Booktok anyone?

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I've become intrigued by the potential ( I use the word judiciously) of Booktok, which I realise is a sub-genre of Tiktok. However, a quick look tells me the preferred format is very much  "talking head" influencer kind of video, and my head is far too old and unpleasant to influence anyone.

But I have video creation and voice over/narration skills. Has anyone seen, experienced or tried a kind of "book trailer" format on Booktok? Animation or (good) image presentation with a VO without being on camera themselves?

[Bill Hiatt]

I'll be waiting for an answer to that.

A lot of my work has protagonists in a BookTok age-range, but I'm certainly way beyond it myself, so I understand what you're saying.

[PJ Post]

Social media with video is always a winning strategy. It just comes down to execution.

The trick is to find the framing device that works for your brand.

Also - everything is content, meaning your daily work process, your tools, platforms, influences, trends, maybe even related hobbies.

Social media continues to change and evolve, but it's still the best marketing tool out there.

However, to reiterate - the goal isn't to go viral, the goal is to be visible enough for your future fans to find you - you have to create engagement (get people to give a sh*t). So, Booktok isn't really relevant, but shouldn't hurt any more than Facebook groups. I think Booktok is like trying to get your original music onto hyped playlists. You just have to mitigate the time-suck and find a productive balance.

[Bill Hiatt]

I'm not sure it's still the best tool out there, but you do have a lot of good ideas about how to use it.

What Bass Bagwhan and I are wrestling with is that we're not the ideal presenters for our own content. The demographic skews young, and while successful booktokers aren't like high school seniors, they're not like senior citizens, either. (Keep in mind that I'm almost seventy.) And a lot of Tiktok in general is very physical. Just at first glance, I've seen a lot of people whose presenting style is dance, regardless of the subject. My arthritic joints are much more suitable for sedentary presentation. I could handle the walking-around kind of presentation that some do, but keeping the phone steady while I did it would be problematic.

The ideal is probably to get an established booktoker excited about my books. A lot of booktok is other people endorsing someone else's work. But I would imagine successful booktokers get deluged with requests and/or require you to cross their palm with silver. That reminds too much of the old celebrity tweet for as little as $5000...

[Hopscotch]

(Keep in mind that I'm almost seventy.)

Heck, you're just a kid - put on your dancing shoes and show the unfledged Tokkers how it's done.

[Bill Hiatt]

I think the TikTok audience may not be as generous as you are.

[alhawke]

Currently, when I send material out, I send out to my newsletter, my website, Twitter, Instagram, Threads (indirectly through Instagram), YouTube, and Goodreads (yes, Goodreads blog). I pretty much send the darts out everywhere. Interestingly, TikTok does absolutely horrendous for me with zero to 1-2 views per video versus hundreds of thousands on Instagram/YouTube/twitter (you can look it up, if you want). Basically, I feel like I've been shadow banned on TikTok and they don't believe I'm a real person or something. Don't know why. Don't really care. I would care if that was the case on the other forums. I'll continue to post there the same vids for any lurkers who are interested there. But it definitely is not a success for me.

I believe the Colleen Hoover success story of using TikTok to propel one's writing career is over. She caught the scene at the perfect time to move her, already, successful Indie writing career into total stardom. Until we see something new like that again, and market it the way she successfully did, I don't think you're gonna land that jackpot with TikTok. But, that's just my thought... I still post there and would still love some magic attention.

I've thought of adding Pinterest to my social media sites. ?? But I've heard Pinterest is kind of a waste of time.

[Post-Doctorate D]

If you are worried about age being an issue, maybe you could create a 3D version of your character and use MOCAP to animate them.  Then, you as your character can talk about your adventures.

I don't think a book trailer would work for TikTok.  It's not the right audience for that, I think.

Besides dance, comedy is also popular on TikTok.  Also, if videos that are educational but also entertaining are reasonably popular.  They just have to be more or less short and snappy.  There are also various challenges.  The key is to find something that you can work with while also semi-promoting your books.

[Bill Hiatt]

I haven't used Pinterest in years. However, Hanna Delaney is a Substack author who uses it a lot and has a stack devoted to it. Her most recent post there also includes info on four other social media sites, including Tiktok. https://pinterested.substack.com/

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Thanks for the input, everyone.

Reddit is looking interesting. In a nutshell, in particular you can target sub-Reddits on certain subjects, and they exist for horror, fantasy, YA, audiobooks ... the list of literary and writing subreddits is extensive. The important point is that you're not relying on an algorithm to find punters interested in your book genre. The sub-Reddit has already determined that.

After a quick look of my sub-Reddits, videos are popular but they can be in any format and not necessarily hyper-produced. You don't need a Booktok "talking head" approach. Apparently the trick is to genuinely appeal to the interests of the sub-Reddit members, don't blatantly "sell", and try to engage comments.

A few articles on the subject were written by companies with extensive budgets, but their products were likewise pricey, so the tales of success or failure were intriguing without taking too much notice of the budgets and ROI. The process and results were on a different scale, that's all.

I'm going to dig deeper, get an idea of costs and the process of creating the ads. And as AlHawke suggests, if you can make a not-too-shabby video then what's the harm in throwing it up on Instagram, Facebook, etc... too?  It wouldn't be totally wasted.

