Is William selling crap?

If you're not currently thinking about or in the process of writing a book, you may want to skip this post. This is for those who are. 

It's been awhile since I last posted about my experience with Click Testing for Authors (CTA); a course teaching those planning to run ads to sell their books how to create more effective ads. In my case, in support of The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn, followed by the second and third editions to be released this fall, and spring 2026.

As creative as you might think you are, you don't just slam pretty pictures together with words you're certain will the cause the public to buy your book. Much more often than not they won't.

The CTA approach is a slow, methodical progression testing individual ad elements defining who the target consumer actually is along with what you should say to them. This includes testing slogans, headlines, testimonials, and images, first separately, and later, putting the "winners" together in ads you also test. And as if that weren't enough, you have to do this within Meta's ad manager, itself a daunting task.

How hard can that be?

The image you see in this post is just partially showing one of approximately 30 inputs for just one ad, in just one section, of one of six separate tests. In my case, five variants to twenty-two variants in each of those six tests.

It's hard!

None of this guarantees I will sell more books. As the course says, if my books are crap the course won't fix them, nothing will. But if they are good, and I've created good ads, there's still the need to spend money running the ads.

You have to pay to play.

I'm satisfied, often surprised with what I've learned writing Raymond's story, and now Shelly's, including that coming from the CTA course.

Time will tell if I'm trying to sell crap.