read the quote, but I was gonna read the comment, but I think you were doing the same.
Lainey Cameron 54:28
We go to that one second. So yeah, Leslie's asking about how Heidi can help us. So we're coming back to that in a second. But one last content question first, which is, we'd love to hear from you, Heidi, because you've worked with many authors about some of the successes and failures you've seen with your clients. And like you know, often failures means it's not a fit for that author, right, or their book's not a fit, or whatever. Right doesn't mean you did something wrong. But we'd love to know, because it helps, it helps our authors judge whether or not it's something they should focus on. Can you give us some examples of successes and failures? Authors that you've seen,
Heidi McIntyre 55:00
yeah, I've had authors, I think in the beginning, I spent I do a couple things with authors to help them and to give them a little bit of a leg up before they get started. Is I work with them, and I use AI as a tool to find their target audience. And I have a I give them, I give them a series of questions I want them to answer. They give it back to me. I use AI to and I set it up, and then I send it over to the AI program that I'm using, and it will give me a clear target audience, including the demographics, the psychographics and the reader avatars. So it gets gives me a lot of information that I can then give to that author, and I sit down with them, so we have an idea going into it of what the target audience is, and we also it also helps me identify some of the marketing hooks too that are related to that.
Heidi McIntyre 55:54
So I start from a different position of a heads up, versus having to go in and learn it from scratch and learn it on your own, which is what I had to do back in 2022 when I didn't have that tool. So that's one, one way to do it, and I've seen that give a big advantage to the authors that I work with, but it's the ones who are patient and persistent and are willing to I have the one I told you about who just did not want to take the time. What I have, the ones who really go. I have one that goes overboard. You know, she does tons and tons of images. She looks at the ad library, she studies it, she goes, you know, she she really gets into it deeply. She's doing extremely well with her Facebook ads, because it's a time commitment that she spends in there. So authors have to look at their time commitment versus what the results that they're getting out of it. For her, it's been extremely positive. And then I have other ones that are kind of in between, but for the most part, they're gaining sales from Facebook ads. Some of them are starting to break through, but that takes time and energy, so for but I've seen more successes than failures for example.
Paulette Stout 57:07
Cool, so I am deeply indebted to Heidi for, you know, I'm a pretty tech person. I started my boosted post and, like, worked up. And, you know, she just has a really great way of working with clients and making Facebook understandable. So just want to give you an opportunity, Heidi, to talk a little bit about your services and what you offer for authors, in case they wanted to reach out and contact you. Sure.
Heidi McIntyre 57:28
I'm a book marketing coach. I spent my career in marketing. I was in food marketing, so I spent most of it in the produce industry. And then I had my own agency with a partner for about 13 years, and then I retired and went out on my own and went totally into publishing, totally switched careers. And so now I work with authors to do everything from helping them to find the target audience for their books to doing all types of marketing and promotions, marketing planning or developing a marketing plan for their book. I also help them, one on one, go through the whole process with Facebook ads. I guide them while I'm on a zoom call where we're both looking at the same portal, and I can tell them what to do and how to set it up and and also work with them for if they're doing book Bub ads or other things as well. I don't specialize in Amazon. I specialize more in Facebook and book bug ads, but I also help them with promo stacks and other types of promotions as well for their books.
Paulette Stout 58:32
So there are a lot of services out there, folks. And you know how Lainey and I always say, We do not recommend people on this show unless we have, like, use them ourselves, or we know them well and we trust them, and I trust Heidi implicitly. So if you are looking for help with Facebook ads, totally I will be hitting you up, girl again, because I'm working on finishing up my book blurbs. I'm going to start my ads up again. Reach out to Heidi. She's a baby. She's a great peeps. So let us know, Heidi, where can folks get in touch with you? You know, for your coaching and just online about your own books and things.
Heidi McIntyre 59:07
Yeah, you can go through my author site. Heidi mcintyre.com, it's backslash coach, but you can see coach in the menu too, and that's where you'll get into my coach page. And you can learn from that as well. And then you can also give them my email address too, and it's the same as my website, Heidi at Heidi mcintyre.com or you can I have a second email too that you can use. So that's the best way to reach me. I am on Instagram and in Facebook, and those are the places I cool.
Paulette Stout 59:42
So we have a very exciting episode coming up. You want to tell them about it? Lainey, a little bit?
Lainey Cameron 59:50
Sure, sure. So our next it's our next episode, right? Colette, yeah, our next episode. We're going to take on a completely non controversial. Topic and talk about AI for writers, so no controversy there whatsoever. We're gonna have a lot of fun talking about how we use AI, some of the ways you can use it. We're also going to talk about, I don't know if we call it ethical or responsible AI, but like, where we feel comfortable use it, where we don't feel comfortable using it, where we've seen authors just go to town and do great with it, where we would have recognized recommend some caution, I will tell you that I am using AI in several areas. I'm not writing using it to write my books, but I am using it in probably four or five different places right now, which I will share in that episode, and it is saving me tons of time and making things way easier on me and so and I have some theories about when it's okay and when it's not okay.
Lainey Cameron 1:00:40
So I think it's gonna be a really great episode. I think it's gonna be one where Paulette and I have a blast talking through just it's changing as you know, it's changing around us every day, right? And so I think this is gonna be a fascinating I love the episode. I love that Heidi was talking about using AI to identify your target audience. I think it's great for identifying audiences. Comps. It's really good for that, comps,
Paulette Stout 1:00:59
Comps, y'all comps is great. And, I mean, we'll talk about, I'm really excited. I'm up to my eyeballs, and I every single day at work, so, like, it's gonna be fun looking that felt like it was a time to talk about. So I say anything else, even though I really want to...
Lainey Cameron 1:01:15
But we're not doing the episode now! We'll be back. As you can tell, we're passionate about this episode. It's going to be a great conversation, whatever, whenever Paulette and I start getting up in the screen, you know that it's going to be a good conversation. So Heidi, you taught me several things here, and you've got me sitting here going like, now I want to work with you once I get my second book. IoT sign awesome. My rights back from my first one and recover it, and then...
Paulette Stout 1:01:41
Oh wow, good for you. Oh, you heard that first. Y'all, wow.
Lainey Cameron 1:01:44
Well, I have a contract that says after five years, I can get my rights back on my first book for my small publisher, and five years is in July. So Wow. Yeah, so it's going to be interesting, but it means I have an opportunity to own my book, which makes it much easier. And so, yeah, I think once I have both books, and I get through that, I definitely be interested in working more on Facebook ads. You know, exciting. It's hard when you're with a publisher. You're getting such a small percentage of it, it's really hard to make the economics work, especially on multiple books. So it gives me a better chance at that. So yeah, I'm going to be reaching out to you, Heidi, later, because I think
Paulette Stout 1:02:20
awesome lying outside. Our hands out. Help me.
Lainey Cameron 1:02:29
Okay, well, it's been a joy. We really appreciate you taking the time. I hope you get some new folks that reach out to you. As a result. We'll put all the links on the episode page, and thank you so much
Heidi McIntyre 1:02:38
awesome. Well, I look forward to that AI episode I've been I love your show. It's awesome. So thank you. It's an honor to be on here, so I appreciate it. Thanks so much.
Paulette Stout 1:02:47
Bye, everybody. Bye.