How to Market Books on TikTok and Instagram with Lona McCombie

309 / Lona McCombie, social media marketer for authors, unpacks essential strategies for authors looking to promote their work, especially on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

✨ This week’s sponsor is: Reedsy https://reedsy.com/studio and https://reedsy.com/studio/templates

• Starting out in social media marketing
• Promo strategies for book releases
• Best practices for TikTok marketing
• Cross-posting content on social platforms
• Results of paid promo vs. organic reach
• Trends in book promo content

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• Shoutout on a future episode

⚡Links:

https://reedsy.com/studio and https://reedsy.com/studio/templates 

💙 Thank you to long-time supporter Kathleen Bailey: https://kathleenbaileyauthor.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

TikTok and Instagram have recently changed and they only allow you to have five hashtags. What I have been doing and I've been seeing across the board too is a caption before the hashtag. So either almost like another hook from the scene or something that would depict something a short sentence or two about the book, a small town, romantic suspense, bodyguard romance, or something like that. It's telling the people what it's about because you're limited to the hashtags. So that's another trend right now.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Welcome to the Wish I'd Known Them podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Lona McCombi.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yes, we've talked a lot about TikTok and Instagram and creating content and getting the word out about your books, basically.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah, yeah. I met Lana this past like in most past summer. It was this past summer. Lucy Score had a book signing in Dallas, and my friend Erica Kelly and we're all in a group together, and we went to the book signing. And Lana was we had lunch and everything, and Lana was there because she is Lucy's marketing public. She helps with marketing and publicity and stuff. So that's where I met her. And yeah, it was a great interview.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah, it's just a lot of really good insights. And it's not just for TikTok and Instagram. That's the majority of what we talked about. But I think the principles could apply, you know, wherever you're posting. Oh, yeah. We did talk about cross-posting content and paid promo versus organic reach and trends, lots of things like that are wider than just those two platforms.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah. It was great. It was great. This week our sponsor is Readsy, and we will talk about them in a little bit. What have you had going on this week? I'm just more writing.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Just trying to get this trying to get this book done. We actually recorded the intro for the last podcast four five days ago, four days ago. So not a lot's changed. I hear you. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for me to make the donuts. No, it's a very old reference.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

I get it though. Yeah, I lift my glass.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah. But yeah, that's about it. I am starting to think about publicity and marketing for this book this weekend. I have my grandson by myself. So if I'm not tied up by Sunday, like literally, I'm I'm gonna be working, I'm gonna be looking for uh some podcasts that maybe I can get on that for the audiences I think this book will reach. Not necessarily book podcasts, but just some other podcasts and working on pitches for that. I've never done that, I'm not sure, but I think this kind of book would lend itself to that. So yeah, that's one of the newer things I'm looking at besides just normal stuff like ads and all that.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

I think that's great. I do think that podcasts would be a good way to get the word out.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

It is sore pace, but I think that I've said this I think before, but grief podcast or women over 50 doing something, overcoming challenges, podcasts that deal with those sorts of things would be good. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. I actually was invited to go on Rebecca Rainier. She's a she's an author, but she's also a TV host for a morning show in her kind of local area. And she said that when the book comes out, let her know. Well, before we we can set something up and we can do a Zoom thing on for her on her show. So that's fine. And I actually am gonna reach out to a couple of the local Houston places like again, again, I've never done that. I've never been sure that that would work. I'm still not sure it would work, but I think this book is a good book to try it, to try it on. Because here's the deal if you go on with a romance book, they're just gonna talk about the sex. Yes. I don't want to do that. That's really why I've never really, I just don't want to get into that with people. But this book is different. So hopefully, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

It would lean into the skills you have for communication and connection. You'd be really good at it. But it's more awareness, I think. When you do stuff like that, when you do the TV, it's more awareness because you're reaching such a wide audience that maybe only a small portion of them are readers, but they might not be, they might not come across your book any other way. So I think you should try it. I think it's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

