It has been nearly five years since I left a full-time marketing corporate job to create AdvertiseMint and journey into the world of Facebook advertising. We often joke in our office that working in Facebook advertising feels like dog years. Every year that goes by feels like seven years because things move and change so quickly with Facebook. I understand the landscape constantly changes and that it can be frustrating when you’re trying to figure things out. I created this book to teach you how to advertise on Facebook. This book exists because of the efforts of several people. I want to thank those individuals who helped make this book a reality.
Anne Felicitas, Editor
Thank you for working hard to meticulously edit the book and to provide content. You made this book perfect. Thank you.
The AdvertiseMint Team
I’m blessed to work with an amazing team. The office vibe is somewhere between a championship team and a family. I love what we have created and the things we accomplish for our clients. You were all an integral part in completing this book. Thank you.
Our Facebook Representatives
Thank you for the endless explanations, conference calls, and emails that helped me understand the inner workings of Facebook’s advertising platform. This book has cutting-edge knowledge of Facebook advertising because of you. Thank you.
Our Clients
It’s an honor to be entrusted with the task of growing your business. I am grateful to be a part of that journey. Thank you.
Arnold Meert & Laura Meert
You taught me to always do my best. That wisdom has paid dividends over my life. This book is a testament to all the ways you invested in my education, my future, and the experiences that gave me the confidence to move forward. Thank you.
INTRODUCTION
The first day I saw Facebook’s advertising platform in 2014, I instantly knew it was an advertising revolution. I was impressed by the massive data Facebook collected from each user, data that it uses for its never-before-seen laser-precision ad targeting. It was incredible. After seeing the potential of Facebook’s ad targeting tools, the first of its kind, I went home that day and created AdvertiseMint, a digital advertising agency that specializes in social media advertising.
After several years of managing Facebook ads full time, I can tell you that Facebook advertising is very different from traditional and other forms of digital advertising. For one, unlike traditional advertising, Facebook advertising requires constant supervision. When my grandfather promoted his air-conditioning business in Miami in the ‘60s, all he did was create an ad in the yellow pages then sit back and wait for customers—he was done for the entire year. Facebook ads don’t work that way. With Facebook ads, I have to check on all of my clients’ accounts and create new ads almost every day. Times have changed—you can’t use old traditional advertising methods and expect them to work with Facebook ads.
Additionally, unlike traditional advertising, managing Facebook ads requires extensive knowledge of social media, technology, and Facebook’s advertising website, Business Manager, and the dashboard within it, Ads Manager. However, the results are worth the headache that comes with understanding Facebook advertising. Whether you’re the owner of a Fortune 500 company or a start-up launching a crowdfunding campaign, you will be able to grow and strengthen your business with Facebook advertising. This book is for people like
you, people who want to grow a business but who are confused about the platform. Before you proceed to the first chapter, there are a few things you need to know about this book.
1. This book is the updated version
A lot has changed since this book was first published. In addition to the frequent, nearly monthly updates to its social media and advertising platform, Facebook had to create drastic changes after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which an app misused millions of users’ data. Among the many changes arising from this event includes the elimination of third-party data, the merge of Ads Manager and Power Editor, and the redesign of certain Facebook features.
To accommodate the changes to Facebook advertising, this book contains new screenshots, new steps, numerous new advise and strategies, new chapters, and so much more.
2. This book is user friendly
Because advertising on Facebook can be a complicated process, I wrote this book using language, explanations, and illustrations that even my mother could understand. In fact, after reading the first version, she left this review on Amazon “Brian says that this book is user friendly with explanations and language that even his Mother could understand. It is true—I am his Mom, and I agree!” Although Facebook advertising can be a tricky and confusing subject, I promise that if you stick with me, you’ll be running Facebook ads like a pro.
3. This book is concise
I respect your time. You probably have millions of tasks on your plate, and reading hundreds of pages may be the last thing you want to add to your already busy schedule. My editor and I trimmed the
content down to only the essentials needed to help you become an expert in Facebook advertising in the shortest amount of time possible.
I’ve delayed your Facebook advertising lesson long enough. Let’s get right to it.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
CHAPTER 1. THE WHATS AND THE WHYS OF FACEBOOK ADVERTISING
Digital Advertising
After the advent of the Internet, ads appeared in the World Wide Web, the first development of digital advertising and the precursor to social media advertising. Facebook advertising falls under the category of digital and social media advertising. Digital because the ads exist in the Internet and social media because Facebook is a social media site.
