THANK YOU! Fixed!

Sandy

Unless I blinked a bit too long, the year is wrong. 🙂

Mili, essentially, you can put anything you want on your Page, but if it looks like you’re trying to sell something, Facebook wants you to pay for an advertisement to get that message out, instead. That means that if your Post today says, “My book is on sale on Amazon today for $.99! Here’s the link!” fewer people are going to see that post than they would if today’s post was, “Wow! My book is at #10 in its category on Amazon today! I’m so excited!” — and that’s posted with a link to your Amazon page so everyone can see your rank (and perhaps buy the book while they’re there). AND, even more will see it if you put “My book is on sale on Amazon today for $.99! Here’s the link!” in an ad that you buy.

#5 in the best practices is about advertising. The tiger post wasn’t an ad — it was a post. In #5, Facebook is saying, “Buy ads when you’re running a sale,” not “write a post about your sale when you’re running a sale.” A post is free; an ad costs you $$. Facebook is trying to force you to buy an ad when you’re selling something.

I hope that helps!

Sandy

I am a bit confused. When I have an event, I let everyone know about it on Pages. If I have a new product coming out, I let everyone know. I’m excited, so I think people who like my page and my work would be excited, too. At this moment I’m having a countdown to my first online Book Launch Party and I’m letting people know. Every day I post a different picture with the Launch Page’s link–is this advertising?

Pages are for businesses, therefor if I like a page and they have a new video or something coming out, I would be interested to know about it. Honestly, what Facebook is doing makes no sense.

How is Number 5. in “Best Practice” list any different from the tiger post?

Thanks, Melissa. Whether you’re traditionally or self-published, you’re responsible for promoting your book. Sometimes that involves experimenting to see what does and doesn’t work, or changing how you execute a tactic to use it more effectively.

Sandy

I do not agree totally on this. I am both traditionally published and self-published. Facebook have been restricting our feed for the last year. I have almost 700 likes on my author page and I reach 20 at the most. Newbie authors need nurturing, I agree but they are not all self published. Publishing houses basically leave you out there on your own, you still have to pay for marketing and an FB page helps to spread the word. I’ll give you a self published author who hit the New York Times list twice this year, she is an international best seller, Melissa Foster. She relies heavily on her FB page as many of us do. I am in an author forum group and we already have a Google+ page set up because of this, I will shut my page down and never use FB ever again if this persists. I thought we lived in a world of free speech, its okay to post ads relating to products on your side bar, FB are fine with that because you pay to do so. This is nothing to do with making your feed better, or more friendly, its about forcing authors to pay to post, eventually we will have no choice. Incidentally, I NEVER send a ‘like my page’ to new friends, if they want to then fine. I never bribe anyone into liking my page and I certainly do not post links to my books unless asked. The only thing I share are my reviews, because I am proud of my work and love hearing that a reader enjoys it. My advice to new authors, join a forum group, get as much support as possible, because once you are out there, its nothing short of a vicious, dog-eat-dog catfight.

I’m glad it was helpful, Clint.

Sandy

Raven, you sound like me! I agree. I immediately unfriend anyone who writes a promotional post on my wall as soon as I accept a friend request.

I think some of the newbie self-published folks are following the examples of their peers who have had no advice, so they’re doing it all wrong. People say to them, “Oh, you should be on Facebook!” or “You should be on Twitter!” Rather than take the time to learn how to use social networks appropriately, they just jump on and post links to book sales pages on Amazon.

Sandy