Facebook and Instagram Ads for Authors

Hook readers on the world's largest social hangouts.

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(Minimum budget: $100 per week)

How much would you like to spend?
3 weeks - $200/week (build page traffic effectively) 3 weeks - $350/week (recommended for a short campaign) 4 weeks - $100/week (minimum weekly amount) 6 weeks - $350/week (optimal for ad effectiveness) 8 weeks - $150/week (maintain constant page traffic)
How many weeks to run your ad?
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Facebook Ad Quote (03.26.2023)

Campaign Development Fee $199.00
Price (excludes tax)
$0.00

Authors from all genres are seeing sales by advertising their books on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Social media advertising can be a powerful tool for self-published authors looking to promote their books and build readerships.

BookBaby will help you tap into these huge user bases by creating targeted ad campaigns for your book. You'll have our team in your corner throughout your entire self—publishing journey—not just until your book is published.

How it works

Order and specify your ad campaign

Set your weekly budget and the number of weeks you want your book promotion to run.

We create your campaign ($199 per ad)

After answering a few brief questions about your book, our social media experts will create an advertising campaign that includes professional metadata review, expert visual and copy execution, and tailored audience targeting. You’ll receive your social media ad campaign proof for approval 2-3 business days after you place your order.

Track your progress

After you approve your ad, we’ll schedule it to appear on your audience’s Facebook and Instagram news feeds. You can view and export your campaign’s performance data from your account dashboard, including the total number of times your ad has been seen, how many people have seen it, and how many people clicked through to your book’s sales page.

Facebook & Instagram Campaign Examples

Why do Facebook ads work for many authors?

Reach more readers with the world’s most powerful audience targeting tools

1.47 billion are active on Facebook every day, making it the world’s most popular social network. Each person with an account on Facebook readily shares their information: Likes, favorite movies, favorite books, favorite actors, brands, and much more. This critical information allows savvy book marketers to target people most likely to purchase their books. Advertising your book on social media creates opportunities for you to communicate directly with your readers.

Authors who advertise on Facebook and Instagram have the power to understand, attract, and engage online with more potential readers than ever before. It’s a book marketers’ dream come true!

Choose BookBaby to be your Facebook ad team

Why choose BookBaby to be your Social Media ad team?

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram can be challenging at first—especially if you don’t have general experience with social networking or book promotion. But our social media experts have the skills to create a professional ad campaign that targets readers on Facebook and Instagram likely to have interest in your book.

We’ll handle everything:

Ad Development—Our marketing experts will analyze your book metadata and target Facebook and Instagram users who are potential readers of your book.
Ad Design—We’ll then create and launch a compelling ad that leads readers straight to your book sales page.
Reporting—You can view and export data detailing your campaign’s performance from your account dashboard, including how many readers clicked through to your sales page.

I worked for seven years on a graphic novel, and contacted BookBaby on the recommendation of a friend. I have been very pleased with the customer service, as well as with the quality of the printing. I ran a Facebook ad for six weeks, and reached an audience who never would have seen my book otherwise! One of the best BookBaby features is the Bookshop sales page. I have been using social media to direct potential buyers to this page, and it is much more profitable than using other online catalogs. Working with BookBaby has been an excellent experience all the way around!

Gary, BookBaby Author

See what our customers have to say.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do Facebook Ads work and what is the cost?

You can create new campaigns or reactivate previous campaigns from this page, to extend an existing campaign please email us at distribution@bookbaby.com.
Campaigns can be ordered for any title actively enrolled in the BookBaby distribution program.
You can select your title’s BookShop or Amazon listing page as the point of purchase for each ad campaign. If you would prefer the ad point to a different sales page, you can provide that link.
You will receive a proof 2-3 business days after creating a new ad campaign order.
Please note: Advertising campaigns DO NOT guarantee book sales will occur.
A $199.00 campaign development fee will be applied to new ad orders. You will see this charge applied to your total at checkout.
In addition to the one-time $199 campaign development fee, 15% of the advertising budget is retained by BookBaby as a campaign management fee. This fee covers the execution of the ad campaign and ongoing campaign management.

In order to make the most out of your Facebook ad campaign, it is highly recommended to display the ad for the longest possible time to allow for the ads exposure to be optimized. Facebook uses an algorithm to determine the best ads to show to the best audience while also creating a good user experience, which is a continuous process of trial and error. Therefore, the longer you continue running the same campaign, the more effective and successful the campaign will become since the Facebook algorithm will attempt to show your ad to the audience who is most likely to purchase your book. For new campaigns and best results BookBaby recommends a budget of $350/per week over a 6-8 week campaign.

