Making "Booktok" videos and/or book trailers? (Links updated)

[mafiaking1936]

Does anyone know how to do this? I'm way too old to understand what the deal is easily, but my 'publisher' wanted me to make videos of myself doing inane stuff to promote my books. I refused, but I did try my hand at a couple book trailer videos. Here they are in case anyone wants to crit:

Book 1 Trailer
Book 2 Trailer


If anyone knows the secret to making this work, I'd love to know.

Thanks!

 

[Fuchsia Groan]

The links aren’t working for me—I’ll try again on desktop.

I do daily videos of myself doing inane stuff on TikTok. I have 12k followers. I seem to have turned on some folks there to the vintage books I review. No idea whether it helps with my own book sales at all.

I learned everything I know from a couple of Facebook groups: Authors of TikTok and TikTok for Authors. They’re very active forums, and there are writers there whose careers have been transformed by the platform. My feeling is that the methods that work tend to be genre-specific, so it helps to find writers in your genre. Romance writers, for instance, have great success with “page-flip” videos that showcase the spicier aspects of their plot. This doesn’t work for me at all—the app only gives me views if I show my face.

I would spend some time just watching BookTok videos and the things that work there. (Find popular authors in your genre, or fan posts about their books.) Like most social media platforms, TikTok isn’t likely to work for you if you don’t enjoy it at least a little. Publishers are all jumping on it right now, but I don’t think any author should feel obliged to be there!

ETA: Oh, and I’m old too! I just happen to love making videos in the app and acting goofy.

 

[HogansHiro]

Does anyone know how to do this? I'm way too old to understand what the deal is easily, but my 'publisher' wanted me to make videos of myself doing inane stuff to promote my books. I refused, but I did try my hand at a couple book trailer videos. Here they are in case anyone wants to crit:

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7116018644647218474
https://www.tiktok.com/video/7116233810114612526
If anyone knows the secret to making this work, I'd love to know.

Thanks!

Dead links for me too. Keeping up on the current platforms is a necessary evil to engage nowadays. You would be missing a large portion of the population if you don't various socials. Check out Fiverr, there are tons of folks who specialize in socials promotion. It might save you some frustrations while getting your feet wet.

 

[ElaineB]

The New York Times just did a piece on BookTok. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/books/tiktok-books-booktok.html) Madeline Miller had The Song of Achilles become a bestseller via BookTok. She's not on social media much, if at all. The takeaway seemed to be that BookTok is effective when readers promote books, more so than authors, and success can be totally random--older books more likely to be revived than new books taking off. I can't imagine anyone would be inspired to read my books from watching me do anything in a vid.

I clicked through your site, Eric, to see the vid on Instagram (the TikTok links didn't work). I'm not a good critter of book trailers because I tend to be impatient--just let me read the blurb! The music was a bit repetitive and annoying, but I tend to mute any vid with just music for the sound. The trailers I viewed on your site went by too fast to read some of the text and the logo covered other bits. Why do you call yourself an "amateur author" on you Instagram profile? You are published. People won't take you seriously if you don't take yourself seriously.

Margot, your BookToks are hilarious!

And you all have really nice websites! Sigh

 

[Ink-Soul]

I don't see myself doing BookTok videos but who knows? It does seem to be a good way to promote your book (although, as others have pointed out, success is random). S.D. Simper, one of my favourite romance/dark fantasy authors (and self-published), started making funny BookTok videos, and they gave her books a boost in popularity and sales.

 

[mafiaking1936]

Thanks everyone! I fixed the links, posted the wrong thing before. Clearly I have much to learn! I'm still learning the video editing software but I assumed it would be kids with short attention spans that see them so I kept it short . It seems it might be worth doing if I can figure out the formula.

 

[Fuchsia Groan]

I followed you!

The link in your bio won’t be clickable until you have 1,000 followers (and even then you get just one link), so instead of posting those, I would suggest describing yourself with your genre (dark fantasy author?). That’s more likely to lead readers to you.

I like your trailers! They look professional, and I think the text speed is okay. But here are a couple of potential issues specific to this platform:

1. TikTok tends to favor videos made in its own app or in CapCut (which has cool effects that make photos look 3D, though I haven’t tried it myself). Some authors have success with Canva videos, but they say it’s preferable to add the text and music in TikTok itself.

