Tiyasha Sarkar

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

There is an abundance of platforms available now to promote a book efficiently. If I start with the most popular one, Facebook will be my first choice. As it has the largest user base and is also one of the most widely used platforms for all demographics, the probability of engagement between the author and the readers is very high.  Another popular choice is Instagram, where you can share aesthetic photos of books, videos, reels, you can talk about your new ventures, or even interact with the audience live. But if you are someone who prefers something crisp and fun, Twitter is the coolest option there. Apart from these, Goodreads, WordPress, Blogspot are the standard platforms for promotions.

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

Today, through social media platforms readers, publishers, authors, the whole bookish community is connected with each other all the time. Naturally, the authors have the opportunity to share glimpses of their new projects with the audience and get their attention. As far as promotion is concerned, I feel it’s best to start at least 6-8 months before the tentative publishing date so that by the time the book releases the author already gains a massive base of followers who will buy and promote the book.

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

a) To ramp up the game, the author can create a Website to build a brand and post content about this upcoming project. An audience-friendly and easy-to-navigate website always give you the edge. 

b) The author can post stories on Instagram, host giveaways, repost the pre-publication reviews from influential publication houses, bloggers, beta readers, conduct some fun contests on social media platforms for more engagements. 

c) Interview with bloggers or radio talk shows target a great number of audiences.

d) Authors can provide free copies of the upcoming books to the bloggers and politely ask them to review them. Most of the bloggers are present on Amazon and Goodreads and their feedbacks are highly valued.  The more reviews you get, the higher the book goes in the amazon search rankings.

e) Since demand for audiobooks is rising rapidly, posting snippets can be a great way to attract the audience. Also, posting inspiring or funny quotes from the books can drive a wider exposure.

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

a) Finishing a book after years of hard work and perseverance is indeed a feat deserving a celebration. But the real challenge comes after this. Most of the new authors make the mistake of putting all the effort into the writing and not taking the marketing strategy seriously. Remember, advanced marketing planning is always of paramount importance to stand out from the thousands of books that are getting released every single day. 

b) The main purpose of social media is to interact. As an author, it becomes easy to interact with people expressing your thoughts, your words, your take on current issues transpiring all over the world. So the author should use that intrinsic power to Interact more as a human and shouldn’t transform into a self-obsessed salesperson who strictly holds the banner “BUY MY BOOK”.

c) Another mistake the authors make is NOT understanding who their audience is. For example, if an author wants to promote his/her book based on historical fiction, he/she should find the target audience accordingly using social spaces. An authentic interaction and discussion with fellow writers, bloggers and readers can build trust which really helps in the long run.

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

This again depends on how much you interact with your fellow bloggers. The more you are connected, the more you’ll get responses. If you write well, people will appreciate you, share your post and that way the reach automatically increases.

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

First of all, to make sure the content of the book is professionally polished, an author must invest a part of his/her budget on hiring an editor and a professional cover artist. Also, a decent amount should be invested in launching the website. To be honest, there are a lot of scopes to spend money on promotions, but I think no amount of money can sell a bad book.

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

This is really a tricky game. To be successful with hashtags, an extensive study is needed to observe what your audience is actually searching for. Appropriate hashtags and mentions can actually boost your visibility to people who aren’t following you. I feel, for beginners, the best way is to follow the brands promoting the same content as yours and assess the performance over a period of time. If you are promoting or reviewing a book, in addition to the obvious hashtags, you can also use location-based tags. Another tip is to always mention the publisher & the author. You have to keep experimenting a lot for the desired result & that might take some time.

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

The social media handle of an author is the only way through which we, the readers can get access to his/her journey throughout. So first of all, the username should ideally contain his/her name so that people can find him easily. Secondly, the author can dictate whether the audience has the ability to post on his/her page or not. So the author needs to mediate and keep the content as relevant as possible. 

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

I think we can fragment the process of selling a book into two parts. First, Gaining traffic i.e, people seeing the ad, and second, buying the book after seeing the ad. Now, paid ads can be very effective for gaining traffic for sure. But the amount the author should invest is total upto him. The more you spend on ads, the more likely they are to run and appear in more prime locations on the website. For the second part, it’s important for the text of the ad to be succinct so that people can get attracted to buy the book.  A basic marketing knowledge, usage of appropriate keywords is necessary to make it a profitable move and for that, an expert opinion is always preferable.

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.

I have always been a voracious reader from my childhood. This is the only thing I think I do passionately. Last year, during the lockdown one of my friends actually suggested me to share my huge bookshelf with others and that was the first time I started thinking about it seriously. Within a day I created my Instagram handle “the._.pageturners.” As the name suggests, my purpose was to read books, recommend good books, share my thoughts with all my fellow readers and most importantly, to turn a non-reader into a reader. Today I can proudly say, starting this page was the best decision I’ve ever made. The bookstagram community is so supportive & creative that it makes you enriched and well-informed every day. 

If you see my page, I try to keep my reading list quite diverse.  Also, reading regional books has always been my preference. Being a Bengali myself, I try to read and recommend good Bengali literature. I always talk about books by Rabindranath Tagore, Shirsendu Mukhopadhyay, Narayan Sanyal as rich classics like these need more attention and appreciation. I have completed one year on this platform now and I hope to read more and deliver unique content to the audience in the upcoming days.

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.

My recommendations would be Tottochan by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Wonder by R.J Palacio, The magic of the lost temple by Sudha Murthy, collection of short stories by Satyajit Ray.

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