Alas, poor Facebook Ads! I knew them, Horatio…

I've used Facebook and Instagram as my primary ads platform for 9 years now, not in hopes to make big profits, but to share stories I love with as many people as I can. Over the last two years, I've noticed a steep decline in readers (1/60th of what it was 9 years ago, despite having 25x as many books!)

Currently, ads have absolutely no impact on books sold, regardless of ad copy, audience selection, and multiple trialed book blurbs. This is across Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Bookbub, Amazon Marketing Services, and more. This is unprecedented in my experience. In Facebook's case, either Facebook's audience targeting is getting worse, or my Amazon product page blurbs suck. Considering they're the same blurbs I've been using all along, I suspect the former.

I've considered posting stuff on Tiktok, but I can't body-roll (I've tried), and honestly the thought of taking videos of myself is, as a Gen-x-er, akin to removing my skin with a dull, rusty carrot peeler. My wife insists I could do it, but she's a damn Millennial, so it comes easy to her (as does body-rolling, incidentally).

I considered hiring a marketing or social media expert to do the dirty work for me, but the book marketing business appears to be 99% scams and 1% well-meaning folks who try their best but don't have any magic juice either.

I'll still publish at my usual pace of 2-4 books a year, for the love of telling stories. Freed from concerns about making graphics and ad copy and A/B testing ad campaigns and building a readership in general, I may even publish more! But given the cost of audiobook production ($3-5k per book), and that fact that I've used (dwindling) book revenue to pay for that production, I will no longer be able to produce audiobook versions of future books.

All right, enough of that. Back to writing!