Shreya & Ruchi

What are the top social media platforms available in India and the USA for book promotions?

According to us, the top social media platforms to promote books are Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon Reviews, Twitter and Quora. These are frequently visited platforms by readers to seek book recommendations and hence promoting books on these platforms becomes more relevant. Instagram has its own Bookstagram community that actively engages in book reviews. As an author, one should definitely reach out to this community for better reach and higher engagement levels. Instagram also provides a variety in the choice of posting – static posts, videos, reels, etc. This helps in making the promotions more creative and appealing, compared to other platforms which are more static in nature.

At what stage of my book publishing journey should I consider social media promotions? Pre publishing or post and How?

You should consider social media promotions at both stages. The pre-publishing stage helps you to create hype for the book while the post-publishing stage helps you to get the conversions. We would suggest you start by sharing blurbs about your book, doing a cover reveal campaign with the publisher and book bloggers and setting up live sessions for the upcoming book to generate excitement among the readers. For the post publishing stage, you should send review copies to book bloggers, do interactive sessions and interviews with publishers, bloggers and media to spread awareness about your book, do sponsored ads and paid promotions among many other things. There are a lot of book clubs that can help to increase the reach of your book through paid reviews like The Bookoholics, KharidoBeecho.com, etc.

What are the 5 most effective ways to promote books on social media?

The 5 most effective ways to promote books on social media are:

1.   Paid and unpaid reviews with book bloggers
2.   Live interactive sessions with bloggers/influencers
3.   Doing sponsored ads – story and post
4.   Leveraging the publishers page
5.   Hosting giveaways in collaboration with the publisher or book bloggers

What are the common mistakes made by first-time authors while promoting the book on social media?

One of the common mistakes by first time authors while promoting their book on social media platforms is that they fail to identify the right kind of influencers for promoting their book. The paid promotions are also usually on the lighter side which limits their reach. We have also seen cases where some of the first time authors took book reviewers for granted and didn’t treat them well. They need to understand that if they pay us for reading and reviewing their book it doesn’t mean I need to write a fake review. Book reviewers’ job is to review honestly, even if they have unpopular opinions, integrity to the audience matters. 

What kind of post engagement is received on social media while promoting books? What is the percentage of clicks, likes, and comments?

This is very subjective and would change from account to account. For eg: Based on our followers, we get 50% likes, around 20% clicks and 10% comments. This might be different for everyone. But if the post is highly aesthetic, the caption is well written and the book itself is worth recommending then you may get your desired conversions. Social media is all about drool worthy pictures, so if you play around with it then you are guaranteed to get eyeballs on your post/ad and if the caption sounds interesting you might get a click to your website or shopping cart. 

How much money should I spend on social media promotions for my book and some things to keep in mind?

While promoting books on social media, one should have a budget allotted to atleast these 3 things: paid promotions via ads, paid book reviews and for hosting giveaways. Apart from this, there should be some budget allotted to creatives/designs for posts and you can also hire book marketers for maintaining your social media accounts (but this may cost). If you are targeting multiple platforms for promoting the book then the amount you consume may vary from platform to platform. So you need to decide your platforms wisely and allocate a budget accordingly. 

How to find the perfect hashtags and time to post my book promotions on social media?

Technically this can be done by checking the insights of your business account. You’ll be able to find the most active time of your users (usually it is from 6pm to 9pm). These insights may also help you identify the best days for posting and a custom way to target your audience based on interest and demographics. The perfect hashtags for your book promotion need to be related to your book, you, books in general, authors, blogging, etc. We always try to use a combination of niche hashtags particular to our account as well as the trending ones. This gives us a well-balanced reach. 

What are the things an author should be cautious about before finalizing a social media handle (page) for promoting their book?

We feel that authors must promote their books, writings on their personal page itself. That’s because normally readers tend to follow the author to know more about new books. Creating a new social media page for promoting books seems to be unnecessary. Promotions when done from a personal account create a better impact and engage the audience well. Still, if they wish to create a separate page, it must be named by the book’s name/author’s name. 

Should an author run paid ads on social media-based interests? Is it effective and what sales can I expect?

Running paid promotions on social media definitely helps a lot. Especially running these ads during weekends proves to be effective. Doing promotions that create a sensation before the book launch attracts readers and viewers immediately. It will surely boost sales. 

Please give a bit of a background about your social media handle, its Vision & Mission, Top management, the Kind of books you promote, and your biggest strength as a book influencer, popular authors promoted so far, years of experience, any testimonials, etc.

Started in July 2020, The Book Affair (@the.book.affair) was an outcome of our love for reading and of course the COVID-19 lockdown. Since our childhood, my cousin sister, Shreya (MBA aspirant) and I, Ruchi (BE – Electronics & MBA – Marketing from NMIMS Mumbai) have been fond of reading stories. This habit was inculcated in us by our grandfather. During the lockdown when everyone was exploring their hidden talents, we thought of starting out our Bookstagram venture. We review books of all genres and post them on our Instagram handle followed by Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon and our blog website. We keep receiving review copies from authors and publishers and we love reading them. We have also been collaborating with people who sell book merchandise. From bloggers to content creators, we have come a long way with over 2.8k followers and an average of 1000 likes on our posts. Our biggest and unique strength as a book influencer is book cover recreations. We are known for it in the community, and authors have now started approaching us with the same requests. We have promoted popular authors like Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee, Alka Joshi, Kavita Kane, Amish Tripathi, Anuja Chandramouli and many others. There’s no stopping now. We look forward to reading, reviewing and recommending more and more books. Our dream is to become one of the famous book reviewers out there and be known as “The Jadhav Sisters.”

At Sharing Stories, we have an ongoing campaign ‘Let’s Empower Our Kids’. Please suggest some books that you think every child should read before the age of 15 (mostly the character-defining age), teaching them life lessons. Things like empathy, sympathy, relationships, etc.

We would suggest reading books by author Sudha Murty. Her lucid writing helps young readers understand easily what she wishes to convey through her stories. Each storybook written by her is filled with warmth and good values. We highly recommend her books to young teens. They should also read stories from the great epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata. These epics have meaningful lessons. A lot of easy to read as well as picture narration books are based on these epics for children. Apart from this, they should also read Aesop fables and Panchatantra earlier in their childhood to develop a liking and habit of reading.

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