With digital advertising, you can better segment your target audience, instantly reach a wider range of customers on both desktop and mobile devices, and receive real time data on your result. Facebook advertising, particularly, allows you to reach your targeted audience at a lower price that other advertising platforms if you know how to efficiently manage your ads.These benefits offers a huge advantage over traditional advertising, which often cannot give you those three benefits.
When you advertising on Facebook, you advertise on all of Facebook properties, which are Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and the Audience Network. Thus, many of the advice you read here will be applicable to those platforms
Paid Social vs. Paid Search
Many advertisers often ask me whether they should do Google ads or Facebook ads. Both are powerful advertising tools that help you
find and reach your target customer. They are like a hammer and a saw. If you are building a house, both of those tools are valuable. The difference between Google (paid search) and Facebook (paid social) is the audience’s intent. With paid search, you advertise within search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, and you pay every time a prospective buyer clicks on your ad or every time your ad is displayed. A search is the only way your prospective customers will find your ad. They type the keywords of the desired item or service into the search engine, and once the keywords match your ad’s, it will appear in the search results. That is not the case with paid social. In fact, there is no way prospective customers can search for your ad on a platform like Facebook. Rather, your ads will appear in social media platforms, an area where your customers are socializing and sharing content with friends and family. Unlike the audience of paid search, the audience of paid social has zero purchase intent.
Although users on Facebook lack purchase intent, Facebook’s years of user data —interests, purchasing habits, website activity—makes the platform a place worth purchasing ad space. Because Facebook has years’ worth of user data, your ads can become highly personalized and relevant to each user. To see this in action, find a friend who has different interests than you. If you each open your Facebook app and scroll through your feeds, you will both see ads tailored to your interests.
Why Facebook Ads
Here are ten reasons why you should use Facebook advertising to grow your business.
1. Facebook has a massive audience.
As of 2017, Facebook has more than 2.23 billion monthly active users—that’s 2.23 billion potential customers. Facebook has not only a large audience but also the highest user activity. Currently, Facebook is the most popular social media networking service. Data from Pew Research Center shows that 70 percent of US Facebook users access the site daily, and 43 percent of the 70 percent access it multiple times a day. Additionally, 82 percent of people aged 18 to 29 are active Facebook users. 1With this many users, you have a higher chance of reaching your target audience.
2. Facebook has laser-precision targeting.
Traditional advertising on the radio and in print works well if you want to target a local audience; for example, a radio ad can only play within the radius of a tower. Similarly, mailbox flyers will only reach households close to your business. Facebook ads aren’t limited by those restrictions. You can send an ad anywhere in the world. Additionally, Facebook advertising has what most forms of traditional advertising don’t have: specific laser-precision targeting. You can target an audience with specific lifestyles, behaviors, demographics, and interests. For example, a company selling electronics can target single men aged 18 to 30 living within a five-mile radius of 7080 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, in an apartment, with an annual
1 Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickuhr, “Part 3: Social Media,” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech., February 2, 2010, accessed July 14, 2017, http://www.pewinternet.org/2010/02/03/part-3-social-media/
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
salary of $50,000. By targeting an audience with specific traits that you define, you can target an audience that is most likely interested in your business.
3. Facebook is cost effective.
Unless your company is as big as Coke or Nike, traditional advertising may be too expensive for you. On average, local television stations charge from $200 to $1,500 for a thirty-second commercial. Meanwhile, print advertising can range from $500 to $20,000. With traditional advertising, it’s difficult to internationally spread brand awareness unless you have a substantial amount of money stowed away somewhere. Facebook advertising, in contrast, is so cost effective that even small businesses, start-ups, and mom-and-pop shops can afford it.
4. Facebook has a powerful audience insights tool.
When you advertise on Facebook, you’ll have access to Audience insights. Audience insights provide you with real-time information about the people who interacted with your ad, including their geographies, lifestyles, demographics, and purchase behaviors. You can then use the information from Audience insights to improve your campaigns by adjusting your target audience, budget, and placements.
