Duncan P. Pacey's Blog

When I was growing up, I knew I wanted to be a content creator. I was obsessed with YouTube, guzzling content from the likes of Seananners, Tobuscus, Yogscast, Rooster Teeth, Freddy Wong…etc. Teenage Duncan fecking loved them, although some of it would make me cringe now. Back then, movies were dope too. And games were …

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“Grung: A Frog Wizard” recounts the exploits of quite an unusual little character – a small red frog wearing a big thick jumper and a floppy wizard hat, who calls himself a “powerful wizard”. Except, this powerful wizard never quite knows what’s happening and seems to exist within a world of his own, not bound …

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The Overlords are a constant presence in the Waste. Everyone knows who they are, nearly everyone is afraid of them. But what are they? Introducing the Overlords The Overlords are a sentient race of robots that have been around since before the Old World went out for cigarettes and never came back. We don’t know …

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The Orcklands: A sprawling nightmare of a city, apparently. But is this a real place, and if so, where are the Orcklands in reality?

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YouTube SEO could help your gaming channel grow without you needing to promote it. But it's going to take some work - here's what you have to do.

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Sound can make or break a film. It might seem like a cliche thing to say, but after seven years of making and watching 48HOURS movies, I can honestly say that some of the worst to get through are those with big, dead silences, either where music or key sound effects were missing. But if …

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The 48HOURS film competition takes place across New Zealand every year, and is simultaneously one of the best and worst things a person can do to themselves. I’ve competed in the comp every year since 2011 under the names Two Big Tools and Tomorrow Today (with the exception of 2011, which I genuinely don’t remember), …

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With 2.2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is prime real estate not just for spying on your friends, but for advertising your book.

Facebook Ads Manager is an extraordinarily powerful tool for comedy authors and non-comedy authors alike. It lets you drill into teensy weensy details about your audience,  set all sorts of configuration options to target only those who matter, and press buttons of myriad other manners to get the most reach out of the least spend.

Now to be fair,  Facebook ads are easy enough to figure out that you could just hit buttons and probably get some kind of result. But if you want to do it right … maybe just look at some of my tips below.

We’ll cover:

How to write the right ad copy
What kind of images to use
How to find and target your audience
How to manage your budget

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Ad copy

Strong Facebook ad copy doesn’t feel like an ad. It feels like a normal post that just so happens to be Sponsored. You can’t scream “BUY NOW” because nobody will click. But you can ask questions, plug into trends, start a conversation, and then link back to your book in the process.

What should my ad copy say?

People don’t go to Facebook to buy products.

People don’t go on Facebook to buy products. Keep this in mind throughout your advertising experience. You aren’t talking to customers with their wallets open, you’re talking to people who just wanted to engage with their social community, or read some cool articles, or more than likely, look at dank memes. So if you suddenly appear in their timeline as “BUY THIS RN” then you’re going to be ignored.

If your ad drives a conversation, it’ll perform better. You must engage people by talking with them, by offering more than just a product, or by building a curiosity gap. Buying should be their idea, not yours.

Consider:

“This new comedy book from author Duncan P. Pacey is only $2.99! Buy now!”

vs

“Feeling cold this winter? This new comedy book is perfect to hide under a blanket with. And 70% off until Feb 12, too! :O”

Which would you click? The latter plugs into a trend (in this case, the weather), and doesn’t say “Buy now” but compels someone to think that themselves. It also uses the long-held advertising trick of setting a time limit. The emoji, too, makes it more post-like and less ad-like.

Pro ad copy tips for book marketing

Some experts recommend mentioning price or discounts if that’s relevant. E.g. if you’re running a Kindle Countdown Deal, you could mention the percentage off, and the new price (like the e.g. post above).
Recycle existing posts where possible. One trick I use for “Smack-dab” is recycling the same boosted post, because it already has likes and comments on it. So when somebody sees the ad, they see that it has already been liked – which encourages trust.
Put your hyperlink, CTA and price in the ad’s description, not the post ad copy. In every ad, there’s the ad copy at the top, and a post description and CTA button at the bottom. Spur conversation at the top, and drive clicks with “Shop now” or similar at the bottom. You’ll see better engagement that way.
Don’t spam hashtags. One or two is fine, but don’t use more.
Test alternatives. Create two of the same ad with different copy and see which performs better – then run with the one that does best! Testing is always a good thing.

