Books, Books, And MORE Books!

Do you have Kindle Unlimited (KU) through Amazon? If you don't, and you like to read, you need it! Like, NOW! You can check out 10 books at a time (for those that like to jump around), and it's only $9.99 a month. Once you are done reading, you return it and check out another, like a library. Those that read a lot save so much money, me included. Not all books are offered on KU, but there are enough to make it worth while. It's also a great way to learn about new authors that self publish and don't have physical copy books. You don't need a special Kindle to use it either, there is an app you can download on most devices.

With all the fancy algorithms associated with Facebook and your browsing history, after a while, book ads will start to pop up. These ads will include something small, like a simple sentence up to a whole chapter out of the book. Also, there will be an image. There are times where the pictures will be hilariously photoshopped (most of the time with fantasy books), or sexy shirtless men (yay romances). The ads most of the time are sponsored by the author themselves. I have seen people post comments and the author will reply back.

Most of the time, the ads won't say how much a book is. I have read an ad, got super excited, clicked the link, and the book is $4.99, or it's on preorder and won't be out for six months. But, then if you scroll down just a little more, after clicking the ad, Amazon will suggest similar books, or books others have purchased that also bought that book. If you are anything like me, this leads to hours looking at books instead of reading them.

How can I spend hours looking at books when I can only check out 10 at a time? Amazon lets you download samples. You can also choose where these samples go if you have one account on multiple devices. This comes in handy for me because I read some crazy stuff and don't want to fill my husband's phone up with books he has no interest in. I have hundreds of books waiting to be read. Some of them are series and I am waiting for all the books to be out before I start.

Now that I have spent so much time looking through all these books, I'm sure you can figure out what this does to my Facebook ads. Pretty much all of them are books at this point.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I am also in over 1,000 groups. Many of those groups are, you guessed it, about books! They are pretty specific genres of books rather than general reading. My favorites are romance books. But even in that one category, there are a ton of subcategories. I don't read so much of the contemporary stuff. I'm more into paranormal, dark, and taboo. These groups make it easy to find like minded people and then to find books I'm in the mood for. People are always asking for recommendations. Visit the comment section, and I'll end up adding another 20 book samples to my app. Clicking the links of course just adds more information for those Facebook targeted ads.

Not all the book ads I get are for Amazon. There are other sites for authors to self publish on. Most of those will include a long excerpt or a weird scrolling text video. There have been ones that seem interesting, but what I read in the ad is filled with grammar and spelling mistakes so I don't see the point in spending the money to read the whole book. The images they attach are always funny and to the extreme though, so they are fun to get on occasion. I've learned the hard way not to click the actual link though because then my ads change up and I start getting those instead of the Amazon ads.

I know most people get annoyed with ads on Facebook. I feel like I can't really complain since I am not paying anything to use the site. But as long as the ads are for things that actually interest me, keep them coming!