If you’re looking for a free way to promote your print books, ebooks or audiobooks, consider taking advantage of the “BookTok” trend using TikTok.
Love it or hate it, TikTok has become one of the most popular short form video content apps on the Internet, and it appears this trend is here to stay.
Authors can piggyback off this phenomenon by making short 15 second (or longer) videos and simply tell readers about your current free/bargain book promotions as well as regular priced books.
The cost to you? FREE.
What Kind of TikTok Videos Should Authors Make?
There are no rules on the best way for authors to make BookTok videos.
The best advice is to watch a lot of videos from other authors, readers and book reviewers and take note of your favorite videos and ideas you see.
Use a notebook or create a document on your phone/computer and make a swipe file of ideas. Don’t “steal” videos, use them as inspiration to make original ones instead.
7 Quick BookTok Ideas:
1 – If you’re comfortable on camera, simply record a video of yourself talking about your book and put a link to it in the video description.
2 – If you are camera shy, try making a simple slideshow style video, add some text, choose background music and add the #booktok hashtag and hit the post button.
3 – Do you have a print book available? Simply show your book in a pleasant environment – such as on a table with a cup of coffee. Or, make a short video of you taking it out of a book case and show the cover and first page.
4 – A really simple formula you can use is to make a video from the reader point of view, show the book cover, read a short blurb or review, then show the first page of the book. Be sure to add appropriate music for the genre – suspenseful music for Thriller/Suspense, Romantic music for Romance, etc.
5 – Make a short screen recording from your phone/computer showing your book on Amazon. You can mention the promotion details (price, date) as well as show the cover and a few reviews.
6 – Do real reviews of other books from other authors you truly love. Eventually the good karma will return to you. Hopefully 🙂
7 – Do Q&A videos answering questions from your readers
Experiment and see what works. Most importantly, follow other accounts using the #booktok hashtag and see what type of videos they are posting.
Take note of which ones go viral and which ones go nowhere. Borrow ideas from the viral videos and eventually you will have a hit.
Don’t expect to blow up overnight, though. Try to get in the tortoise and the hare mindset and set a goal to post at least one video a week (preferably more). The more videos you make, the more you will increase your odds of succeeding on TikTok.
Be sure to take a look at videos using other book related hashtags such as #romancerecs (for Romance recommendations), #scifi, #fantasy, #thriller etc.
Authors, Readers and Book Reviewers to Follow on TikTok for Promo Ideas
To give you some inspiration, here is a random sampling of authors, readers and book reviewers to follow on TikTok to give you ideas for your own videos.
Two People Reading the Same Book at a Train Station
@skullkidz tiktok do your thing 💀 @valeria_.jmnz @Mat #InstaxChallenge #geneve #pourtoi #colleenhoover #booktok #fyp #suisse ♬ Elevator Music – Bohoman
Book Signing Tip by Victoria Aveyard
@victoriaaveyardhe is board certified in internal medicine and book flapping♬ The Home Depot Beat – The Home Depot
Simple BookTok by Carrie Aarons
@authorcarriea Breaking his heart was on her bucket list. #booktok #romancebooks #spicybooks #romancebooktok #bookclub #bookrecs #lovestory #inlove #driverslicense ♬ drivers license – Olivia Rodrigo
Book Cover Slideshow with Music from Author K.A. Riley
@karileywrites POV: you have zero self-control and want to show Booktok all the covers #booktok #canadianbooktok #kariley #far #enemiestolovers #acotar #fantasybooks #books #spicybooktok ♬ Einaudi: Experience – Ludovico Einaudi & Daniel Hope & I Virtuosi Italiani
Meghan O’Flynn 15 Second Book Preview
@meghanoflynnauthor #BookTok #CrimeFiction #ThrillerTok #ThrillerRec #IndieAuthor #TheFlood ♬ Dark ambient with dark tension(89725) – waveskey
Conclusion
Hopefully the tips in this article will get your creative juices flowing to help you promote your books on TikTok.
One final piece of advice – don’t just post videos, be sure to comment related videos (be authentic). Encourage & support other authors and more than likely they will do the same.
If you have any advice you would like to share on this topic or have a TikTok video you would like added to this article, please contact us and we’ll add it on the next update.
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P.S. Most of these tips can also be used on YouTube Shorts, but we’ll post a dedicated article to that platform in the future.