By the way, I saw some Aust Govt agency ads on Reddit. It's telling that they consider the platform viable.

[alhawke]

Reddit is looking interesting. In a nutshell, in particular you can target sub-Reddits on certain subjects, and they exist for horror, fantasy, YA, audiobooks ... the list of literary and writing subreddits is extensive. The important point is that you're not relying on an algorithm to find punters interested in your book genre. The sub-Reddit has already determined that.

I've never did much with Reddit other than reading other member threads. I wonder if it's worth using? I think some writers have mentioned that they've used it for promoting... please, let us know if you start posting there regularly and see any benefit.

[Jeff Tanyard]

From what little I've seen of Booktok, it seems mainly for Romantasy books aimed at a Millennial/Zoomer female audience.  If your writing doesn't fall into that category, then you might want to lower your expectations.

As far as Reddit goes, it's a huge site that has strict moderators and social customs, and I'd be very cautious about suddenly showing up and promoting a book.  Do a LOT of reading of the site first before even thinking of posting anything there.

Not trying to rain on anybody's parade or anything.  Just want y'all to know what you're getting into.  And I should stress that my experience with both of those sites is almost nil, so take this whole comment with a huge grain of salt.

[Bill Hiatt]

That Reddit advice is also good for social media in general. Sites and groups have norms. You need to know them before you start posting.

When I first started, a surprisingly large number of authors got themselves into trouble by promoting in an FB group in a way that it wasn't open to. (In those cases, reading the guidelines would have helped.) We've all heard about people who got into trouble on Goodreads as well.

When I first started Substack, I looked around very carefully to see what people were doing. Advertising your own work occasionally is fine. Putting up a note to advertise a post is routine. But jumping into an unrelated discussion and advertising your work is considered a violation of etiquette.

[PJ Post]

This guy is in his mid-sixties, has over 5 million Youtube subscribers, 2 million on Instagram and 350k on TikTok - and I'm reasonably confident that he's never done a dance video anywhere.



Now, you're probably thinking he's an outlier, but I can post bios of tons of old folks doing well on social media.

The whole you have to be young or pretty or dance or whatever are all myths - or worse, excuses.

___

That Reddit advice is also good for social media in general. Sites and groups have norms. You need to know them before you start posting.

When I first started, a surprisingly large number of authors got themselves into trouble by promoting in an FB group in a way that it wasn't open to. (In those cases, reading the guidelines would have helped.) We've all heard about people who got into trouble on Goodreads as well.

When I first started Substack, I looked around very carefully to see what people were doing. Advertising your own work occasionally is fine. Putting up a note to advertise a post is routine. But jumping into an unrelated discussion and advertising your work is considered a violation of etiquette.

So much this!

Which is why so many writers fail at social media - they're constantly begging people to buy their sh*t instead of just engaging with the platform.

[Bill Hiatt]

What I've seen of the TikTok stats suggests that the demographics trend much younger. I was addressing TikTok specifically, not social media in general.

[PJ Post]

TikTok has plenty of old folks, and again, you don't need a million followers, just a few thousand fans. In fact, something to be aware of, TikTok Shop is becoming a significantly more mainstream distribution channel.

[LilyBLily]

I found a photo of me when I was young and surprisingly thin. Would love to animate that and pretend I am both again for a few minutes. I suppose AI is involved?

And will placing it on social media sell my books? Probably not. But I'd love to see myself dancing.

[Post-Doctorate D]

I found a photo of me when I was young and surprisingly thin. Would love to animate that and pretend I am both again for a few minutes. I suppose AI is involved?

There are ways of doing that with or without AI.

[Bill Hiatt]

Are there still some non-AI options left? When last I searched, I just got AI ones.

I used to love working with CrazyTalk, which was mostly about animating faces, with a little head and shoulder movement, so I suppose that, by today's standards, it would look primitive, and it took time to adjust the mesh because the algorithm sometimes required manual correction. But it had the virtue of being able to use any image in which the figure one wanted to animate was facing more or less forward. I've seen AI options that basically give you a fixed set of pre-animated heads and won't even let you use your own voice.

Actually, Reallusion, the company that made CT, does have a more flexible program and does 3-D head animation, but it's very AI-dependent. Its remaining 2-D animator is designed only for cartoons.

No one knows what the future may hold, but I'm still much more comfortable with solutions not dependent on AI.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Thanks everyone, I've been dabbling in the Reddit HorrorLit sub-reddit for a few years now, but I'm well aware of the etiquette involved.
What I'm talking about is crafting a video-based advert that might do one of three things, or a combination of each. These appear as any video does in social media newsfeeds, inside the sub-reddit stream, with the heading  "promoted" so there's no suggestion of muscling into any thread and making a nuisance of myself.
One would be an ad focused purely on my horror writing and aimed at appropriate sub-reddits.
Two would be an ad for my writing brand in general ... potential audience might be too broad.
Three would have a focus on audiobook lovers and my audiobooks. There are sub-reddits for this too.
Option one is probably the best as a means to test the waters. Also, it will be a good project to assess the time and effort required to create a usable video and create the ad, etc.
I'll look for some Reddit ad tutorials today, dig a little deeper and keep posted here.

[Bill Hiatt]

It will be interesting to see how that works out.