What makes a great #social ad? Slap on those scrubs, gloves and a face mask, because it’s time for an anatomy lesson. https://t.co/Or8ZerlgFs pic.twitter.com/Bc2sQuzMnN

— Castleford (@castlefordmedia) February 8, 2018

Ad imagery

Ad images should be eye-catching, interesting, unique and relevant to the copy.  BUT, they shouldn’t be clogged up with text. In fact, Facebook will reject your ad submission if the picture contains more than 20 percent text.

Facebook will reject your ad submission if the picture contains more than 20 percent text.

Pro ad imagery tips for book marketing

Use your book cover art. Book covers are meant to help sell a book and make it stand out, so use it for Facebook, too! Crop it down to the correct size (1,200×628 pixels) and let it speak for itself.
Don’t use obviously stock photos. Everyone has seen stock images before. They’re the cringe-worthy cliches of the images world. Use unique images only, whether that’s art, photos you took yourself, or images you have modified.
If you use video instead of photos, remember that FB will play it without sound – so make captions.

[image error]Cover art makes excellent Facebook book marketing material. Just remember the right size: 1,200×628 pixels.
Audience targeting

Facebook’s audience targeting settings are wonderful. Glorious, even. And it pays dividends to use them.

When you’re setting up your ad (whether on your Facebook Page or in Ads Manager), take time to go through the audience settings. Create a new audience and answer these questions:

What age range is most appropriate for your novel? Set this wider to start – you can make changes in real-time, so if you find that 35-45 isn’t engaging as much as you thought but 18-29 is selling like wildfire, you can update your ad to target only the latter.
Where in the world do you want to target? Targeting the whole world at once isn’t always best because you increase your competition starkly. But if you’re running a Countdown Deal on Amazon.com, you could focus mostly on a US audience. Or if your book is home-grown Kiwi goodness, try targeting only New Zealand and leveraging local patriotism. If you really just don’t know who to target specifically, target all the countries that speak your book’s language then drill down over time like your age ranges.
What is your book about? You can target specific interests with Facebook, which means you can talk only to people who have a genuine interest in your genre/theme/world (or whatever). Pick as many as is relevant – you can always update it as you go, whether to increase or decrease the list. For ultimate targeting, choose “Narrow audience” and add further interests to this list. For example, my “Smack-dab” ads target a broad range of relevant interests, but I narrowed it to “Apocalypse and Post-apocalypse” so I only talk to people who have an interest in my genre AND one or more of my general interests. This increases the chance that the people who see your ad are the people who are actually interested in your book.
Bonus tip: A good audience size is 1 million, so expand your interests until you reach that many people.

In Ads Manager, you can change a raft of other settings. But for now, that’s the simplest place to start for beginners.

Managing budget

I cannot stress this enough so I’m going to repeat it three times:

You need sales, not just likes.

You need sales, not just likes.

You need sales, not just likes.

It’s easy to get carried away when checking the results of your book ad. You’ll see “X thousand” impressions and “Y clicks” and be like, “Holy balls, I’m going to be a best-seller by tomorrow!”. But impressions and clicks are costing you money, not making it. You need those clicks to turn into buyers (that’s called a ‘conversion’).

Now, engagements are very important – they can spread your ad to others users, build trust and spark conversation, but they aren’t revenue. So if you’re getting thousands of hits but no sales, something is horribly wrong.

I’m getting impressions but not clicks – what do I do?

People are seeing your ad but not engaging with it. Follow these troubleshooting instructions:

Does your ad image follow best practice listed above?
Does your ad copy follow best practice listed above?
Do you have an appropriate CTA and ad description? (i.e. “Send message” is not appropriate for selling a book, but “Learn more” or “Shop now” would be more commanding).

I’m getting clicks but not sales – what do I do?

This could be an issue with the landing page users are clicking through to. Your book description might need revamping, you might need to accrue more reviews (Hint: If you have only one or two, try get more before spending ad money), your price could be too high for your genre niche, or the mechanics of buying the book could be too difficult – this wouldn’t be an issue on the Kindle store, but might be so if you’ve hosted your book on your own website or an unfamiliar platform.