And and I just need all of the bespoke books and end pages, all of that stuff has happened since I was publishing. So I think for the physical copy, I don't think I want to do a hardcover, but I think I might want to do something pretty for the paperback. Yeah. Or just something different for the paperback. And then I have to just start deciding what I'm gonna do for Back Matter. I had said that I wanted to do the story behind the story, and two of my sisters had said that they would want to maybe write something to put in it. So I've got to get them on that because give them a deadline. Because also it would need to be edited and probably revised and stuff. And then also we don't want to just repeat, but anyway, I'm just gonna decide what I want to do about that, like how I don't know, just what I want to do. Yeah, that's me.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

That's it. Okay, I have nothing very exciting either. I'm working on the book. We talked about this the other day. I'm at the end of one act, and I feel like I'm stuck on a threshold trying to get into the second act, but I will get there. And it's sometimes it just goes slower. And for me, I just have to keep mulling it over until I figure out how to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

So yeah, absolutely. And just if I if anybody has any ideas for me, help a sister out. I'm not above asking for help. So yeah, if you've got any ideas, shoot them over. We would love to hear them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah. And let's see. So this week I'll be pulling the winners for the giveaway that I mentioned last week, the trope book. We'll get some comments over on Substacks. Thanks to everybody who commented, and I will let you know and get your mailing address and everything and get that off to you. And that's all I have going on. Next week I have a whole bunch of podcast interviews for the trope book. So I'm doing what you're doing, you're thinking about doing. I'm doing a bunch of podcast interviews to promote the trope book because I thought I would rather do that than write a blog post. I just I would rather talk to somebody and chat about it rather than come up with an angle and a pitch. I know.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

And for me, it's write, revise, write. It's you know, yeah, write a blog post. People that can do that, I'm just such a we're in awe.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, I can't do that either. I want to save my creative brain power for my book. I don't want to pour all that into nonfiction right now, which I've done that. I did that last fall when I was writing the book, and I just want to promote it. So have that going on. Thanks to all our supporters that we get that support us every week. You're so faithful. We really appreciate it. If you want to support the podcast, you can go to wish I know for writers.com/slash support. And we have a shout out this week to a longtime supporter of over three years, Kathleen Bailey. Thank you, Kathleen, and everybody's gonna be here.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Thank you, Kathleen. We appreciate it, all of you. Thank you so much for the half cup coffee a month that you buy each of us.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

We appreciate it. We do, we really do. And we also have a corporate sponsor this week, Readsy. They do Readsy Studio, and Read Z Templ Studio has templates. It's just such an interesting setup. If you've looked at Scribner and said, Whoa, that's way more than I need, then I think Readsy Studio could really be helpful to you. It's a free online app for authors to plan, draft, edit, and format their books. And you can create EPUBs from it and print ready files very easily. It works really well. And then the templates that go with it, you can use those to structure your story, create characters, keep track of places and environments and all kinds of things that you all of those things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Names, yes, which eye color critical. Uh there's a couple of names that I just love and I reuse them all the time. And my editor will has said in the past, we you used this name in the last book three times.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

No, it feels like it, right? Sometimes I have a placeholder name. I'm like, ah, yes, Julia. Julia is a good placeholder name. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I also have used Readse to vet translators, so they have all kinds of services. There they have the studio and the templates, but they also have so many different types of things to help authors. And so what I did was I had several translators I was working with, and I needed to find out which translations, if they were good, because I don't know. I don't speak French and German. So I had different people look at the translations and give me a translation assessment. And it was great. It helped me choose who I wanted to go with. So I used them for that test. Yeah. So lots of stuff over there. Go check them out. It's readzy.com slash studio or slash templates if you want to look at the templates. We'll have that link in the show notes. We should get on with the show because it's fantastic. All right. Here we go. Today we are really happy to have Lana McCombi here.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

How are you, Lana?

