Almost every book marketing eBook I read says I should get out on Facebook and spew information on my current books. “Set up a Facebook Page for each book or series.”

Now that Facebook has changed their algorithm, is it worth the time for an author to post about their books? Lets take a look at some statistics.

I have an official Facebook Author Page over at
http://www.Facebook.com/SpeculativeFictionAuthor

The current number of folks who “liked” the page is 420. Every time I post something on my blog, it auto-posts to Facebook on the author page.

Taking a look at the statistics conveniently provided by Facebook, it appears my last post went out to a total of three people.

420 members on the page, 3 received the post…which means my “reach” for the page is 0.0071428571428571, or a whopping 0.7%.

Less than three-quarters of a percent.

Is it worth the time? If you’re George Takei, maybe. Even a million followers at that rate means 7,142 people will have an opportunity to “see” the post.

Earlier in Facebook’s history, they did their best to help you build up a following. Once that was done, they changed their algorithms to force folks to “pay to play” if they wanted their posts to get out to the folks who signed up.

Big corporations have the marketing muscle to do it. The vast majority of authors I know don’t have the spare cash to spend on promoting every tiny thing they write to get it in front of the eyeballs that signed up because they were interested.

If you have a Facebook Author Page, go look at your own statistics. You’ll most likely be surprised at how awful your “reach” is.

So to answer the original question: Is Facebook Pages worth your time?

In my opinion, the answer is no. I won’t waste the time I should be writing to post something on Facebook. Yes, I’ll leave the auto-post linkup, because I don’t mind that it gets sent over automagically.

As told to me in great depth by Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Kristine Katherine Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, and a host of other top-tier authors — the best thing you can do to promote your work is to write the next book.

I’ll be over by the window, watching the squirrels fight and writing another story.