TikTok, or “BookTok”, as readers on the app call it, has had a massive effect on the reading community, to the point where even Barnes and Noble locations have BookTok stands in their stores for books that are trending on the app. BookTok has endless videos about all things books. You can find videos about favorite current reads, bookish trends that are going viral on the app, videos of towering TBR stacks, food and book pairings, or maybe even a feature about YOUR book!
No matter what the video is, lots of book lovers are flocking to BookTok, and Books Forward has 3 tips to help authors make the most out of it!
Post Consistently, Utilizing Trends and Saved Sounds
Posting everyday can get tedious–how do people come up with new ideas everyday? Well, a great feature on TikTok is the “saved sounds.” This means you save the audio from other people’s videos and use that audio file in your own video; that’s what our team at Books Forward did for this video. This helps with content ideas when you feel uncreative, and also gets you in on the action of trending sounds on TikTok. A lot of the time, trends on TikTok originate from saved sounds, meaning people all over the app are using the same sound and making similar videos with their own twist.
You do not have to post on TikTok everyday, because quality is still better than quantity. But TikTok does tend to reward accounts that are very active on the app, so if you have a bunch of video ideas, do not hesitate to post them!
Take Advantage of Hashtags
First of all, hashtags on TikTok are super convenient for helping people find exactly what they are looking for on the app. You can go to the search bar to find specific hashtags that interest you. A fan of romance books? Search #romancebooks and tons of videos with that hashtag will pop up for you to scroll through and interact with. So, if you are a romance author posting about your book, hashtag it with #romancebooks, or #romancebooktok in the description of your video, so that the video pops up in those hashtag sections for others to see. In fact, you can utilize any genre or hashtag that relates to your book (#yabooks #lovestory #historicalfiction, etc). Some other general hashtags you can use are #booktok, #bookish, #foryoupage, #fyp or #foryou. “For You” hashtags do not guarantee you a spot on the For You Page ( where basically all trending videos live), but it increases your chances!
Engage With Your Audience and Followers
BookTok is an active community of people who are genuinely interested in learning about new books to read. All. The. Time. They want to talk about books, look at books, post about books, cry over books, the list goes on and on! This is literally the IDEAL place for an author to be: interacting with people who love their genre. So what should you do? Talk to them! Play around in the #romancebooks (or whatever your genre may be) section of TikTok and find new people to follow! Comment on their videos, recommend books to them, engage with them! Not only does this help you build a genuine relationship with people in your fanbase, but it shows them that you are a real person who cares about your readership. If you build those relationships, chances are you will get follow backs and honest interest in the stories you write.
Do not get discouraged if your following does not grow overnight, because chances are it probably will not! Just remember to have fun talking about something all of us in the BookTok community are passionate about, the passion that started all of this: #books.
