From almost every measurable point of view, my new Facebook advertising campaign is a smashing success. In just a couple of months, we’ve reached well over 100,000 people and gained more than 4,000 new friends who like the Facebook page. According to the advertising consultant I’ve hired, we are absolutely killing it on the cost per click at only about 3 cents per click.
In fact, the only measurable input that isn’t absolutely breaking records is actual book sales. While The God Conclusion recently cracked the Amazon Top 100 books in the Religious Studies — Science and Religion category, sales continue to lag well behind the trajectory of the advertising campaign. If only ten percent of the people who like the Facebook page bought the book, I’d have more than twice as many sales as I currently do. It’s only been on sale for two weeks, but I’m not ever going to be able to retire on these numbers. I’m only kidding about retirement–I intend to keep writing until I die–but writers do like to be rewarded for the fruit of their labors with book sales.
Thus far, I’ve had one published book review through a campaign I ran at a company called Book Sprout, and I expect another review to go live at any moment because the person who left the review told me how he rated my book. Frankly, I’ll soon have two published reviews, and neither of them will give the potential reader an accurate portrayal of what my book is about. In the case of the Book Sprout review, that reviewer rated the book four stars, which is good. However, the reviewer in question downloaded the book on one day and published her review the very next. My book is 551 pages long. Even allowing for a long appendix full of footnotes, that’s a lot of book to read in review in a single twenty-four hour period.
The second review came from the free book giveaway I’ve been offering to get honest reviews, and that review came from a frequent critic of the page. Frankly, I didn’t expect to get more than three stars, but he’s informed me that he only gave my book two stars. Had I known he was a big fan of Aron Ra before giving him a free copy in exchange for a fair review, I might have had second thoughts about it, but on the other hand, I believe a range of ratings reflects an honest audience, not just a crowd of sycophants. So, I’m not going to lose a whole lot of sleep over one negative review, in part because I still think the guy gave me his honest opinion–he was just so horribly biased that he was never going to be a fair judge of the contents.
The book giveaway is still live; we’re about halfway there at this point so it will be going on for another day or two. Several more copies of the book have been freely and cheerfully given away to potentially hostile critics, based on their reactions to the Facebook page. So, I don’t expect this to be my only two-star review, or worse. That’s okay, as long as most of the reviews are honest, and three stars or higher.
If you’d like a free copy of The God Conclusion to read in exchange for an honest review published on Amazon, message me your email address and I’ll send back a link to DropBox, and you can download the book from there.
If you’ve already bought the book, thank you, and thank you for reading it. If you’d be so kind as to leave your honest opinion and a rating at Amazon, I would sincerely appreciate it. At the moment, I can’t really think of anything to give you in return for the review because you’ve already got a copy of the book, but if you stick around, eventually I’ll probably think of something.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
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