Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh—at Facebook. Hell bent they are on squeezing every last drop from Page features that used to be free. But hey, that’s biz. So I signed up to use this image, my new Page banner, to promote my forthcoming book, Death Brew. In designing the ad you are allowed to ID a variety of elements to help reach an optimal audience—including the countries where you want the ad to appear. I chose Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the US. Imposter was set in Saudi, Death Brew in Germany, and the US is the heart of my market for English speaking readers.

My reach from the ad was fantastic, more hits of every kind than I’ve ever had before. Unfortunately, most were in Arabic, most from Saudi, and many from other countries like Yemen, Oman, and all over Arabia–97% from these countries, to be exact.

So now I have a huge following in counties where the majority does not speak English and where alcohol is banned. In reflecting back on the ad, it is easy to see why so many FB users in these counties were enthralled enough to engage this post—it looks like I am about to introduce a new beer, not a book, to the world—go figure. Can’t wait to see how many orders I get from this part of the world.

And of course you cannot contact FB directly. Help is only available through their chatrooms, so no clear reason could I find to answer the question, why didn’t my ad go in equal measure to the countries I requested, and how did they end up in so many countries in Arabia.

Lessons to be learned here, but not sure which ones.