Other ways to keep your budget down

This is slightly more advanced, but set a Rule in Ads Manager to limit “Frequency” to two or less. Frequency refers to the amount Facebook will show one individual your promotion. An AdEspresso study showed that the higher above two your Frequency, the less likely folks are to click (it’s called ‘ad fatigue’). Considering you’re still paying for those users to view the ad, limiting your Frequency can help cut those wasted impressions.
If you aren’t converting in certain ‘Placements’ (e.g. Messenger, Instagram), cut out your low performers and focus on your best. This could, again, slice away wasted impressions.

Got your own Facebook advertising tips that will work for new authors? Leave a comment below and be sure to share this article with your new-writer friends.

 

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This article originally appeared on Facebook as a Note.

You know, this sorta time last year, I wrote one of these Note thingies about the year that would be 2017. I had Big Plans, and I achieved literally only one of them (publishing Smack-dab).

This year, I am walking into the future a little bit more aware of what I’m actually capable of, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as starry-eyed and dreamy as I was back then. I’m just, you know, smarter.

So what’s the plan for 2018?


Smash out another sweet Waste novel. I’m already 31,000 words into my next book, which is a post-apocalyptic detective adventure comedy set in the Waste. While it doesn’t involve Smack-dab, I think you’ll love the change of setting and the different take on life after the end of all life. You can see a sneak peek of the new setting in my short story “Things That Go Bump”.
Get the first version of my board game ready for proper testing. I’ve kept it largely secret from Facebook for some reason (mostly because I forgot that I hadn’t mentioned it), but oh yeah, I’ve been working on a board game for the past few months. It’s called “Build a Farm/Don’t Die” and it’s a post-apocalyptic competitive farm-building card game set in the Waste (you can probably guess the premise from the title). The pre-alpha tests have been supremely fun, and I’ll be pushing to get a proper alpha up and running to really progress it this year.
Do something with turquoise. #RickandMorty reference.
Something something something animation. My goal last year was to get to a point where I could balance writing novels with making cartoons. Turns out I couldn’t, but Ima try again. I’ve got some very, very exciting ideas planned for my YouTube channel, so stay tuned and hopefully I’ll have a pilot episode ready this year to test out if my plan is feasible.

Phew! It’s gonna be a big year. But you know what they say. Go big or go home, right?

Yay stuff!

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It’s your new book, it’s daunting af, you have no idea what to do. You need a process, and I’m here today to offer you some tips to figure out the best process for you, from professional authors I’ve researched and from my own personal experience as a comedy writer.

Today we’re going to break the new-book writing process into three sections:

Planning
Time management
Completing the book

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This will work for fiction, non-fiction, articles or any other type of writing – process is largely universal.

Let’s get started.

Part 1: Plan your new book

If you’re new to writing, taking the time to sit and think about it could help it from becoming long-winded, nonsensical or riddled with plot holes.

An outline – that is, a document that sets out the various story “beats” (plot points) in simple language – will help you stay on track, appropriately set up the story to come, and keep your characters going in the right direction. Strong character bios can also guide their interactions with other characters, and their reactions to drama.

That said, some authors don’t use an outline at all. Author Steven James is even quoted as saying an outline is “counterintuitive” to good process. Writing without a plot is more freeing, and allows you to put your characters in a situation, then follow their natural instincts to find the way out. You’ll likely come up with more interesting story structure this way, and perhaps a more realistic plot.

Key lesson: There are no rules, but you’ll need to find what works for you. If you’re struggling to see ahead in the plot, sit back and plan it out. If writing an outline is bumming you out, just go wild and write a chapter. You’ll know what feels right when you do it.

What’s my process for planning?

I plan everything, then throw it all out the window when I write.

Before I wrote “Smack-dab“, and I’ve done this for my new book “Sievert & Gray, Detectors” too, I plotted out what the Waste looked like, who occupied it, what it’s history is, who my main characters are, and then a beat-by-beat outline of the plot itself. All of this helped me figure out what came before my story, so I could plan out what came next.

