Where's the Beef?

On one of the linkedin author chat groups I participate in some brave soul finally asked – has anyone had experience getting book sales from their facebook page?  Guess what the answers were?  That’s right – not one person could document a single book sale as a result of having a facebook author page.

I have done numerous google searches for data on book sales and facebook.  I have not been able to find any data.  Then there is the question of buying advertising on facebook to sell books.  A number of my linkedin colleagues experimented with facebook advertising.  It’s not cheap.  Again, there was no hard data to link facebook advertising with book sales and even if there were, the cost effectiveness is murky at best.

I don’t intend to be crass and demand or have an expectation that an author facebook page generate fabulous sales.  It would be beneficial to be able to demonstrate that there is some correlation between facebook and book sales.  As an author I need to allocate my time.  Is a presence on facebook a good use of my time?  I wonder?

There is one question no one has asked.  Are those that participate in the various forms of social media readers?  If your limit is 144 characters my guess it’s unlikely you could handle more than 144 pages.  Some may argue that social media people purchase e-books.  Again, where is the data?  An e-book is only a change in format – you still need to be a reader.  While I don’t have any objective data, my guess is that if you spend a great deal of time (more than 1 hour a day) on social media, you’re not a reader.

I already have a webpage, linkedin and twitter and I’m thinking about having an author facebook page, at least on Amazon.  My solution is simply to devote the minimum amount of time to each.  If I don’t spend time working on my novel anyone finding me in the social media world won’t have a book from me to read. 

The right division of time for me is, 90% novel writing and 10% everything else – until someone can SHOW ME THE BEEF!

If you have any objective data on the relationship between book sales and social media – PLEASE – respond to this post – for now I’ve used up my 10%.