Review Group discussion

So I've used the Goodreads self-serve ads before, with limited success on the actually-buying-my-book side of things. This time, I got curious about those bigger ads you see all the time and decided to contact Goodreads for information.

I received a message back, saying that if I have a $5000/month budget, they could help me out. For less than $5000/month, they recommend the self-serve ads.

I, um, don't have $5000/month, so I guess that's right out. Just thought I'd share that with the group, as many of us are looking for advertising opportunities.

Yeah that is insane. I tried the self-serve ads, just with $10. I figure even if it doesn't result in sales it might have some sublimal effect, people seeing my book so many times.

Out of curiosity, how do those work? What kind of budget did you throw at it? I'm thinking about it, but I just haven't got a clue at the moment...

I've done three, with limited results. Basically, you go to your author page and scroll down to the "advertise your book" tag. On that page, you fill in the required info, including uploading a picture and choosing a budget. I've done $100 - $150 at a time at .50 a click.

Some things to know:
1) The higher you set your price-per-click, the more times your ad will get shown
2) "Views" is how many times the ad shows up on peoples' pages
3) "Clicks" is how many times someone actually clicks on the ad, and that's what you get charged for
4) "Adds" is how many people actually added it to a shelf.
5) You may want to target the ad to specific genres or specific authors (people who read those authors) but I've found that the broader my ad, the better it seems to work.
6) It will result in adds to peoples' to-read shelves, but not directly to sales, since many people don't buy those books until sometime down the road. It's an investment in exposure, I think.

My last one resulted in a hundred or so adds, but my current one is poking along. The good thing is, you can go back in and adjust things any time, including your description, graphic, etc.

Thanks, that's very helpful. I didn't find the actual GR page about it very useful at all. I might consider this at some point if I have $150 to throw away!

You can certainly try it for less, and set it at less per click - it's up to you, and it's easy enough to set up. I also advertise on Blogads.com, by the way - they act as a kind of interface with a number of blogs and you can choose specific book-related blogs. Some are cheaper and some are more expensive. Once again, not a lot of sales from that right off the bat, but a few.