June 8, 2026
Author Ads: How to Open New Facebook Audience Buckets for Your Books
Right now, we know authors are the only people using Facebook ads the way we do. We send traffic ads to Amazon and hope a portion of those people buy, but we miss out on getting data regarding who bought and we fail to give Facebook that data in return.
Because we lack the buyers' email addresses, Facebook only knows it needs to send us traffic. It lacks the insight to find the exact right type of traffic.
Table of Contents
- The Amazon Bucket
- The Crowbar Technique
- Why This Matters for the Algorithm
- The Escape Bucket
- Balancing Signals to Attract Actual Readers
- Final Thoughts
Many of us have been running these ads at the same time, and Amazon has created massive demand on its own using the Kindle. Kindle is the category king here, boasting 3.4 million followers on Facebook. If you watch/write military-action thriller books or movies, you know about the concept of chatter and how algorithms harvest that chatter to predict actions or to learn new things about specific groups. Amazon as an independent entity active on Facebook generates a lot of sentiment and a lot of chatter about books.
Amazon groups marketing and buyers into buckets. My theory is we as authors are able to run our typical ads because the category king creates so much engagement, and we are just the minions trailing behind it like a comet behind a star. We are all helping Facebook identify an audience on its platform that reads books.
Sometimes it helps to look at what the category queen is doing. Promoting the Kindle device itself operates as an interest on Facebook. When we use Kindle as an interest, the people responsible for that chatter help Facebook find others interested in Kindle.
The Amazon Bucket
Let us classify that as segment number one. Bucket number one is the Amazon bucket, and it consists of readers who use Kindle, follow Kindle, or interact with Kindle content.
This means there is room to create bucket number two. If we are selling paperbacks, our audience might have nothing to do with those Kindle users, so we are tapping into a completely different space.
Consider the sheer numbers. Our category queen only has 3.4 million followers, and Facebook has billions of users.
Consider this, I care very little about the video game industry, and in my arrogance I was shocked that it's bigger than the music and entertainment industries combined. (The global gaming market is valued at $184 billion; the global box office is $33.9 billion, and the music industry is $28.6 billion; combining for just $62.5 billion.
The publishing industry is quite small in comparison, yet, we rarely have the gaming industry as a main target to dam its demand as part of our advertising strategies. (PS: For the spicy book authors in the house, believe it or not, I just learnt that there are mainstream spicy games with spice levels the same way ya'll do for your booksš ).
Anyway, this means there might be other buckets we as authors have never tapped into that might be larger than the Amazon bucket we're all obsessed with.
If all your ads live in one segment, consider testing new buckets.
The Crowbar Technique
I saw an author do this beautifully. She takes a concept entirely separate from typical book marketing, and she uses it to grab attention. For example, anger drives incredible engagement on Facebook. Right now, there is heavy sentiment and chatter around the gender wars, and you even see groups dedicated to the idea that "men are dogs."
Letās use that as our hypothetical example. The crowbar we use to open a new bucket is that exact phrase. If our book is about revenge, a psychological thriller, or a vigilante crime novel, we can tap into all this existing chatter.
The author I mentioned takes a topic like that and opens her ad with a first line that elicits emotion. If we adapt this for our own ads, that emotion might be anger or relaxation depending on our genre.
We could start with a line like, āI swore Iād never date a man again.ā We leave space so they click āread more,ā and then we provide a transition line:
āI swore Iād never date a man again, especially when my ex emptied our shared account.ā
If that happened to you, you could use a personal story, or you can pivot by letting your character give a report or introduce the reader to that life.
When we do this, Facebook ignores the Amazon bucket and goes straight to the āmen and dogsā bucket. The men and women clicking on gender war posts include a portion of readers that you want seeing your books. People are angry, commenting, and arguing, and all that activity brings down the cost of the ad.
A portion of those people will relate to this author and buy her books or audiobooks. Another portion will curse her out, and their friends will see it and curse her out too. Just like fire and water, negative energy brings positive energy, and the author benefits right in the middle.
For many of us, we might struggle to withstand that type of turmoil, but for the right person, that is a valid strategy. At the fundamental level, this technique opens new buckets outside of how authors typically advertise.
Why This Matters for the Algorithm
I am thinking this will become more and more important as time goes on. We increasingly hear authors complain that Facebook ads do not work. They say they never see fiction ads themselves. A person might spend all day on Facebook in groups like 20Books, yet they see zero ads for books.
Facebook shows you posts based on your active interests. You might see sports content repeatedly, and then Facebook will throw in a new interest. The moment you click on it, you enter a swarm and you see another one, and another one within that same niche. You activate buckets based on your immediate clicks.
I might spend three months ignoring fiction on Facebook because I go directly to Amazon to buy, so to Facebook, I am dead as a buyer. Even when I am in writing groups, I am mostly talking about craft or business and I am completely inactive as a reader.
However, I might click on gender war posts, and Facebook knows I engage with that content. My prediction is that our ability to open up new buckets will give us access to entirely new audiences.
The Escape Bucket
Let us look at another hypothetical example for people complaining they never see Facebook ads. Since 2020, people hailed the benefits of working from home, but for many of us, we struggle to turn our brains off. We are always talking about work, and fiction is the one thing that can switch it off (at least for me).
Facebook has a non-entertainment role to fulfill in this bucket. If we want to open up that audience, we need a new crowbar. Our first line could be, āI am not able to shut off my mind and it is pissing me off.ā
We need to apply the āsell the clickā principle here. If our ad image and content are not explicitly bookish, we make sure the description and headline clearly state this is a book.
Our crowbar is the struggle to shut off our mind, and we follow it with a pivot:
āI was surprised when I picked up my momās Nora Roberts book. I donāt read romance by the way. My mind suddenly shut off. I was lost for those six hoursā¦ā
Then we pivot to our own book:
āIf you struggle with an overactive mind, you'll love these small town stories, second chances, and a bit of mystery, this book is for you.ā
The book is included as a remedy for a bigger problem, and the bucket we are activating consists of people having trouble sleeping, wanting an escape, or wanting to feel good about themselves. This is a massive bucket with heavy sentiment.
Balancing Signals to Attract Actual Readers
The challenge involves making sure we attract the right people. If we use a new ad account and Facebook lacks data showing we want readers, it might find non-readers.
We need a balance between non-book content and book content. Going back to the author who inspired this idea, she posts videos of herself sitting next to stacked paperback books. The topic is non-book content, but she provides visual signals confirming this is about a book.
We want a balance of signals telling Facebook we want people experiencing this emotion while also confirming we want actual readers. This requires testing.
Final Thoughts
If you are looking for slightly off-genre ads, consider this technique. I love this authorās ads because she remains consistent. Her ads run for three months at a time, and she has a large backlist which likely helps her sustain the campaigns.
One of the signals we use to figure out if someoneās ads are working is how long they have been running. Even in this new era of Facebook ads, her campaigns run for a long time.
I would love to see more people try this out. If you have the budget to test, try a campaign with this technique, and you might successfully open up a completely different bucket than Facebook is used to opening for authors.
PS: If you create book ads and have trouble figuring out how to structure hooks, first lines, imagery, the lower-third (headline, call to action & description)...
I curated 107 romance ads and added commentary for each section to show you what works and why. Authors are using it to learn by exposure. Get it here: Romance Ads Swipe File.
Catch you later.