2. TikTok has weirdly strict content rules designed to keep everything safe for 13+. So if it detects words such as “kill” and “murder” in a video, that video may be suppressed. This has given rise to people writing words with special characters (“k¡ll”) and inventing new words like “unalive.” (Yes, it’s ridiculous.) But that could be an issue with one of your trailers. I think that one also features a bloody sword, which TikTok also might take issue with. It doesn’t like images of weapons, though somehow a knife cutting vegetables is okay. I’m not an expert on this—there may be safe ways for fantasy and cosplay fans to show swords without getting the video suppressed. I would search “sword” to see.

So, yeah. It’s a finicky platform, but some dark fantasy authors are having great success with it. I would suggest looking at A.P. Beswick’s account. His videos are incredibly simple, and they sell a ton of books. If I could replicate that success, I would!

Thank you so much, ElaineB! Now if only those videos would sell a few books for me…

 

[mafiaking1936]

I followed you!

The link in your bio won’t be clickable until you have 1,000 followers (and even then you get just one link), so instead of posting those, I would suggest describing yourself with your genre (dark fantasy author?). That’s more likely to lead readers to you.

I like your trailers! They look professional, and I think the text speed is okay. But here are a couple of potential issues specific to this platform:

1. TikTok tends to favor videos made in its own app or in CapCut (which has cool effects that make photos look 3D, though I haven’t tried it myself). Some authors have success with Canva videos, but they say it’s preferable to add the text and music in TikTok itself.

2. TikTok has weirdly strict content rules designed to keep everything safe for 13+. So if it detects words such as “kill” and “murder” in a video, that video may be suppressed. This has given rise to people writing words with special characters (“k¡ll”) and inventing new words like “unalive.” (Yes, it’s ridiculous.) But that could be an issue with one of your trailers. I think that one also features a bloody sword, which TikTok also might take issue with. It doesn’t like images of weapons, though somehow a knife cutting vegetables is okay. I’m not an expert on this—there may be safe ways for fantasy and cosplay fans to show swords without getting the video suppressed. I would search “sword” to see.

So, yeah. It’s a finicky platform, but some dark fantasy authors are having great success with it. I would suggest looking at A.P. Beswick’s account. His videos are incredibly simple, and they sell a ton of books. If I could replicate that success, I would!

Thank you so much, ElaineB! Now if only those videos would sell a few books for me…

Thanks for the tips! Yeah I feel like a stranger in a strange land there, so who knows if it's worth the effort...

 

[MarlynnOfMany]

I've been dabbling in TikTok, trying to figure out what works best. So far all I've got is "post a bunch" and "imitate other authors." My current question is whether the time of day matters for engagement purposes, or if the number of videos you post is what ups your visibility more. (I've heard that the Twitter algorithm favors people who post at least seven tweets a day; is there a similar rule here?)

At any rate, I've been having fun sharing old ideas from my writing file (here's a short one from today), and soon I'll change it up with another format. I suppose I should put in some more time watching other people and taking notes.

 

[CJMatthewson]

I've been dabbling in TikTok, trying to figure out what works best. So far all I've got is "post a bunch" and "imitate other authors." My current question is whether the time of day matters for engagement purposes, or if the number of videos you post is what ups your visibility more. (I've heard that the Twitter algorithm favors people who post at least seven tweets a day; is there a similar rule here?)

At any rate, I've been having fun sharing old ideas from my writing file (here's a short one from today), and soon I'll change it up with another format. I suppose I should put in some more time watching other people and taking notes.

I'm doing alright @cjmatthewsonauthor at the moment. I'd seen a slump in reads and sales throughout April, May, June. I've now made 6x as many sales in July as in June since I started taking TikTok seriously.

I don't get many views. I post 1 or 2 times a day and only when I like a sound enough to make something with it. It's also given me direct engagement with people who comment on my videos to tell me they've enjoyed my first book which definitely spurs me on to keep writing.

To answer your bolded question, if you get a creator account (free in settings) you can get analytics to see when your followers are most active - mine seem to be after 9pm GMT so I'm going to start posting my videos around that time to see if it gets me more traction.

 

[MarlynnOfMany]

That is an excellent tip; thank you! I will definitely look into it.

 

[mafiaking1936]

So I've kind of given up on TikTok videos, but I have created another (horizontal) Youtube trailer video for my upcoming third novel, The Heron Kings Rampant. Here it is:

If anyone else has any tips or crits please let me know! Is the text the right sixe, is there enough time to read it, does the video make narrative sense, etc. Thanks!