Why Bookstagram and Booktok matters for Indie Authors

If you’re an (indie) author looking to expand your marketing tactics, you may want to consider running a Bookstagram and BookTok book tour with book influencers on Instagram and TikTok. Haven’t started building an email list yet? Is your Instagram account small or non-existent? Don’t worry about all of that, we got you!

How Our Book Influencer Platform Works

We have been building a strong community of bookstagrammers and booktokers since 2021. Thousands of creators from all over the world have signed up for our database, ready to collaborate with publishers, bookish brands and (indie) authors. Our dashboard shows that creator 11,058 registered this morning and we see new registrations coming in every day. This means our database consistently refreshes.

So how does it work? As an (indie) author you will get access to the back-end of our website with a personal brand account. With this brand account you can log in and adjust your profile settings. You can fill in a bio, telling creators who you are, upload a profile picture etc. From there you can access the campaign page to write your pitch. This is where you will present your book to our community.

Step 1: Create Your Campaign Pitch

You can watch a tutorial video or follow the written instructions in the form to set up your own campaign. You are asked to present your book by sharing the blurb, telling a bit about yourself and giving clarity about your expectations. The goal of this campaign pitch is to attract the right creators for your book promotion.

When your bookstagram or booktok book tour campaign submission has been checked by our team it will be launched on the platform. Only registered users can see and apply for it. Now it’s our turn to make sure there will be as many eyeballs as possible on your campaign pitch. We do this by sending a newsletter to the creators and by creating social media posts. Those that are interested in your offer register for your campaign.

Step 2: Select the Right Book Influencers

We usually advise a 10 to 14 day window for registrations. Once that window is closed you get to decide who you’d want to collaborate with. Your campaign page is now filled with the faces of registered creators. We suggest clicking on their pitches in which they tell you why they have signed up for your campaign. You can also check out their social media channels to see if you like the type of content they make. You even have the opportunity to chat with them and ask them questions.

Chat to your creators

The chat feature is mainly used to collect home addresses for the distribution of the books or e-mail addresses for the distribution of e-books or audiobooks. But you should also use it if you offer financial incentives for creators. Financial incentives are recommended because many creators receive books on a daily basis. In order for your book to be a priority on their to-read list, it helps if they know they will get some sort of incentive in return for the energy and time they put into promoting your book. You can use the chat to ask creators for their fees or start the negotiation process by offering them what you have in mind based on their follower and engagement numbers.

Once you are happy with the selection of your preferred creators, you close the selection process by pressing ‘final selection’. All creators involved will now see the status of their registration change. For some it will say accepted and others that didn’t make the cut will see that they have been rejected. It may feel bad to reject people. Our system gives you the opportunity to indicate why you have chosen to reject them, for example you can fill in that there was a financial mismatch or that others were simply a better match for your book tour.

Step 3: Send Books and Launch the Book Tour

Now that you have completed the selection process of your bookstagram or booktok creators, it is time to launch the book tour! You will distribute your books and give the creators time to read and create their content. It is fair to give them approximately 3 to 4 weeks after you put your books in the mail. Once a creator posts their content, they share their links to your results page, where you will have an overview of everything that has been created. Our community manager keeps an eye on the uploads too. We promise 90% uploads and if necessary we chase creators that don’t meet the expectations. On many occasions we see 100% uploads though because creators know they will not have access to future campaigns if they don’t upload for the book tours they registered for.

Step 4: Track Your Campaign Results

Once all creators have uploaded their content to their preferred social media channel your campaign has come to an end. If you’re lucky, creators do a little something extra for you and crosspost to other social media channels or even leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews on these platforms can’t be a requirement for your campaign because it’s against their community guidelines. You may also see a wrap up post on our Instagram account as a little bonus!

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Self-Service vs Full-Service Book Tours

Running a self service campaign as described above requires that you are willing to put in the time and effort to communicate with interested creators. If you don’t have enough time to run a campaign by yourself or if you’re hesitant because you don’t feel comfortable in a digital environment, we have another solution for you. By switching to a full service campaign you get a dedicated campaign manager that arranges the full campaign on your behalf. Reach out through contact@bookinfluencers.com to learn more about our campaign options.

Contact our team to learn more about our services, and let’s get your book in front of readers!