SPEAKER_04 10:04

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

We are great. And we're so happy you're here. I've been looking forward to this chat.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Sure. Lana McComby works with authors as a social media marketer. And she's currently snowed in in a snowed in part of the country. She's not snowed in, but snowy East Coast.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

That's right. That's right. And I should say that I met Lana because she does social media marketing for and we had Lucy was in Dallas a couple months ago. Oh, back during the summer, a few months ago, yeah. And for a signing, and Lana and her daughter came with them, and that's how we met. Yeah. That's it. So she knows what she's doing. So tell us how you got started working with writers.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

I have probably a very unique story. Back in 2023, I had to have a major surgery. And at that point, I was working two part-time jobs. And a lot of it was because of just trying to raise my family at the time. I was working one part-time job, and then I really didn't want to give it up because I was so close to home. So I started another part-time job. When I had the surgery, I lost that job, one of my part-time jobs. And I was devastated because I had been there. My son is 27. I had been there on and off probably since he was a year and a half old.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

And at that point, I was, I couldn't move by myself. I needed assistance to do everything. So after I mourned, I had to get my big curl pants on and put some feelers out into the book world because I knew that was something I could do from home. And one of my friends said, Oh, this author is looking for someone to do TikTok. And I'm like, I know nothing about TikTok, but my daughter was young, and I'm like, she's on, you can do this. I'll show you. And so I took that on. And that was like early or late spring, April, or May. And then by the end of that year, I had three authors. The following year, I got three more. And now I'm up to nine. I now do this full time and I absolutely love it. Although that was the worst thing to happen to me, it was the best thing that happened.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

How did you know? I know you had your daughter, and but how did you know what to do?

SPEAKER_04 12:36

I just I did a lot of research. I'm a very quick study, and it was something that I was interested in, even though that was not my background. But it's just something that I really dove into and I had the time because I was home.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

And you also needed a job, so that yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

I was so fortunate that author gave me the opportunity to try. And yeah, it's turned into something I couldn't even imagine at that point. Yeah. But I've learned a lot along the way. I've learned a lot.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

We always ask people who come on that work with authors, do you have any aspirations to write? Do you have any book ideas?

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Really? I think like years ago, like when you're young, you always dream, oh, I want to be a singer, but I can't sing. No, not really. I yeah, I love supporting authors. I'm a huge reader, and yeah, I really don't. That's not my niche.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

That's not your zone of genius.

SPEAKER_04 13:38

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

What do you wish the authors knew about what you do?

SPEAKER_04 13:44

On a personal level, it can be very time consuming. So for me, the way that I work, I like to be familiar with the material. So I read the books, I pull all of my own hooks from that book. I come up with the scenes that we're gonna promo, the pictures or the book flips or anything like that. So it can be very time consuming. But other than that, I have a lot of advice on what to do and what not to do. If you would like me to discuss that. Of course. Okay. So I would say one of the biggest things is to be patient. And you have to be able to adapt at a moment's notice because things change so quickly. And especially with TikTok, if there's an update, things change. So you just really have to be adaptable for and things have changed so much just in three years. But for TikTok, I highly recommend using TikTok Studio to uh create your reels and then you can schedule from there, which makes it much easier and it automatically downloads. I use my phone, I don't use the computer to do that, but uh it'll download it and then you can use that promo across the board on Instagram and Facebook. And that's another thing I highly recommend like cross-posting. Yeah. And to make sure that you're not that you don't have a watermark from TikTok, which if you use TikTok Studio, it won't have the watermark on there. And then another thing that authors should know is that TikTok is a younger audience. And if you're promoing a new book, I generally recommend uh probably about two weeks out to start promo because it's instant gratification. They want that book now. So if they see it two months, three months ahead of time, they're gonna forget about it. So you you wanna, like I said, probably about two weeks out for that. The other thing for TikTok is you never ever want to delete a video. Yeah, you always wanna make it private if it's not doing well or whatever reason. Just don't delete it because that will harm the account.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I wonder why that is. I've wondered that for a long time.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