5. Facebook reaches a huge mobile audience.
According to a Time article, Facebook, Messenger, and Facebookowned Instagram are listed in the top ten frequently downloaded mobile apps in the world. 2Because more people access social media through mobile phones rather than through desktops, it’s important
2 Lisa Eadicicco, “These Are the Most Popular iPhone Apps of 2016,” Time, December 6, 2016, accessed July 17, 2017. http://time.com/4592864/most-popular-iphone-apps-2016/.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
6. Facebook allows you to target loyal customers.
Custom Audience is a Facebook advertising feature that allows you to advertise to specific Facebook users in your already existing customer list. Once you upload your customer list, Facebook will match the first and last names, email addresses, and phone numbers of your customers from your list to existing Facebook users. Facebook will then serve ads to the matched individuals.
7. Facebook lets you increase your best customers.
Once you’ve uploaded your customer list to Facebook, you can target ads to users who are similar to the customers in your current customer by creating a Lookalike Audience. In doing so, you’re expanding an audience most likely interested in your business.
8. Facebook lets you advertise on multiple platforms.
Facebook allows you to advertise on its mobile News Feed, desktop News Feed, and right column. You can also advertise outside of Facebook, such as through the Instagram feed, Instagram Stories (because Facebook owns Instagram), and the Audience Network, a network of partners that allow you to advertise through their apps and websites. Advertising on multiple platforms allows you to not only reach a wider audience but also to lower placements costs. For example, if the CPCs for Facebook are more expensive for your ad, you can advertise on the alternative options, whether that’s on the Audience Network, Instagram feed, or Instagram Stories
9. Facebook lets you A/B test everything.
13 / 363 that social media companies garner a large mobile audience.
Facebook allows you to test one ad element against another: you
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
can test copy against copy, images against images, audience against audience, and demographics against demographics. With fast, realtime results, A/B testing allows you to improve and perfect your ad 10. Facebook lets you collect users’ information with Lead Ads.
Lead Ads, which often include a call-to-action button that says “subscribe” or “sign up,” provide a quick and easy way for users to give contact information. Once users click the CTA button, they will be redirected to a mobile-friendly form that automatically fills in the information they provided on Facebook.
Lead Ads are beneficial because they accommodate users who are often busy. Not only do the ads allow users to type fewer words, but they also provide you with accurate information. Most important, they allow you to connect with an audience that is interested in your products or services.
There are multiple benefits to Facebook advertising, and people in business selling products and services aren’t the only ones who need to use it. Anyone who depends on post engagement and exposure, such as news websites and bloggers, need to move from organic posts to paid posts because on January of 2018 Facebook updated its feed algorithm to reduce businesses’ and brands’ content on News Feed. It’s disappointing to hear, and you may see the change as Facebook betraying the people whose revenue it depends on, but the company made the difficult decision to make users happy. As if the News Feeds’ overpopulation isn’t hard enough to deal with, the change in Facebook’s algorithm means you have to pay to play.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
What Is a Facebook Ad?
In traditional advertising, there are several types of ads you can use. You can use TV ads, radio ads, and print ads, just to name a few. Different ad types also exist in Facebook advertising. There are sponsored stories that appear in Facebook’s News Feed and Facebook ads that appear on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network. In this section, I discuss the different types of Facebook ads.
Ads
Notice the posts on your News Feed that contain a call to action and a “Sponsored ” tag? Those posts aren’t organic posts like the ones from your friends and family. Those are Facebook ads. Although they are most noticeable on News Feed, they also appear on the right side of your feed, in the apps and websites of third-party partners, in Messenger, and in Instagram. You can tell the difference between an ad and a regular Facebook post by the “Sponsored” tag located on the upper-left corner of the ad.
When you create Facebook ads, you can choose your objective, budget, target audience, ad format, creatives, and placements. You can place your ads on Facebook, Instagram, or in the Audience Network, and you can choose from a variety of ad formats, including Carousel, single image, and video.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Figure 1.1 A News Feed Ad
Boosted Posts
Boosted Posts are regular posts that you post through your business page and pay to show to an audience with the targeting that you define. Whereas regular posts only appear once to your followers’ News Feeds, boosted posts appear to a target audience you choose, even an audience that isn’t your followers. Like an ad, Boosted Posts will repeatedly appear in your audience’s feed for the amount of time that you choose. To boost a post, you must publish a status update on your Facebook page and pay Facebook to turn it into an ad.
Stories
Stories ads are ten- to fifteen-second fullscreen vertical video ads that appear between Instagram users’ Stories, videos or photos that disappear from the Stories bar after twenty-four hours. Although this ad is only exclusive to Instagram, you can only create it in Facebook’s Ads Manager. Much like Instagram, Facebook, too, has its own version of Stories, although it is not yet monetized.
