I agree with your quibbles (particularly the chocolate cake one), but I think there’s something else to look at in terms of resource allocation. Historically book publishers have been notoriously and woefully - well, the only word that really fits is mingy - with marketing and PR. A few very select titles will actually have some resources devoted to their promotion, but the overwhelming majority of books published get nothing more than a few review copies sent out and that’s about it. The marketing communications strategy for most books involves getting a more famous author to read a review copy and write a flattering blurb for the back jacket or inside front (think Zadie Smith’s first novel, White TeethM/i>, and Salman Rushdie’s ringing endorsement of her as an emerging writer.

So what I’m saying is that 50 per cent of virtually nothing is also virtually nothing.

So, since I can set a very stingy daily budget, get a huge amount of exposure and get very targeted users coming through who mostly seem to sign up (many of my most frequent contributors thus far have come in via FB), I can’t really complain.

If I were paying CPM rates, I’m sure I’d be pretty choked, though.

Give them a reason to click on ads. If you want to sell products on Facebook, or Bebo, or MySpace and want to have a social web presence, register your business on Business 3.0. It’s free, and you get your business profile on three social networks (210 million users.) Check it out, my ads have been getting ‘average’ CTRs.