Yeah, you know what? I'm not real sure. I don't know. TikTok is so fickle, so I just don't know if it sees it as just a red flag. I'm not real sure why, but I have seen it happen. So I always try to warn the authors not to do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Actually, and I think because on TikTok they have the feature where you can delete an edit and then re-upload it. I don't even do that because I did do that, and my views started dropping after they didn't start, they instantly dropped after that, and yeah, I still haven't been able to get them back to where they were, and that was months ago, even though there were people on the app suggesting that I would not do that.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Yeah, you have to be very careful not to compare yourself to others too. There are so many people that have a big marketing team, right? And they have a slew of people that might be scrolling your content and liking and engaging, but that's not your audience. Right. You're trying to reach readers, you want people to buy your books, so you know, don't fall down that rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yeah, that's a very that's very good advice. Very good advice. I have a quick question about timing because you said you you wouldn't start pushing or promoting a book until about two weeks before. But it sounds like you do a lot of prep work if you're reading the book and pulling everything. So, how much time do you need to get everything ready? Because I think authors, we tend to be we're so focused on getting the book done, and then we're like, oh wait, we got to do promo, and that kind of gets forgotten sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

Generally, the authors that I work for they'll send me the book at least a week or two, sometimes even more in advance of like their ARC team.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Okay, so even before the ARC team, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

Yeah, and then they'll generally send me the paperback of the book so that I have it to do like page flips or do promo in that aspect. But yeah, when I'm when I'm reading a book for pleasure versus reading a book for work, it is totally different because I'm reading it from a different perspective. Will this make a good scene to promo? Can I what hook would I use for this scene? So I'm constantly highlighting and making notes along the way. I'm generally a pretty fast reader. If I'm reading for pleasure, I could read a book in a day. But when I'm reading a book that I'm doing work on, it could take me a week to two weeks to read it, depending on how long it is.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And that's not actually creating, that's getting the ideas. And then you have another phase where you're creating the content, right? Correct, correct.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

And are you using Canva or are you using um what are you using to make the graphics?

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Graphics, I use Canva. And then I also use Canva to do like a cover for Instagram. Most of the authors like a cover that will, you know, at least tell you what the book is. You only see it for a quick second. I use Canva for that, but otherwise, I create the reel usually in TikTok for Instagram edits. I know other people use different things, but that's what I have found to be the easiest for me.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I'm sure we will come back to more technical stuff. I'm writing down some. I have a couple other questions too, so we'll circle back here, I think. But is there anything you wish you had known about indie publishing or working with indie authors?

SPEAKER_04 20:18

Honestly, I don't know a lot on the publishing side of things. I wish that I did know a little bit more. But again, it's I do more of the promo stuff, so it's not necessarily something that I need to know, other than like timelines and stuff like that. As for authors, I've realized that they're busy writing a book. They're with fictional characters, and I don't like to be a bother. I for we have a very trusting relationship, so they just most of the time, if an author has 20 books in their backlist, I'll just promo whatever they give me free reign to promo whatever. That's great, unless they have a new book coming out. Like I said, we'll start the promo maybe two weeks ahead. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean on Instagram we won't do, oh, the book is coming out in one month, three weeks, two weeks, like a timeline like that. But heavy promo two weeks. And then we probably promo that book specifically for a month. But generally, I don't like to bother authors. I know they're busy, and if they need something, they'll reach out or if they want to change something. Yeah, I'm here to make their life easier, not harder.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

What do you see authors doing that they think will produce results, but they're not?

SPEAKER_04 21:44

I would say paying for promo.

unknown 21:47

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 21:50

So on TikTok specifically, you can uh pay to promo a reel. You can pay uh to get more followers. You can pay to get more views, more likes, more comments, more profile views. But I I see it doing more harm than it does good. I like maybe that specific video, again, you're paying for it. You might get 20,000 views. But again, is it your audience that they're showing it to?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Right. And I'd like to touch on that. You can't pick that. Yeah. Okay. I didn't think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

So especially for TikTok, my advice on that when we're talking about trying to get your audience, you need to be very careful of what videos you're watching. So if you're watching a makeup video, for example, they're going to show your book reel to makeup people.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

That's not your audience. So if you want to look at makeup or music videos or whatever, I don't know, Taylor Swift videos, you want to make sure that you create a separate account for that. And just stay in if you write thrillers, try to find your people that are promoing thriller books. Or if you're small town rom com, same thing. Try to stay in that. And then your what your goal is to make sure that your for you page, it should be showing you all of your small town rom-com.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Whatever you're trying to convey. I failed that many times. So the question would be: if you're someone like me who cannot pick a niche and stay there and have 10,000 followers, but they're all over the place, would you start a new page if you were just gonna promote books? Would you just start a new page?

