SFA 028 – Marketing Tips, Getting Book Reviews, and Advertising and SEO with Ricardo Fayet 

Ricardo Fayet, one of the co-founders of Reedsy, joined us this week to talk about book advertising, getting book reviews, search engine optimization (SEO) for authors, and other marketing tips.

Reedsy is a website that provides tools and services for authors, including a book review service and a marketplace where you can find vetted editors, cover designers, and (just added) foreign language translators. It also has informative articles and podcasts. In addition to working on Reedsy, Ricardo runs advertising campaigns and does consulting for authors, so he has a lot of experience on what’s working and what isn’t right now.

Here are some of the questions we asked him:

• Can you talk about the importance of reviews in selling books and advertising? Aside from Reedsy Discovery, what are some legitimate ways newer authors can get reviews?
• Are the paid sites like Kirkus a valuable or good place to go for reviews?
• Is it better to get reviews from existing readers or from sources not currently familiar with an author’s books?
• Is there one place in particular that authors should focus on getting reviews?
• Do editorial-style reviews like those found in blogs still have value, or should people instead focus on getting reviews on storefronts?
• Could you talk about what search engine optimization is whether it’s applicable for author websites?
• For those of us who write fiction, is it worth worrying about SEO on our blogs and websites? Is it worth putting something like an “urban fantasy short story” in the title and URL, etc.?
• Should we be optimizing for the internal Amazon search engine on our book pages?
• For websites, some SEO stuff is hidden in headers and metadata. For book pages, is there anything behind the scenes, or is all of it focused on the stuff visible on the page?
• Amazon is pretty picky about what authors put in their descriptions, etc. Do you have any tips for navigating that? What are some dos and don’ts?
• Particularly if we are writing in a niche genre, sometimes it can be tempting to include SEO terms that aren’t precisely relevant to our product/site. How wide a net should we throw for search terms?
• What are you finding works right now when it comes to Facebook ads for authors?
• You mentioned liking dynamic ads — ads where Facebook picks the audience and does the work for you. They started off a little rough. How effective are they now?
• In one of your advanced Facebook ads tutorials on YouTube, you talked about “blue ocean marketing” in regard to finding audiences on Facebook. Could you explain what that is? 
• Is there ever a case where hiring someone to run your advertisements or do other marketing for you would be a good idea?
• If you were to hire someone to do ads, how would you know if they’re doing a good job? What’s the most tactful way to follow up?
• When setting up a new marketing campaign, should it be micromanaged from the start? Is there a stage where you let it run its course before rolling in changes?
• Advertising for direct sales is what gets the most attention, because you can get very specific data on the return on your investment. Do you have any thoughts on running ads to build a newsletter or gain followers?
• How effective are you finding Bookbub PPC/CPM ads? Any tricks for getting a higher CTR?
• Beyond pay-per-click advertising, where we’re paying a small fortune per click, what do you find is working as far as marketing goes?
• How important is steady-drip marketing vs big promotional pushes? How often do you recommend authors do big pushes?
• Large-scale advertising can feel self defeating sometimes. On one hand, if you’re spending $10,000 a month to make $20,000 a month, it’s obviously not a losing proposition, but on the other hand, you’re likely spending a tremendous amount of time that might otherwise be spent writing. How does someone know if they’ve struck a good balance?
• You mentioned before the show that Reedsy is opening up to literary translators. Can you talk about how to gain a foothold in a new international market?
• When translating from English, are there certain foreign markets that are better for some genres than others?

Thanks to Ricardo for staying up late to answer our many questions! Be sure to check out Reedsy for the book formatting tool we discussed and the marketplace full of vetted professionals.

You can also visit this YouTube video for the lecture that Ricardo did last year on Facebook ads: Advanced Facebook Advertising and Marketing Strategies for Authors

Thanks for listening to the show! If you haven’t joined our Facebook group yet, here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/504063143655523/

Six Figure Authors

SFA 028 - Marketing Tips, Getting Book Reviews, and Advertising and SEO with Ricardo Fayet 

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