Figure 1.2 A boosted post
Figure 1.3
An Instagram Stories ad
How Facebook Compares to Other Social Media Platforms
Is Facebook the best social media advertising platform? It’s hard to say. Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. When considering your advertising options, instead of asking which is the best, ask yourself which platform fits better for your business, which will allow you to create the type of campaign you want and the type of audience you want to target. There are a few stats you need to review to determine which is the best, including the platform’s user base and the demographics.
Active Users, 2018
Active users are the number of individuals that visit a social platform monthly or daily. It’s important to compare each social platform’s number of active users to determine which one is the most popular, which one buzzes with the most activity. Remember, these users are your audience. If a platform has more users, you have a larger audience and consequently a larger group of potential customers. If a platform has fewer active users, a fewer number of individuals will see your ad. Here’s a comparison of active users from the six most popular social media platforms.
Figure 1.4
A comparison of active users
Out of six social media platforms, Facebook has the most monthly active users with YouTube (1.8 billion) and Instagram (1 billion) trailing behind. Pinterest comes in fourth place, Twitter in fifth, and Snapchat in sixth
Demographics, 2018
Your choice of social media platform shouldn’t rely on active users alone. You should also consider the demographics of each platform. For example, if you sell women’s clothing, you want to make sure the social platform you choose is mainly comprised of women. If your target demographic is mostly older women, then Facebook is a better fit for you than Snapchat. Examine the data below from the Pew Research Center’s Social Media Fact Sheet.
Figure 1.5 A comparison of social media demographics
For Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat, their users are mostly comprised of female Millennials. YouTube is also mostly comprised of Millennials, but there are more men than women on the platform. All of the platforms are mostly comprised by college graduates, except for Snapchat, whose users have some college education. This may be because most Snapchat users are teenagers in middle school, high school, and college. While all of the platform’s users live in urban areas, most of Pinterest’s users come from suburban areas, which isn’t surprising, considering Pinterest is filled with DIY home-décor content.
Because each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, for example, Facebook is mostly comprised of older users while Snapchat is mostly comprised of younger individuals, I recommend using multiple social platforms for your campaign. Often, people who advertise on Facebook also advertise on Google and Instagram, and people who advertise on Snapchat also advertise on Instagram. You don’t only have to pick one. In fact, it may benefit you to choose
Key Facebook Advertising Terms
Throughout this book, I’ll be using Facebook advertising jargon that you might not understand, words such as “News Feed,” “user,” and “objective.” These are words that every Facebook advertiser must know. This chapter is dedicated to a few common Facebook advertising terms. If, as you read this book, you stumble on a term that isn’t listed here, you can refer to the glossary.
Audience Network
A placement potion that allows you to place ads in the websites and apps of Facebook’s partners. Partners include the Huffington Post and the Cut the Rope app.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Bid
The amount you’re willing to pay to display your ad.
Call-to-Action (CTA) Buttons
Buttons that urge users to perform a desired action, whether that action is to learn more, sign up, shop now, or call now. Available on every Facebook ad, these buttons will send users to a landing page or, if your ad is a Lead Ad, to a prefilled form.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
An online advertising pricing method in which you pay for each specified acquisition (or action). For example, you can choose to pay $5 an impression, click, form submit, or sale. Depending on your budget, you can adjust the price you would like to pay per acquisition, and Facebook will adjust your delivery accordingly.
Engagement
The actions that occur on an ad, such as likes, shares, comments, views, and clicks.
Facebook Pixel
A piece of JavaScript code that tracks web visitors’ actions on your website.
Frequency
The average number of times Facebook showed your ad to a user.
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Figure 1.6
The CTA button is located on the bottom right corner of the ad
Native Advertising
A type of disguised online advertising in which marketers create ads that match the look, tone, and function of regular, unpaid posts. Native ads, unlike sidebar ads, appear inside the News Feed, among posts by friends and family. News Feed ads, the hardest Facebook ads to distinguish from unpaid posts, are an example of native ads. You will know that a post is an ad if it’s labeled as “Sponsored” underneath the publisher’s name. Otherwise, News Feed ads look similar to regular posts.
News Feed
The constantly updating list of posts, status updates, and ads on Facebook.
Negative Feedback
The number of times users make an unwanted action such as hiding your ads, choosing not to see your ads, reporting your ads as spam. Having too many negative feedback will negatively affect your ad’s performance.