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Probably. Yes. Yeah, so that it's all book content. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, that's good. That's great. So the the paying for promos, since you can't pick the audience, like does it do you ever see it working long term or is it just a short term?

SPEAKER_04 24:14

It's a very short term. I think it's like a 24-hour promo.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

I don't know about Instagram. I think you can do promo there too. And I really don't, I can't really speak of that to know if it works or not. But you would be better off running an ad off of a reel on any of the social media than paying for the promo.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Okay. All right. That's good to know. Well, have you noticed any similarities in writers who are successful over the long haul? And you work with some really high-level authors. So what commonalities do you see?

SPEAKER_04 24:50

I would say having a team, someone that you trust in place so that the author can write and the other people can do what you're paying them to do. Have someone that you can trust. And that's hard.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Like me to have a feel for your brand or your look and your feel of your books. They've got to have that basic knowledge. You can't just hire somebody and turn them loose and say, go promote my general small town romance or cozy, right? Correct.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

So having said that, what is your like when someone hires you, what is your sort of intake with that author? How do you get to know them? Yeah. Do you have a meaning? Do you guys talk about what it is they want to see?

SPEAKER_04 25:33

Or generally when I started, it was all authors that I was familiar with.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

So I knew their books, I knew their backlist.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yeah. Um their brand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

Yes. I've only taken on maybe one or two that I wasn't super familiar with. And again, just getting to know them, reading their material, doing a Zoom call with them, getting just getting to know them that way. And generally when we start, I will do like my first video and I will send it to them and say, is this okay? Until they get that trust with me that they know I know the material or that they're comfortable just turning me loose to do my thing. But yeah, it's just all about trust, really, and letting go and delegating.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, I was gonna say the ones that do well are probably the ones that can delegate and then let it go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

And that's hard. That's hard for anybody, but especially with your your books are like their babies or your babies, and to trust someone else to promo it or do whatever, it that's difficult.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

I heard I was listening to Maddie Davenpool's podcast about the Indie Author podcast, and she was talking to someone about outsourcing. And the suggestion was give them a task and say, do two hours worth of work and then bring it to me and let me look at it. And I thought that's a great way to do it because you can see what the path is, and they don't have to complete the whole thing. You can just take a look at it. Would you suggest something like that as well? Or how do you start with people?

SPEAKER_04 27:11

Yeah, so it basically the same concept. Like I said, we meet and then I do some work for them and I send it over to them, and they either approve or they tell me what changes they want. I make the changes and until they trust me to do my thing. It's basically the same concept, just giving them a draft of it before I would post it.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

That's great. What are some of the common mistakes you see authors making?

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Probably not being able to let go or micromanaging.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah, micromanaging. I was gonna say that's no fun for anybody. It's not fun for the author, it's not fun for you.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Yeah, right. And again, it goes back to trusting the people that you're hiring.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

What about trends? Romance is always on the cutting edge. So do you see any trends? Things are really hot right now.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

So for a while now, the biggest trend is obviously you have to have a good hook, and then showing an excerpt of the book. So highlighting a portion of it and actually copying and pasting, not copy and pasting, but like taking a picture of that and putting it into the reel. That's probably the biggest trend, and it has been for a while. Face content is huge with authors, but there are a lot of authors that do not like to, they're not comfortable with that. They're introverts and have pin names. Yeah, but those are probably the biggest trends right now. TikTok and Instagram have recently changed, and they only allow you to have five hashtags. What I have been doing, and I've been seeing across the board too, is a caption before the hashtags. So either almost like another hook from the scene or something that would depict something, a short sentence or two about the book, a small town, romantic suspense, bodyguard romance, or something like that. Gives it's telling the people what it's about because you're limited to the hashtags. So that's another trend right now.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Hashtags, you still see them working because I've heard mixed things.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