But, when I actually sat down and wrote the stupid thing, I threw most of it in the trash.

Personally, I find this to be the best balance – planning an outline to guide how you start and where you’re going, but allowing yourself to diverge from it if you think a character, now that they are fleshed out, wouldn’t act in the way you had foreseen.

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Part 2: Manage your time

British novelist Zadie Smith suggests “[protecting] the time and space in which you write.” She recommends that writers keep other people away from this precious time, even if they are important to your life.

Writing takes time, and you’re going to find it difficult to balance this monumental task between working to pay the rent or mortgage, hanging out with your family and friends, raising children, or whatever other tasks life throws at you.

One thing to remember, though, is that while writing is important, all of these other things are, too. Isolating yourself from your family is going to make you as unhappy as not writing.

Key lesson: The real lesson here is to isolate pockets of time that are free to be isolated, then making sure everyone important knows and respects this time. From now until you’re rich and famous, this will be your book time.

What’s my process for time management?

I learned about time management the hard way.

When I first set out to write “Smack-dab” in the second half of 2015, I was working full-time in a job that left me feeling drained after hours, and struggling to fit writing in with all the other things I enjoyed – not least of which was seeing my girlfriend, whom I began to inadvertently neglect.

The way through it for me was creating a routine. I moved from writing sporadically whenever I could to setting aside an hour each day to push forwards. At first it was after work, but I realised that before work was easier for me, and it made me feel good for the rest of the day. So now I get up at 6 a.m. each day and write for an hour before getting ready for work and leaving.

I also took the opportunity to change my working life to better suit my creative life. I changed to a four-day week about a year ago and now spend an entire day a week self-employed. Essentially, I didn’t wait for better opportunities to write – I made them.

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Part 3: Get it done

No writer has ever succeeded without publishing their work.

Bestselling writer Jennifer McMahon, in a Writer’s Digest column, advises readers to stick with their project no matter what.

“You’ll be tempted to give up a thousand and one times,” she says. “Don’t. Finish the story. Then work twice as hard to revise it.”

Feeling shit about your work is part of the writing experience, and there’s a 110% chance you’ll hate what you’ve written after you’ve written it, then you’ll edit it, like it a bit, hate it a bit more, then edit it again. Maybe us writers are all slightly manic, but I suppose that goes with the territory when you’re scrawling a piece of your soul onto paper.

You don’t even need to publish your first book. McMahon wrote four before she finally published her first novel. I wrote most of a superhero book in 2014 before scrapping it entirely and moping for another year before attempting “Smack-dab” – but it was all a learning process.

Key lesson: Be like Rick Astley – never give up. Push through. Finish it. Finish something. Bloody anything, just finish it.

What’s my process for getting work done?

First and foremost, I power through every doubt I have.

Sometimes I go back and heavily edit what I’m writing because I feel self-conscious about it, but I know in the back of my head that I can’t ever finish if I never move forwards.

So I remind myself of a few things (almost constantly).

This quote by Terry Pratchett: “The first draft is just telling yourself the story.” First drafts don’t have to be good, and goodness knows I feel deep sorrow for my girlfriend Nushka, writer Oxford J. Lamoureaux, and Smack-dab cover-designer Calum Beck for having to suffer through Smack-dab Draft One. It was ass on paper, but it got the story down and it meant I could begin shaping it into something better.
Leave the desk: If I feel exponentially shit, or I’m suffering mega writer’s block, I leave the desk. Go for a walk. Do some chores. Read a book or play a game. Hang out with someone. Basically, anything to take my mind off my work so I come back with a fresh perspective.
Get good feedback: It helps to have third parties read your work, especially other writers. Talk to your peers or go to writing workshops and engage with other people, who will give you feedback on your prose. I found that this showed me the things that worked and the things that didn’t, and sometimes the things that worked were things I thought didn’t, and vice versa.
It’ll never be perfect: I don’t believe I’ll ever feel my work is truly perfect, so I don’t strive for it to be. I work hard to make it good – to make it engaging, funny, and worth someone’s time and money. If I can achieve those three things, it doesn’t need to be perfect, just finished.

Do you have more ideas on good writing process? Leave your advice in the comments below to help out your fellow readers!

 

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