It is surely one of the most popular social media platforms nowadays. But let's see if it would be a wise strategy to sell your ebooks through Facebook.
So today's question was, can writers sell their ebooks directly through Facebook store rather than through something like Amazon KDP? Well, that's an excellent question.
The first thing that makes this a little tricky is the fact that there are just so many options of places to sell your books. So where exactly should you start?
Check out my free self-publishing secrets checklist and that should get you started. This is the one that has helped me publish over 170 books so far. So back again onto the social media.
The problem is we just don't know which one to do. Are we going to go to a Facebook store to sell or Amazon, Lulu, IngramSpark, Drafts2Digital, Smashwords? There is a pile of different places that we can sell.
I don't know if Instagram or maybe other places also are going to try to come up with the equivalent of stores. So, I can tell you that when I first started, it was recommended that we start with Amazon.
Check out this related article: How Do You Publish A Book On Amazon?
I was working through a book or a course and that's exactly where everybody should start, it is finding people who have already sold a lot of books. Those who have put a lot of books on the market and are familiar with the different options. Those who have tested things out of it.
Facebook Was Not For Me
So for me, I started with Amazon but then I was listening to other people. Particularly fiction sellers who are commenting on how wonderful Facebook, at least running Facebook ads was working for them.
And so I tested that out as well to see if maybe I could sell my ebooks directly through Facebook. Now, it wasn't a Facebook store but it was on Facebook ads. I gave it a try and I noticed the cost started going up over time.
That suggested to me that this probably was not going to be a great strategy. So the answer is that Amazon is one of the top 5 search engines on the earth. It is where we want to primarily sell our book.
Because when people go to Amazon, they are generally going to be looking for that Kindle book or that ebook. They most likely have an account set up. They have got the money out and they are ready to pay immediately whenever they see the book and they are interested in buying.
Check out this related article: Which Ad On Amazon Works Best?
Whereas with Facebook, there are additional steps required if you are going to run the ads on Facebook. Then, that also creates a bit of a problem because the price of the ads cuts deeply into the sales of your books.
That is unless we are dealing with what we called traffic, people who already want to buy your book. Then, it can be a useful way for previous customers to get in contact with them. Let them know that you have a new book out.
Facebook may be useful in that sense. For some people who have huge email lists, Facebook is a winner for them. So, that is not too bad.
One other thing that I think that is also important here to remember is that when you are publishing on Amazon we are only talking about the ebooks. So you are going to go through KDP select so you can run ads directly to those kindle ebooks on Amazon.
Pushing Your Sales
But with regards to your paper books, you could try all sorts of stuff, I like IngramSpark. I like to use Lulu for my hardbacks.
If you wanted to try pushing hardback or pushing hardback book sales through Facebook, that may also be a strategy that can win for you. Everything works differently for everybody but some patterns emerge.
So for your ebook, we are going to want to get that on to Kindle onto Amazon KDP, right? On KDP select where we can run ads and that will help push our sales or our Paperback books as well.
Check out this related article: Are Paperbacks Lower Quality Than Hardcover Books?
Besides, the ads like we were saying here, we are going to push the ads on Amazon. I just wanted to make that clear, we are just going to just throw out books without running ads against them. That's a key issue if you wish to make more money.
What about you, what have you found? Have you found other locations to be helpful as KDP? If you haven't done KDP, have you had a success using maybe Drafts2Digital or Smashwords?
Like I also tried Smashwords going wide or even selling on other locations. There's a whole series of things that you can do.
Leave a comment below and let me know. Click out the link to my other blogs and videos where I answer your questions on helping you make self-publishing easy.