Why should you advertise your book on Facebook and Instagram?

Facebook has the world’s largest social network, making it the best social platform to promote your book. Since Facebook owns Instagram, it’s also included within our Facebook Ads for Authors service, expanding your book promotion opportunities to reach more readers.

How do I create a Facebook Ad?

With its huge user base and targeted marketing approach, Facebook ads can be a powerful tool for self-published authors looking to market their books and build their readerships.

To create your Facebook ad, follow these steps:

On your Projects and Orders page, click the "Ad Campaigns" link on the left hand side of your screen
On the Advertising Campaign Manager page, click "Create New Ad Campaign" next to the title you would like to advertise
Set your weekly budget, the number of weeks you would like to advertise, and the Point of Purchase
Click Create Campaign
Input your payment information and submit your order
In approximately 2-3 business days, we will issue your proof. Once you approve your proof, we'll submit your ad to Facebook to be launched on the date that you choose

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads for authors

Advertise your book titles on Facebook through BookBaby.

What?

BookBaby’s team of advertising experts will develop targeted audiences of people who might enjoy reading your books. Considering the audience demographics, our team will create professional ad imagery and copy that will best position your book in the Facebook feeds of would-be readers.

Do Facebook ads guarantee book sales?

The short answer is, no. There no guarantees that marketing activities will generate book sales; however, it is guaranteed that if you don’t market your book, you won’t generate book sales.

The biggest challenge authors face is finding readers for their books. Facebook ad targeting presents authors with the most powerful advertising resource in history and BookBaby makes it easy for authors to get started.

How?

BookBaby’s Facebook ads for authors program is a book title level advertising program. Authors can choose to advertise any title actively enrolled in eBook or POD distribution with BookBaby. To create a new ad, login to your BookBaby publishing account and access the Facebook Ad Manager area. From here, you will be able to order Facebook ad campaigns for your titles by simply selecting the title you want to advertise, adding a weekly budget and the number of weeks that you prefer. Once you submit your ad order, our team of advertising professionals will begin targeting your audience and creating your ad. In 2-3 days. you will receive your ad proof for approval Once you approve your ad proof, our team will schedule your ad with Facebook.

Cost?

$199 advertising campaign creation fee. Includes professional:

Review of your title and metadata.
Facebook audience targeting.
Ad proof.
Ad creation.

15% of budget campaign management fee

Setup and execution of ad campaign.
Ad monitoring and optimization.

Why?

There are 2.19B and growing pairs of eyeballs glued to Facebook every day and modern audience targeting tools make it easier than ever before to segment those eyeballs into lists of potential readers who might enjoy reading your books. BookBaby’s team of advertising experts spend their working days creating and managing Facebook ad campaigns and now our authors can finally leverage this expertise in effort to sell their books.

Rules:

Only available to titles actively enrolled in a BookBaby eBook or POD distribution program.
1 week/$100 minimum campaign budget.
Ad campaign sales become final once the ad proof is approved and can not be canceled or refunded. Ad campaigns canceled before proof approval will be refunded their advertising
budget but not the ad creation fee.
BookBaby Facebook ad campaigns do not guarantee book sales.
BookBaby recommends testing the market with a 2-3 week ad campaign with a $350 per week budget.

Will I see my ad on Facebook?

In short, no. Our staff is able to provide you a link via email request, but it's highly unlikely you would naturally see your ad delivered to you by Facebook by design. There are simply a LOT of ads on Facebook and a lot of advertisers bidding for your attention.

How many books will I sell?

One of the first questions we usually get from authors about our Ads for Authors program is “How many books will I sell?” The unfortunate answer is: We don’t know – it could be zero, or it could be a needle mover. You see, selling books depends on many factors, including:

How much are you able to invest in advertising, and for how long?
How active are you on social media, and how many followers do you have?
Are you doing any offline marketing activities, like book signings or giveaways?
Do you have a mailing list to whom you can promote your book?
Have you published other books before, or are you a new author?
And yes, is your book good enough to generate a buzz among readers?

All of these factors and more contribute to the effectiveness of your ad campaign. Read more

Terms and conditions: One week/$100 minimum campaign budget. All ad campaign sales final after proof approval. Ad campaigns canceled before proof approval will be refunded their advertising budget but not the ad creation fee. Ad campaign performance can be tracked from your BookBaby account in real-time. Metrics include reach, impressions, and link clicks.