Objective
The action you want users to take when they see your ad. Objectives include clicks, conversions, engagement, page likes, app installs, app engagement, and video views.
Optimized Bidding
A bidding option that allows advertisers to optimize a bid and delivery for a specific objective (or goal).
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
Placement
The area where your ad appears. Placement options include desktop News Feed, mobile News Feed, right column, Instagram feed, Instagram Stories, Audience Network, and in-stream videos.
Positive Feedback
The number of times your target audience makes a desired action, whether that’s sharing, liking, or converting. Having a lot of positive feedback positively affects your ad’s performance.
Reach
The total number of users who saw your ad. This metric counts the number of users who saw your ad and the number of times those users saw your ad. For example, if one person saw your ad twice, Facebook will count that as two users reached.
Relevance Score
A metric that estimates in real time your ad’s relevance to its target audience. The more relevant an ad is to your audience, the better it’s likely to perform. Ads with high relevance scores are shown to your audience more often than ads with low relevance scores. Facebook represents your ads’ relevance score with a rating of one to ten, one being the least relevant and ten being the most relevant. Facebook determines whether your ad is relevant to your audience by weighing its positive and negative feedback.
Targeting
A set of specific descriptions you use to describe the audience to whom you want to show your ads. Targeting is usually a combination of interests, behaviors, demographics, and locations that you define.
User
A person who regularly uses social media networking sites such as Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, or Instagram. Users are the people who see your ads.
Winning the Facebook “Lottery”
Before I get into more detail about Facebook advertising, I want to address a common misconception. I see many new Facebook advertisers believe this common misconception: Facebook is a magic platform that instantly generates millions of dollars overnight as though it were some lottery. This misconception often comes from business owners boasting about getting great results from Facebook ads in an attempt to persuade people into purchasing their courses. Although it is possible to win the Facebook “lottery” (I’ve seen it happen multiple times), in reality Facebook requires a lot of hard work to gain large profits. This is the common situation for many Facebook advertisers.
Finding the customers who will buy from you takes time. Once your ad is live on the platform, Facebook will find the customers who it thinks will complete the action you want them to complete, based on past user data that Facebook collected. The data collected includes interests, behaviors, and website activity collected from the pixel. For example, two dog owners are seeing your ad for pet supplies. One dog owner purchases pet supplies once a month while the other purchases every day. Facebook will first show the ad to the second person because that person is a frequent pet supply buyer who will most likely respond to your ad and purchase the advertised item. Because Facebook shows the ads to those most likely to convert, the lowest hanging fruit, you will often see the best results in the beginning of
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
your campaign. However, as time goes on, the ad must expand beyond the perfect match to the less perfectly matched users, those who are not as likely to respond to your ad.
Because of how Facebook targeting works, expect ad prices, and consequently, your results, to rise over time. This happens because it gets harder and harder to find customers who will convert. Not only that, more and more advertisers are using the platform, increasing the bidding competition. To resist the false promise of the Facebook “lottery,” dedicate a specific budget towards Facebook ads and set it to a short amount of time to ensure you can update and modify the ads as you see the results change.
To succeed in Facebook advertising, remember that social media ads are very different. They have elements that are unavailable for traditional advertising. These elements include the comments section where customers can write a negative comment based on their experience. If an ad is boring or serves no value to users, they can click the “hide this ad” button, which will prevent them from seeing more ads from you. These elements can help or harm your ads, causing the prices to increase or decrease. In the same way, if users are seeing the same ad over and over again, they are most likely to scan past it, lowering your relevance score and hurting your ad.
When it comes to winning the Facebook “lottery,” my advice is simple: you should expect a lot of work to succeed in Facebook advertising. If you’re unable to do all of the work yourself, you should hire an agency like AdvertiseMint, which brings in an entire team of account managers, copywriters, graphic designers, and video editors to do the work for you.
CHAPTER 2. GETTING STARTED: BUSINESS PAGE, BUSINESS MANAGER, AND INSTAGRAM
To advertise on Facebook, you must have a Facebook account, a Facebook page, and a Business Manager account that you only need if you’re managing multiple accounts. Although not required, I also recommend having an Instagram account to run Instagram ads. This chapter guides you through the process of creating a Facebook profile, Facebook page, Business Manager account, and Instagram account.