There is mixed things. I think it's still too early to tell because Instagram and TikTok just changed that within the past couple of months. So again, I think it's more the caption with some keywords of what your book is about that they're focusing on. So I don't think that it's hurting, I just think using that caption with some keywords can be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

I have a question because this morning I'm in a group in the morning, and all our listeners know in my clubhouse room, and somebody was talking about a content team that an author had posted about a content team. And so it's on so they're setting up a separate Instagram page where they have all their content basically for their street team, basically. Okay, so their street team can go in, pull the content, they share it. So it's already there and ready to go. And so all the content team has to do is share. Have you heard of that? Have you seen that?

SPEAKER_04 30:38

I have not. Generally, in my experience, authors will share like a Google Doc or and they'll have folders and the content will be in there. I have not seen them doing it on Instagram. So that's interesting. I think it's probably cleaner to do it the Google Doc route.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

I think there are Google Docs with it in the profile. They have their link tree and they have the Google Docs there, but also you can share it from yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

And Instagram, you are able to share things now where again that's new too. You used to not be able to share it as easily as you can now. So yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I have not heard that.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

And then what do you what do you think works best? Like you were talking about taking the screenshots of an excerpt. First of all, how long is the excerpt? Is it multiple slides or is it just one page?

SPEAKER_04 31:36

So uh there's I have nine authors right now, and the slides have never worked on TikTok at all. They just they don't go anywhere. Some people have success with it. I haven't had success with on for any of my authors. And then when if you do the slides on TikTok, you cannot share that easily to Instagram. Correct. So for an author who is paying someone to do their content, you get more bang for your buck if you if I create it in TikTok, I can share to all three, meaning Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. So you're getting three for one, technically. Yeah, but generally a 10 to 12 second video, and the excerpt is not long. You that's the other thing with TikTok, you cannot cover the screen. It'll flag it, it'll say they might think you have someone that is nude behind the screenshot of the book, and they will not push it. So yeah, just a short excerpt, and it's the hook. I and you really have to have a good hook that grabs someone's attention as they're scrolling, and that can be difficult.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Page flips are they still working or are they yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:01

I do a lot of uh page flips, and again, it just depends on the day, it depends the phase of the moon and the it's again, just patience. Yeah, and if something's not working, try something else. But the other key is in the same breath is consistency.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

I was thinking about if somebody is wanting to get started with a VA to or outsource some of this stuff, what would be the bare minimum that they would need to get together? What materials do people need to send? What kind of stuff do you need to get started? That's a great question, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

Generally, I most authors are pretty organized, and most have teasers that they have pulled. So they will share that with me. They'll show or share like all of their book covers with me. Any photos that they have pulled on their own or that they have paid for. Gonna have to be very careful with photos. Most authors do send me paperbacks of the books that they want to promo so that because the page flips do well. Um, so I would say just having that material ready to go, which is probably something that you guys already do have, or popular highlights from you can grab from Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

But reviews do review have you seen reviews work?

SPEAKER_04 34:37

I have not. In fact, that is one of the questions that I have coming up in one of the author groups that I want to ask readers like if they even look at reviews. If it's an author that you love, is it a one-click automatically? Or do you read the reviews? Because everybody has an opinion, and it shocks me sometimes when you read reviews of a book that you have read, and I'm thinking, did you read the same book that I read? But yeah, so we don't use or I don't use reviews in my promo at all.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Yeah. What about like comments and interactions? Do you handle that as well when people are interacting with the social media content?

SPEAKER_04 35:22

It depends on the author. Some will ask me to and comment as them, or if it's a question that I don't know, I will point it out to the author for them to take care of it. But yeah, I do sometimes help them in that aspect too because they're again, they're busy writing.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

They want a social media presence. Yeah, but that's only if they're comfortable with me doing that. I don't take that upon myself to do.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

What about the content? Like, is there are there certain things that are off limits? Are there do you mark out any bad words? Do you not do sex content or whatever?

