One of the first marketing plans that made sense to me, was to advertise my book in book groups on Facebook.  The people who join these groups are book fans, either writers like me, or readers. The plan seemed simple enough, what could go wrong?

In one group, even though the rules ask authors to advertise their books as they are released, my posts kept getting deleted.  They weren’t placed in a pending status. Nope. They were deleted immediately after I posted them. Not rewrites, not image changes, nothing I did changed the outcome

In many groups, I had to wait for the administrators to approve my post. I have never been good at patience. So, I would keep refreshing the group, going out several times during my day, hoping to see that my post was finally visible.

When my posts became visible, people came out of the woodwork to offer me the privilege to pay them. That, or other authors offered me congratulations. Which got me wondering… are there actually any readers in these groups? Clearly, even by offering my book for free… which it is to subscribers of Kindle Unlimited, no one seemed to jump at that offer.

As a reader, there is one thing that I don’t turn my nose up at, and that is free reading material. So, it looks like I will have to rethink my marketing strategy. In the meantime, anyone who is following the same path as me.  What have you tried? Has it worked? Let me know in the comments.