Setting Up a Facebook Profile
Creating a Facebook profile takes less than five minutes, and it is the first step needed to advertise on Facebook. Facebook requires all advertising be done from a user account. Follow these steps to set up a profile.
Step 1: Go to www.facebook.com. Enter the information. Click Sign Up
Use the email that you frequently check because that email will receive important notifications about your ad campaigns.
Step 2: Edit profile
Step 3: Add a photo
Setting Up a Business Page
The next step is creating a Facebook page. It’s important to own a Facebook page because it will be the account that represents your ads.
Step 1: Click Create
Step 2: Choose page type
Choose the page type that represents your entity. If you own a business or a brand, choose “Business or Brand.” If you’re using your page to connect with your community, group, organization, team, or club, then choose “Community or Public Figure.”
Step 3: Add page name and category
Because of Facebook’s branding policy, you’re not allowed to include the word Facebook in your page name. Doing so will result in an error message. When creating a page name, don’t write something like “Facebook advertising agency” or “Facebook ads.” When choosing your category, write a word or two that best describes
The Complete Guide to Facebook Advertising
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regeneration stemming from the fixed impulses of the integrocalculators, must in time run down. For one brief instant he forgot the Father's constant warning that he must not put his trust in miracles, and it seemed possible that these lost continents could go on as they were, unguided, automatically, until their retrogressive doom in time left these glistening corridors only the moist warm droplets of the primal ooze.
And was that actually so terrible? Might as well feel pity for bacteria as for these mindless creatures. But then, in New York, there had been that Son who had recalled a female of the masses who had fought to keep her child. And that Son had remembered it as beautiful.
However dim, perhaps not sharper than the anguish of a wobbly tooth, the anguish of the soul was not yet gone from them. And on that anguish he could build.
"This is the shaft," the Son beside him said.
So O'Hara and Nedra and their child ascended once more to the surface above Emporia and went across the multi-hued coiling of the photosynthetrons and again upon that long march into the upland valleys. And there the Son turned back.
"Good-by," O'Hara called to him.
The Son stood silently. His weak eyes focused for a moment, then he shook his head. "But you will be returning," he said. "The Father frees you for a purpose that is known to him. When you have achieved it, he will send us again to take you back to him."
"You do believe that, don't you?" said O'Hara. "You do believe—"
But the Son was gone.
For the next five days O'Hara and Nedra and the child wandered higher into the mountains. And the beauty of growing things, the trees that soared toward the intense blue skies, and the soft thick mosses and grass beneath their feet, and the birds that fluttered suddenly off when they approached, and the frogs and insects that hopped away or crawled from under rocks, the bite of the wind that
came whining down the far white slopes ahead, the gaggle of water searching its path through pebbles, the heat of a true sun in the heavens, all these—and freedom from oppressive walls and more oppressive destiny—awakened them slowly from the long timeless stupor of the lowlands. Nor did they know how deeply, if how troubled they had slept.
"I am hungry," said Nedra.
"I shall hunt for food."
"You have forgotten how to do it."
"An empty belly is a rapid teacher."
"But what will teach you to become a man again?"
"That too I shall learn," O'Hara laughed. He had not laughed for months.
The third night of their wandering it snowed, and they took refuge underneath a ledge of granite, and Nedra toiled for hours with dry bark and some twigs until she had a fire. But a very small fire.
"I am cold now," she said accusingly.
"I shouldn't wonder," said O'Hara. "The fact is, Nedra, you've got to put on some clothes. Which means, I'm sure, that I shall have to get to providing them. I had forgotten what a chore it is to be a husband in this world."
The snow did not stop. On the fourth day of it O'Hara shot a giant timber wolf. Its flesh was coarse and its hide, when they had baked it out, had an amazing stench, but Nedra fashioned it into a sort of kirtle, not so expertly made as that which had concealed her sex the first time that O'Hara saw her, but serviceable.
"Beyond the Curtain," he said, "men buy perfumes for their women, but I doubt, Nedra, that any ever bought a perfume such as this."
"You do not think that I am beautiful in this?"
But it had been a long day's climb and O'Hara was weary. He did not feel that he was in the best of shape for battle. "Yes, Nedra,
beautiful," he sighed, and for this night at least she let him lie a coward.
On the sixth day, as they were trudging slowly upward along a snowdrifted trail, the brush ahead of them parted suddenly and from it stepped the gaunt, commanding figure of the clansmen's Elder, his Colt aimed menacingly at O'Hara's breast.
