Maximizing TikTok Momentum to Land Major Publishing Deal
Thomas R. Weaver had already used his entrepreneurial startup savvy to begin creating buzz for his indie-published sci-fi technothriller Artificial Wisdom in the U.K. before Books Forward came on board to help launch his book in the U.S. This tiered-launch approach created a great foundation for our team to build on and expand his audience.
It didn’t hurt that the book was absolutely stellar, shocking and terrifying in the best way!
In order to reach as wide an audience as possible, we first focused on garnering critical acclaim from premiere trade publications to validate the book’s credibility. Then we developed a strategic social media campaign to get his book directly in front of consumers and boost reader reviews. Weaver understood the value in building readership and not solely focusing on a quick ROI.
We designed a custom PR box — themed to the book and eco-friendly — for an extensive Bookstagram and BookTok campaign. We sent influencers who really loved the genre early review copies of the U.S. edition in order to coordinate organic coverage, and we also arranged some sponsored influencer promotions to get more high impact exposure.
Our goal was to spark word-of-mouth buzz among avid readers by helping Weaver’s book gain traction on Instagram and TikTok — and that’s exactly what happened.
Two reviews in particular helped the book’s visibility skyrocket, with more than 230K views and more than 110K views on their review videos, respectively. The influencers genuinely loved the book so much that they continued to post about it multiple times.
One of the reviewers even chose it as their book club pick for more than 12,000 members, prompting more than 700 4-star reviews on Fable’s book club app and a surge in Goodreads and Amazon reviews as well. The book also saw traction within the Reddit community, both through our paid advertising campaign and organic posts from reader fans.
With the book selling well and reaching number one in the technothriller charts and top 20 sci-fi on Amazon, Weaver leveraged the book’s viral success to approach a prominent literary agent, who ultimately represented the book and helped land a six-figure, two-book publishing deal with Del Ray, an imprint of Penguin Random House. This was especially welcomed news after Weaver, years ago, had queried and received rejections from 35 literary agents before moving forward on establishing his own indie press to initially release Artificial Wisdom.
Throughout our promotional campaign, Weaver was an excellent partner in publicity. He maximized our efforts to his best advantage. He initially created a strong foundation that we were able to build upon, and he in turn built upon the buzz we helped him create. We formed the ideal publicity partnership that ultimately helped him reach well-deserved success!