SPEAKER_04 36:06

Yeah, you have to be very careful with what kind of scene you're promoing. And sometimes when I'm doing a screenshot of a page or excerpt from the book, I will put a line through anything that could be conceived as sexual in any way. And it might not even be pertaining to that, but for example, the word mouth, taste, skin, body, yeah, all of those words, even if it's not in that context or meant in a sexual way, I put a line through it so that it's not flagged. And if you're writing the screen, the text out on screen, for example, the word taste. I for the S, I might do a dollar sign, or there's a way that you can uh write, or you can use an emoji. If you're spelling out sex, you could use fire emoji as the E. People know what you mean, but it's not flagging it. Yeah, you have to be very careful. Also, photos, you want to make sure that you don't use any shirtless photos of men or anything like that, it it'll flag it. So you have to be very careful. I do notice that more natural content. So if you're taking a walk on the bike trail and there's a beautiful scene, ten seconds, and put something over it, and that does much better than a skill photo. TikTok is much worse. It can be very picky too. Yeah. Yeah. Another controversial question. Listen, I only do once a day for the authors. I have not noticed if I there have been times that we've done sometimes twice a day, but there are people I just watched someone this morning and they were saying about 30 times a day. And I'm like, how are you getting anything else done if you're posting 30 times a day? Or it cannot be unique material or it has to be something you're reposting. And generally, again, they social media likes organic and fresh content. Yeah. I went brain dead there for a minute. Yeah. So they don't want you reposting the same stuff. That's just my experience. Others may do it differently. But again, I think those are the people that have a big marketing team behind them that have hundreds of people that have phones and they're just scrolling the material. And that's why you see so many views.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

I've noticed on Lucy's, I've seen two of her videos this just in the last day or two, where it's her talking. So when a an author does something that's forward-facing like that, do they send you that send that to you and then you upload it, or do they is that do you have a policy on that or what?

SPEAKER_04 40:01

So yes, I do. And I'm so glad that you asked this. TikTok specifically, they like one person to post. There have been times, especially when I'm new with an author where they're trying to cross-post, and yes, we notice the views go way down. So my advice is yes, send the material to whoever is doing your social media and let them post, especially on TikTok. Instagram, not so much. You can, I they're not, it doesn't hurt the views to throw something up on Instagram, but TikTok again, so fickle. They it does hurt the views, but yes, she'll send me all of her videos, and I generally upload them, especially to TikTok. That's good, that's good. Yeah, she'll film like she sent me a couple yesterday, the one that was done today, she sent me the video, and then I decide or figure out what words I'm gonna put to it. She just leaves that to me.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

And how does like how do your posts differ if you're trying to read existing readers or reach new readers? Is there a difference or do you not even consider that you just are posting? Is there a strategy? I guess is what I'm asking.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

Not when no, I'm just posting generally, but the one thing that I do recommend on your different platforms. So for example, on Facebook, you could do to gain new readers or more followers on Instagram, like a follow me Friday. And here's my Instagram, and even if you get five new a week, and then the following Friday, maybe do TikTok, and then on Instagram the following Friday, hey, follow me on Facebook. But the content really doesn't change more so the promo going in. I try not to do a lot of spoilers. You kind of want to not spoilers, but save the really good stuff or real close to release. So it's more of teasers leading up.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Okay. And then does it differ if you're does your content differ if you're leading up to a new release or if you're promoting it rather than promoting a backless book? Do you look at it differently or are you still pretty much just doing the same things?

SPEAKER_04 42:45

Pretty much doing the same thing, but like I said, the difference is it and if you look at Lucy's right now, she has a book coming out on the 10th, and the promo is a little bit different. Like I said, it's more of a teaser doing just showing the book cover, showing the pretty edges of the book, the colorful inside, or she has different Barnes and Noble edition, or showing that more so than the content of the book. But it'll change come closer to release. Yeah, that's really the only difference.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Okay. I have one more question. Who should hire you? At what point in an author's career should they consider hiring a social media manager?