But Nedra said, "Is this the way you welcome us? Where are the others of the clan?"
And they came out of hiding along the trail behind the Elder.
It was not a time for conversation. The Elder now turned his back upon them and began to lead the way, and the clansmen closed in quickly around them, and together at a trot they proceeded along the trail toward the sandy chasm.
In the days that followed, with Nedra reigning placidly once more within the deep gloom of the cavern, O'Hara prepared himself for what he knew must follow Now that he was free, now that he felt himself again a factor in his destiny, he was reluctant. It was the Elder who at last convinced him, after hearing one night the strange abominations of the lowlands.
"It is a time of strange things," said the Elder cautiously. "I too have heard and seen strange things since you were with us. Do you recall the day you vanished in the valley? Those of us who escaped the Degraded continued on until we reached the lake that had the black water. In time we returned here with it, and made the long copper pots that you designed upon the walls of the cavern—"
"Oh, yes, the still for refracting petroleum."
"—and then we prepared the water that you wished, the colorless water, to give to the flying thing. We wished despite your absence to send it into the air. We took the colorless water in jars and we placed the jars before the flying thing and waited. And presently we heard a voice that spoke the way you spoke when you first came to us. Again and again, as a wolf calls for its missing whelp, it called for you: 'O'Hara—O'Hara—come in, O'Hara! This is Tournant calling, this is Wrangell calling—can you come in, O'Hara?'"
"Tournant!"
"The voice kept saying that. Yet there was no one in the flying thing, no man to speak these words to you."
"Of course! Of course! A voice—the wireless—speaking through three thousand miles of space. And through the Curtain."
"Is this not strange, O'Hara?"
But O'Hara seized his arm. "The voice! The craft! And you took the fuel there? Then I—I can fly again!"
It was that overwhelming yearning to be taking off again that sent him rushing to the cavern.
"Nedra!" And when she turned. "I'm going to fly again."
She wiped the baby's mouth. She rubbed her hands together slowly, with sand between them, to rid them of the fat of a wild fowl she was roasting. She placed a log upon the smoldering fire.
"Where will you fly?" she asked.
"Does it matter, Nedra?"
"Yes."
"All right, I shall go straight up as long as the motors will push me, and then I shall circle around as a condor might do it, and I'll feel like a condor, too, a king of the skies—"
"I am going with you."
That sobered him up. And he took her hands: "There is a chance, always a chance, that the flying thing will fall. And the baby, Nedra, your child—our child?"
"The baby is the clan's. But I, O'Hara, am yours."
"But Nedra, if I—well, if I don't come back to these mountains—?"
"Ah." She smiled. "I knew!" And clenched the ceremonial warclub and advanced.
It was the Elder who managed things. At dawn they departed, the men and the younger women of the clan going swiftly upward
through the heavy snowdrifts and O'Hara with Nedra trotting grimly among them until at last they reached that upland meadow where he had first set his craft down on the continent. The craft—and the jars of fuel—waited there.
Nedra got into the cockpit. Then O'Hara directed the task of clearing a runway through the snow. When they had finished, O'Hara climbed in, touched his instruments very carefully, then touched them in earnest and felt the living throb of motors. They coughed and then died.
"Once more," he whispered to himself.
This time they roared.
The Elder flung himself face down into the snow. The younger clansmen scattered. O'Hara shook his fist at them. The craft shot forward. Before it reached the wall of trees it knifed into the sky
For some minutes O'Hara was too busy with the glory of his wings, driving higher, soaring, to observe that Nedra had now shut her eyes. The ticking of his scintillometer broke in upon his absorption finally, its milliroentgen count a steady .285. Then he heard a more staccato clicking, and it was Nedra.
"Here, your teeth are chipping. Take this jacket, Nedra."
He pulled it off. And the metal book that he had taken from the library in Washington dropped onto his knees. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he flicked wide the covers. Upon the single sheet of bright magnesium was this:
"December 20, 12:35:01 P.M. Save for these ten seconds, only you can do it."
Nedra called his name but he did not hear her. His mind was working like an exquisitely refined machine. He was counting, squeezing the fractional lost months and weeks and days and hours, the minutes and seconds of the past twelve months into a pattern, calculating time, estimating his position by the daytime pinpoints of the stars.
"O'Hara, O'Hara! Our mountains have vanished—"
December 20—and precisely at 12:35:01 P.M.—and for the ensuing ten seconds.
