So you want to be a book influencer? You’ve joined Bookinfluencers.com, you’re applying for book tours, but how can you optimize your chances of getting selected? Well, fret not! We’re here with a handy dandy list of tips to make your account stand out from the crowd and give you more chance of being selected on the next book tour!

The Book Influencer Aesthetic

Have a look at your account from an outsider point of view. Is it immediately eye catching? Are your posts interesting to look at? If you’re on TikTok or making reels, do your videos encourage people to stop scrolling? If you’re wondering how to make your posts more eye catching, check out this blog post on how to create content without showing your face, and this blog post on digital edits.

Followers, Likes and Comments

First off, you don’t need a huge following to be a successful book influencer. Whether you have 100 followers, or 100,000, you can be successful on bookinfluencers.com. You’ve made sure that your posts are eye-catching, so now try to make people engage with them. Include a Call To Action (CTA) in your caption- this could be as simple as a question, Have you read this book? It could be a Question of the Day (QOTD) which can be totally unrelated to your post. I have seen QOTD’s being along the lines of, Do you prefer tea or coffee? The idea here is to make a simple way for people to have to comment on your post. Yes, you might get lots of comments of people just saying ‘tea’, or ‘coffee’, but the algorithm still sees this as people engaging and therefore will show your post to more people!

If you do have a smaller account, you can help to grow it by engaging on other accounts you like- the more you like, comment and follow others, the more likely they will return the favour. Also the more scroll stopping posts and engagement that you get on your posts, the more people will want to return to your page and see what you post next.

A word on Engagement Groups

Engagement Groups can be popular on Instagram. These are groups where you tag a specific account, and everyone has to like/comment on your post. While it can feel really tempting to  boost your engagement this way, this isn’t organic engagement. It is much more impactful to grow your account and your engagement organically, with the likes and comments coming from genuine followers, rather than people who have to interact and may spend less than a second on your post.

Applying for book tours as a Book Influencer

First things first. Make sure that your Bookinfluencers.com profile is complete. Add a profile picture and a bio. Let authors know who you are, what you’re interested in and why they want you on their tour. We’d suggest being specific here, don’t say “I love all books!”, instead say “I love this genre of books, my favourite authors are X,Y,Z”. This will make you stand out and show a genuine interest in specific genres.

When you apply for a book tour, you can add a note, or ‘my pitch’ to tell the author/publisher exactly why you will be perfect on their tour. This is definitely recommended if you are a big fan of the author or the book sounds perfect for you. Do think about what you’re writing though instead of just copy and pasting the same response every time.

You may be asked to close a deal in terms of incentives and say what you would like to receive in exchange for your post. This is a hard one to know what to say, so just be honest. Do you prefer to receive a physical book instead of an e-book? Do you want payment? I would only recommend that you don’t ask for loads of money just because you can, if you are happy to review and post for free, you can say that, or that you’d appreciate payment but it isn’t always necessary. Do what feels right for you.

Writing reviews.

Reviews are a big part of being in the book community. Whether you write a 500 word essay on each book, film a 30 second silent review, do a yes/no/maybe video or create a graphic with some key words and a star rating- reviews are everywhere! Like with everything on your account, you need to consider what sort of posts and reviews you want to share. Would you like to give star ratings? Are you only interested in reviewing your favorite books? Do you want to review books you didn’t enjoy? Is being brutally honest your goal? There is no right or wrong answer, however if you do choose to share negative reviews or reviews that are less than glowing, please don’t tag the author.

If you did not enjoy a book from a book tour, please do reach out to the Campaign Manager. In some cases we may ask you not to post a review if you did not enjoy the book. Instead, you could post a spotlight or shout out post highlighting the book, but not mentioning a review.

Hopefully this blog post has given you some tips and advice on how to optimise your own chances at being on a book tour. If you need any more help or advice, reach out to the bookinfluencers.com team!