SPEAKER_04 43:31

I would say when it gets to be too much for them, that they're spending too much time on social media and not having enough time to actually write.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Or not spending any time on social media because they don't want to do it.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Yeah. And like I said, it can be very time consuming. I would say that's when you should start looking for if it gets to be too much. Because it can be social media is not for the faint of heart. It is not sometimes it's An ugly place to be. Yeah, if it's too much, then you should be looking for someone to help you.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Perfect. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Do you go in and look at the analytics at a certain point? Do you wait for a while and then go see what's working or what happens? Yeah, I do. How long do you give it?

SPEAKER_04 44:18

I guess it just depends on any given day. Yeah, it just depends. If something is not doing well, I'll go in and look right away. Like, why is this not doing well? Is it the time that I posted? Who are they showing it to?

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Right.

SPEAKER_04 44:35

Or is it people in a different country? And I'll look at all of those things. But yeah, I don't necessarily, I don't know that it's a timeline, but yeah, I do look at those things.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

That's great. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. And then my my last question is about if someone is not to the point that they need to hire somebody, but maybe they want to do this themselves. Do you have any tips? Do you have one or two types of content that they should focus on that are fairly easy and fast?

SPEAKER_04 45:04

The first thing is if you do not have a TikTok account, you need to set the account up and then start looking for if you're small town for people that do that content, other authors that do the same thing, like, follow, comment, share, probably for a week and maybe an hour a day. So you're training your account. Again, you want that for you page to be what you're trying to promote so that it's showing to the right audience. And then basically whatever you're comfortable with, if you're comfortable with doing face content, especially if you're new, I think that's good for people to see who they're actually and connect with. You don't necessarily have to say something, you can just nod along and put words over the screen. But otherwise, like I said, it right now, probably screenshot of an excerpt of a book with a good hook. That is what seems to be working in this moment. That could change tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

This afternoon. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:20

You know, yeah, it really could. Again, that that's the hardest thing is just being able to adapt quickly to the changing market. And if TikTok has a an update, it might not work for a week. Yeah, you just never know.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

But just have to roll with the punches and see what happens, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Unfortunately, it's like a roller coaster. It really is.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

We have really appreciate you being here. This has been so great, really informative. I got some good notes and number one, start a new account. But but yeah, we we like to ask all our guests, what do you think the best thing you've done to set yourself up for success has been?

SPEAKER_04 46:59

I think for me is just being I was an ARC reader first. I or I was a reader first, and then becoming an arc reader and going to book signings and connecting to those people in the book world. And I consider myself an introverted extrovert. And those can be uncomfortable situations, but if you want to do something like this, you do need to be connected and go to events and talk to the person next to you in line and reach out to authors, let them know how much you love their books. And I think that just having that being connected prior to everything that happened to me was what kind of set me up for right.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Also, I would say you're pretty tenacious. That could have really knocked you down, but you just made it work, and I think that's amazing going on.

SPEAKER_04 47:59

You know, and the thing is, I would have never have it was like a dream of mine, but I never would have reached out to anybody if that wouldn't have happened to me because that's scary to start over, but I had to do it. I had to work. We needed it to live. You got to do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

You gotta do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_04 48:17

It like I said, it ended up being the best thing that did ever happen, but in the moment it was tough.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

If people are curious, do you have a place they can go to find out more about you or connect with you? Are you taking new clients or not?

SPEAKER_04 48:30

They could message me just under my name on social media, probably Facebook or Instagram would be the best place. And I guess it just depends on what they're looking for and how often and how time consuming. But I'd be happy to help anybody or answer any questions that anybody would have.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

That's great, that's a great resource. All right, thanks for listening today. And you can support the podcast at wish I'd known for writers.com slash support. And you can also find us on Substack now, and we will see everybody next week. Don't forget our sponsor this week is Reese. Yep, bye everybody. Bye, okay, yeah.