Sweat poured from his body Infinitesimal memories arranged themselves. He could not be certain. But then he could never be certain again on this side of the Curtain. To the day, yes! And to the hour and possibly quite close to the minute—but never to the second! He would have to feel his way into it, watching his milliroentgen count, and if the Curtain was there, he would have to turn back. Yet this fuel would not last him back from the Curtain to Nedra's mountains. It would be a chance—a frightful chance.
"O'Hara, tell me—"
"We're going through the Curtain, Nedra."
And she nodded somberly.
At fifty thousand feet O'Hara leveled off. As he accelerated past two thousand miles an hour he checked and re-checked his calculations of the day and hour His problem, as he analyzed it, was to reach the Curtain before 12:35:01 P.M., and to continue swinging into it and away from it until—at the miraculous proper moment—his scintillometer reading dropped below the danger point, and then, upon the inward arc of his ellipse of flying, to smash through.
It would be best to approach first in a dive from his maximum altitude, at his maximum speed. It was true that he might thus smash into the Curtain before the ten-second interval in which it did not exist, during the changing of the reactors, but at least this time he would know what he was about to do—he would not be senseless from a bolt of lightning.
This was his plan. And it worked.
It shot him back across the Arctic, deep into Asia, deep into the hemisphere of Delhi, Rome and Paris and the Twelve Old Men of Geneva.
"You've got to have luck for anything like that," O'Hara admitted. "The luck of a Columbus. Would you have bet on us?"
He laughed, then he corked the bottle. There would be no more tippling in that little flat in Bloomsbury.
"I would not bet against your luck, O'Hara."
"But there was more than luck to it," he answered. "For I was beginning to learn the most difficult of the arts—to think. The Father had taught me how to start learning. Ninety-nine hundredths of the best motor you and I have got is never used—ninety-nine hundredths of each of our brains lies idle. Perhaps in Washington I learned to use another hundredth. At least I had begun to learn how to learn, and once that has begun no problem can remain insoluble."
"Almost the words of the Father," I pointed out.
"Yes, almost the words of the Father. And if you link them with the words I found in that magnesium book—the words I forgot in my extreme concentration upon the matter of the ten seconds in which the Curtain would not be before me—if you recall those words—"
"Only you can do it," I quoted.
"—then you know why I am here tonight," he said. "Do you think I'd desert them?"
"Desert whom, O'Hara? Your son?"
"Yes," he said, "my son—and the Son who remembered a woman of the masses who had fought to keep her child, that Son who had died for thinking it was beautiful and the tens of thousands of others now shambling dully through those subterranean corridors, their bellies full, without anxiety as we know it, yet haunted—dimly haunted by the memory of love. For Stephen Bryce told me that tyranny is in essence not the existence of a tyrant, but the debased minds of the people, and it is their lost faculty of love that most debases them. Of course I'm going back to them. Do you know a comparable challenge?"
"We have a challenge here," I insisted. "The deserts of China and Africa, the hunger of our billions. What you have learned—and what you know of guiding us—can end all that."
"Are you trying to convince me?" he smiled, and took my hand. "Listen carefully, Arthur Blair—tonight I am returning through the Curtain. Don't ask me how, for I have told you, the words in that magnesium book, the moment when the Father died in Washington —I am going back! I know I am going back despite all that the Twelve Old Men and their Security Bureau may attempt. I shall be there in Washington tomorrow. I will have much to do, and for the next three months you will not hear from me. But when those three months end my voice will come to you, not on a screen that blinds you with its incandescence—by wireless, Arthur Blair I shall be speaking for the Western Hemisphere to you and all these billions. For you need us. And we so desperately need you. My voice will come through the Curtain, and when I am finished speaking there will be no Curtain. I will have lifted it forever.
"We can save our two worlds, Arthur, but it won't be easy. The Twelve Old Men, those timid guardians of the past, are going to fight you. You must fight back, and fast—inform the peoples. Give them the facts, the dangers most of all. Don't raise false dreams, for nothing is accomplished without sweating. Yes, you have got your work cut out for you, Arthur—and only you can do it!"
He freed my hand. He stooped, and when he rose again, he held the ceremonial club tight in his hand.
"I'm going to open that door," he said, "and for just one instant you'll see the most magnificent woman on this earth. Then out you go, old boy! Stand back—stand back!"
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