Titas & Biyas
Titas is 23 and completed masters in Geography, Biyas is 18 and pursuing B-Tech. Aside from reading, they both love traveling and trying new cuisines. They both love watching and reading crime thrillers! They've been avid readers since their childhood but they joined the bookstagram community in October 2020 and from then it had been an amazing journey for them! Biyas and Titas write reviews and click fun bookish photos on their Instagram @booksmoviesandstories.
What are the top media platforms available in India and the USA for book promotions?
The most popular social media platform for promoting books in India is Instagram. As lots of readers and book influencers are present in there, it’s easy to share your thoughts about a book in limited words and eye-catching pictures. There are a great number of influencers are present who have a good audience base. Besides Instagram, there’s Goodreads, YouTube and Facebook Pages as well, these platforms have a good percentage of users interested in books and reading.
At what stage of my book publishing journey should I consider social media promotions? Pre publishing or post and How?
It’s effective to consider social media promotion on both pre and post publishing of the book. One can make interesting book trailers, organising Q/A sessions with readers, providing book bloggers a pre-released copy in exchange of an honest review before publishing their book. And after publishing, one can organize a giveaway to share the book more.
What are the 5 most effective ways to promote books on social media?
Five most effective ways to promote books on social media-
1. It’s easiest when the author has a aesthetically good and interesting social media presence. The author can share their website link, links for pre ordering their book etc in there.
2. There’s a great many book bloggers with a lots of followers. The author can reach out to book bloggers with the target audience and ask them for an honest review exchange of a copy of the book.
3. YouTube videos about books are very easy to find and enjoyable and one can promote their books in Book tube easily. There are a lots of book bloggers in YouTube with a great number of subscribers.
4. The author can connect to not only book influencers but artists on social media too. The next thing book lovers love after books is bookish arts. It’s easy to find artists who works on customised arts and one can ask them to share a good fanart of their book I exchange of a copy of it.
5. An informative website can help promoting a book. Hold book related events like Q/A sessions, post sneak peek of your story that will make readers pick up the book.
What are the common mistakes made by first-time authors while promoting the book on social media?
Choosing the right audience is the most important thing but still a lot of authors neglect it. Choose the right influencer to promote your book based on their book choices and age of audience. Another important thing is the first impression of a book. The cover or the title of the book should be eye-catching and unique. Many books, even with ordinary Or cliche storyline got hyped because of pretty covers. Readers will be attracted by the cover and then they will read the description that will encourage them to buy the book. Other than that, authors should be comfortable with criticism. Reviews can be positive or negative based on the reader’s view. One’s negative review does not always loose other’s interest in the book but the author’s negative reaction is what make readers repulse.
And the most important thing is social media promotion can give a book publicity in primary level, but the content of the book has to be good and interesting.
What kind of post engagement is received on social media while promoting books? What is the percentage of clicks, likes, and comments?
Description of the book with a stunning piece of art or a cover revealing post gets a great lot of attention. Also a background history of the author, the things that inspired them to write the book is interesting too. Hashtags and keywords can be used in the proper way. Relevant hashtags helps target audience to find the book. Promoting books on non bookish pages and blogs can bring more readers. Authors should communicate with readers with comments and private messages, answer their questions about the books without giving any spoilers. 
How much money should I spend on social media promotions for my book and some things to keep in mind?
Authors should spend their money on providing book bloggers and artists advance reader copies, which is the most popular, useful and honest way to promote a book. They can set a maximum budget to spend on book influencers. A book trailer is also very effective, so spending some of the budgets on an interesting book trailer will be fruitful. These processes helps the debut authors as well as established authors.
How to find the perfect hashtags and time to post my book promotions on social media?
On Instagram, there is Insights to see the time with most engagements which helps to choose the right time to post which is mostly on evening. Generally weekdays have more engagements than weekends and holidays. Instagram lets you use 30 hashtags most, so it’s intelligent to use all 30 of them. Relevant hashtags are very useful. Some popular hashtags have more than 1M posts, some have 100K posts which is average and some have lower than that. One should not use only one type of hashtags but should make a list of hashtags that includes from all of these.
What are the things an author should be cautious about before finalizing a social media handle (page) for promoting their book?
Authors should be cautious if their account is welcoming to all kind of readers and is friendly. Which social media handle has the most engagements, that one can be used in the most general way and the other handles can be used for sharing information and for letting readers know. A friendly connection with your audience helps for future purposes too.
Should an author run paid ads on social media-based interests? Is it effective and what sales can I expect?
Yes, absolutely. Paid social media promotions are very effective to reach your audience. Every popular social media platform has good paid promotions available. Instagram lets you choose your target audience, timing, budget to spend on the advertisement and gives you suggestions on it. Website clicks and profile visits increases a lot from paid promotions. You can track those from third party apps too.
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.
Our bookstagram handle @booksmoviesandstories is quite new. It’s been only 10 months since we decided to share our love for books. We have been readers from childhood, starting with classic Bengali books, then reading English books from Indian authors, then with classics like Sherlock Holmes we started reading English books from authors all over the world. But honestly, our reading have increases a lot during the last two years, when we were locked in our houses because of COVID-19. We started our bookstagram during lockdown too. We were not sure about the whole book blogging, but after being in this community and meeting fellow readers from all over the world has improved our lives a lot. It is a safe place for us.
Not only books but it has helped our photography and editing skills too. New book recommendations and discussing about the books feels really amazing.
As there’s two of us, we read separate books and posts are reviews about them separately. While sometimes we share our joint reviews as well. We maintain our account as a safe zone for the people of every gender, race and sexuality, where we support all the people for who they are and whatever they want to be. Making interesting and funny reel videos is another skill that we are currently practising on. These are fun and informative both at the same time.
We try to read every genre. But crime thriller, fantasy, historical fiction and young adult are some of our favourite genre.
Along with books social media platform is a great place to support book related small business as well. It’s a great community with positive vibes and accepting nature. We’ve just started this journey and we want to continue for a long time.
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.
This is such an important campaign. Reading from a young age helps people in every kind of way and prepare for the future. These are some of the important but entertaining books that everyone could read before fifteen.
Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Shiva Trilogy – Amish Tripathi
The House in the Cerulean Sea – T J Klune
Calling Sehmat – Harinder Sikka
The Hate You Give – Angie Thomas (13+)
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